Ok so maybe this isnt all that new a concept. But I was thinking that if different shifters have the same forms it can be confusing at times, perhaps this was meant to be so. But here is my pipe dream....

I was thinking perhaps to make shifters more personal by giving them a little choice. Each time a shifter gets a new form they could be able to rename it, once and only once for each form they get. And have name rules, so if an imm sees a second tier shifter who has the rhino and has renamed it as a lion so as to scare people then he can pull his Imm style moves and take the person the description room to change it or something. This idea is mainly to personalize shifters, so say if two shifters get a rhino, one might picture a rhino as this wide arsed block beefy thing, and name it something like A wide black rhinoceros while the other may name his A wrinkly hided Rhinoceros (bear in mind this is a real ####ty example but im tired and brain isnt working)

Not only have names but also let them do their own descriptions, this would give the shifters something else and allow them to make them appear how they imagine the form looks. Of course imms would have to look at them to make sure the descriptions are fitting.

It may just be me being really tired, but what do people think?

>Ok so maybe this isnt all that new a concept. But I was
>thinking that if different shifters have the same forms it can
>be confusing at times, perhaps this was meant to be so. But
>here is my pipe dream....

Exactly...You've got two wolves in the room, one is a friend, one is an enemy...but they are two wolves...which is which? That is an intentional drawback to the class.

>Exactly...You've got two wolves in the room, one is a friend,
>one is an enemy...but they are two wolves...which is which?
>That is an intentional drawback to the class.

What we really need is a bunch of those horrible little doggie sweaters so we can tell our friends apart.

A ferocious black wolf is here, sporting an adorable red vest festooned with pink bows.

I think it wouldn't be a great idea to allow someone total control over their descs on forms, and it is too much to ask the imms to police something like that. First of all, you'll have people that are just plain wrong. For instance, I have heard alot of people call a lemur a rat or rodent, except it is actually a monkey. So now you have someone with a description saying this thing has whiskers, pointy teeth and a hairless tail...not exactly a monkey. Then there is the problem of short names...if you rename your form, which names still work? You name a diamondback a multicolored snake, does diamondback still work, or only snake now? And how many people actually know what all of the forms even look like besides a basic concept of, cat, bird, snake etc? The idea below of allowing certain characteristics to be chosen I can maybe see, maybe, but not the sort of control you're talking about.

perhaps when shifters get a new form allow them to tailor it with a couple of arguments.

ie:

shifter gets new form, and chooses three arguments for that form, similar to how warcry gets set.

eg shifter gets diamondback

types shape diamondback red thin long

Then their short description would be something like "a long thin diamondback with red crosshatching is here". They could be targetted with red, thin, long and diamondback.

Their long desc would be along the lines of the current diamondback, but would have something about length, girth and marking.

Similar thing could be applied to a lion, only in this case the arguments might be to do with "build, mane-color, fur color".

I also think it would be good if animals like the lion reflected the sex of the shifter. eg you could be a lioness, which might be slightly different to a lion, although similar. Perhaps with backrake instead of rake or something.

This is a better idea than giving people free reign over their forms' appearance. When I see a shapeshifter coming towards me I need to know what form they're using in order to plan tactics. If they've redefined their fourth-tier form to look like a vorpal bunny, I have no idea whether to treat them like a mongoose or ram. One problem with incognito's idea- It would probably be difficult to code (well).

Could give people a choice for what animal they get, but have all the exact same power. It would basically be a different skin.



You raise a level!! Your gain is: 7/111 hp, 18/224 m, 8/127 mv 3/10 prac.
Please pick Ox, Bison, or Buffalo.

<89%hp 55%m 60%mv 5950tnl>


But that does sort of get away from the problem Zulgh brought up, about getting people confused.