NarniaMUCK

Its an over simplification for me to say most rules I am familiar with, such as IC/OOC separation, are more strictly interpreted on Narnia MUCK than other places. In one particular interpretation I've experienced thus far, Narnia actually seems to slack a bit over my comfort zone, but I must declare its too trivial and minor to endanger my participation; I wonder, though, if mentioning it might find at least some agreement from some other players and, perhaps, lead to a common suggestion when it comes to describing characters and text output generated from the prey critters roaming about.

"Do not pose someone else's character" is a common rule to fair and balanced roleplay, which Narnian house rules generally agree with; it is bad etiquette, and indeed against the rules, for Joe's player to pose "Joe punches Frank in the face and knocks him over." Joe can pose "Joe attempts to punch Frank in the face, attempting to knock him over," but should not actually pose the attempted punch landing on Frank nor determining the side effect.

Narnia has this same rule, from what I've read, but seems to non-explicitly restrict its meaning to poses only in enforcement and application. This in-explicit "restriction on a restriction" is not new to me; in fact, it has become so common that I rarely bother to try to complain about it, but hopefully a healthy dialog might come out of it, as so many Narnia MUCK players seem to be such a high caliber over other elseMU* RPers and administrators I have encountered over the years. Again, I feel it prudent to re-emphasize whether I am in the tiny minority here over feeling slightly discomforted by this, it won't affect my opinion of Narnia MUCK.

Un-regulated exemptions from posing someone's player are readily observable, to me, in character descriptions and "mob poses" (the prey critters darting to and fro) which are rife with "You see..." and the like. To me, this is posing my character ... someone else (either a prey critter control program, or the player writing their desc containing "You") dictating what my character is doing (looking at them). It would be humorous from the prey bots running about, if it weren't so persistent and annoying (they do things along the lines of "A mouse scurries toward you from upstream, following the riverbank.") if you think about it ... no matter how many characters are in a room, each and every one has a mouse then running at each of them! Not to mention, how would that work exactly if your character is a flier in the air (how would a mouse run through the air toward a bird in the sky!?) or a swimmer (You thought Aslan was the savior!? That mouse, its running on top of water!)

Similarly, I've noticed several character descriptions describing "You see ..." This too, I don't find fully appropriate. I consider it a violation of posing someone else's character, and I can envision a number of conditions when it isn't accurate -- along with descriptions of the player describing their character as 'standing' there or other action; while that is their character and not posing someone else's, it permanently locks their characters as standing -- not walking or running or moving, never laying down, and never able to be knocked down.

To me, descriptions should /describe/ physical traits, but never ascribe actions -- certainly not on the character whose player typed "look Joe" but not even ascribing a permanent stance or action on the character's part whose player stuck such in their description. I also try to bear in mind that not every character has the same balance of senses; some characters whose players look at my character have poor vision or may even be outright blind, so I try to provide hints as to how might character might smell or sound (but giving only a general descriptor, not one permanently having my character saying something or always smelling sweet despite the possibility of sweating on a hot day or having an unpleasant encounter with a skunk). It should be up to a character's player to filter out what, from that description, their character actually perceives ... if their character is poor of sight, for instance, they can simply take the overall size and color of another player's character as a blur their character sees, etc.

As for prey bots and the like ... isn't third person the common perspective for posing, anyway (third person being "Joe says," "he says," etc.)? RP poses just don't work if everyone uses second person perspective (second person being "You see," "you say," "Joe says to you," etc.). Instead of posing as, say, "A mouse scurries toward you from upstream, following the riverbank," couldn't the prey bot instead pose something like, "A mouse scurries about, trying to avoid predators from upstream, following the riverbank?"

Again, as I mentioned, this seems to have become a lost battle to me, as so many don't even seem to be able to understand the source of my gripe, I guess perhaps because character descriptions and bots are not viewed as IC, even though it is generally considered good to react to them ICly or use them in poses, especially using the species and color of another player's character in lieu of the character's name when your character has not yet ICly learned their character's name. Even if I can get some understanding, maybe even change a few minds, I acknowledge the current prevalance of second person perspectives and action poses in character descriptions and prey bot outputs means it would probably be a big hassle to consider changing, but hopefully this thread at least encourages constructive thoughts or ideas on whether its an annoyance that might merit constructive thoughts and ideas.

Lapis,

There are a few things going on here, so I'll address them in a numbered fashion for organization's sake.
1. Prey 'poses'.
a. What these actually are is called 'odrops'. It's what the game produces when someone enters a room. When they say 'toward you' or something to extent, they mean 'in your general direction', which is less godmoddy than you observe it to be. In more newly built rooms, we have tended to avoid even this technique, however, because we don't like it either. We are constantly updating the game, and this is one of the things on the game that some of us have on that list, but it is such a minor problem that's it's quite low on our priority list. You see it a lot because you are in the oldest area of the game.
b. The 'general direction' idea explains your water/sky complaint, but I can also address it further. There are sky rooms and water rooms, actually, so if your character is flying or swimming anywhere legitimately deep, that is where they would be. We still give the freedom to be flying low or standing on a low branch or playing in the shallows.
2. Descriptions.
I think you'll find some consistency to previous answers to your questions here. Since you had to type 'look' in order to see someones @desc, it's really technically not godmoddy, though your point about the five senses is an excellent one which I hope to see incorporated in more @descs. The "You see" goes against my instincts as well, and I think a lot of us prefer to avoid those kinds of prefixes of an @desc. That said, (and here's where the consistency comes in), it's quite a small issue for us to go about regimenting, and we'd rather ask new players and young players and players from places who do things differently (we get many from less RP-Intensive MUCKs, for instance) to follow rules like the AUP or things which will affect RP on a larger scale, like not anthropomorphizing your character too much, and valuing "realistic" over creative.

Perhaps this conclusion will help make things clear. I think that NarniaMUCK tends to enforce "principles" rather than rules. I would say we have two main principles which we want to be visible here: 1. It's a fun, safe, and learnable environment. 2. It's a realistic and canon environment.
You will find out of these rules that the guidelines we have put in place and the personal opinions we give indicate that both staff and players agree with many of the observations you have made, but both staff and players (on large) are unwilling to enforce them legalistically especially where it does not immediately affect RP because enforcing them would hamper that first principle. Now, that said, the odrops (and even a couple room descs) ought to be rewritten to better uphold those principles. But going through the entire game to meet current standards on small things like odrops or whether to spell grey with an e or an a is not going to happen any time soon, and may never happen, because we have so many bigger issues which will need to be constantly tended, like updating INFO.

slightly EDITED for better accuracy by Anth about 10 minutes later.

Its not serious, no, but using the 'look' command I do not perceive as actually IC looking. I use the information I find in someone's @desc, filtered through what and where they pose their character (entering from afar, in a river described in the room, hiding in brush, etc.) and whether or what my character could perceive of it. I even tend to use 'look' when someone enters a room, but I do not feel that should be interpretted as my character actually ICly looking at them, especially as I prefer to not consider a character entering a room as an actual IC pose-in; if I enter a room, I certainly would prefer to pose in my own entrance at my choosing after obtaining OOC permission from others in the room to actually pose in. This has not been a problem thus far on Narnia, I have not seen anyone posing anyone else's entrance for them ... someone else posing an entrance for me (whether its actually posing my character, or posing their character as reacting to an entrance I haven't made) would be a bit of a bigger gripe for me if it did happen.

If it is generally preferred that players avoid second-person in descriptions, then maybe a friendly suggestion to the effect could go on INFO > 1. Character Setup > 3. Other Setup Commands > 1. @Describe ... there's already a note in there about avoiding actions, but none suggesting avoiding second person. It is kind of a screenful already, and I know very well how overwhelming all the new, unfamiliar help and info files can be to a new player of course but maybe something could get added. Or maybe an MOTD tip note, something like "Character @descriptions help other players interpret what their character would find using their natural balance of senses to 'look' at you, but for consistency's sake should be kept in third-person perspective as poses should always be written in third-person perspective. Never assume every player character using the look command on your character has the same balance of sight, hearing, scent or other senses; some may be completely blind or have supreme vision. Remember, also, to avoid actions in your description; do not describe yourself in your @description as standing nor in any particular posture unless you happen to be frozen from the Ice Queen's staff."

Personally I've never had a problem with second person in @descs or the like - in fact, I kind of prefer it that way, because it helps with my own sense of immersion.

Like Anth said, we tend to stick to 'principles' more than hard-and-fast rules in every instance. I think the main reason for this is that we tend to encourage people to develop their own style of RP, and the more rules we put into place, the more difficult it is to do that. There's some larger things that we encourage/discourage - trying not to include thoughts in poses, for instance, because there's really no way for another character to react to them. But all in all, we've a wide range of people and a wide range of preferred RP styles, from those who prefer to use several short poses, to those who prefer long and detailed ones, to any range in-between. We're telling a communal story here, and each individual 'author' has their own voice and their own style - rather than a predetermined storyline, and each of us given a 'script' to follow - too many rules, while perhaps better for consistency, sacrifices the individuality of the players we've got which is a large part of what makes this a great community, in my opinion. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty details, I'm quite willing to let those slide for that reason.

That being said, I also tend to shy away from being extremely detailed and/or specific in my @descs. I have my own image of what my character looks like, but I know other people do too, and I don't want to dictate what my character should look like to them in entirety. In fact, sometimes that leads to some interesting moments when another character perceives something that you might not have in the first place - take Petra, for instance. Glyn, keen-nosed wolf that he is, once told Petra that he smells like 'clover and rainy days,' which I'd never considered before but seemed fit him perfectly, on account of his herbivorous diet and his affinity for water. That's something I never would have thought of myself, and something that arose from what Glyn knew of my character. Other times, I keep things vague in @descs because /I/ still don't have a proper image of some facet of their look, etc. I put down the basics, the 'skeleton' if you will, of what I /know/ my character is like, and leave the details to others' interpretation. What they come up with often helps /me/ get a better image.

Just as a small comment from experience, there are times when the rule that you can't post for others is suspended. For instance, if I have computer problems while Peridot is meeting with one of the royals, it isn't exactly conversationally nice for my character to just say "Bye" and run off. The Feature Characters do understand, but then it becomes the question- Do I act like my character was never there in the first place and run off? It can put the FCs in an awkward position as well.
Instead, if Petraverd is with me, I could let him know of my situation and ask him to spoof for me so that I can sign off. If there's something Peri wouldn't do, he knows my character enough not to spoof something ridiculous. Even then, the spoofs are kept small and just to necessary things like bowing to the royal when it is time to leave, wishing a character goodnight, or following the spoofing character out.
Then there's the fun of reading it later in a log at least.