Face Claims: Yay Or Nay??

All the reasons against "face claims" I can totally understand, and for the most part, would be in favor for. But in the interest of generating discussion, I'll try and play a bit of devil's advocate here.

Building a roleplay is a lot like making a movie. Having just finished up film school, I've been meaning to wax poetic about this to a more intricate detail, but I'll just try and keep it simple for now. Ultimately, you're wanting to see your dreams, your stories, your characters realized to full potential, animated and moving through "scenes" as clearly by word as they might by picture, in a film.

For me, at least, if I were going to make a rule that the physicality of your character has to be based off of an actor or a public figure, this would be so that when the scenes are written and posted, I can read them and imagine that familiar face.

Think of it like a movie, and then the original novel version. The visual medium is more arresting.

Some people just can't describe how their character looks outside of "blonde hair blue eyes." It takes a very, very firm command of the English language to craft a face, in your mind, out of nothing than just with words. Wide nose. Sloped forehead. Hawkish features. These are things that don't stick with us, as writers, as much, when we're developing a scene. Citing a source of a character as an actor can just keep the iconic image in someone's brain.

Messy features and slender frame, those sorts of things you can have in a character without being so strictly limited to an actor. If "Heath Ledger" is your "face claim" then what Heath Ledger are we talking about? Actors, by nature, can change their appearance and their demeanor, their entire decorum for a role. You're not playing the actor (I know I keep using actors as the example, although Disney characters were cited) - you're playing the character, whatever character you want to create, whatever central conflict.

In a way, it's like Fantasy Football, but for directors, with actors.

I think people are attributing "face claims" with having the character set in stone before you arrive, as a player, and rightly so. If there's an instance where the strict role I will be playing is already defined for me to rigidly adhere to, in addition to having the face, and additional points, then that's where I might find something contrary about this.

There are some roleplayers who want their roleplays to look like television soap operas. And if that's the story, and if that's the narrative pull, then I suppose let it happen that way.

So, on one hand, I can see why players may find their creative juices stymied by "face claims" but on the other hand I can see their use in terms of immediacy, and truly visualizing a character. I also don't find the very nature of having someone's outer appearance as an icon in one's brain to be as crippling as some may think.

Even the best artists draw from models.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/KHhNhWJC-m8/viewtopic.php

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