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Feedback ยท RFC: What can we do with the tangle of traits that say what kind of thing you are? (needs discussion)

There's a long and storied history attached to a collection of traits which, collectively, define what kind of thing you are. The fact they do this collectively has historically been a problem, and many attempts have been made to approach this from certain angles and solve certain parts of the issue.

This feedback is here to prompt discussion and suggestions on the issue. I will link back to pieces of feedback covering it. Do take this as an invitation to create new feedback items and link them here. You can discuss the issue here. This thread may be closed & rebooted every now and then as clean-up.

What's the issue here?

The issue is there's four places you say what you are: species, body type, supernatural nature and skin type. Many characters like humans and anthros can very neatly say what they are and it makes a lot of sense: you're a feline anthro, of course you have fur, that's that. The way things are sliced up works well for them.

There's a problem for less straightforward characters. Their expression of what they are should be as simple as "I am this thing", but instead they have ambiguity and dilemmas. I'll try to break it down with some examples:

  • Species is where you say what kind of thing you are. Unless you're a golem, alien, or pokemon version of something else on the list, in which case you have a dilemma.
  • Body type is straightforward, until you get to kemonomimi and naga, which sound like species.
  • Skin type is generally obvious except for Amorphous, Plant, Robotic or Stone, which is meant to imply you're a special variation of something on the species list.
  • Supernatural Nature is both amiguously "I am this thing" (you are an angel, deity, or demon) and "I am powered like this thing" (you're a cleric, a warlock, etc). This trait used to just describe your abilties, but then demons and angels without necessarily having powers had nothing to say what they were, so it got renamed, which created its own problems. If angel and demon were species, they'd have the same issue as golems, aliens and pokemon.

This creates a lot frustration, dear readers, for both authors and searchers:

  • A kemonomimi's species & body type combination may be demihuman-human or demihuman-kemonomimi or feline-kemonomimi or feline-humanoid, depending on the inclination of the author.
  • A robot might have robotic skin, unless they don't have skin like that, in which case they probably have technological for a supernatural nature, unless they have some other supernatural nature. (In which case they'll have nothing saying they're a robot.)
  • A golem is either defined by their species, or their stone skin, but they might be mixed in with non-golems with stone skin.
  • Alien rabbits and rabbit pokemon have to pick either "I'm an alien/pokemon" or "I'm a rabbit", but can't pick both and be searchable by both. Unless they pick the Extraterrestrial Supernatural Nature, which they'll do unless they've got another one to express.
  • Nagas are searched by their body type, rather than their species, for some reason. (Ok, this is fine for find naga profiles, but surely naga fits with species mentally.) But if naga was a species, there wouldn't be a clear body type to pick for them - because it is its own body type.
  • If you're a plant creature, you're defined by being flora (species) or plant (skin type). One or the other. People can't search both.
  • If you're a supernatural being, like a deity, angel, demon, zombie, or magical, search can't distinguish you from people who merely have your brand of powers.

There's probably a lot more to it than that. Some of that might have logical solutions, if only everyone did things consistently, but people don't, and confusion and frustration abounds, and some (possibly including yourself) benefit from things being very straightforward, while others get the opposite treatment.

What can we do about it?

That's a good question! I'd like to hear what you have to say. Please open feedback suggesting solutions, if you'd be so bold, and link it back here. As stated above, this thread is also open for discussion and may get cleaned up from time to time.

If you could redo things, how would you do them?

Discussions on the topic

Species changes:

Comprehensive redos:

Profile feature suggestions:

meta info

endorsement points: 0

created: 25 April 16 at 05:59 AM (build: 4/21/2016 7:33 PM beta)

Lich Community Manager

Desdemona Fireheart

I'd say, the main problem ist, that traits are treated as if they stand alone for themselves, while in fact they work in combination. What body type I choose, Feral, Kemonomimi or Anthro has an influence on the species of my character. A Neko has not the same species as a cat. I can only properly choose species, if I know what I will choose as body type. The character editor should express this relation. There could be an explanation like:

"Species defines the species of your character in combination with Body type. If your character is a Neko you might choose Feline and Kemonomimi to express this. Available Body types for animals are: Feral, Anthro, Naga, Taur, Kemonomimi. For other species: Human and Other."

In addition the traits should be showed in the profile in a way to express their relation. Why for example is foot type listed at species but body type at Body? The foot type has nothing to do with the species. The idea, if I have robotic as a skin type then I don't need robot as species, that's a bad idea (the Terminator wouldn't like it ^^).

For trait-combinations to work well, you need an explanation and the traits have to be designed to work together properly.

It's not correct, that a longer list is more complicated and takes longer to choose than a shorter one. Finding "Succubus" in a list of 1000 trait-categories is a matter of 10 seconds. But if you give me a list with 100 categories which contains: Alien, Demihuman, Beast, Chimera. This will take time.

A clear concept that is the point. 1) It must be clear which species I have to choose without reading the tool-tip. 2) If I read your profile under "Species" then I know your character's species. That's what I find important.

Sans

Honestly, the two-step species (maybe three-step?) rule seems more sensible out of all the suggestions. It would help with generalizing species and give more win for those who want to be more definite with their selections rather than having to add additional comment to explain if they are a fox or dog when they pick canine And if there is a species category that doesn't exist yet, there would be miscellaneous category with cybernetic undead deity mixed species or what have you. They can still fill out details in additional comments.

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