Someone got a thesaurus for Christmas

[lurkythespork]

First of all, in the spirit of Cookiecat's and Light and Winged's brilliant posts about why we do what we do here, I'm announcing a change to my modus operandi:  I'll be blotting out the names of featured characters, unless knowing the name is critical to understanding why this is a Sue (for instance, a canon character or some relative thereof, or

Comments

[deadborder]

Being more wordy doesn't mean that your RSP is any better

[thinginthetub]

It's kind of the opposite, really. If someone engages me in RP, I want to be able to click on their profile and get a good, quick idea of who they are so I can react appropriately. I don't want to slog through a veritable swamp of thesaurus soup just to know who I'm dealing with.

[lurkythespork]

On my current best RSP, I describe the character in this sequence of details:

Height and build
Bearing
Hair color and style (it's slightly different from the character model)
Mention of glasses, and eye color
Face shape
Condition of clothes
Voice

It's longer than most of my usual, but it's still only two short paragraphs and a sentence. One of these days I might post it somewhere.

[arachnogeek]

This. This forever.

I recently had a guildie tell me they weren't ready to fill out their flag because they hadn't written up their entire backstory yet. I intervened and explained that a few quick facts that anyone who hangs out where they hang out could know would be plenty. I'm an avid reader, but shorter is better when if comes to something that should kickstart live RP. If I start reading your flag when you say hi and there's a long enough pause for you to become convinced I'm AFK, there's a problem.

[metalsyko]

I remember reading some months ago a post by MG's favorite loud-mouthed forum troll that insinuated that someone who didn't have a four-mile long RSP was a bad RPer. (That's the glossed-over gist of her post.)

I'm sorry, but I'm used to the non-WoW RP days where one had a very limited amount of space to describe a character. (The MU* scene, AoL, Furcadia /shudder, and even the five lines and postage-stamp portrait space you're given on your average pen-and-paper sheet.) I'm not The Mentalist, I'm not going to notice every single scar or detail or quirk in a glance like I'm memorizing their defining features in case I have to describe them to a police sketch artist later. :|

[lostveracity]

Oh nostalgia -- Brevity was the savior of most AOL RP flags -- especially when one wanted to add all sorts of color and bells and whistles to their profiles.

Though you do remind me of one thing I am so veryvery thankful that never escaped the Red Dragon Inn and followed us to Azeroth. "Tiers" for lips.

Knaak has the monopoly on the orbs...but tiers...ngggh.

[metalsyko]

First off: OMG EDUARDO YAY

The limited space was sometimes such a boon to the AOL RPer, usually if the person spent most of the text space on having a black background and special fonts or ASCII roses or whatever, their actual profile was so blissfully and hilariously short. I also never quite figured out how "tiers" was a suitable substitute for lips. I mean, orbs, sure. Eyes are round-ish. But tiers? I mean, unless you're "born wit' big gums, suh" like poor Bubba ... I just ... don't see it.

As for me, I'm grateful that Azerothian inns don't seem to have the inane amount of "dark shadowy corners" that your average RDI had. Sometimes I felt like I was sitting inside a dodecahedron. Every other bloody Drizzt Do'Urden or Raistlin wannabe was brooding in a dark corner being all sulky.

[lostveracity]

I never fully understood the tiers or 'impossibly slender digits' r any of the other jargon that was created in those days.

But don't forget the rafters. Oh god the rafters. (How did people get up there, anyway?) And the bloodwyne.