litphoria

I think the issue with Alien is that it tries to regulate two things at once, both the origin and how exactly does it look. Which, in turn, makes it lose clarity because suddenly we are left in the place where some choices are arbitrary. I would argue that it should just be about origin. Because only sense in that search category is in communicating that you deal with extraterrestrial, no matter what kind of, the latter you have regulated more-or-less with the body type.

Based on all of the other categories, I would agree that categories should focus on what something looks like or appears to be rather than something non-obvious like where they come from.

However! The break down here occurs when categories like demihuman is for non-human nearly-humans, which is a definition that is hard to pin down exactly when they're based on what things look like. Demihuman is still useful, since there are people who only want to play with humans, and would gawk at the idea of playing with e.g superman, since he is not a pure human.

This is even more complicated with alien, since those take on every shape and size imaginable. But, alien's goal is to communicate "this profile's species is not common in the setting in which they are played", and that's most of the value I see in it. Being able to search for, for example, a xenomorph who is on earth, is more valuable than "this is a non-humanoid non-plant life form". I don't know how this can correlate or exist with the idea that categories should be about appearance and not intrinsic, indeterminable values.

The wiki article doesn't contain the word demihuman, it uses the term "humanoid". From wiktionary: demihuman: (fantasy, mythology) A human-like race or a member thereof; in fantasy, sometimes distinguished from the more bestial humanoid races.

But my point is not, if demihuman or humanoid. I think it should be clear by the description, which creature belongs into which category. For example. A Neko is a demihuman. I should not expect from someone who creates a character that he knows that later under body-type will come "kemonomimi", so he chooses feline as species instead of demihuman. That's why I have 'except anthropomorphic animals' in my decription of demihuman. The description of a species should explain by itself, what belongs to this species.

Similar problem with extraterrestial. since it comes under supernatural nature.

I thought first "alien" means extraterestial and the description is just not very good. Only after realizing there is no "other" button I came to the conclusion that "alien" serves for this purpose. I don't think the "alien" button can carry additional informations without causing confusion. If I can search for a xenomorph on earth by searching for "alien" a xenomorph who is not on earth has no species anymore.

Considering I have an alien character... I'm not sure if I used the tags correctly. I did what made sense to me.

My species tab goes:

Species

Feet Type: Plantigrade
Genital Type: Alien
Skin Type: Furry
Species: Feline

And then under settings:

Supernatural Nature: Extraterrestrial

I think that conveys the idea that he's a catboy from outer space. Using alien as species, even if he's technically an alien, didn't make sense.

@Dystopia

Yes and no. Supernatural Nature: Extraterrestrial means, that your character has supernatural abilities due to being an extraterrestian. By reading your profile it seems the correct choice for Supernatural Nature would be technological, because of his implants. But it makes sense of course. Alien and feline are both correct, I'd say. He is technically an alien but also technically a feline.

@Skkukuk

I understood "closely resembles a human" as "almost looks like" not as "almost is like". Whatever, I don't think you are right. Zeus is not almost like a human, same goes for pixies, androids and zombies. They are not demihuman, they are just humanoid. A demihuman is almost like a human, while a humanoid just has a humanoid body. A Neko is a demihuman, a cat-furry is not, but they are both humanoid. The problem is, that there is a gap between Demihuman and alien, a humanoid who doesn't closely resemble a human isn't alien nor demihuman, he has no fitting species. Except he is a goblinoid or an animal-anthro. My purpose was made to close this gap. Every character should have a fitting species.

Yes, there are around 25 species for anthro/neko chars and only one for other humanoid chars, the goblinoid. It seems unbalanced since there are probably more elfs than frogs.

Yes and no. Supernatural Nature: Extraterrestrial means, that your character has supernatural abilities due to being an extraterrestian.

Supernatural Nature has nothing to do with supernatural abilities, that's why we renamed it away from 'supernatural abilities' - so people could say "my character's a demon" without suggesting they have any special powers for it.

The description of Supernatural Nature is: "The kind of supernatural qualities or powers a character possesses". The description of demonic is: "Characters who possess supernatural powers, from demonic means, such as curses or hexes." If your char is cursed by a demon or made a pact with Lucifer and gained supernatural powers by it, he is demonic, but if he is a demon without powers, he is not demonic. At least by the description of the trait. In addition, demons are supernatural creatures, but extraterrestrials are not, they are not of supernatural nature if they don't posses supernatural powers.

Then those descriptions need updating, since nobody thought to change them with the rename.

My understanding of humanoid is the same. Yes, furries are humanoids. I don't got your point. Demihuman is the species for all demihumans which are not Nekos. I changed this to humanoid to include golems for example. Minotaurs and golems and trolls are not demihuman by the momentarily description of demihuman - that's why I suggested a new description.