Armageddon General Discussion Board

I'm not a big fan of the standard drop descs that items have set on them when you put them down. Certainly, we've all been in a position where we walked into a room and had it brought to life for us by the imagination and skilled writing talent of someone who just took that extra bit of time to drop their small shard of bone or red sandstone chunk in such a way as to paint an incredible picture.

I love custom drop descs.

The question is, however, how do you like to format them?

I've long since given up being able to format my drop descs to fit the room description length. It's just not going to happen. I DO cut them off after a certain point, deeming them 'too long', but this is more of just a feeling when I see it written out. Similarly, if they're too short, I lengthen them a bit.

What I'm talking about, though, is how to arrange the length in the room? By this I mean, do you arrange your objects so that the ones with the longest drop desc start first, and then gradually taper to the smallest drop desc? Do you do the opposite, and start off small to eventually end with your lengthiest drop desc? Do you not care at all and simply leave them how you have them, or do you go through and alternate with character length, trying to make things roughly 'even' on top and bottom of the room's contents?

I find I tend to like to start off with the shorter descs and then gradually move to the lengthier ones. Starting off large and tapering to smaller ones just looks.. wrong, to me. Like all the words above are pinned on a tiny little point and are liable to tip over and collapse at any moment.

So what about you? Is there a method to how you arrange the items in your apartment/cluttered alleyway/ivory pyramid/whatever to make something that's aesthetically pleasing? Do you find certain combinations jarring? Did I just do too much LSD in my youth?

Input most definitely requested.

(If you find yourself asking, "how do you arrange how things show in the ROOM ORDER?" the answer is to use 'craft' to get them to show up how you want them to. 'craft 3.footlocker' makes the third footlocker the topmost one, and then you can craft other items afterward to stack them atop it.)

I thought I was the only one that got OCD about this sort of shit.

/highfives

(I generally intersperse short/long descs, and make sure items that reference each other are together. Descs that are too short get beefed up a bit. Descs that have one singular word wrap over to the next line get shortened to fit on one line.)

I make all mine the exact same length. Often as possible, the same length as the room descs.

Where are these mythical apartments where all your shit doesn't go missing within a week?

Clan barracks.

Or anything clan building related.

I am very much un-fond of the "are here" and "is here" and "are sitting here" and "are laying here" and "are crumpled on the floor." I really don't like the words "is" and "are." I don't mind including them, but only rarely, to break things up a bit.

I also don't like lists of things. And so:

A green thing is here.
A yellow thing is laying on the floor.
A big thing rests against the wall.
Three orange things roll around near the bed.

I don't even write out a grocery list, because I just don't like lists. My character reports are usually a mess because I can't outline worth a damn and really loathe spending more than 2 minutes trying to outline.

And so the above might look like this instead:

Covered with a red thing, a green thing stretches along the northwest corner
of the vast, spacious room.
A yellow thing, abandoned and alone, sits next to the bed.
A big thing rests against the wall, its vacant, hollow eye sockets staring at the
abandoned yellow thing by the bed.
On the other side of the bed, three orange things roll around on the floor.

Notice I also try to fill out second lines. I don't like "widows and orphans." If I can't think of enough to fill up at least a third of the second line, then I'll reduce it so it doesn't take up a second line at all.

Quote from: AmandaGreathouse on December 21, 2011, 10:41:19 PM
I make all mine the exact same length. Often as possible, the same length as the room descs.

I do whatever it takes to describe how it is positioned in as few words as necessary to get the point across. That may mean variations or combinations of some of the things mentioned.

Yes, I've been known to arrange things how I want the room to look. I stopped because every time we booted I lost my purdy room.
Has this changed? Does it stick now?

Quote from: ShaLeah on December 22, 2011, 12:02:54 AM
Yes, I've been known to arrange things how I want the room to look. I stopped because every time we booted I lost my purdy room.
Has this changed? Does it stick now?

Reboots invert the order of the items in the room. To fix it, all you have to do is use the 'craft' command trick.

I try to make all arrangements the same length (as in characters), so they all end at the same point on my screen.

Things I want noted first must come first, then items referencing items must come after referenced item.  If I'm lazy and there is a reboot, I might not fix a swap.

Quote from: Synthesis on December 22, 2011, 12:09:01 AM
Reboots invert the order of the items in the room. To fix it, all you have to do is use the 'craft' command trick.

For the love of god, what is the "craft" command trick?

>craft item

will shuffle it to the top of the 'list' of items in the room. This also works for big pieces of furniture you can't lift.

I try not to make drop descs of items extend past the 80 character wrap-around, to cut down on spam, especially if there are a lot of items in the room.  That's about the only requirement I have.

QuoteI make all mine the exact same length. Often as possible, the same length as the room descs.

Quote from: Delirium on December 22, 2011, 09:32:42 AM
>craft item

will shuffle it to the top of the 'list' of items in the room. This also works for big pieces of furniture you can't lift.

......... That's awesome.

Quote from: FantasyWriter on December 23, 2011, 12:52:11 AM

Quote from: Delirium on December 22, 2011, 09:32:42 AM
>craft item

will shuffle it to the top of the 'list' of items in the room. This also works for big pieces of furniture you can't lift.

......... That's awesome.

This is probably one of my favourite 'features' in the game. I seriously could not survive without it.

How do I arrange these things? If possible, <location or hook> <item> <action>.

So, either I want to give the location in the room for those RPing internal geography, or tell the reader right off why they should bother to pay attention to this item.


>arrange cloak Hanging on a peg by the door, ~ drifts slowly in the breeze of passing gith servants

Hanging on a peg by the door, the hooded, bronze-buttoned cloak drifts slowly in the breeze of passing gith servants.

>arrange head Slowly leaking congealing blood on the floor, ~ stares sightlessly as thirsty insects gorge on it.

Slowly leaking congealing blood on the floor, the head of the tall, tattooed man stares sightlessly as thirsty insects gorge on it.