The "Help My Description"-thread

[Bimpni]

First thing, read HELP DESCRIPTION. This will tell you the format, 70 characters per line. What is not added to the helpfile, but is currently a requirement, descriptions need to be BETWEEN 10-16 lines of text. This means 9 lines is too short, 9 1/2 lines, too short, 10 lines, minimum. The reason for not going past 16 lines is, it can be troublesome at times, to have to hit return two or three times, to try and see what someone is wearing/thier condition (if not grouped) what spells they have up.

Second thing, read HELP WHATEVERYOURRACEIS

I've seen 7 foot tall halflings, 4 foot tall giants. Which is completely backwards. At least get a general idea of what your race 'looks' like. Each race has a helpfile, that tells about thier appearence, history, and culture.

If you do these two things, your description will more then likely be approved the first time. Also, (if you read help description, you will know this) Your description should be like a photograph. You don't hear sounds from a photograph, thats called a video. So don't make the reader feel/think anything, either. Take aleistar crowley for example, Ever see a picture of that guy? People thought he kinda looked scary. But in today's society, I look at a picture of him, and I think Uncle Fester from the addams family, not truely scarey at all. You want to let your reader make up thier own mind in regards to how they feel when they read your desc.

EDIT: Wanted to add, if you want a quest race (restring) Please submit your application before/at the same time as your dcheck. More often then I would have thought, I've rejected descriptions, to learn (the next day when the player responds to my note) That they were indeed going for a restring. If you have a human, and your description is blue skin, and a giant white diaper around the waist, and one on the head, thats well and good, but we won't know you're applying for a restring to a smurf, unless there is an application for a restring from that character. I see blue skin, giant diaper, human, no quest app for that character, and I reject it, and refer the player to help description and help (your race). Also when going for a restring, try and select a coded race that is closest to your restring. Human generally works, but for a smurf, for example, a halfling or gnome restrung might be more the size/stats of a smurf.

This post was not intended to pick on anyone, lately even the descriptions I reject for one reason or another tend to be, in my opinion, good, some are outstanding, but nevertheless have been rejected due to the above mentioned reasons. My intention with creating this post, is to help you the players get past level 15 as quickly as possible, and doing what you want to with your character. I never had fun sitting at 15 waiting for an approval, or waiting ever really, for anything, I'm impatient though.

[Vintervalpen]

The "Help My Description"-thread:

This is something I've seen in a few other muds, and I think it's an awesome idea. Basically, if English isn't your first language, if you're not very good at creative writing, or if you just want some input on your newest character's appearances, post your description here and the rest of the community will be able to have a look at it and (supposedly) offer some tips/advice/criticism/praise. Hopefully you'll be able to improve it a bit or just learn a new thing or two about the English language.

I'll start by posting a few tips and pointers I've learned while crafting in some of the IRE muds. I'm sure a lot of you people already adhere to these standards, but it might be useful information regardless:

1a. A good description should be like a picture frozen in time that can be accessed at any time. What does this mean? It means that anyone might look at you at any time and see your character as it is. As such, the following might not be suitable, 'You look upon a stealthy rogue, merging with the shadows in the room to the point where he can barely be discerned. He notices your gaze and turns to you with a wry smile and flick his wrists; suddenly, a steel dagger appears seemingly out of nowhere, he spins it lazily in the palm of his hand before it disappears again.' What if you visit someone's wedding? Or if you're standing in a completely illuminated room, where no shadows exist? If you absolutely -want- to spin a dagger in your hand, use the emote system instead. That's how we express our characters' actions in the game anyway.

1b. It is exactly the same with forcing another person's reactions. You may roleplay the nastiest runt from Miruvhor's bad neighborhoods, but your description can't say that people tremble in fear at your sight. After all, not everyone that look at your description will fear you (or will even be capable of fear). What if Anume showed up and took a good stare at you? Do you really think She would be frightened by your presence?

1c. This is probably the most redundant point, but people won't know your history by looking at you. As an example, the following line is considered incorrect: 'She was raised in the wilds from the age of ten, her entire family having been murdered by orcs.' Compare this with: 'There is an almost feral quality about this woman, her clothes torn and a wild, haunted look visible in her eyes.'


2a. The format of the description itself matters a lot. Proper punctuation make the really good descriptions stand out. If your description is long, separate it into suitably sized paragraphs. People lose interest if you're hell-bent on describing every inch of your character's body down to each individual straw of hair. The same can be said for sentences that are too long and try to describe too much. You will be able to better convey a specific appearance or emotion by using multiple sentences than by having one really long sentence with too many commas. Similarly, a bland description of only two or three sentences is not enough to give people a feel for what your character is like.

2b. Hyphens are used to connect an adjective that doesn't describe the main noun. An example: 'a man-eating lion' is a lion that eats men, but 'a man eating lion' is a man that is eating lion.

2c. Emdashes are used to emphasize something you have written (as opposed to a paranthesis that is not used to draw attention): 'Several precious gems - mainly rubies and sapphires - have been attached to the hilt of her sword.' Notice how the sentence would still be completely normal even if you removed the emdash.

2d. Semicolons are used to connect two complete sentences that are related to each other: 'Her soft, silvery hair flows like shimmering moonlight along her back; a delicate silver mesh contains the many strands, ensuring that none of them fall in front of her face.'

2e. Colons are useful when you're making a list. As such, 'Each of his three rings is a different colour: red, blue, and yellow.'


3. Try to catch peoples' imagination with your description. It is an excellent tool to make people want to know about you, your past, and hopefully your ideals. You don't always have to shy away from stereotypes, personally I tend to build my characters from one and add interesting quirks or deviations. A fat midget elf is too far away from peoples' mental image of what an elf is to instantly make you want to know his background, but an elf with an eating disorder that stems from psychological trauma might be an interesting character to get to know (although this might be tricky to get across with a description, although you could definitely hint at some of the symptoms in it).


A few other minor suggestions:

• If you incorporate strange designs, signets, heraldric arms, or tattoos, describe how said feature looks instead of referring to a special organisation's, person's, or family's symbol. Very few people will know what the symbol secret cult in Rheydin's cemetary uses as their crest, so 'The mark of The Unholy Gravediggers adorns his forehead' is less suitable than 'A symbol of a shattered shovel has been imprinted upon his brow'.
• Spelling out numbers look a lot better. Reading through a description, seeing a '2' will draw the attention away from what is written, while 'two' fits in more seamlessly.
• Don't be too repetitive. A common mistake is starting each sentence with one of 'His/Her/She/He'. An example: 'He is strong. His hair is dark as a raven. His hands are rough from working on a farm. His moustache is the same colour as his hair. He has a tan.' Compare this with: 'Before you is a strong man. His hair and moustache both are a raven-black hue. Calloused hands and a leather-brown tan hint at time spent working on a farm.'
• Dictionary.com is a wonderful webpage that works both as a dictionary and a thesaurus. It is really helpful when making descriptions, applications, and other such writing.

[Icor]

Excellent thread. =)

[Volgathras]

Good start. Stickied.

[Vintervalpen]

I realize this thread is stickied, but figured I'd give it a bump anyway.

 

Anyone out there feeling like they want some advice on their description, feel free to post it here and I'll take a gander and offer some advice/feedback.