New Character Descriptions

[Bestatte]

This is a pet peeve of mine, and doesn't necessarily extend only to newbies, so I'm not posting it in the newbie section of this forum since it applies to the general public.

When writing up your description for a new character, please don't include anything resembling this:

Standing before you...

Unless you intend on standing constantly. When I see someone sitting on a chair at a table, and I LOOK at them, seeing "Standing before you" just really REALLY annoys me no end.

You're not standing before, behind, above, or below me. You are sitting down. Please don't expect me to believe otherwise, and please don't force a description on me that is logically impossible during the majority of your character's existence.

Eyes that gaze out..well, most of the time your character is awake, and their eyes are open, so that's understandable, and IMO, acceptable. Obviously when he's sleeping, unconscious, or dead, his eyes wouldn't be likely to gaze anywhere. But those are exceptions to the norm.

It is normal for your character to both stand, and sit, and sometimes even lay down. Don't include things in your description that imply only one of those things to the exclusion of the rest.

In addition, please try to use complete sentences. For instance:

The man has green skin. Like leaves of a tree.

The second sentence is not a sentence. It lacks a verb. You can, however, replace the period with a comma and make the L in Like lower case, and turn the two sentences into one very readable and perfectly acceptable sentence.

I'm not asking for grammar freaks, I'm asking for just a bit of common sense.

Thanks for letting me vent.

[Lazloth]

bestatte has sharp teeth.  like fish that walk on land.

[Silent Bob]

Can I have stuff stuck in my teeth like meat strands or tuber fiber?

[CindyLou]

Assuming that you have teeth, I don't see why not.

[ashyom]

Please leave the desc-approving up to the staff.  If they decide it's doable, it's doable.  If you have a problem with a player's desc, feel free to mail the mud.

[Stroker]

Haha, shot down. That's why instead of venting on the GDB, I take a bat, and beat someone senseless. Then again, we soviets are always aggressive like that.

[Bestatte]

Actually, I've done what we were told to do: which is to typo it in game. So far I have seen one character's description corrected. I've typoed over a dozen in the past few months. Some of the characters have long been dead, or died within the first few days of my noticing them. Others are still around.

Also, I see misspellings in descriptions. That doesn't mean the staff has determined that misspellings are "doable" as you suggest, Ashyom, but rather that the misspelled word was simply missed during the approval phase. I thought I was being helpful to the staff by suggesting that players make an attempt to take responsibility for their own applications, and the descriptions they submit.

But you'd rather I didn't do that, so I'll just continue sending in typos, and hope that maybe some day some of them will actually be fixed.

[Anonymous]

Please leave the desc-approving up to the staff.

For once, I agree with ashyom.  

[Malifaxis]

Bestatte:

Actually, I've done what we were told to do: which is to typo it in game. So far I have seen one character's description corrected.

Personally, I find that statement very self-righteous.  'Corrected' I think is a very, very strong term to use in this case, *especially* since apparently the Staff (who I am sure have made note of your suggestions) have decided that the descriptions 'in question' are perfectly valid.  To use corrected in this fashion implies that your descriptions are immaculate, Bestatte, which is (and I mean no offense by this, merely statement of fact) clearly not the case.

"Standing before you" is another pet peeve of mine, truth tell, but ya know what?  I don't let it get to me.  I swallow my 1337 d35c \/\/r1t3r pride and just let it go.  Sure, it may cause me a moment of irritation, but then I realize that the person who wrote that desc is probably rather proud of it, and enjoys it... and that's what we're here for, is to enjoy.  We're not here to critique.  If we are, someone please inform me so I can stop my style of play.

Eyes that gaze out..well, most of the time your character is awake, and their eyes are open, so that's understandable, and IMO, acceptable. Obviously when he's sleeping, unconscious, or dead, his eyes wouldn't be likely to gaze anywhere. But those are exceptions to the norm.

Do you typo every single person who has any mention of eyes in the sdesc?  Just curious.  I mean, if you're going to make a statement like that, then stick to your guns and do it.  Go hog wild.

Malifaxis
-Who has gotten a number of positive comments on his characters that had eyes that gazed out or some such.
-Who has also stolen ShaLeah's sub-signature dash (-) routine, and defends that with the statement "Immitation is the most sincere form of flattery."
-Who will now shut up, go stand before someone, and gaze at them.

[ShaLeah]

Malifaxis
-Who has also stolen ShaLeah's sub-signature dash (-) routine, and defends that with the statement "Immitation is the most sincere form of flattery."

:cry:
You like me, you really like me.


ShaLeah
-who eyes Malifaxis morbidly.

[Lazloth]

Well, against my better judgement, I'll throw in my two cents.
I agree with Bestatte, and further, don't understand the criticism.

• bestatte suggests that people shy away from "Before you stands.." because before you the person may not be standing.

Valid.  The docs propound: Do not describe how your character moves or speaks, since the viewer may be looking at them while they are asleep or knocked out, and wouldn't know how they customarily move or speak. Similarly, don't have your character performing actions in the description, such as nodding or whistling, unless it's an action they perform constantly, even when asleep. Don't force actions on the viewer as in 'You wonder what she is doing here' or 'You blink and look away, cowed by the intensity of his eyes.'[/color]

This differs significantly, Malifax, from something like beneath gray, bush eyebrows gaze black, hollow eyes or whatever example you dredged.

• Try to keep your english grammatical.

I don't mean to be rude, but I have to question the approval process with the descs that I've seen around over the last few months.  Why not throw up a generic chargen for new chars?  I'd rather see something semi-canned than:

This guy stands 5 feet tall.  He Looks very strong.  With His skin is kind of tanned.

[Summer]

Unfortunately the docs also have the following:

Code Select Expand

The woman before you is slim, with slender, long legs, and gangly, thin arms that hang from her narrow shoulders.
and

Code Select Expand

Large and bushy white eyebrows perch atop a set of large, seeking eyes the color of slate grey
and

Code Select Expand

Standing slightly shorter than average for his race,

and many, many more...

I know I used the sample descriptions as inspiration for my first application....

[Anonymous]

Please leave the desc-approving up to the staff. If they decide it's doable, it's doable. If you have a problem with a player's desc, feel free to mail the mud.

That is all I have to say.  You people are too picky about things that will have no effect on you or your PC.

[Krath]

Please leave the desc-approving up to the staff.  If they decide it's doable, it's doable.  If you have a problem with a player's desc, feel free to mail the mud.

'nuff said, lock this baby down.

[Bestatte]

Please leave the desc-approving up to the staff. If they decide it's doable, it's doable. If you have a problem with a player's desc, feel free to mail the mud.

That is all I have to say.  You people are too picky about things that will have no effect on you or your PC.

First of all, I'm not approving or rejecting descriptions. That isn't my job. I posted a pet peeve, identified it as one, explained why it is one, and suggested a solution to what I perceived to be a problem. The problem being, that typos, misspellings, glaring grammatical errors, and logistical errors seem to be common in descriptions. The solution, including the typo command *which we were asked and encouraged to use for errors in PC descriptions*, was to have the players give more thought to these things when creating their characters in the first place, during the submission process.

Second of all, it -does- have an effect on both myself and my PC.

If I am interacting with someone out in the desert and see that he's sitting down, and LOOK at him and his description tells me that he's standing up, which am I to believe? The coded "sit" command, or the description that's insisting that he's standing up?

The documentation supports my opinion. In fact, in all the games I've ever played, every single one of them that allows custom descriptions includes documentation warning people to NOT have their characters standing or sitting or laying down in their descriptions. Armageddon, in my opinion, is FAR better than the other games I've played. Why then, should I be criticized for asking them to keep to their high standards of writing, and for asking the players to adhere to the documentation when submitting their character applications?

If it's not that big of a deal, then it's also not that big of a deal for people to leave out the "standing before you" stuff. Or the. You know. Glaring grammatical, like, errors. The ones that are. You know. Glaring. In your face. That makes me (and other people) wonder, "Who approved this description, anyway?" Or the spelling errors that just totally scream at you.

Maybe my next character description will read:

Sprawled out behind you lays a woman who stands at 4 feet tall and weighs 127 pounds. You can't see her face because she is behind you. Laying down. Like dunes. That lay in the desert.

Replace "sprawled out behind you" with "Standing before you" and every single thing I wrote in that above paragraph is something I've seen in character descriptions. We don't have "feet" in Zanthalas, we have cords. We don't have pounds, we have stones. And we've been reminded of this countless times for a variety of reasons, yet they still appear in descriptions. I'm asking the PLAYERS to help the staff lighten their burden by helping out and paying closer attention to the documents. Why is that something I should be criticized for?

[Anonymous]

If I am interacting with someone out in the desert and see that he's sitting down, and LOOK at him and his description tells me that he's standing up, which am I to believe? The coded "sit" command, or the description that's insisting that he's standing up?

Its obvious that ldescs take precedence over descs since the latter is static.  Do you ignore the 'bleedy profusely' messages at the end of someone's code-generated ldesc because their desc gives no indication that they are bleeding?

Look, I don't use nor particularly like the 'Before you stands' wording in a desc, but through therapy I've learned to cope with it, you can too.  Like your issue with emotes using 'as' (I believe that was you from months ago) this is just one of those things that really have no impact on the game and people should be allowed to play or emote or draw up descs how they want without fear of the style police.

[Bestatte]

Not only do I sometimes ignore the bleeding profusely message on other PCs, I sometimes ignore it on my own. When my PC is clanned, and in training, and sparring with blunt wooden objects, for example. I completely ignore the fact that the code insists that I'm bleeding, and roleplay that I've just been knocked around badly, and need to rest before I pass out. Sometimes I'll RP that I've broken or chipped a bone. One doesn't necessarily bleed when one breaks a bone. But one -does- need to stop doing whatever they were doing for awhile.

It -does- matter, and it -does- have an impact. The whole "as" thing is just a general pet peeve, and has no impact on my character.

[Hoodwink]

I agree with Bestatte.  It would be one thing if the staff rigorously screened applications for minute details such as the ones discussed in this thread, because were that the case I think a lot less people would play, and a lot less newcomers would check the game out.  But I don't think it hurts to try and get the players of ArmageddonMUD to match the writing style of the MUD itself.  As for quoting one doc that contradicts another (such as the example descriptions not meeting the documented criteria for character creation), that's expected when you have a game operated by more than one person, it's a team effort, things get overlooked -- and thankfully we're not talking about very large, catastrophic ideas here, but I don't see why Bestatte can't still raise the subject just because it's not largely impacting on the game.  A lot of the responses I've read seem to have this attitude that if what you're posting isn't of dire importance, then you shouldn't be posting at all.

A former staff member once told me what ArmageddonMUD used to be like.  Applications took up to a month to process, and many times they were rejected for inconsequential details, such as using 'there' instead of 'their', or forgetting to put 'human' in your keywords, or for certain word phrasing (like 'Standing before you...') that already exists in some NPCs.  The example I was given was some bloke apped a character with eyes described as the color of mud and was rejected on the basis that mud is a rare thing in Zalanthas -- this, despite the fact that the help file on halflings or elves says they often have "muddy brown eyes".  Of course that's all hearsay and I have no way of verifying the truth of it.  I'm only pointing this out to suggest that while running the MUD in this way would lead to a number of contradictions and is not very fun for the players, it can't hurt to suggest alternative spelling in a discussion forum ... can it?   :roll:

[flurry]

I don't know, when I see something like "Before you stands..." (which comes directly from one of the sample main descs in the docs), I read it as meaning "before you is positioned...".    Yes, that meaning of "stands" is typically used for inanimate objects, but since this is a fixed description for an animate PC, I take "stands" in the more general sense.    In other words, I give the benefit of the doubt.  

Perhaps it's just me, but I don't see "before you stands" or "standing before you" as being anywhere near as egregious as "Standing up before you, with her hands on her hips,...".    At least with "before you stands", you can intepret in a way that isn't specifically describing their posture.    I see it more on par with describing eye color.   Which to me isn't a big deal, but might bother some.

If the immortals accounted for everyone's pet peeves in the approval process, I think we'd all be on our umpteenth edit of our first application.

I do understand why it bugs you though.   I'm just saying that my perspective is that it's no big deal.

[Carnage]

If I am interacting with someone out in the desert and see that he's sitting down, and LOOK at him and his description tells me that he's standing up, which am I to believe? The coded "sit" command, or the description that's insisting that he's standing up?

What a predicament! :roll:

Why is that something I should be criticized for?

Because you're coming off as Adolf II and complaining about something so that most people ignore it. Seriously, take a look at what you're creating a thread to complain about. Three words in people's descriptions that can easily be overlooked and then you have another subjective criticism. By your logic, since you can't see a person's eyes when they're unconscious or sleeping it shouldn't even be in the description. Is it really that hard to just ignore this kind of stuff? I can't comprehend why 'Before you stands...' would send someone into a RARGH! HULK SMASH! intolerant rage.

If you're really so intolerant and have such an unnatural hatred for those three words, why not write up a guide on how to write a good description? Some people probably are just stuck using that as their opening sentence.

[ashyom]

Many of those players that have "stands here", "stands before you," etc are the new players, and the staff tend to be more flexible with these players.  It's better to try hook them by letting them into game with a mediocre description, and later, with time, help them learn how to improve their RP, their descs...

I'd rather not drive away players by rejecting descriptions over a minor point like this.  Oftentimes, the first-time players won't come back after the initial rejection.  However, I will post something on the Staff's board regarding this.

A few players have asked this thread to be locked.  
Kudos.
Ashyom