Official Flavortext Guide

[Dea Tacita]

After some confusion from a number of players over what goes where, how it works and some other issues. Staff has decided to create an official guide to Flavor-text. Posted Below

Flavor Text:

What it is: A configuration option that’s available (But not required) in the character creation menu. It’s grown quite popular since it has been implemented a few years ago, and even got a new face with the update allowing for limb-specific texts. It is used for ‘objective’ physical descriptions of a character.

What it isn't: A place for background information, descriptions of specific clothing, or ‘emotion-forcing’ to other characters.

Writing a flavor text

The point of a flavor text is to give a person the ability to look at your character and ‘see what you see’ in-so-far as your character, going beyond just “Oh, a 2D spessman”.

A decent flavor text contains any important physical features of your character. Such as height, hair, facial features, tattoos, scars etc. What I generally do is ‘go down’ a character's body, starting at head and working my way down with the description as this is generally how someone will notice you, head then everything else.

A critical part of writing a F.T. is an understanding of the correct type of tense to you. I've seen people use 1st. person, which is incorrect and should be replaced with the more correct 2nd or 3rd person, like “This is a short, Asian woman”, or “You see a short, Asian woman.” instead of “I am a short, Asian woman.”

The most common error I see is a subjective description instead of the more correct objective description. What I mean by this is “They are a beautiful woman”. By doing this, you are forcing a train of thought into another character's head. Another good example is “They look scary” or “They look like a bad ass” avoid these.

Instead of “They’re the prettiest girl you've ever seen” actually describe their physical features and leave it up to the players to decide if they’re pretty. Beauty is subjective, not everyone looks at one specific type of facial feature as “beautiful”.

An additional thing that is preferred is, if your character has an accent AND you have the ability to pull off that accent in a tasteful way. To Role play an actual accent instead of writing in your flavor text that your character talks a certain way. If you cannot do an accent, that's fine to in addition, use emotes and the ‘me’ verb to show how your character moves. A good way to look at this is, it’s perfectly possible that someone might see your character while they’re seated, or sleeping in the dorm. How would they know how your character walks, talks or moves?

An issue that’s rarer than most of the rest of these is the inclusion of clothing and or gear into a flavor text. Your character will not always been wearing these particular pieces of clothing and that’s generally something to be avoided. Vague references to how your character wears certain things are permissible however, such as “Their hands tend to hover around in their pockets”

Mechanically, there are separate boxes in-which you write your flavor text. Those being the following:

General: Always visible, should be used for general body-shape, weight and age

Head: Vanishes if you wear an enclosed helmet, used for describing head-shape and size

Face: Vanishes if you wear a mask, used for descriptions of facial structure, mouth etc.

Eyes: Vanishes if you wear glasses/masks that cover the face. Used for describing eyes

Body: Vanishes if you wear an enclosed exosuit(Spacesuits), Used to describe general features the character's body has universally. Such as muscle-ton, skin color, etc.

Arms: Vanishes if you wear an enclosed exosuit or wear a jumpsuit with rolled-down sleeves. Used to describe Arms

Hands: Vanishes if you wear gloves. Used to describe your character's hands.

Legs: Vanishes if you wear a jumpsuit. Used to describe your character's legs.

Feet: Vanishes if you wear shoes. Used to describe your character's feet.

[Rusty Shackleford]

no mention of sexy buttcheeks

0/10 would not erp with

[wowzewow]

Honestly, I believe your points are very valid - not every goddamn thot on the street is beautiful depending on who you talk to. Flavor text is a diving board, something you can bounce RP off. A bad flavortext restricts it.

[Scheveningen]

You're objectively wrong. All of my thots are beautiful

[Bauser]

Note: For people who attach character art to their flavor-texts, the "general" section is probably not the best place to put it. If you do that, people will always be able to see who your character is, no matter what. It's better to tie it to the face or body, so you can hide yourself a little if the need arises (or just when it makes sense in-game).

[Scheveningen]

Too bad, I do it anyway

[Bauser]

Well it'll be your funeral when you totally mask yourself as an antag and change your voice and everyone can still see you're Schevy Schase or whoever you play