On Beauty

[Is Friday]

I would mudsex that so fast.

[musashi]

No you wouldn't you fader.

[Zerero]

Blue-black hair falls impossibly to her big butt. Her tits look like they could easily feed a full unit of Kuraci regulars with enough milk left over to make even Sargax weep. She has a stomach you could bounce a large chunk of obsidian off of, and though her bones appear frail, they're covered with enough musculature to make a raptor give pause before attacking. there is a big artichoke in her ear

Stop stealing my char descs.

[James de Monet]

I kind of think artichokes are hot.

On behalf of the entire town of Castroville, and weird vegetables everywhere, I just want to say I think we'd all be more comfortable if you didn't objectify them in this fashion, Hishn. Gosh.




Seriously, a staff member makes a comment about an (admittedly sexy but kinda weird) edible thistle and you guys were just gonna let that float? Slipping. Slipping

[Valincio]

I'm playing a short guy with bushy eyebrows and rough features.

I enjoy it.

[ShaLeah]

And as the pretty girl continues to be the focus of GDB loathing, a dozen handsome young men with rippling chests, anime-style badass scars and elegant but manly ponytails come back from hunting gortoks, well-groomed and smelling of roses.

Mind telling me where you're playing? I gotta get me some of this.

They're right next to the muscular, massive, darkly tanned brutes with intricate tattoo on their sleeves/chests/backs/faces. You know the ones, with bead-tipped braids and shell breechguards. On aisle 3.

[gfair]

Arm and beauty.  Of late it seems like there are fewer players with extreme beauty in their descriptions, which is a good thing.  The harsh realism of Arm is one of the principal reasons why I enjoy it so much, and why I enjoy most fantasy games so little. For every other game out there where the character is carrying a sword that should realistically weigh 50 to 200 pounds, Arm is a fresh breath of sandy air.  That said, we do have a lot of unhealthy or unrealistic images of what our characters will look like. We still want our characters to be "cool" or "epic", or we simply don't read the race documentation closely enough and, because it's not one but multiple people doing these things, we end up with rooms that sometimes still feel like we're in Aion.

Examples:

- "Herculean" Elves. Really, the descriptions of Elves in particular with muscle in excess of even Humans is a bit much, and something I feel we could moderate more.

- Dwarves with the "carved from stone" idea.  If a Dwarf looks like they are carved from stone, they are either 2-ton mutants, or magickers. Just like Dwarves with beards, this feels like a holdout of the traditional mindset of Dwarves as having some relationship with stone more than other races. Muls too.

- It's still possible to see character descriptions that are excessively long. For example, 450-500 words long.  I've often thought of submitting an idea for different 'look' options. For example, one look option might break down characters into "major" elements of their appearance, and "minor" and list them separately.  In the Major section goes colouring of hair, skin, and eyes, plus race, height / weight (described, not numerical), and then items that cover or occupy a large area of their person, such as clothing and armor.  In the Minor section would go jewelry, subtle features, etc. That would replace Look. Then there might be an 'extended look' where we could submit larger, more nuanced descriptions of our persons, something not possible to notice when walking by on the street, but possible to notice when sitting down for a few minutes. There's a necessity of description in our main desc that causes descriptions that are too short, or too long, to be unhelpful to those a character interacts with. An Extended Look option would let the more detailed, nuanced descriptions find their home, allowing people to ensure that main desc is "the bullet points" of the character.

- We seem to be defying the racial norms with hair / eye choices too often, and the purpose seems to be to imbue our characters with emotions rather than evoking those emotions through roleplay.  The predominant choices of hair seem to be Black, Red, and Silver-White (on young characters).  And for eyes we see "orbs" and "smoky" or "dusky" a lot.  You don't need smoky viridian orbs to fall on people in a tavern to make a stare an intense experience, believe me.  And you don't need to have dark hair to be badass, or red hair to be passionate, or silver-white hair to be etheral and wispy. It's up to each of us to evoke these things through play, and in doing so realize that a more Zalanthan choice doesn't mean sacrificing any ability to stir these deep emotions within our characters, or ourselves.

[Fujikoma]

Firstly, I fail to see how having dark hair in a harsh, desert environment is unrealistic. Blonde and red hair stands out more to me there, but are certainly believable. Mostly I pick colors somewhat randomly (but prefer darker hair, browns and blacks) because I think it would accent the other features somewhat and actually give someone something slightly interesting to read. If it's some off the wall color it's because they're some kind of mutie scum, or got it dyed somehow.

How about make the long look follow the same syntax lines as assess, look -v person?

EDIT: Things to keep in mind...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_hair_color
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color

What may seem to some to be an attempt to define their characters outside of RP may actually be an attempt to be more realistic for the environment, or may be a mutie.

[Hishn]

Hoomans

[Fredd]

Firstly, I fail to see how having dark hair in a harsh, desert environment is unrealistic. Blonde and red hair stands out more to me there, but are certainly believable. Mostly I pick colors somewhat randomly (but prefer darker hair, browns and blacks) because I think it would accent the other features somewhat and actually give someone something slightly interesting to read. If it's some off the wall color it's because they're some kind of mutie scum, or got it dyed somehow.

How about make the long look follow the same syntax lines as assess, look -v person?

EDIT: Things to keep in mind...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_hair_color
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color

What may seem to some to be an attempt to define their characters outside of RP may actually be an attempt to be more realistic for the environment, or may be a mutie.

Going with this, and the Docs when it comes to dark hair. There are tribes of humans, specifically wirh dark hair, and the south tends to have darker hair then the north.

[racurtne]

I have gray eyes.  

When I make characters I tend towards a more normal appearance (ie dark eyes and hair) rather than anything that stands out.

[Riev]

I have gray eyes.  

But your character sheet said you have blue eyes.


Also... I think what Gfair means isn't "stop playing redheads" as much as "stop giving your character red hair because you think he's a real hot head" or "don't play some 15year old with white hair because his personality is soft and ethereal". He means that even a "simple" mdesc of a human being can be part of an intense, or romantic, or psychotic personality. A hard, dark eyed stare means just as much as a blank stare from a pair of smoky orbs.

[racurtne]

Agreed. I don't feel the need to make the visuals match the persona.

[Fredd]

I have gray eyes.  

But your character sheet said you have blue eyes.


Also... I think what Gfair means isn't "stop playing redheads" as much as "stop giving your character red hair because you think he's a real hot head" or "don't play some 15year old with white hair because his personality is soft and ethereal". He means that even a "simple" mdesc of a human being can be part of an intense, or romantic, or psychotic personality. A hard, dark eyed stare means just as much as a blank stare from a pair of smoky orbs.

One of my favorite pc's was a short, fat, hairless machavellian bastard. He wasn't attractive in the least by my gauge. That being said he had 2 great relationships over the long period of time that I played him. One with a soldier girl that was amazing before it ended in her death, of course, and another with a secret breed lover. That he later had assasinated because he was worried someone would find out.

Normal and ugly people can rp relationships just as well, or better then beautiful people. I think it just proves that in Arm, we care more about the roleplay, then the actual mudsex.

[RogueGunslinger]

Agreed. I don't feel the need to make the visuals match the persona.

I like when people do though. It's not common enough to be an annoyance for me.

[James de Monet]

I have gray eyes.  

But your character sheet said you have blue eyes.

Lemme see that sheet.   

[musashi]

Well it says I have blue eyes but I decided I want grey eyes!

[Harmless]

if I'm allowed to roll up the ridiculous piles of puke I sometimes play as in this world, then anyone here is damn well allowed to have smokey, mysterious orbs or pale hair. It's all fair game, if everyone is going by the docs...

[Fredd]

if I'm allowed to roll up the ridiculous piles of puke I sometimes play as in this world, then anyone here is damn well allowed to have smokey, mysterious orbs or pale hair. It's all fair game, if everyone is going by the docs...

Hey, Mutations happen. And for the most part, small, superficial mutations are ignored by society, as I understand it.

[X-D]

I have never made a PC that was pretty in any conventional sense.

I also admit to not taking overly pretty PCs seriously. See, heart shaped blah and melon breasts and other things and it just sticks as "Fme...don't bother".

[Vwest]

I also admit to not taking overly pretty PCs seriously. See, heart shaped blah and melon breasts and other things and it just sticks as "Fme...don't bother".

I guess we're on opposite sides of that coin

I've never had a character that wasn't at least a little pretty to start off with.

I'm not too concerned with what people want to play and in general give everyone a chance for interaction even if it's not positive, though I can't stand the canned Joes. Fresh from character creation, they're weathered and covered in scars, have a thousand stories to share and vast sums of knowledge, having traveled the Known from one end to the other and fought creatures both small and large. The very picture of the Zalanthan tough guy.

Too bad he starts off with the same newbie skills and complete lack of contacts as the beautiful, naive commons girl.

This is a code based game and except for special application skill boosts or sponsored roles where the character is skill pumped to match their supposed experience, more people need to play fresh faced and inexperienced characters and earn their scars, their all-too-often extreme ugly, their knowledge and badass attitudes in-game.

In the case of a beautiful description, a lot of it is open to interpretation; curvy can be chunky, petite can be runty, slender can be scrawny. How would your character see it?

Our prefabricated Joe? Not so much, it's right in his biography, it's coded into the game that he had those experiences and he earned all those scars, in spite of his utter incompetence in everything he does since entering the game. Even if you assume he's lying, it doesn't change the ridiculousness of it being what it is.

How is Joe any more believable then a pretty commons girl? Do you 'not bother' with all the handsome, muscular male characters as well, or do they get a free pass like they do in most of these types of threads? I notice you went right for the 'melon breasts' and not 'rock solid pecs', the 'heart shaped face' and not the 'strong, sculpted jaw'.

[BleakOne]

I think the general opinion is that a scarred-up, weatherbeaten person would be more common in a world like Zalanthas than a pretty, well-maintained person.

Not saying it couldn't happen, just one would be more common than the other.

[DustMight]

I like the variety of traditionally good-looking characters and ragged looking characters.
I do think the whole Chuck Norris looking elf thing has to go, though.

[Xeran Van Houten]

I do think the whole Chuck Norris looking elf thing has to go, though.

What blasphemy is this?!

[hyzhenhok]

Eh, elfs that don't look like elves are fine! As long as you roleplay accordingly when you see such a PC.