WHO TOLD YO- er..

Perhaps we could start a thread in Survival Guide to critique people's descriptions? Someone would post their current description, allow people to comment on them saying whether it's appropriate or not, and ways to improve.

I disagree entirely with the exact measurements theory of character description.

Would any of us glance at a person on the street and think, "Hey, she must stand right about 4 ft., 3 in."? No. We'd think, "Whoa! She's tiny!"

I blame the tradition of clinical height and weight listings for RP characters on the father of D&D, Gary Gygax, with his love for measuring and quantifying everything, even in direct defiance of usability, storytelling, and/or common sense.

Leave the exact height and weight measurement for bureaucrats, medical professionals, and law enforcement. MUD descriptions should convey general impressions.

Yeah, I'd think "Whoa, tiny!", but my next immediate thought would be "I wonder how tall she is!", and then I'd begin trying to estimate. I haven't looked at Everiine in a while, but if it's not already there, I should add "stands about 6'2"", or whatever I made his height. It gives people a clearer image of what you look like at a quick glance.

Not true... When I look at people I think they might be 5'6 or 6'2. Two numbers that I have in my head and know, and generally guess thier hight by comparing it to those two. Also, when I look at people I often find myself thinking, is she 23 or 27?

Even on T.V. when I'm watching the show little people, I find myself trying to figure out if the person is under 4 feet or not.

I don't know if cities other than New Celest have paintings and statues everywhere you turn, but they might serve a purpose other than just decoration... they are perfect examples of brilliant descriptions. So anyone who's lost in the description department - your guide is right there.

I have to agree with Exarius (!!).

Hate it when I see, "He is a tiny faeling and is about 3 feet, 1 inch tall and weighs 53 pounds."

I'd much prefer, "He is a tiny faeling of diminutive height and build.", or something.

Hey, another thing I wanna recommend! Is the Thesaurus. It's fun and original to use words most people never heard of. Feed their synapses and yours *grin*

A thesaurus is a nice tool, to an extent. I know some people who go overboard using one.

Really? Tell me more

I love a moderate slathering of creative word use, but when you need a dictionary and half an hour of free time just to decipher someone's description you may have gone too far.

Haha. True. But come on - anything turns ugly if taken too far. I meant replacing the oh-so-common "beautiful" with a more interesting word, maybe even a word that puts more life into the descripion. And so forth.

That is certainly a good use of the thesaurus. Another good use of the thesaurus is to replace words that would otherwise sound awkward because of repetition.

What is not a good use of the thesaurus, however, is to replace simple words with bigger words just for the sake of having fancier-sounding words.

Also.. you'll usually get found out if you're just using a thesaurus word because it's bigger and more impressive sounding. When you get down to it, there are few words in our language which are an exact copy of another.. they all have different nuances.. or may overlap on a thesaurus definition in a way which your use does not. I use the thesaurus, because my active vocabulary tends to be much smaller than the cache of words which I understand and could use... and it helps me think.. but it can be a bit of a two edged sword.. every now and again you pass a clear misuse.. and I cackle happily and usually don't say anything.

And Kahazul.. learning new words does you good. I'm not buying that argument. If Lusternia has a decent educative function.. then it gives me an extra reason for playing.

I don't really like describing specific heights, Saran is mean't to be a tall faeling if 1 point of size is roughly half a foot then faelings should be 2 feet tall. Also specific heights are static, you also would want to consider things such as diminish and enlarge, though any description of height could look odd after being diminished to faeling proportions.

That bugs me a little too so that is why in my descrips you will see 'She is of small stature in comparison to the average height amongst her race.' etc...works well

I'll still go with "about 6' in height", since I have a hard time conceptualizing anyting like "slightly smaller than average" or "much taller than average", since slightly and much are highly subjective (and so is "average", now that I think about it, even if "1 point of height equals x"). I guess it all comes down to preference then.

quick question ... how do you say 6 meters in height... is it also 6'?

six meters? the abreviation is m. And I'm no good with the specifics tell me an igasho is taller than avergage and that's all Saran needs to know before he bolts for safety

EDIT: bwahahaha ninja'd Shiri

No, ' only means feet, and " means inches. 6m would be 6 metres.