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Arethusa
I'm bored, and this is a subject of player culture that I haven't really seen addressed here, well, ever, to my knowledge. I remember reading an article years ago that stated the difference between male and female roleplayers:

Male: "My character is male."

Female: "My character is blond with hair cut to her shoulders, wearing a short green jacket..."

I'm sure you get the idea. Unfortunately, the generalization is bullshit, and so was the rest of the article, but it almost counts as a good anecdote to start with. Anyway, I'm curious how much attention you pay to character manerisms, appearance, clothing, haircut, etc— basically, aesthetic details. Describe your character, your game style (casual, roleplaying intensive, videogame, etc), whatever.
Kagetenshi
In real life, my hair is static. Immobile. When cut, it's somewhat shorter than usual; after about a week, it proceeds into a month-long process whereby it doesn't grow up, out, or down, but just proceeds to thicken into an impenetrable mattress which can have its form altered for a duration of a few minutes by total immersion in water. As a result, haircuts or hairstyles don't enter my mind most of the time.

That being said, certain areas of my character will be very fleshed out (for instance, my current Rigger's scarred face and single cybereye, along with the way her eyes never rest in a single place for more than two or three seconds), while others are almost nonexistent (she probably wears something comfortable and loose, I don't know. Maybe gray?). However, as a writer and an actor, I find that mannerisms make the character.

~J
hahnsoo
This definitely varies from player to player in my group. Our decker/face's old character description was "He's an average human male with a friendly face" until we forced him to try to describe the character. I mentioned that perhaps he looks like George Clooney from Oceans Eleven/Twelve and he said "Yup, that's what he looks like" without giving it much thought. So obviously it wasn't important to him.

Our rigger wrote up something like 5 pages of his character's backstory, a long tale involving betrayal, the Russian mafia, and unrequited love from a son to a father, but almost no mention of what his character actually looks like. So he was a Russian Human Male, and that's about all that we knew of him. Finally, he caved in and produced a picture from Cowboy Bebop as a sort of template/inspiration, although he does mention what type of clothes his character wears when he goes to meets.

Our mage (who is female) wrote a rather detailed description of her character's appearance, emphasizing a lot of different physical features. At first she said she had braided hair, but then thought of the Lara Croft pigtails and decided that she just wears it in a ponytail. This is a character who is Good Looking and Knows It and has a charisma of 6, so I guess it is justified.

Our demolitions expert/gun bunny was a male dwarf who wore combat BDUs, and so we got a pretty good image of what he would look like and the later description of his character that he posted for us pretty much says the same thing in many words.

As for me, well, one of the other players in the group wanted some details so she can do some sketching, so I wrote this up for her:
QUOTE
X is a dwarf, and rather tall, skinny, and lanky for one.  His face resembles Lou Diamond Phillips from "Young Guns" in terms of ethnicity and inspiration, and he has a thin mustache that connects down to a well-trimmed goatee (a la popular depictions of Lucifer).  He has long black hair that isn't in a ponytail, about shoulder length.  Since he's half-Native American, he has dusky tan skin. When I imagine him, I picture him leaning back against a fence or a brick wall, lighting a cigarette.  In  one hand is a revolver with a long barrel and a feather decoration near the hammer. The other hand is doing what I like to call the "smoker's hand cupping" mannerism, shielding the cigarette while it lights.  He wears a brown leather duster with native american bead patterns on the shoulders, breast and back, and has a 6-gallon hat.  A neck bandana, a fully buttoned black shirt with white embroidered patterns and beads, and denim pants with tall cowboy leather boots complete his dress.  He has a gun-belt with 4 leather pouches (each carrying a revolver quick-loader) and bullets lining all along the gun-belt.
Arethusa
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
In real life, my hair is static. Immobile. When cut, it's somewhat shorter than usual; after about a week, it proceeds into a month-long process whereby it doesn't grow up, out, or down, but just proceeds to thicken into an impenetrable mattress which can have its form altered for a duration of a few minutes by total immersion in water. As a result, haircuts or hairstyles don't enter my mind most of the time.

That being said, certain areas of my character will be very fleshed out (for instance, my current Rigger's scarred face and single cybereye, along with the way her eyes never rest in a single place for more than two or three seconds), while others are almost nonexistent (she probably wears something comfortable and loose, I don't know. Maybe gray?). However, as a writer and an actor, I find that mannerisms make the character.

~J

You ever consider better hair care as a possible solution for that?

Also, I'm kind of curious why you wouldn't put emphasis on clothing, given your experience with acting (unless you exclusively do avant garde theater, or something). Also, this is tangential, but do you actually act out facial mannerisms like your character's eye movements, etc? In my experience, which is admittedly pretty limited, no one else in the group was and that sort of attention to detail was pretty out of place, so I never really bothered, but I'm wondering if other people take getting into character more seriously.
Sandoval Smith
I do my descriptions thoroughly enough that you know who you're looking at, so build, hair style and color, eye color, ethnicity. Generally though, my characters end up with a cartoon wardrobe. Whatever they're wearing when you first see them is what they tend to wear for the rest of eternity.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Arethusa)
You ever consider better hair care as a possible solution for that?

As far as I'm concerned, it's not a bug, it's a feature. That being said, I've run the gamut from taking undue care of my hair (this was actually an experiment to see if my hair would change; lasted about two weeks before I got bored with it, so it may have been too short a sample time) to ignoring it (apart from washing it every few days), and while it may have been somewhat softer during the cared-for stages, it was no less immobile and mattress-like.

QUOTE (Arethusa)
Also, I'm kind of curious why you wouldn't put emphasis on clothing, given your experience with acting (unless you exclusively do avant garde theater, or something).


Not so much avant-garde as extremely low budget. I've acted for Broadway directors, but I'm pretty sure that no show I've been in has had a budget for props and/or costumes topping $200 (not counting stuff that individual actors purchase with their own money). That being said, it depends on the character; clothing is a fairly minor concern for a Rigger. If she hits the social scene, I'm probably going to be much clearer on what she's wearing at the time.

QUOTE (Arethusa)
Also, this is tangential, but do you actually act out facial mannerisms like your character's eye movements, etc?  In my experience, which is admittedly pretty limited, no one else in the group was and that sort of attention to detail was pretty out of place, so I never really bothered, but I'm wondering if other people take getting into character more seriously.


Sometimes. Most of my gaming is online (in three games, two of which are online), so I don't really act them out per se, but I try to include them every so often as actions. In the third game, I occasionally act out mannerisms, but as you mention no one else does most of the time so I frequently don't bother (and am never quite sure when it's correctly interpreted that the mannerisms are in-character rather than just me doing something odd).

~J
Arethusa
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
That being said, it depends on the character; clothing is a fairly minor concern for a Rigger. If she hits the social scene, I'm probably going to be much clearer on what she's wearing at the time.

I can't agree with that. Clothing may matter differently, but it's no less important. The character may not care, but even if you've got your character wearing baggy cargo chinos and an old tshirt, it still says something about that character— even if that something is that the character fits into a specific social group that is in part characterized by not caring about clothes. You don't have to be playing a social climber or a stereotyped homosexual for clothing to matter. It's just another part of characterization. Same goes for other aspects of grooming (hair, whatever).

QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
but as you mention no one else does most of the time so I frequently don't bother (and am never quite sure when it's correctly interpreted that the mannerisms are in-character rather than just me doing something odd).

Heh. Yeah, know what you mean. I had enough trouble when Iw as playing just with altering my voice, let alone anything else.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Arethusa)
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
That being said, it depends on the character; clothing is a fairly minor concern for a Rigger. If she hits the social scene, I'm probably going to be much clearer on what she's wearing at the time.

I can't agree with that. Clothing may matter differently, but it's no less important. The character may not care, but even if you've got your character wearing baggy cargo chinos and an old tshirt, it still says something about that character— even if that something is that the character fits into a specific social group that is in part characterized by not caring about clothes. You don't have to be playing a social climber or a stereotyped homosexual for clothing to matter. It's just another part of characterization. Same goes for other aspects of grooming (hair, whatever).

True. On the other hand, given that my description (clothing? Meh, whatever, something grey) more or less fits said character's opinion with regard to clothes most of the time, it ends up working out. I agree that it probably could stand to be a bit more emphasized, though, and I'll probably do that at the next available opportunity.

~J
Weredigo
Oh, this should be fun.

Weredigo, Dwarf, stands about Four foot Five, and gives his full attention to everyone he encounters, He wears Six buckle boots, Black Cargo Slacks, a Very Rare Metallica Tee-Shirt, Orange/white/black flannel, Grey denim duster (armored), and a Leather Harley Davidson ball cap over his flame red mullet, as a very traditional Dwarf he keeps his beard long and clean. One eye is Mint green, the other is Sea green. At both armpits are holstered Colt revolvers. On his right boot is stuck a Super Ruger Warhawk revolver named Mollie whose grip come to just an inch and a half from his right palm. { selective magnetic cyberlimb system with dimmerswitch, hand made} Tucked into his belt is his ever present travel mug of gourmet coffee, and some trashy detective novel from his collection.
(The concept for him started as a more sober and kinder Yosemite Sam)

Jack Frost, Elf, stands Six foot Nine, I dressed from the neck down in the finest (yet armored) black business suit, with White shirt, and Black tie, the perfect effect broken only by the thick leather moccassins (Wyvern Hide). He wears a black short brim fedora with a dark yellow brim upon his naturally bald scalp, and black sunglasses.
{This is the guy who accidentally put his bike through a Nieman Marcus, and then put a single round down the barrel of a Mini Missile Launcher, thus Jamming it. So when I moved away from my GM and decided to start GM'ing on my own I took him and a bunch of my PC's and organized them into a Mercernary outfit, "The City Slickers". Can anyone guess which movie I take the Dress code from?")

Shady, Female, Elf, five foot eight, Red hair, green eyes, Victim of a fashion war.
(my first female PC, My first Decker, Has a habit of Shooting "The Mage" with Gel Rounds loaded with DMSO/Hyper)

QUOTE
I'm pretty sure that no show I've been in has had a budget for props and/or costumes topping $200 (not counting stuff that individual actors purchase with their own money).
Heh, sound like the times I had on cast at Rocky Horror.
Aes
I usually do a bit of work on the characters appearance. I usually start determining height, weight, distinguishing features, skin/hair/eye color and obvious cyberware. (Limbs, twitches, exact location and make of datajacks, color and make of cybereyes etc). Then I go rummaging on the net (digitalart.org, selected artist homepages, sijun forums, elfwood etc.) after a picture that looks roughly like the character idea I'm after, retouch it a bit in PS to look like what I want and write a textual description to match. I also make sure to emphasize(sp?) whenever my character goes any great lengths to alter his/her appearance, such as my old pc having artificial, ruthetium-covered hair added as cosmetic surgery (for a lesser fortune) to go from short-cropped black hair and pale skin to long, red hair and dark skin (thank you, autotanner) in preperation for an infiltration.

Descriptions of how people look are as important as telling everyone what your character are doing. It helps immersion.

Also, if I'm feeling paticularely jazzed-up on coffee at the time, I fetch a few props and try to act out the characters mannerisms. Going back to the infiltration where my PC were disguised, her cover ID was to be the assistant of a famous neuroscientist. So I stuck a pencil behind my ear and carried a sourcebook around as a clipboard, pretending to take notes every so often. (Hey, it helps immersion and I got bonus karma wink.gif )
CoalHeart
I do two things that my group seems to like.

I have a sheet of paper that has questions on it.
Eyecolor ____ Hair color ____
Height ___ Weight ____
Hand Preference___ Exceterea.
has about 20 little fields to fill in, then they can mash it together and make a blurb of description out of it. You'd be surprised how many times guy players forget their characters even have eyes or hair.

Second thing I do is what I stole from the D20 Modern Book is in the back there is a list of "Quirks" numbered from 1-100 and you roll a percentile, twice. Or pick one trait and roll 2 more.

The list has just a huge selection of strange quirks. Such as Odd Birthmark, Meticulous(often played as OCD cleaning), Finger habit (rolling a coin or rubbing fingers or clicking pen) Oral Habit (smoking, chewing gum, clicking tongue ring) and so on. There are so many and I don't remember them all.

I don't force anyone to play them, but these little quirks let the person add in a bit of random flavor to their character. They have no in game effect, they take nothing away from the character and elicit no rolls.

Like our team samurai got the Meticulous quirk, and thus dedicates a portion of his time to perfectly cleaning and maintaining his gun collection.

The shaman got Odd birthmark which she described as being very similar to the symbol of her totem (Moon) So it was a cresent shaped mark on her cheek.

My character got oral fixation, so grinds his teeth to sharp points with a file, and often clicks his tongue ring against them.
LinaInverse
I scan/Poser/crudely draw pictures of my characters. A hold-over from my days playing Champions/Hero. So I essentially submit a 1000-words of description of my chars...biggrin.gif
Weredigo
Sometimes If I see a pic that comes extremely close to a character I'll tear it out of a magazine, and just have a discription of what they're wearing.
John Campbell
Like Lina, I typically draw my characters at some point fairly early in their career (e.g. Sven Eitresson), which requires me to make some decisions about general appearance and typical attire.
Sokei
QUOTE (Weredigo)
Sometimes If I see a pic that comes extremely close to a character I'll tear it out of a magazine, and just have a discription of what they're wearing.

yeah i have a couple players that take actors/actresses and find photos that have the "right" hair style or look to them and then they print and staple it to their character sheets for reference, not my personal preference but it works.
JudgeIto78
QUOTE (Sokei)
yeah i have a couple players that take actors/actresses and find photos that have the "right" hair style or look to them and then they print and staple it to their character sheets for reference, not my personal preference but it works.

Darn, my GM posted before me sarcastic.gif

Anyway, I really like the idea of "casting" your character since it gives everyone an idea of what they look and sound like without just dropping random numbers for stats for your fellow players. While this may be a crutch for "less-imaginative" players, I find that casting the character gives me lots of inspiration to write very detailed backstories and visualize the character's actions and clothing choices in game.

Then again, I play a lot of female PC's, so maybe I'm biased. wink.gif
Fortune
I sometimes use pics of actors (or musicians, etc.) for characters. If I had even the least little bit of talent in art I would draw my own, but sadly that isn't the case.
Drain Brain
I was guilty of taking a sneaky picture of some random guy in a shop once and showing it to my GM... "That. He looks like that..."

Mostly I am meticulous about that. For me, character concepts start with imagery and I'm always making sure that they conform to my original ideal in some way.

Oddly, so many people (including me) make their SR characters long haired, when it's probably safer to be totally bald - no hair as evidence, can't be grabbed in a fight - but go figure... must be the punky setting...
Crimsondude 2.0
All of my characters have relatively short hair. As a rule of thumb, the men don't have hair longer than mine (which is pretty short, but can get shaggy if I don't get around to getting it cut often enough), and the women have average length hair, if that. In pretty much every case it is due to a certain efficiency, but also I figure there's no reason for them to stick out in corpville, and most of them do have backgrounds involving membership in organizations with certain grooming standards.

I also rarely use pictures with my characters. In many cases, I can't find pictures of people who look like them. In others, they share certain physical characteristics of people I know or have met, and I will never use images of them. I did find a picture and photoshop it for one character, but she's the exception.
Dissonance
Photovoltaic hairplugs, man. That's the way to go.

Nothing says "I'm a badass runner who's going to kill you friggin' dead!" like a 7 inch tall, 1 inch thick neon pink dayglo mohawk.

Or a mullet. Remember -- Eighties.
Shockwave_IIc
In the group i've just started playing in one of the players has commented on the fact that i tend to spend more time discribing what my PC (Adept face without Kinesics or Imp Social skills) is wearing and how then the rest of the group.

Though i frequently havean image in my head as to what i want my PC's to look like. I very rarely find Pic's that come close more so if i'm playing a Meta Human.
Pthgar
I tend to make my characters of either Irish or Italian descent, like me. That being said, most of my chars have brush or crew cuts, dark or red hair and blue eyes.

One guy in our group created his dwarf mage Frocephus by making the image first and then building the character around that. It had potential to be lame but it cme out ok. In fact it was a good way to make a first SR character.

I can draw but those in my group who can't use Hero Machine.
Arethusa
QUOTE (Dissonance)
Photovoltaic hairplugs, man. That's the way to go.

Nothing says "I'm a badass runner who's going to kill you friggin' dead!" like a 7 inch tall, 1 inch thick neon pink dayglo mohawk.

Or a mullet. Remember -- Eighties.

CLARIFICATION
It is
NOT A MULLETT.
Dissonance
Mullet = Hairstyle.
Mullett = Fish.
Kagetenshi
My next character is wearing a mullett.

~J
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
My next character is wearing a mullett.

Buying Tres Chic, I see.
Weredigo
No problem, as long as he makes sure it's a fresh one...
Smiley
QUOTE (Sandoval Smith @ Feb 22 2005, 02:28 AM)
Generally though, my characters end up with a cartoon wardrobe.  Whatever they're wearing when you first see them is what they tend to wear for the rest of eternity.

I have the same thing. Whenever the muse is upon me, I get a mental image of my character and it's almost impossible to imagine them in anything else. I'm playing a gunslinger (not THE Gunslinger, before it gets to that) from the UCAS and try as I might, I can't picture him in anything but the duster, cowboy hat and boots, and low-slung holsters.

[EDIT]Pthgar, that Hero Machine is badass. love.gif
Wounded Ronin
Mullets are extremely important to the 80s. I think mullets are required in certain quantities.
vapor
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
Mullets are extremely important to the 80s. I think mullets are required in certain quantities.
Edward
It varies depending on how much the character cares about his appearance.

For example.

Timothy carter (human rigger) white male brown hare, blue eyes, conservative casual dress. Its not much but it makes the point.

Sticks (troll phisad) short cropped hair, a little dirty, street trash clothing (unless has to go somewhere nice in witch case he asks the face to take him shopping before the meet). Again not much but it dose the job

Shade (stealth shaman dwarf) clean, short black hair wears a dark shirt, pants, soft sold shoos and a black trench coat. A little more but his appearance mattered to him.

Raney tom (cyber investigator) Australian aboriginal short hare always whers long pant and long sleeved shirt usually brown.

Starry knight (rich kid and Sharman)
QUOTE (extract from 20 questions)
Dose your character have an ethnic background?
He is white but made and still makes a point of going places his parents would not approve of witch included other ethnic suburbs.

What dose your character look like?

5’3” slight build not muscly but quick and fit.
Naturally nut brown hair but often coloured. Strate and pushed back longer than shoulder length.
No facial hear (biowear means no need to shave) other than a few long whiskers.
Cybereyes have modifiable front display and often display lewd images (not in front of the Johnson).

What dose your character dress like?

Almost always flamboyant dress somewhat outlandish suiting the club and rave culture of the moment. (The fashion spell allows him to change to keep up cheaply and easily) he carries his wand in a custom-made leather belt holster that allows a quick draw action and conceal ability (unnecessary as he can use it without getting it out)
He is especially fond of a lightweight long cote in deepest black with a smattering of stars on it

Dose your character have any physical quirks?

Aside from the biowear whiskers and modifiable display cyber eyes he is very animated and readily uses magic for enjoyment. Falling out a window or down stairs with a levitate spell running is a favorite.


You se how his personality makes the character care a lot about his apreance so I put a lot more effort into explaining it. Unfortunately the GM decided he was too unprofessional so I am still looking for a game to run him in.

Edward
CoalHeart
Oh by the by if anyone else is wondering the list of personality traits I was talking about earlier is in the

D20 Modern core book
pg 272 table 8-27
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