Character Description

[DarkFuneral209]

As the responsibility of a player character to aid in the story building of each character and the servers story when creating a character description what should we be putting in that section? When another PC examines another PC and from a role play point of view what should be included in this?

Opinions?

[SteelsSweets]

I usually put what someone can see when they look at the character.

Stuff not supported by the engine like scars, jewelry, beauty marks, etc.

I sometimes often add their default demeanor. Like if they were being observed as they stood idle, what kind of expression would they have?

One of my pet peeves is the background in there. While I understand some put it there for their own reminding or what not, my character would not know that you killed your father's teacher and fled for your life and are now being hunted as you search for your long lost dog.

[The GrumpyCat]

Things You might Want to put in
*Appearence (how they look)
*Demeanor (are they often cheerful, grumpy, scowling)
*Accent
*Clothing styles
*Any special tokens they wear
*Physical built (tall and lanky, short and squat, curvacious, ect)
*Movement style - 'Lumbers along' 'skips' 'strolls' 'strides'.

You don't have to put -all- these things in of course, but that's just some thoughts on things that might fit. Basicaly anything another PC might notice about your PC at a glance, or after a short interaction.

Things you Should Not put in
* Background (We don't really police this as DMs, but generally I'd say it's not great form. How can you know someones background just by looking at them?)
* Anything none PG rated (this should be obvious folks)
* OOC stuff (generally avoid things like ((hi just here for rp not pvp! Send tells for more info!))

The leangth is up to you.

[Old Kentucky Shark]

I like to put in as much sensory information as makes sense.

Sight: Many of the things mentioned above. Height, build, clothing styles, how they move, facial features, distinguishing marks or possessions, apparent age

Sound: Its nice to know whether someone is speaking in a low rumbling basso or a lilting musical soprano, as well as any accents

Smell: Does your character smell like old leather? The exotic scents of spell components? Perfumes? Body odor? Tobacco or spirits? Wet dog? (looking at you, totem druids!) A detail like this can really add to the realism of a character

Taste and touch are obviously less relevant

[Memelord]

Short and sweet is the key. Don't overdo it. 80% of people don't want to (and will not) read the small novella you've written in your character's description (there's a reason why the gold standard for character descriptions in PnP is "Be able to describe your character in two sentences or less, but be able to give further details when relevant or when others ask for them) - it should describe how they appear, physically, and then also give some hints as to your character's personality. Give enough detail that people can get a mental image of your character without going completely overboard, while simultaneously giving a sense of who your character is as a person.

An example from one of my own characters:



Paragraph 1 gives you a quick overview of general features: he's young, and he's big. But more importantly, he's got that sort of cocksure personality that really only comes from being that young. Personality.

Paragraph 2 gives finer details without belaboring the point, while working in a few more points of personality.

A quick addendum in the form of Paragraph 3 potentially gives people an immediate reason to associate with him, an avenue to open RP - he's openly displaying a symbol of his faith, allowing people to immediately draw whatever conclusions they want based off of who he worships, and inviting other Helmites to go "S'up brah."

Short, sweet. You get an idea of what he looks like, and who he is, and it potentially generates opportunities for RP on its own.

[Commissar]

Memelord, nail, head.

Short and sweet are the words of the day. In all likelihood, it's not relevant that a character has a half-faded scar on the third knuckle of their right hand from the time they fell from a tree as an infant child. Nor is any sane character likely to notice that sort of detail on the first glance.

Just because you know everything about your character doesn't mean your reader needs to. It's your job as an author to choose the interesting parts.

Two to three short paragraphs. Give me the most defining aspects of your character. Be creative in how you describe them, giving more description to prominent characteristics and less (if any) to trivial ones. A smile that a serpent would have been envious of paints a more vivid picture then A sly grin (within reason! A sea of similes is often worse than none at all!). If they're not succinct, then rewrite, retype, and revise until they are. If your character's a novel, the description is your blurb. A hook, like Memelord's holy symbol, is worth more than a million lines on the color of Jane Doe's eyes. Make a description a bridge to RP, not a list of instructions.

Less is more.

[Conversations With Your Car Alarm]

Seven had a good guide to writing descriptions years ago. Someone holla at that dude, it was spot on.

[TimeAdept]

Bullet point physical description.

Paragraph 1: Physical appearance description and usual equipment.

Paragraph 2: Social mannerisms and RP hooks (holy symbols, tattoos, emblems, scars, notable features, etc)

Works great.

[Fionn]

I'm still weirded out by that warm challenging stare

[PinataPlethora]

What would others notice about your character, which would tell them something relevant?

Including the color of their pants may not be worth the space, if it says nothing about the character, but polished jackboots could suggest that the character is a well disciplined soldier.

A good description is full of clues and conversation starters.

[Memelord]

I'm still weirded out by that warm challenging stare

"Warm" is a perfectly acceptable adjective for referring to colors - as opposed to nearly-black brown eyes, mud-brown eyes, hazel eyes, etc. It's more interesting than saying "light brown".

[RoyalBlood]

I am pretty happy with how my character's description is. Two paragraphs is pretty much what I want to keep it to. I feel like the longer descriptions are just way too much information and if you're actively RPing you won't have time to read it all.

Things I like to include are

1: Gear, for example she is obviously wearing a sword SOMEWHERE. Like in RP if one asked "So what do you fight with" and someone whips out a huge great sword. Like... Couldn't that have been in the description I feel like I would have noticed that If it's on the back model as a backpack that's fine too I think.

2: Physical description I think is nice to elude to how the character acts IC. Like I consider Clea as an elf to be tactful, poised, calm and collected (Usually) and her fair skin and 'neatly' braided hair sort of symbolizes that personality trait through her appearance as well as hopefully giving the other player a picture in their mind of what she looks like.

3. Any other notable or distinct features that you feel are relevant

But those are my personal thoughts on descriptions. Everyone kinda does it different. Short and Sweet, that's what I like the most.

[EnigmaticSpirit]

Aodh Lazuli/Joe/Ievos writes the *best* descriptions. Read his. Very good examples.

I honestly wish mine were better. I tend to stick to the purely visual, but Joe gets everything right down to the mannerisms.

[Marsi]

A good rule of thumb is the scroll bar test -- there shouldn't be one. Utilitarian descriptions are fine, but I much prefer those that tell a story. A character's precise height, weight and eye colour is only very rarely going to factor into roleplay.

Flow is crucial, so prune approximators or passive and 'uncertain' language -- sort of, usually, seems to be, appears to be, suggests, rather, would, almost, about, somewhat, etc. Instead of "he appears to be wearing rags", use "he wears rags". Short, punctual sentences are good. I'd also avoid 'essayspeak', the sort of language I'd expect to read in a biology paper: approximately, facilitates, reminiscent, indicating, etc. It's just awkward and overly technical which breaks up the flow. These are really just aesthetic concerns, however. You want to pack a punch and have it stick in the mind of everyone who examines your character.

[One Two Three Five]

I usually start with a short description and add onto it as I get invested into the character/stuff happens to their corporeal form.

[Tryn Dralar]

I always do bullet points for:

Race:
Height:
Weight:
Hair:
Eyes:

Followed by maybe a short paragraph describing other visible features, weapons, clothing/armor, smell maybe. Backpack variety of pouches, but I DO NOT name off smaller things in pouches or backpack.

[Emotionaloverload]

I have had characters with long descriptions and some with short because my tactic is based on WYSIWYG and the character's rp because the narrative/the way you tell your character extends to the description. So I open with broad strokes; is he average size? Sure, I can include that but unless his size is overwhelming or underwhelming, then I don't mind leaving it out. If he is average and I include it, it might be because I am telling the story of an average guy turned -insert development here-

I do this for every part of the description, even weapons. If something is included on there, its usually something that stands out or that is telling the story. But! That doesn't mean everything is included. If some points or props only make a partial appearance depending on the situation or mood then I like to leave that out rather than saying "Sometimes carries beads" because then it allows the characters that interact most often with mine a chance to find the pattern or causes and learn more about the character than a passersby.

For special situations when a character emotes something like *Looks at the left hand* or whatever then I am more than happy to get into the description further (I usually have an entire page long description on hand or committed to memory). I prefer not to use tells for a scene unless I have to so it there is something that needs higher perception or lore then I will add that in the emote and let the player decide what they believe their character would see or know like *A knowledgeable viewer will understand...* or *A keen eye would notice...*

I do think it is important to have a description because it helps those around you find hooks with your character. Maybe both characters are helmites but you would never know if your priest has their symbol on or not without a description. It also helps players that are slower typers, new to rp or new to english from having to throw up emotes about looking at your character to prompt some descriptors.

-S

[kainshots]

I admit my descriptions are often times bad, usually just a paragraph giving a quick description of the character. eye color/hair color/height then general demeanor and finally a noticeable trait like a tattoo or holy symbol. But, when it comes to reading other peoples descriptions the best ones in my eyes are the ones that leave me wanting to know more about the character. Where the description lets me know what they look like but are worded in a way that makes me ask why.

The descriptions I like the least, and not that I'm calling anyone out after all my own descriptions are bad, are the ones that calls the character beautiful or handsome. Because that's not an actual description, that's an opinion and in a world full of very different races, the definition of beautiful varies widely. What a dwarf considers beautiful ain't going to be the same as what the elf does.

[DarkFuneral209]

Thank you all for the great points! How does this look? I have multiple characters I have written descriptions for and I wrote them earlier and I’m going to think about it if it actually embodies what each character is.

You see a tall man standing at 6’ 4” (193cm) with board shoulders and a narrow waist. When his helm is off you can see a weather worn face with eyes that have seen terrible things. His beard is full but keeps his mustache trimmed to not overgrow his upper lip. A pronounced scar runs from the right side of his nose to his cheek like he was heavily bludgeoned.
He carry’s himself in a clean and disciplined manner and his armor and clothes are well maintained and leather straps have been oiled. The holy symbol of Helm tattooed on the top of his right hand is in view or if covered the same is on his gauntlet.

[Efflorescence]

I admit my descriptions are often times bad, usually just a paragraph giving a quick description of the character.

There's absolutely nothing bad about that. I would rather people kept descriptions simple, short and to the point so they're easy to read quickly. Long, lovingly detailed paragraphs of text are fun to write but difficult to read especially in the midst of actual RP activity.

[BegoneThoth]

I have my twitch and YT channels in there so people can watch my shadowdancer spy streams.

[Drakkenstien]

Thank you all for the great points! How does this look? I have multiple characters I have written descriptions for and I wrote them earlier and I’m going to think about it if it actually embodies what each character is.

You see a tall man standing at 6’ 4” (193cm) with board shoulders and a narrow waist. When his helm is off you can see a weather worn face with eyes that have seen terrible things. His beard is full but keeps his mustache trimmed to not overgrow his upper lip. A pronounced scar runs from the right side of his nose to his cheek like he was heavily bludgeoned.
He carry’s himself in a clean and disciplined manner and his armor and clothes are well maintained and leather straps have been oiled. The holy symbol of Helm tattooed on the top of his right hand is in view or if covered the same is on his gauntlet.

To me, it often detracts when people give an exact height to the centimeter/inch, mostly because it breaks the sense of immersion in the game. Standards of measurement were not codified until well into the 18th and 19th centuries, and we don't customarily look at someone in the real world and say "He's six foot, four inches!" It's not really a necessity in the game to know, and there's practically no time that I'll ever use that information as a player. Saying he's somewhat over six feet would be fine, that also gives you a bit of play as a character in case you ever need to loom over someone. However, this is personal preference.

That being said, there's some other small grammatical issues on the description (carries not carry's; broad not board), and the flow is slightly disjointed. However, those issues are fixable, and it seems pretty workable with some editing. If you want, I could point out some areas for improvement via PM. It's not bad overall, and a damn sight better than the novellas I usually see.

[The GrumpyCat]

Just a writing suggestion here- (feel free to ignore) but how about instead of: "eyes that have seen terrible things." you had 'A haunted gaze' or 'haunted eyes.' It's snappier and is fairly similar to what I think you're going for with the description?

[DarkFuneral209]

Yeah my bad on the grammar was talking to my phone when I was typing that sitting in hours of traffic. Should have double checked it.

Thanks for the help.

[BegoneThoth]

Character descriptions can only be used against you to identify you later; I see why so many do not use them, WYSIWYG.