I am just curious, as there seems to be alot of discussion about reusing Descs...

What are the Imms thoughts on recycling roles/descs of characters that never made it past 30, so there was no chance of a public record other than what was on my own personal PC.

I am just curious because I had one I really liked, but chose the wrong class to play, so the character sputtered and died due to that, but still love the role.

I have tried to rewrite the role with similar themes, but keep getting stuck as I liked the original that much more.

If the character made the Battlefield then I'd make you change the description. If it's a role, I'll echo Daevryn and say that I'd avoid you. If you come to me for empowerment with something that I catch as recycled you're going to have a bad time.

As far as I'm concerned it should be common sense enough. If it's likely someone is going to recognize what you're putting out there then it's probably not okay to use it in its current form.

Also, in the case of roles I would also point out that depending on the degree to which the idea is unique it may not even be enough to completely rewrite it. For example, if you write a really interesting and new take on a particular religion and maybe win an RC or something like that and I see another character later with the exact same background and gimmick then I'm probably going to think less of you as well (even if it's obviously a rewrite). This is something I can't recall a specific occurrence of though, and probably doesn't happen all that often. Hopefully it goes without saying, but this wouldn't apply to your vanilla mages burned my village or I'm a demon trapped inside a whatever role.

Speaking just for myself here:

When I notice a role is recycled, it really turns me off on the character. I wouldn't punish you for it, but I would probably avoid you.

Below level 30 (so never will be a PBF), no role contest entry, and your role was never rated: recycle to your hearts content. Even if they don't want you to, there is no getting caught when no one has ever seen the thing.

I would not reuse a description if you used it on a character who had a PBF published. I would also not reuse a role if you entered a role contest with it.

Chances are, if you put the role in but sputtered and faded at fairly low levels, no one will really care about the repeat role. One thing to be sure of is that if you do recycle a role in this manner that you make sure to change the name in it (assuming your character also has a different name).

And before you say something like thats crazy, I have personally seen someone recycle a role and forget that they have a different name than the original character that used said role.

Why is recycling a role more ok than a description?

He's applying the same rule as is applied to descriptions. They can only check a description if the thing is published. Same with roles.

Descriptions can be seen by everyone, roles can only be seen by imms. By no stretch of the imagination do I speak for the whole staff when I saw these things, its just my thoughts on it.

In the last 15 years how many hands of fingers would you need for mortals reporting that other mortals are re-using descriptions?

Because in practice while those things might flash across screens, they aren't really being looked at and remembered.

I concur, while I may read a description of a leader during an interview, or during a long RP session. Most of the time I pretty much disregard everything above the line (This applies 100% of the time to all NPC's...unless in a shrine)

Soso is using:

Most are fluff, yeah. I use consider to learn about NPCS for the most part. That said, some descriptions give a very direct hint about what that NPC do if you interact with them in some way.

Some NPCs do things you'd probably never have reason to know they do, except by looking and then experimenting. I have been quite surprised some times.

These things may not be all that common, but they are definitely out there.

Reading NPC description can be quite helpful.

Player description on the other hand, I admit, I barely pay attention to anymore. I used to, but after about 50 times of asking people IC about quirks in their description and being met with "Huh?" I figure people don't give a ####, so why bother.