At the table: descriptive flair befitting your character class?

[Driddle]

A tangent to the poll, http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=142126&page=1&pp=40 ... Consider the following examples of player description expressed during tabled roleplaying scenarios:

"Naturally, I unsheath my father's longsword, an oathsworn family heirloom, and rush the foul creature with a mighty roar of defiance. ... ((insert roar here))"

"I kneel in supplication and ask Horace the All-Healing to save my brave companion's life. 'Oh mighty gawd, knit this warrior's wounds...'"

"Dark Dirk will cautiously feel his way along the ledge, trusting his keen vision to pick out any details otherwise hidden in the shadows. Hopefully, his new kid-leather, soft-sole boots were worth the price..."

"'Alakazzam!' -- standard magic missile spell, nothing too flashy. After that, Balthazar will prep the requisite rat tail and talcum dust for his next spell..."

Maybe not the best examples, but they serve my purpose here. I'm curious about the amount of descriptive creativity you apply to your character's actions, as befitting the role of his class. I think we've all expressed variations of the standard battle cry expected in physical melee -- that one's easy. But what about the rest? Any minor rhymes or silly made-up words come to mind for magic spells/divine prayers? Do you bother to describe job components other than the gleaming rune-carved axe your character swings over his head?

 

[The Lost Muse]

Well, I've tried to include more description since moving to chat based gaming as opposted to table top gaming, but I haven't used that level of detail. I like what I see, but as a GM being concise online really helps. I will encourage my players to be more descriptive though.

 

[Driddle]

Most of the time, we discuss the game environment in shorthand, or very blunt descriptors that get the job done, ala "I hit with my +2 sword" or "I cast a healing spell."

In a game that's rolling along nicely with characterization bits, the details are most likely to bloom around important or stressful moments -- the end-of-the-campaign climax battle, for instance, or the save-versus-death scene.

It's my guess, though, that between those two extremes players are far more comfortable describing gore, flash, emotional outbursts and other details relating to melee combat and weaponry, and far less so with arcane or divine magic.

 

[Mista Collins]

I like to get as descriptive as possible as it adds to the session. The group I play in isn't just about battling and killing evil. We take pride in our characters and every chance we get to make them look like heroes we take it. So the next time the barbarian decides to climb the rope he will "grip the hemp with this sturdy hands and use the rough hewn stone wall adjacent to him, hoping all the while that the knot the rogue tied at the top will be enough to hold his weight"

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Show, don't tell.

When I do things like that, I don't go into long, turgid descriptions of my PC, or of his lineage. If I want to bring those things up, I might mention something briefly, in order to spark a question, and then reveal that his longsword belonged to his great grandfather the lich-killer or something like that. If it's relevant to the situation at hand, I'll bring it up.

I do a lot of description of how I'm going to do something, rather than what I'm doing it with.

 

[kenobi65]

I've just started playing in the RPGA's Living Arcanis campaign; my PC is a Coryani (very similar to the Roman Empire), and a cleric of Beltine, the goddess of healing.

I've researched a little pidgin Latin to use as "verbal components" for spells, to add a little flavor. All of my PC's spells start with, "In nomine Beltinae..." (In the name of Beltine...)

 

[Mercule]

My last long-term character was a Baklunish rogue/thief-acrobat who was the son of a merchant in Greyhawk. He was a bit arrogant, but refined, and definitely Lawful Good (even if he marched to the beat of a slightly different law). I styled him off the romanticized images of the Islamic warrior-poets from the Middle Ages. Aside from frustrating some of the other PCs with my codes of honor, the major character "schtick" was him introducing himself to someone new:

PC: I am Khorad ip Ehsan ip Farjad. And I am pleased to meet you.

Since most of the other PCs were lucky to have a first name that was longer than "Bob", that long-winded, formal introduction always got a couple of "Gesundheit" comments or the like. Still, it always help to set the refined, but foreign tone -- to me, at least -- to say that spiel.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Ya gotta be careful with those long names, though. I had one player (who didn't last long) who had a huge, long name that he pronounced differently every time he said it. And he said it every time he met a new NPC.

 

[sniffles]

Most of the time, we discuss the game environment in shorthand, or very blunt descriptors that get the job done, ala "I hit with my +2 sword" or "I cast a healing spell."

I'd love to see my fellow players get more descriptive, but in practice it usually turns out more like what Driddle describes. That seems to be particularly true in campaigns with more players, but our smaller groups don't do much better. Description takes time away from the action, and from other players, sadly.

 

[Hypersmurf]

PC: I am Khorad ip Ehsan ip Farjad. And I am pleased to meet you.

"My name is Ahmed ibn Fahdlan ibn Al Abbas ibn Rashid ibn Hamad."
"Eben?"
"No, listen. My name is Ahmed ibn Fahdlan. Ibn means son of."
"Eben."

-Hyp.