Emotive Styles

[Xio]

You hit on precisely why I prefer emotes like the one you described not liking, Folker: they can mean many different things, and you don't know right away. I don't WANT to know exactly what that expression means, it's more interesting and intriguing for me when I have to get inside a character's head and make some guesses. In most cases the context of the scene should be enough for you to figure out, or else you can always ask the PC what's up. A good emote will be able to -show- you what a PC is doing or feeling without having to explicitly -tell- you.

While normally in the context you can guess what this expression means, but you, as a player, are not seeing all the subtle movements your character would pick up on and either know or assume the meaning of the face/gesture etc. I think a compromise between the two, a bit descriptive with an emotion-link adjective added in would just help the entire situation. Someone could be giving you an angry look and your character could just go > Zeus says, crinkling his brow is apparent confusion "Whats the matter, need to take a shit?" < The other character could take the brow crinkle as a look of disgust and not confusion if they really wanted to. But if Zeus just crinkled his brow it could be taken as -anything- when it is obviously or leaning towards confusion.

[Jherlen]

People's expressions get misread in real life all the time, too. If you want to tell someone straight up what your PC feels, fine, but I don't think they are absolutely entitled to know, and I don't think the more vague style is wrong.

[spawnloser]

For those saying that "pem brow knits together and his eyes narrow as they turn to ~man." could have too many meanings...well, yeah, that's the point.  You could misinterpret it in real life, so why not in the MUD?

As others have said in this thread and many people have said on many threads in the past that have been about how people and actions are described:  SHOW, DON'T TELL.  This goes for emotes as well as descriptions.

Don't tell me your character is mad, sad, happy, pretty, gorgeous, ugly or sleeping.  Emote the flush of the cheeks as you grit your teeth, a single tear on an expressionless face, a broad smile and twinkling eyes...describe your characters appearance, picture your character in your head and describe every detail until you think I could see that same image in my head...use the sleep command and emote sucking on your thumb and cuddling with your blankey.

[Fathi]

.use the sleep command and emote sucking on your thumb and cuddling with your blankey.

People who emote while their characters are sleeping or unconscious make my damn day.

ALSO. Time for my emoting pet peeve.

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The tall, soandso dude gives you a look.

I've gotten that more than once, from more than one character... if you're going to look at my character in an obvious fashion that they would notice, why not add some sort of modifier so I, the player, know how to interpret exactly what your look looks like? You're not just using the 'look' command, you're emoting the action, which to me, the other player says that this action must have some sort of significance or else you'd just 'look ____.'

Bad: The tall, soandso dude gives you a look.
Slightly Better: The tall, soandso dude gives you a mean look.
Good: The tall, soandso dude shoots you a glare.
Best: Narrowing his eyes, the tall, soandso dude shoots you a glare.

My character would react differently to someone staring at them depending on the manner of the expression. Sure, there are contextual ways you can tell what the expression might be--in the middle of a heated argument, someone's not gonna look at the person they're yelling at all sweet and doe-eyed--but 'gives you a look' is just... ugh.

Anyway, done.

[Anael]

I have to admit sometimes (very rarely) I see 'bad' emotes used in such a hilarious way that I don't mind them at all.

ie, during a major dressdown of a whole unit:

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The angry sergeant glares at the men standing here, fists clenched and fuming.

The wee recruit makes an attempt to look like he's not here.


[Tisiphone]

Actually, Anael, because of the context, I don't think that's a bad emote. Because of the way the player worded it, we know:

a) The character is shitting-his-pants scared. We can visualize this however, but I'm sure in the back of your mind everyone here knows what they think abject terror looks like.
b) He's doing something to avoid being seen. He's also failing, so he's probably doing something *obvious* to avoid being unseen. Be that crouching down in formation, shuffling backwards, or standing really really really still but letting his eyes go wild, doesn't quite matter at this point.

But maybe that's just me.

[LoD]

Most of these issues seem to revolve around: Don't tell me, show me.[/i]

:arrow: The lanky, red haired man gives you an angry look.

Don't tell me you're angry, show me.

Children can recognize certain expressions at a very early age because they have similar cues.  Flushed features, furrowed brows, clenched jaw, quick or more drastic hand movements, increase in vocal pitch and volume, quivering or shaking, pressed lips, flaring nostrils.  Why would you want to take the easy way out instead of using many of the fun and easily recognizeable visual cues available to you with the English language?

:arrow: The lanky, red haired man tries not to be noticed.

Don't tell me what you're doing, show me.

Are you shrinking in your body posture, taking a step toward the shadows, lowering your head to avoid eye contact, trying to blend into a crowd, or pulling your cloak tighter about yourself?  There are many ways to show how your character is doing something rather than telling uswhat they are doing.

:arrow: The lanky, red haired man sighs, frustrated at losing again.

Don't tell me how you feel, show me.

Humans convey emotions and feelings through facial expression, vocal quality, and body language.  If it was this simple to realize how someone feels, men would have a much easier time in their marriages.  However, they don't and missed cues can create plenty of issues out of nothing.  Don't tell the players that you are "frustrated at losing again" - show us.

Slam your hand on the table, mutter some curse words, add a line into the dialogue to help emphasize the point, stammer over words in anger, gesture sharply, grit your teeth, shake your head, snort, run your hand over your head in a gesture expelling energy or rage, but SHOW us what you are doing rather than TELL us.

That's the easiest way for me to approach emotes.  Don't tell me, show me.

-LoD

[Agent_137]

I agree "showing" is better than "telling," as a rule.

Sometimes, though, for practical reasons, like not having the presence of mind to type out a two line emote, I'll be faced with two options: giving a "telling" emote, or no emote at all.

In those scenarios, I'm going to facepalm, or glower angrily.

You can cry about it on the forums, but it gets the point across ICly.

That said, I sure as hell won't want to make a habit of it.

p.s.

:facepalms.
:palms his face.

Seriously? That's an issue? Sounds like somebody has a major case of the cares!

[psionic fungus]

I have to comment. I have -never- heard of "facepalming" before this thread. I'm not even entirely sure what this action is.  When I initially saw it, I thought of someone slapping their brow with a hand.  This isn't really "palming" however, and the brow is not the face.  When I think about it, "facepalms" seems to describe someone grabbing their own -face- with one hand, which is pretty absurd, in my opinion.  I think this action is better off being described as slapping the forehead with the palm of a hand, wiping a hand over the face, or burying the head into the hands (or masking the face with the hands if you want to by literal).  Anything besides this weird non-word that vaguely describes -some- action involving a palm and a face.

:roll:

[Morfeus]

Facepalm = palms his/her face.

for reelz biotch = ebonics.

And neither is officially part of the English language.

Derail:

I didn't read the whole thread, I have to admit. But I'd like to point out something: as someone who is not a native speaker and who learned English mostly from net and books, I realize that I sometime unintentionally use words which are "not official part of the English language", which are mispelled, which are wrongly used or which are simply wrong. Hey, help me to improve and use correct words which are existing, give me a good example! I already have to struggle with my poor grammar, troubles how to describe what I mean and understanding of very-educational speeches.  :twisted:

[Djarjak]

Personally, I'm a bit middle of the road here.

I don't mind the occasional "So-and-so grimaces with disgust" or "So-and-so gives you a look" because, while they are not as descriptive as "So-and-so grimaces, his nose wrinkling, his mouth pinching together, and his eyes squinting", you don't necessarily NEED a six line emote to get the point across.  There are certain cases where a more subtle approach is more rewarding (a character whose motivations aren't crystal clear tends to be more compelling to me, personally), but that needn't be every character for the game to be fun.

Further, if using a real-life analogy is the best way to quickly convey a gesture or an expression, I'm generally OK with that, too.

However, seeing things like "Even though so-and-so didn't mention that she put her arm around you before, she did, and she now sets it back down in her lap" is a type of meta-commentary that distracts me in a negative way. Likewise "So-and-so gets the hell out of dodge! (followed by a flee self)" or "Feeling ridiculous, so-and-so does something" may be funny in context, but may not be appreciated by all present.

I think there's a real risk of taking the game -too- seriously and missing out on some of the highly entertaining and truly hilarious moments that some of these emotes can provide. However, a general rule is, when an emote makes me think more about real life than about the game ('even though so-and-so didn't mention that she put her arm around you before...') or is completely unrealistic in context, I personally find it jarring rather than appealing.  But, if everyone were to come to regard their character as a cartoon-character and portray them as such, Arm would be a vastly different game. Just keep it in mind when you're choosing which style to use.

The kids are watching.

[joyofdiscord]

I have to comment. I have -never- heard of "facepalming" before this thread.

Seconding this.  People have mentioned it being used in chats and comics, which hints at it being some cutesy cartoony term which turns me off.  I'm a descriptivist so I'm not going to complain about whether something is found in dictionaries, but this particular term I looked for, and wikipedia gave two very different definitions: what would commonly be called burying one's face in one's hands, and smacking one's forehead with their hand.  Very different actions that could best be described on their own.


I definitely see no problem with "in apparent disgust" or "in confusion" or "angrily" or whatever.  A really nice physical emote that instantly provokes the right image and conveys the mental state in question is obviously fantastic, and you better believe I'll do it every time I can come up with one, but sometimes it just takes too long to try to puzzle out exactly what facial creases would reflect confusion in my character and come up with all the right words that fit into a gramatically correct sentence using the emote code.  The scene needs to move on.  If you're a quick and descriptive writer, great for you, but I've had way too many times where I sat trying to cast some basic emotion in physical terms before finally giving up and going with "shakes his head, looking confused."  So now other players have waited a minute or two for the original simple emote.  Sometimes confusion is just confusion.

The fact is, most of the time, when someone is outwardly expressing some emotion, you can read it.  We naturally do this in our social interactions every single day without ever noticing it.  Of course misreadings happen, but we notice those because they are the exception among the countless correct assessments we make constantly.  

People that consistently misread others either are autistic, a specific ingrained inability to perform these automatic assessments to function normally in a social situation, or are displaying some basically normal social awkwardness or obliviousness of varying degrees.  If your character falls in one of these categories, it's easy enough to roleplay that your character isn't picking up social cues or isn't acting on them.  However, I'm going to assume that most characters have basic social skills and can distinguish major emotions on a level at least that of an elementary school student.  Even the classic clueless sitcom husband knows his wife is upset or sad or angry.  He just doesn't know why.

[Folker]

To be honest. I 'suspect' that facepalm is one of those precoded emotes that some muds have. Armageddon still have some amount of them left like grin <target> or nod <target> and so on. Some muds have hundreds of these precoded emotes.

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facepalm (command)
You slap your palm on your forehead, slowly sliding it down across your pained, exasperated face(echo)



[LiquidShell]

Why oh god Shalooonsh would you start a thread like this.  It's like tossing a baby tregil into a pit of gortoks, and hoping something constructive comes from it.  No you're just inciting a riot, with a lot of nagging about who got the last bite.

[flurry]

I don't think I ever saw 'facepalm' before, either.  Personally, I idealike and  intend to dictionarydiscard and truly potentialtap this approach. :wink:

[Folker]

I don't think I ever saw 'facepalm' before, either.  Personally, I idealike and  intend to dictionarydiscard and truly potentialtap this approach. :wink:

Next we're going to say 'this is a plus plus idea'.

[Hymwen]

I've heard of facepalm before!

[rufus]

Hymwen, you pickpocket, quit palming my face!

[Folker]

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Steal nose templar
OK!
Slip nose pack
You put an aquiline nose in your bone-studded pack.
Templar looks at you wide eyed, his face oddly misshaped, a glaring bloodied stump where the nose usually is.
You think:
            Aw crap, I failed my sleight of hand roll *facepalm*


[psionic fungus]

The fact is, most of the time, when someone is outwardly expressing some emotion, you can read it.

I just don't know how true this is.  Individuals do have particulars, and once you have known someone for awhile it certainly becomes easier to read them. As I have said, people -constantly- misread my facial expressions IRL. So... Does that make -me- autistic or -everyone else-?  

Seriously.  If reading body language was as easy as some people claim I don't think our divorce rate would be as high as it is... Or maybe verbal communication in relationships wouldn't be quite so important... I don't know, but I do know that reading people's faces is -not- so simple that everyone will always know what everyone else is thinking.  One person's look of anger is another's look of confusion; while one person might be trying to look sexy someone else might just be sleepy...

People mis-read body language nearly as often as they properly interpret it, in my person experience.  It is definitely easier to read body language when someone is -trying- to express themselves through it, and I'm sure that can be taken into account when emoting, but I will always -prefer- ambiguity in emotes, which are descriptions of physical actions.  The simple fact is that solely physical descriptions are also interpreted based on prior interaction with the character and the context of the situation, and that's the way it should be, IMO, of course.

[Anael]

Facepalming aside.

I am sorry, but I always thought of roleplay more as -story-telling than anything else. For this very reason, I'll have my characters nod their head gratefully, scowl angrily or twist their faces into disgusted grimaces, because it simply helps to get the point across smoothly. If you think your character might mis- interprete the expression, feel free to do so. Likewise, when I want my character's feelings to remain obscure, I'll adjust my emotes appropriately. I just didn't come to Armageddon to contemplate the fine details of human (let alone elven or dwarf) body language, but to roleplay a story of a character who plots someone's murder, is corrupt, or faces the unpleasant consequences of being betrayed.


This is how I always interpreted the sentence I have in my signature, even tough I might be twisting Vanth's real thoughts, for which I apologize.

Just my two sids.