Roleplaying your character's eating habits

[Jdr]

If I 'need' to do something in a roleplay game, it becomes a chore. If I 'want' to do something in a roleplay game, it becomes fun.

[maxid]

People will start stop spameating the day that You are famished! doesn't pop up in the middle of their mudsex.

That was, obviously a joke, but it gets my point across.  If a conversation/event lasts from Your are full! to You are famished! in terms of code (not uncommon really, for highly social PCs) I'm not going to stop and pose out eating the 4 full steaks it would require for the constant bleating of the code to go away.  I'm going to shove them in my mouth, and act like nothing ever happened, so my PC doesn't die because he decided to go talk to Templar muckity whosit, and he got stuck.

[Yam]

My character needs several bowls of soup or yams or whatever to keep fed and goes from completely full to losing-stats-starving in just a few hours. It's just not practical/fun to draw out meals into a big deal every IC day or so.

There's just too many other (more interesting) things to do and too much time compression RL to IC to emote about eating all the time.

[boog]

My character needs several bowls of soup or yams or whatever to keep fed and goes from completely full to losing-stats-starving in just a few hours. It's just not practical/fun to draw out meals into a big deal every IC day or so.

There's just too many other (more interesting) things to do and too much time compression RL to IC to emote about eating all the time.

Like mudsex.

And yeah. The lower quality food that takes 10 'eat' commands to consume for full hunger regain -do- suck.

[Marauder Moe]

I like to RP eating when I can, but sometimes I'll spam-eat.  Reasons for spam eating are usually right before an RPT and filling up on food is one of many preparations that need doing, or if my character is hungry right before I intend to log out.

I have tried to have characters eat on a regular schedule, but due to the fact that there seems to be a large range between "a little hungry" and completely stuffed with no messages/indications it's very hard to gauge when and how much my character needs to eat.

I guess if anything needs improvement, I think it would be a way to tell more accurately how hungry/full your character is, rather than just:
you are full
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
a little hungry
hungry
very hungry
famished
starving

[Morgenes]

Caveat: There are lots of factors that I am ignoring in the following numbers, and yes, I'm exposing something that is 'code-y'.  I believe that the arguments here about the amount of time it takes to get to 'starving' are overrated, and so I am showing some average numbers to help prove my point.

To go from not receiving any hunger messages, to 'You are hungry.' is 9 IC hours, 1 IG day or an hour and a half.  If you are full, that time is 4.3 IG days, or 3 hours and 30 minutes.

It takes 20 IG hours for the average human to go from no longer receiving any hunger messages to 'You are starving'.  That's 3 hours and 20 minutes of play time (just over 2 IG days) without being 'forced' to eat.  

If you actually eat all the way to the point where you get the 'You are full.' message, you have 8 hours and 20 minutes of play time (5 and a half IG days) without being 'forced' to eat.

There are many ways to find more filling foods, including utilizing cooking skills and choosing other food sources.

To look at the specific ones specified by 'Yam', an uncooked yam has half the filling nature of a cooked one (burned or successful).  If you took the time to acquire or cook your food, you could reduce how much you would have to eat in half.  Each cooked yam gives you 2/3 of a IG day's worth of food.

Personally, I know you guys think it's annoying, and I also know enough to know that I'm very unlikely to sway that opinion, but IMO I think it's about right.  I'm sorry you're bothered by it, and I hope you'll take this thread for what I intended it, a helpful reminder to think about your character's stomach and involving it in making your character a more thought out, living character.

The only helpful suggestion I've seen is Moe's suggestion of adding in messages once you get beyond 'You are no longer hungry', and head towards 'You are full'.

[Marauder Moe]

Well, I don't think we need any more echoes between full and "a little hungry", but I think in the score it should show your hunger level more accurately.

Echoing the more accurate description after eating/tasting would be fine, though.

Word ideas for extra hunger levels:
Stuffed
Full
Satisfied
Not hungry
Peckish

[Morgenes]

We don't actually allow you to eat beyond 'full', unlike our own human bodies, so 'stuffed' wouldn't be possible.

[Yam]

Caveat: There are lots of factors that I am ignoring in the following numbers, and yes, I'm exposing something that is 'code-y'.  I believe that the arguments here about the amount of time it takes to get to 'starving' are overrated, and so I am showing some average numbers to help prove my point.

To go from not receiving any hunger messages, to 'You are hungry.' is 9 IC hours, 1 IG day or an hour and a half.  If you are full, that time is 4.3 IG days, or 3 hours and 30 minutes.

It takes 20 IG hours for the average human to go from no longer receiving any hunger messages to 'You are starving'.  That's 3 hours and 20 minutes of play time (just over 2 IG days) without being 'forced' to eat.  

If you actually eat all the way to the point where you get the 'You are full.' message, you have 8 hours and 20 minutes of play time (5 and a half IG days) without being 'forced' to eat.

There are many ways to find more filling foods, including utilizing cooking skills and choosing other food sources.

To look at the specific ones specified by 'Yam', an uncooked yam has half the filling nature of a cooked one (burned or successful).  If you took the time to acquire or cook your food, you could reduce how much you would have to eat in half.  Each cooked yam gives you 2/3 of a IG day's worth of food.

Personally, I know you guys think it's annoying, and I also know enough to know that I'm very unlikely to sway that opinion, but IMO I think it's about right.  I'm sorry you're bothered by it, and I hope you'll take this thread for what I intended it, a helpful reminder to think about your character's stomach and involving it in making your character a more thought out, living character.

The only helpful suggestion I've seen is Moe's suggestion of adding in messages once you get beyond 'You are no longer hungry', and head towards 'You are full'.

I'm talking about cooked yams. And yams are more filling than most foods IIRC.

Also different sized characters get hungry at different rates (I think because they have smaller 'tanks'). It really isn't that big of a deal for a huge elf or a dwarf. It's pretty damn annoying as a small human.



It's not really a big deal in the first place, but getting hungry happens often enough that I'm not going to want to play it out frequently. I don't tend to play out defecating that often either.

[Yam]

Eat all isn't mutually exclusive with roleplaying out the act of eating either. It would just get rid of useless "The tall, muscular man eats part of a bowl of stew"x10 messages while he's bullshitting with his mercenary pals in the mess hall.

[Kismetic]

When I do let my PC go codedly hungry, it's usually for a reason. Or their player has been too inept to make them enough money to feed them properly. Sorry, characters.

This.  And usually, I do try to emote eating, especially if I'm RPing with others.  When I'm solo RPing, I'm about fifty/fifty about gobbling down a bunch of food, but you never know who's watching.  Like idling, I usually only spam anything in a place where I think only imms can see me suck at life.

Great topic, though.  Something to think about.

Edit:  Can we raise the cap on cooking so that anyone can do it?  Cooking is something anyone can learn, isn't it?  And burnt up food leading to exorbitant cost could be a leading factor in getting to a point where you feel you -have- to stuff your face?

PSS:  Or change the frequency of how often food is burned, perhaps?  I'd say, IRL, I'm an apprentice cook, but rarely, if ever, burn a steak.  Mindful of the fact that my teflon pan and stove are nice props, it would still stand to reason that Zalanthans would adapt, and not waste so much food.

[maxid]

Personally, I know you guys think it's annoying, and I also know enough to know that I'm very unlikely to sway that opinion, but IMO I think it's about right.  I'm sorry you're bothered by it, and I hope you'll take this thread for what I intended it, a helpful reminder to think about your character's stomach and involving it in making your character a more thought out, living character.

Hey no, you misunderstand.  I don't find it annoying at all.  If we didn't have the starvation code, the mud would lose a lot, the timing is even appropriate.  I just answered your question.  I've had sessions where I saw on the game for 8 hours (yes I'm a loser, so what? ) and so at the end, since I'd been in a conversation with a guy for 2 hours already, that would've taken 20m IRL I spamate real quick.  You asked why we all spammed eating, I was just explaining why.  It's a necessary evil that the timer for eating, and the increased time it takes to have a conversation lead to some unrealistic scenarios, but it's one I'm ok with entirely.

[jhunter]

I like to rp it out at least some of the time, mostly when interacting with other pcs while my pc eats. When my pc is alone I'll spam eat sometimes, others I'll rp it only because I'm bored and it gives me something to do. Like someone else said, I do kinda feel like I run out of ideas to "spice up" my eating emotes, etc. I do like to give my pcs a favorite food or something though.

Edit:
Which actually, was along the thread of thoughts that lead me to the suggestion about having the taste message given when normally eating. I was thinking that without having to stop and use a separate command to get the taste information, we could get it more realistically and it would give me reminders/ideas about how my character might respond to the flavor of what they were eating or drinking. As it is currently, eating seems like a purely mechanical thing that gives no "feedback" response to the character. The flavor messages would be an....IC "reward?" for the action of eating besides just making the coded message go away if it's coming up.

[hyzhenhok]

We don't actually allow you to eat beyond 'full', unlike our own human bodies, so 'stuffed' wouldn't be possible.

Isn't the system already abstract enough that you could arbitrarily redefine what is now "full" to "stuffed"?

It's nice that the staff is so hesitant to redefine and retcon things that are already present in the game, but on some occasions it just leaves me feeling puzzled.

[valeria]

Please please please on the more specific messages, that would be so cool.

[smcdonald]

Interesting topic, indeed.

If I am eating while with other people, I do usually intersperse eat or drink commands with other actions.  In fact, in those situations I often use the sip or taste command, to spread it out even more.  But if I'm at a tavern, somehow I'm reluctant to spend coin on the expensive foods, especially if I have easy access to free food somewhere.  At the same time, I am reluctant to pull my own food or drink out and consume it while I'm at a tavern.  It would feel like pulling my own sandwich out while sitting at a diner.  I do buy often buy drinks while socializing at a tavern, and I think I've done pretty well with that in all my characters, but I should work more on eating too.  Most of my eating happens when I'm alone, often when I'm cooking.  In that situation, I do frequently do successive eat commands (though usually with some seconds between them).  This is a potential area of improvement.

[a strange shadow]

Well, I don't think we need any more echoes between full and "a little hungry", but I think in the score it should show your hunger level more accurately.

Echoing the more accurate description after eating/tasting would be fine, though.

Word ideas for extra hunger levels:
Stuffed
Full
Satisfied
Not hungry
Peckish

This.

[Barzalene]

I just want to say this, and if I misunderstood you, Morgenes, forgive me. I'm not complaining that I don't want hunger messages, and I'm not complaining about not having an eat all message.

I, being the sort of person who waits for the light to change even if the streets are empty, do throw out obligatory emotes as I spam eat. However, I confess that I'm often not rping. I'm emoting, but not rping.
I rp eating when I sit down to eat with someone. I rp eating when it's the focus of what my pc is about.
I do spam eat though. Sometimes, stuffing food down my pc's face is not the point and I just want to get it over with.

I need everyone to be alright with that.

[boog]

Edit:  Can we raise the cap on cooking so that anyone can do it?  Cooking is something anyone can learn, isn't it?  And burnt up food leading to exorbitant cost could be a leading factor in getting to a point where you feel you -have- to stuff your face?

PSS:  Or change the frequency of how often food is burned, perhaps?  I'd say, IRL, I'm an apprentice cook, but rarely, if ever, burn a steak.  Mindful of the fact that my teflon pan and stove are nice props, it would still stand to reason that Zalanthans would adapt, and not waste so much food.

I like this suggestion.

[maxid]

Well, I don't think we need any more echoes between full and "a little hungry", but I think in the score it should show your hunger level more accurately.

Echoing the more accurate description after eating/tasting would be fine, though.

Word ideas for extra hunger levels:
Stuffed
Full
Satisfied
Not hungry
Peckish

I'd want these to show up in Score, not spam me/my logs.  In fact, I wouldn't mind if I didn't get -any- messages above 'hungry.'  I check score/stat like it's going out of style anyway, but it's easier to clean my logs up if that line isn't there.

[wizturbo]

I think the lack of roleplay surrounding eating is mostly due to there being no set routine in each character's daily life.  People don't have structured, scheduled times that they eat.  It's just one long multi-day stretch for a typical play session.  The accelerated time of Arm is partly responsible for this, but it's just one disadvantage of a system that has many advantages.

[Lizzie]

Actually Morgenes, that information you posted about the "general" timing of hunger, is very useful. With a "numerical" guideline, I can pace myself, and know that after awhile, it's okay to take out a whole "something" and try to eat it, and eat it successfully..without being "full" halfway through and having to throw the rest away. Hate throwing half a mek steak away, but hate the idea of putting it in a pocket. So I'd rather know when eating one isn't going to put me over the top halfway through.

So thanks for posting that general info. I realize it's not exact and there's lots of criteria that goes into it. But it's still more useful than not knowing anything, and not trying because of lack of knowledge, or feeling like I have to spend a lot of time puzzling out mathematical formulae just so I can know when it's a good time to eat. Now, I can better plan my character's breaks. Which means I'll have more tools with which to roleplay.

[Marshmellow]

Edit:  Can we raise the cap on cooking so that anyone can do it?  Cooking is something anyone can learn, isn't it?  And burnt up food leading to exorbitant cost could be a leading factor in getting to a point where you feel you -have- to stuff your face?

PSS:  Or change the frequency of how often food is burned, perhaps?  I'd say, IRL, I'm an apprentice cook, but rarely, if ever, burn a steak.  Mindful of the fact that my teflon pan and stove are nice props, it would still stand to reason that Zalanthans would adapt, and not waste so much food.

I like this suggestion.

Everyone can cook already.  Everyone starts off sucking just like every other skill, so no skill need be raised.  Staff have already done some examination of burning food as well, iirc.

[boog]

Except it's capped ridiculously low for non-crafters, isn't it?

[Xeran Van Houten]

No.