Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

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Gorth
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Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

Post by Gorth »

Hullo today,

My stance on this has jumped back and forth a few times, but today's Discord Discourse has made me firm it, a little. What do you guys think about a LOOK CLOSER command? I.E. fully custom, player written descriptions. Here's some of my rough thoughts.
Pros:
  • Internal Player Agency and Identity: Allows people to fully realize there characters beyond what the game's Chargen generated description offers.
  • External Identity: Other people get to realize the little unique things about your characters, so you have a way to tell them about your neat scars or your cute freckles, without emoting about it every new person you meet, and possibly annoying people.
  • Uniqueness in General: Short, Slim, Strawberry-blond Hair, Blue-gray eyes. I know of at least two, possibly three people with this description. Unless you get a GM to give you a custom mustache, or freckles via a third-party method that still has that base description and tells you nothing else, you'll look like the people with your atributes.
  • Possibility for More Interaction: if someone isn't great at writing these, it's not as if they have to, and it can easily foster more interaction of people trying to help someone write one, if they wish.
Cons:
  • GM Attention Requisite: If we wish the descriptions to be vetted for appropriate language, diction and style (which I think we maybe do? ;Discussion;) that will require a lot of attention from GMs. They already do a lot for us, and I'd hate to ask them to do more.
  • Overload of Options: Some people may get bogged down by this extra option, plus customizeable outfits and gear, and might get easily overwhelmed. i'm not sure if this is really a big deal or not, but as long as it's made quite aware that this is an optional thing, it should be fine.
I could go either way. I'd personally love this sort of thing, because I really like being unique, and often times custom merchants don't come around enough for me to truely get that feeling.

Discuss? Maybe?
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Volinn
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Re: Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

Post by Volinn »

I much prefer the Gemstone/DR/UL-esque appearance pieced together via options rather than the RPI-style written description, personally. There very desperately needs to be more options to allow one to more easily distinguish each character's look, though. Especially hair styles, facial hair, etc.
Gorth
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Re: Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

Post by Gorth »

Volinn wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 7:44 pm I much prefer the Gemstone/DR/UL-esque appearance pieced together via options rather than the RPI-style written description, personally. There very desperately needs to be more options to allow one to more easily distinguish each character's look, though. Especially hair styles, facial hair, etc.
More options selectable that didn't require GM purview would probably eliminate most or some of my issues with not feeling unique, for sure. Like I said, I go back and forth on my stance on things, and seems everyone has a slightly different oppinion. That's wh I like the games that have a peace together system like this, but a secondary option that you can do anytime, if you want.
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Maina
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Re: Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

Post by Maina »

Please no. After twenty years of writing and reading descs, I can confidently say they are all, more-or-less, the same. All I do these days is skim for a few useful notable bits (eye color, build, etc) and ignore the rest. The current in-game system does this well enough. It's a lot of extra work for everyone involved (reader, writer, and GM) for minimal benefit.

I would agree, however, on more 'notable bits' that people get to pick in chargen, as Volinn seems to be suggesting.

Another game I play has the following:

She appears to be [age]. She is about [height] tall and has [skin-tone] skin. Her body is [build] with [hip-shape] hips and [calf-shape] calves. She has [shoulder-shape] shoulders and [chest-shape] breasts. Her face is [face-shape] and [general-appearance], with a [nose-shape] nose and [chin-shape] chin. Her lips are [lip-shape] and [lip-color] and occasionally part to reveal a set of [teeth-shape/color] teeth. Beneath a set of [eyebrow-shape] eyebrows, her eyes are [eye-color] and [eye-shape]. Her [hair-length], [hair-type] hair is [hair-color] and [hairstyle].

We don't need all of those options, certainly, but adding a few more would help people feel less generic while also not requiring GM approval for descs or requiring people to read two paragraphs to figure out what your eye color is.
Gorth
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Re: Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

Post by Gorth »

I'll just preface with I don't disagree with you. I'm just trying to foster conversation because we had a lot of it on Discord after I posted this topic, which kind of defeated the point of the topic.
We don't need all of those options, certainly, but adding a few more would help people feel less generic while also not requiring GM approval for descs or requiring people to read two paragraphs to figure out what your eye color is.
This is fair. I would deifinitely like more options in Chargen. My suggestion would be an optional thing that you wouldn't have to look at unless you used a specific command. So you'd still have this game generated description on a normal LOOK. I'm sure we'd have lots of same-y descriptions, though, so that point is fair.
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Taliaferro
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Re: Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

Post by Taliaferro »

I agree with everyone in this thread, paradoxically enough! We desperately need more character customization options. I'm personally okay with my own character's description as it stands, because I sort of like a vague description that people can project their own mental images onto, but most people don't roll that way.

I would not be the least bit opposed to player-written descriptions. I understand the objections to that. The good ones would be pretty samey, as Maina's said -- and I confess I tend to skim these things at best, anyway. If you paid me a thousand dollars I couldn't tell you what any of the characters I interact with on an almost daily basis look like. And there would be bad ones which staff would have to review or police. I think we have a pretty good, mature player-base here, but once in a while we'd end up with a character with vampire fangs and beautiful iridescent butterfly wings and a unicorn's horn. But in general I'm for allowing players as much freedom as possible, unless and until they abuse it. I'd like to see a modest amount of this kind of customization built into certain items within the crafting system, for example.

But for the most part my personal preferences are in line with Volinn's player's. I'd rather have a more robust template for descriptions. We'd still end up with samey descriptions which I mostly won't read, but it would allow for a lot more diversity. What if -- taking Maina's example -- we allowed for all of those characteristics, but made every one of them that's not currently implemented optional?

I mean -- if you could pick from a list of characteristics you wanted to define, and leave others blank. There'd be a menu with all of those options, and you could choose to fill them in, and the ones you don't pick just wouldn't show up in your description. So I could tell you what my character's eyebrows looked like, but I could decline to tell you the shape of his breasts. (You're welcome.) Or I could go whole hog.

With all of this having been said, at the very least, and if nothing gets changed, we need more options for the current traits. Maybe we can use this thread for some suggestions upon those lines.
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Teri
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Re: Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

Post by Teri »

From march 26th vc notes
Q: What are the extents of personal character customization plans in the future? I.E. Will we ever be able to customize our character's walking styles (Maya bounces west), higher level of description via look Maya command etc?
A: Maybe. But feels it knocks him out of the feel of things. Considering it, but meh. Would need to be convinced.
For facial features etc: Would be happy to add more if kept to a standard and without different writing styles. More hair description options, or nose, eyebrows, nails and nail polish. Give suggestions on bbs
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Navi
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Re: Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

Post by Navi »

From what I read on discord, and from what I've experienced on other Muds, custom descriptions serve more as applications/resumes than anything. Considering my own experiences from COGG, CLOK, and experiences on other RPI muds and mushes, my opinion, and I cannot stress this enough, "my opinion" is these types of resumes only drive a wedge between the players who view themselves as elites and all others. I have not interacted with a single player on COGG who has not had something to contribute to the game world, to whatever extent that is. Those, like myself, who use the say command and very little of the emote/social commands, to the players who exclusively use the emote command, everyone has added something to the world. I'm not saying that custom descriptions would mean these players would not be any less or more impactful, but based on what I've read, they would signal other players to feel like they shouldn't interact with them. Template descriptions are perfect IMO. Perhaps more descriptors should be made available. For those players who have exquisite detailed emotes who want to show off their skills, custom descriptions aren't the end all be all. Show off the skills you have in your emotes, no one's telling you not to. All I ask is that you make as much effort role playing with the detailed mote users as you do with the less detailed oriented players. I haven't seen any issues thus far, but it's always a concern of mine. Anyway, that's all I have to contribute.
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Ephemeralis
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Re: Conceptualization: Take a Closer Look.

Post by Ephemeralis »

I genuinely cannot visualize 99.9% of COGG's current player characters because of how generic and non-descript the default descriptions are. The few that I can have received bespoke customizations that make them stand out in a crowd. Even people's outfits are a stretch at times, a sometimes dizzying whirl of rarely-used colours (glaucous, anyone?) on top of often very generic clothes (unless they're from a festival or are... wait for it... merchant customized). The end result in my head is that people are more or less talking heads with an alias and aura colour attached to them.

It's far harder to put a visual to most characters than it should be. I don't think we need RPI-style 300 word custom descriptions, but some widespread and free ability to denote hairstyle (this one in particular is huge) and general facial features (are they stern looking? severe? inviting? shy? do they have facial hair?) desperately needs to happen. "That stern-looking Rhuidim woman with braids" is infinitely easier to visualize than "that Rhuidim woman in clothes" which is more or less what we get, and that's even accounting for Rhuidim having fairly unique physical appearances to begin with!
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