How Important Are Face Claims?

There seems to be quite a division between sites that allow models as face claims or anime/manga art. But how do you feel about games that don't allow face claims at all?

I remember them as playing a very small part of the AOL chatroom and PBeM games of the past. Personally, I think they're useful but don't feel tied to them at all. Yet I know that there are some people out there who won't even consider joining a game they otherwise like if their chosen faceclaim is already taken.

So, do you think that a game that didn't allow them survive these days? Forcing people to really on their descriptions only. Or am I crazy to even contemplate it?

 

I haven't seen a game without forced face claims since the days of Yahoo Groups, because you need an avatar or it looks gross af and the avatar should usually be of your character if it's an APC site.

 

To be honest, I hate claims. XD

I usually either commission a piece of art to represent a character, or leave it as a written description; as a writer, I have a very specific look in my head for a character, and usually no photo (and tbh most art LMAO) doesn't fit. Any role-player worth their salt should be able to describe how a character looks with words and not need some form of media to portray them, so imo forced faceclaims should never be a thing.

I will not join a site with forced faceclaims, and I don't enforce or require them on any site I run. The only restriction I pose on any play-by from any medium is that you must have permission to use the picture, it must be made for you, or it must be free use - and always credited/linked back to where it was taken from.

 

I think that the ability to use custom postrows on JCINK (I don't know about others) could negate this. You can make the mini-profile look however you want and wrap the postrow around in any style you fancy with the HTML templates. The result being something (hopefully) easy on the eyes and readable.

 

Honestly, I think face claims should be forced on certain sites. Such as my BDSM site which is based on real life - It would be impossible to get the proper portrayal without an actual claim.

 

You mean, you can't use your imagination? xD You're a writer, yes? Use your mind's eye and come up with an image in it; a writer's greatest tool is their imagination, not tying words to an image of someone/something completely unrelated.

 

We'll agree to disagree here. I personally won't join a site where face claims aren't at the very least allowed - I pick a face claim that fits my character and I'm not the best at describing people. I'm a writer, yes, but being able to write and being able to describe are two different things.

 

I will agree to disagree, but I do suggest (and stress) that you practice writing description and imagery; being a writer, you should want to improve to the point where you no longer need images to help get your point across. I've found the following as great sources of information on how to write imagery, character description, etc; studying the writing styles of authors you enjoy also can give some good insight on how to describe things, too!
http://www.dorrancepublishing.com/imagery-writing/
https://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-describe-place-character/
https://www.writersdigest.com/edito...ts-to-writing-effective-character-description (I personally love this one)
https://www.nownovel.com/blog/talking-character-face/ (bit more abstract, but good advice)

Hope these help! I urge anyone reading to take advantage of these, too, to try and challenge themselves to break away from faceclaims. You might surprise yourself with what you build! <3

 

Well, I guess that these two points of view pretty much sum up the whole issue. Definitely the polar opposite views! Thank you so much for sharing them with me. I appreciate you taking the time.

But do people really feel strongly enough about face claims that they will or won't join a game over them? Even if you liked everything else about the game?

 

I am not a fan of face-claims, especially using real people. To me, it makes me feel like the way the site looks is more important than the quality of the content. I'll use them if the site content is there, but otherwise, I can take the site or leave it.

Now, having said that, over the years, I've softened my stance. I have a character who it took a long time to find the right real person face for and now it's hard to picture her without that face. I've also since fallen in love with making (really bad) gifs of two characters I've shipped in my head. In the end, I've been turned off by sites with the hardline face claim thing and special post coding, but then, using multiple colors in a post, word count, and required activity checks also tends to be turn-off, too.

 

To be honest, there's a lot of reasons that make or break my wanting to join a game. Face claim is really low on that list.

 

They aren't important to me.

Much as I enjoy the process of finding one, and then watching everything that actor has ever been in and laughing at how that's "so like (character)" --- they don't make or break my decision to join. If I can't find a face claim for a character, it's not the end of my world.

I also have a stupidly clear idea of what each of my characters looks like in my head, so the face claim and the "true look" of the character aren't the same for me. It's more a general idea that I can expand on in the text.

 

I have aphantasia and can't picture ANYTHING with my mind's eye, so face claims are a non-negotiable for me. Also they have to be real people OR art OR animanga, not a mixture of two or all.

 

Now that's an aspect of it that I hadn't considered before. Does aphantasia not make RPing in general more difficult? I imagine being able to link images for descriptions (location/costume etc.) must be very useful?

But I am with you 100% about not mixing and matching the types of images used for face claims. Real or art, but never the two shall meet.

 

With regards to locations, outfits, etc., I tend to offer minimal, relevant description in my posts and rely on the imaginations of my thread partners to fill things in for themselves. Since I can't "see" anything, it makes no difference to me how they picture things, as there is no right or wrong answer. Description in my partners' posts does basically nothing for me and reads as irrelevant filler, so I only play on boards with no word counts and cultures of short posts with high action/dialogue. It doesn't make RP difficult so much as limiting where I can find enjoyment; unfortunately, there are still a lot of people in the community that think that good writing is all about how much detail you can stuff into a post. If I had to keep track of each character's individual hair and eye colour and distinguishing features as well, instead of just having an FC next to the post to refer to, I think I'd lose my mind.

 

Face claims are extremely important to my site as we do in the main Stargate. So the perception of seeing a face you can recognize becomes the focus often when replying to a post character to character. We couldn't exist without them and we only insist on real people. And each character portrayed carries one of these in every post.



or this if it is an NPC

 

I need my face claims. They help me in the RP world. I don't need them when writing alone but as can be attested by the outcry whenever a movie casts the wrong looking person for a movie based on a book, we all see different things when we read the same description. So I prefer everybody to be on the same page and have an image to look at.

I'm also of the same crowd that hates mixing claims. Bleh. It's just too messy in my head.

 

In our community the rule is that your avatar must resemble your character description as well as can be possible. But if you decide not to have an avatar, nobody is going to come after you.
Face "claims" isn't really a thing on my site, there's no list of claims or list of characters that's available, or anything akin to that. I once saw someone use a character that I used to use for an old character of mine's avatar. There wasn't any outcry or anything like that about it. Just small comments that it was a little weird for this familiar with my character.

But just like in nature, your "clone" is out there somewhere, slightly different, but overall exact same look.

 

I've learned to use them. Aesthetic faceclaims instead are growing on me, though.

 

I used to RP without graphics, or even with art, but I've gotten to a place where I just really enjoy using FCs. It's not that I can't write without them, but I don't want to. For even longer than I've been RPing, whenever I read a book, I "cast" someone in my head for different roles and I can picture their voice saying those words. I guess using FCs in RP just matched up with that so well that I don't want to let it go. It's like making a movie in words. As for sites which don't allow them, or which only allow art, all due respect to them and their preferences--it just isn't for me.