Taverns, the antithesis of RP

Critical hits should scar. Long jagged for slashing or chopping, puckered for pierce weapons, I don't know about bludgeoning. That would be awesome.

No one will want to fight the heavy hitters in sparring, otherwise your character would end up a walking mass of scar tissue by the end of his first year in-game.

You seem to go looking for things to take offense to. I'm not sure if it's a persecution complex or if you're the type to enjoy acting the victim, but not unlike how feminists screaming at Larry King are a detriment to the credibility of the woman's rights movement, you're doing more harm to your cause than you realize.

I want to establish first and foremost: I enjoyed playing with your characters when I had the chance and am comfortable saying they're often more interesting and fleshed out in far more minute detail than most others. I consider you one of the better players in the RPI community and have even used your descriptions as a reference for writing my own.

However, those characters almost all fit a specific mold and share common themes, enough so that you were one of the easiest to spot players in my time playing the game. They were regularly beautiful, artistically inclined (singing, dancing), extremely horny and emotionally damaged, having been the victim of an often male-based abuse, rape or other similar trauma in their background. They're often elemental, "amping up" the victimized theme to a sometimes grating degree.

You're a part of the image problem that plagues female characters. They're excellent, interesting and fun to play with, but many of them could pass for nobility or merchant elite instead of the grebbers and down-and-outs you portray them to be. The long speeches about how the poor should be able to huddle together by the half dozen in one room shanty apartments come across quite empty when your poor house characters are often sashaying from the warrens or the magick quarter with a look that could stop traffic on any street in L.A., never mind Zalanthas.

It isn't that the point is invalid, but that it's hard to take seriously when you are known for beautiful, elegant and often times highly intelligent and educated characters that are supposedly so poor they need to do "things" for people to get by. You're claiming to stand for equality (homosexuality, women's rights, etc), but you're more often than not portraying women in the game as needy, sex-hungry victims of male malevolence, when the theme of the game promotes the genders as truly equal in all ways.

Your views as a person and your preference for characters shouldn't reflect upon each other, but we're all human and unfortunately, that isn't necessarily how it works.

The beautiful female, untouched by reality, is much more common than the counterpart male, to such a degree that it's questionable to make the comparison at all. The male PC population is much larger than the female, yet the females make up the vast, sweeping majority of the Paris runway models that seem to enjoy vacationing on Zalanthas as sword swinging Valkyrie's or 'roided out Hercules.

How often have you seen "exotic" used in a male description? Sultry? Sensual? Well-endowed? How often do you see a male description or short description that has been shaped around how sizable their "privates" are? A certain Tor NPC notwithstanding, of course. A sizable bulge below the belt, indeed.

Now, how often do you see the above in female characters? I have seen several characters in the last year with their gigantic breasts being so prominent, so lush and full, nearly bursting from their too-tight tops, nipples perpetually hardened and straining sensually against the taut fabric of their clothing (thank you, tdesc, thank you so much) that they've been used in short descriptions.

Yes, at three leagues out, the most prominent feature of Barbie the armor-clad gith slayer are her titantic titties. "She's lost in the Red Desert! Send the Byn out! Tell them to look for the hot blonde with the huge rack, you can see them from leagues away, they'll spot her for sure!"

If we were more moderate and more willing to play the plain and the average, not only would there be less of these "hateful" derails into the evils of beauty in the harsh, desert world, but when these characters do come along, people would treat them as the rare gems they were clearly intended to be, rather than "just another Aide / elemental / Byn Trooper" that is the current status quo.

Just like magick, stealth and various other topics that come up and devolve into "realism vs playability vs preference" discussions, none of it would be an issue in the first place if we were all willing to walk a little closer to the line, even to the detriment of our characters.

Since we're having that discussion, though... I find the overly beautiful far less a personal annoyance than the characters who come out of creation having already suffered the most horrific experiences of their lives, left scarred, mangled, torn and broken before they've even set foot into the game proper. At least with the excessively beautiful, they have the opportunity to suffer the realities of Zalanthas and become ugly over time with real horror stories to tell.

The completely harrowed characters really have nothing to look forward to in that department, save for dismemberment and inevitable death. Even a near death experience against a scrab or a gith is hardly going to compare to the time someone tortured them for seven days and six nights over a gambling debt, really.

I would rather have a beautiful woman or a handsome man come in, knowing that I can change that opulent appearance for the worst if it becomes necessary (even if I need to go through the staff to enforce it much of the time). There is room to threaten violence, scarring and extort them with it, where as a person who is already as ugly as they could possibly be has little to fear from the simple tavern threat of "I'll cut your face".

What are you really going to do to him that hasn't already been done?

The moderate road is the one with the most options, for everyone. There are always ways to beautify your character in game with real resources and interaction that is realistically limited by station and wealth, as well as an absolute bounty of options to become monstrously ugly, no matter who you are.

It rarely comes up as a point of discussion, so I'm interested in seeing what people think.

I nearly choked myself laughing at this one.

I did say they'd fade. More permanent scars would be from near-deadly wounds. Also with wooden training weapons Id think it'd make more sense to apply bruises rather than scars.

I won't miss them when they're gone.

I am still in the planning phase for a mud codebase. Part of what I want to implement is making it possible to investigate a crime. The perp and vic taking visible damage that gives you an idea what happened to them even if you didnt witness it is a part of that. stuff the perp has to hide later, even if they were disguised when they did the crime, you know?

very cool idea and way to force realism and accountability, as well if sparring weapons are supernerfed from the same scarring code so u know fairly certain live weapons caused it.