Help for 'appear'

Syntax: appear / appear <change>

The 'appear' command is used to slightly alter your appearance and demeanor. It is an IC command that you can use when your character is affecting a physical change such as hunching, trying to appear taller, sucking in their tummy to appear skinnier, pushing out their belly to appear fatter, or appearing more feminine, masculine, or androgynous than they typically are.

Appear is available to everyone, but some of the abilities it offers are only available when the character has a high enough disguise skill. Appear is a powerful command that can enhance your roleplay in a variety of ways. It can be coupled with disguises to make you increasingly unrecognizable amongst the sea of people in Withmore City.

Appear physically changes how your character is presenting themselves to the world. If you appear taller, your short description will change. If you appear shorter, your short description will change. The same goes for your gender.

Below you will find a more detailed explanation of some of what you can do.

APPEAR

Simply typing the command with no options will show you a list of what you can do. This will change as you increase your disguise.

APPEARING

This will show you the appearances you are currently affecting.

APPEAR TALLER

You straighten your back, adjust your shoes (possibly putting in some lifts) and you appear taller. If you were previously short, you would now appear average. You must be wearing shoes for this to work.

APPEAR SHORTER

You adopt a hunch, and appear shorter. Your short description will go down a level (if possible).

APPEAR FATTER

You push out your belly and appear fatter than you are. You must be covering your abdomen with clothing for this to work.

APPEAR SKINNIER

You suck in your belly and appear skinnier. You must be covering your abdomen for this to work.

APPEAR UGLIER

This option is gated behind a disguise skill check AND an charisma check. If you don't have a high enough charisma you can't appear uglier. Cause you already ain't attractive. Appearing uglier will impact your short description, and will impact how you are treated by NPCs in various situations.

APPEAR WEAKER

This option is gated behind a disguise skill check. If your 'ht me' shows something above 'excellent' such as 'spectacular' you can use 'appear weaker' to drop your health message. This works in a similar way to @holdback, but it does not affect your stats.

APPEAR <short description>

You can appear as a short description that is not your physical gender (if you want to change your physical gender short desc you still use @shortdesc change). For example if you are masculine, you can 'appear hag' to change your characters pronouns to the feminine, and appear as a 'hag' in your short description. Your characters ACTUAL pronouns will change.

STOP APPEARING <option> / STOP APPEARING

At any point you can choose to 'stop appearing <option>' to stop affecting that appearance. For example 'stop appearing hag' or 'stop appearing skinnier'.

You can also 'stop appearing' or 'stop app' to cease all affected appearances.

COOLDOWN

There is a cooldown on how quickly you can change your appearance. This cooldown is dependent on your skill level. As it goes higher, the cooldown goes down.

WHAT BREAKS APPEARANCE?

Unlike disguise, the appearance your character is presenting will not 'break' over time based on things you say or do. The exception here is if you remove certain articles of clothing that are allowing your appearance to not be broken. For appearing taller, this is your shoes. For appearing masculine/feminine/etc it is your groin being covered.

HOW BIG ARE THESE APPEARANCE CHANGES

You can't go from a midget to tall or tall to a midget. You can't go from skinny to fat. You can only 'go up a level' or 'go down a level' so to speak.

CAVEATS

If you are already tall, your short description is not going to change. If you are already midget, it won't change. If you are already feminine, you can't be more feminine, or masculine more masculine. This applies across the board to the different options.

Another caveat is that your characters @voice will NOT change. You will have to change this manually as you see fit.

DISGUISES

If you are disguised and you change your appearance, your gender will change but you will need to re-disguise to have your short description update. This is PURPOSEFUL as you need to prepare/plan before you start disguising up.

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO WHEN PRESENTING A DIFFERENT APPEARANCE

You must ROLEPLAY the appearance you are affecting. If you are affecting the appearance of a hag, you should roleplay as such. If you are affecting the appearance of a bro, when your character typically presents themselves as dainty and feminine, you should be roleplaying your character moving and talking like a bro.

You should consider your @nakeds and @description and @voice as well when affecting changes to your characters appearance. If your nakeds have hard coded 'he' or 'she' or 'him's in them, it is going to be jarring, so please consider using pronouns in your nakeds like %p (help pronouns).

SOMEONE IS PRESENTING AS TALLER OR MASCULINE BUT MY CHARACTER CAN TELL THEY AREN'T REALLY

Then your character believes they aren't tall or masculine. If you notice someone with their back straight attempting to appear taller than they are YOU NOTICE IT ICly. If you notice someone using masculine pronouns where they used to have feminine ones, that is your character noticing the person is presenting themselves as masculine where they previously presented as feminine or androgynous. This is the cyberpunk future, and gender is fluid here.

SEE ALSO:
help shortdesc
help @nakeds
help @describe
help disguise
*Last Updated: 03/01/23 by Fengshui*