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[Ashar Kor-Azor]

Hey, folks. I came with a tip.

One of the (few) things people occasionally say is good about my roleplay is my capacity for what we sometimes end up calling 'physical characterization,' which is to say that I can give people a strong sense of what my character's doing, or of its posture, or whatever else. This can help in visualization and other such concerns. I accomplish it by making mention of a number of small motions and occasional details that has become too natural to me to easily describe or provide steps for how to learn it, but here's something that helped me think it over.

It may help you in your roleplay, or it may not, or it may be a fun read. Give the link a click and find out.

The skinny I'll provide beforehand goes something like 'extremely popular comic artist talks about the principles he considers useful in developing strong characterization in a static medium with certain similarities to the kind of roleplay we do in EVE.'

Here you go, sailor: http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/3583964949/figures-they-speak-for-themselves-mildly-nsfw

[Seriphyn]

I approve of such things, I often very carefully detail the gestures and animations of Seriphyn the character. If you're referring to things like...

* Seriphyn rubs his hand across his jaw, groaning in thought, "Shit, I dunno, it's a good question though"

* Seriphyn points aggressively at the Sansha loyalist, furrowing his brow angrily, "You're fuckin' dead, you are"

* Seriphyn sits in his seat, leaning back with a slow, fatigued exhale. Resting his hands on the back of his head, he glances up to the ceiling.

Things like that? I often am very meticulous about "visualization" in RP.

[Ashar Kor-Azor]

Those are all actions that relate mainly to body-language. I'd suggest taking a closer look at the article.

[Seriphyn]

Yeah, I didn't read it, I just read the topic title and went "oooo". I'll give a read and a more proper response thereafter 

[Senn Typhos]

I tried to imagine Senn smiling.

I think I get the point of this article now. ._.

[Lyn Farel]

Very awesome article. I was already more or less aware of the character design work because its basically one thing i do RL, though for the other  article linked inside about clothes (as much as interesting as this one btw), i learned a lot either RL or RP.

Though as usual I tend to be limited by my own skills in english. *rages*

[Kybernetes Moros]

The degree of detail that I put into 'physical' descrption, be that either just fluffy additional stuff or something that actually describes the [motion | action | gesture | whatever] in greater depth to shed light on the [mood | feelings | temper | whatever else] for the character, tends to vary, if I'm honest.

On a comms channel rather than 'actual' place (The Summit rather than The Last Gate, for example), I tend to keep it relatively minimal anyway: a grin, shrug, sigh, and so on. When the character is there physically, it's often pretty dependent on the context. If something brief suffices and what the character actually says allows the rest to be inferred, then again, I'll keep it simple; if the character doesn't say anything for some reason, I probably make it more detailed given that there's more room with which to work in terms of a message.

Mostly it comes down to me finding that, in the case of Kyber, anyway, RP flows better if I keep the number of messages down; unless he's, say, telling a story in more detail than a couple of full messages, I don't really like to use too many. Of course, there'll be the odd incidence where what Kyber's saying and doing don't synch too well, in which case I forego that and put speech and action in mild detail.

In an ideal world, conveying the full detail in a concise form would be delightful, but my lack of writing talent and the aforementioned restrictions on message length and so on mean I tend towards cutting corners somewhere or another. Not unlike when it comes to prose, I guess; often (well, often insofar as 'most times I write prose, infrequent as that may be') I'll omit specific description for the sake of keeping the pace up, setting a tone, or whatever the shiny technical terms are.

I tried to imagine Senn smiling.

I think I get the point of this article now. ._.

One day, I shall get one out of him. One day.

* Kybernetes Moros fistshake!