Grakor Grumbles: Heights and Weights

[Alliicce]

Personally, I dislike descriptors. They're too vague and it's seems a bit shallow for RP purposes, if someone wants to go in-depth. My thoughts on this topic are scattered, but try to make sense of it. I'm leaning towards keeping the way things are though, but being more lenient about it, unless it has an extreme difference...
*coughs* Spoilers to split up my thought processes.

Spoiler:

I'm 5'1" and will never grow any taller than that. It's that Filipino blood in me. So I've realized that I've never looked straight on to another person, my head is always tilted up. Why? My head is tilted up because I need to make eye contact with the person. To me 5'5" is Tall and 6'0" is Scary Tall, but this varies to person to person because they're not the same height as me. That could also be reversed for people who are Tall and think people like me are Short or Tiny.

Besides my shortness, I'm technically overweight, but I don't look like it.
"Guess my weight!
"Uh.. 135 lbs..?"
"Ahahaha... Add 30 more..."
"WHAT?"
I fill out nicely. >_>;
Somehow reminds me of cows. I never expect them to weigh over a 1000 lbs. My brain is weird like that.

Spoiler:

I believe height is an impressive, intimidating thing. I usually don't see RP where height does that, but it should. We have races with varieties of height. A Gnome seeing a Draenei for the first time? They're huge, significantly two and a half (*shudders*) Gnomes put on top of each other. They don't say "My, you're a tall one for nothing".

I tend to ask height, a lot. Why..? Just in case I need to know if it will be difficult to kiss the other person. Not going to lie and say I'm joking, but it's reasonable.

Spoiler:

Now, let's take my Blood Elf, she's 6'4" or 6'3". That's really tall for a female Blood Elf. Now, there's this other female Blood Elf, but she's 5'5" or so. The smaller elf decides to push mine against the wall. Is that possible? Yes, but will it be easy with one simple push? Possibly. But why possibly? Weight. What if my elf was on the thin side and the other was more bulky? Or vice versa? That changes things.

Spoiler:

For event purposes or adventurous RP, weight and height should be taken accordingly.
We're going to travel into a Troll ruin. You are a human. The gnome in our group steps on a pressure plate. A poisoned arrow flies out, missing her completely because she's short. Luckily, your quick reflexes make you avoid the arrow to penetrate your skull.

Unfortunately, our Draenei gets the arrow in the chest. He's large, so the poison wouldn't have much of a lethal effect on him. It would of for you because that arrow would of killed you on the spot, not the poison. As for the Gnome.. If that poison got to her somehow, her body would of succumbed to it quickly due to its small size.

We get our Draenei patched up and scold the Gnome for being so careless. You either administer the punishment or snicker on the sidelines. She could of got you killed man... Anyways, we move on into the dangerous jungle of the ruins. We stumble across an old, rickety bridge. The Gnome gets first dibs across the bridge with ease.

You're next. The bridge sways, creaking at every movement you make. The danger almost makes you want to wet yourself, but you did your business before we started walking again.

My turn. I am an Orc Mage. After trying to carefully walk on the bridge, I fall through half-way, taking the bridge with me. I cast Slow Fall several times until I reach the bottom of the ravine. Teleporting back up somehow.. I'm with the Draenei and whoever is left in the group. We stare at you and Gnome, but no body blames me for destroying the bridge. *coughs*

So Alice.. What was that story about? Height and Weight in fun RP! The Gnome was 2'7" at 43 lbs. The Draenei was 7'5" at 410 lbs. You were 6'0" at 168 lbs. I was 5'5" at 300 lbs. The arrow would of missed anyone below 5'8" or so. The bridge couldn't handle anything over 200 lbs. Yay, math and science. The subjects I'm not found of.

Spoiler:

I agree the range for these things on WoW are a bit of a mess.. But I think it's most likely set for the model they made. Let me quote the Human scales we have on COTH.

Height

Male:
0.9: 5'4" [1.64 m].
1.0: 6'0" [1.83 m].
1.1: 6'6" [2 m].

Female:
0.9: 5'0" [1.48 m].
1.0: 5'7" [1.65 m].
1.1: 5'11" [1.81 m].

Weight

Male:
0.9: 160 Lbs [72 kg].
1.0: 220 lbs [100 kg].
1.1: 280 lbs [127 kg].

Female:
0.9: 120 lbs [57 kg].
1.0: 165 lbs [84 kg].
1.1: 215 lbs [111 kg].

I'm going to pick scale 1.0.
The ideal weight for this scale for men would be 160 - 196 lbs and women would be 122 - 149 lbs. Yet, looking at the character models for humans... The 220 lbs and 165 lbs look the part.

Yes, this obviously is a problem for us because RP wise our characters may not look like the model at all. They may be slender, overweight, etc.

Solution? Either A. Think of how logical your height and weight should be or B. Don't worry about it so much and follow the model's set height and weight scales.

[Ural]

I've never been fond of detailing my character's physical mass or attributes. Outside of the profile I might give a reference to his or her build, and that's about it. I'm fine with vague descriptors. That's how most histories pass work right?

Maybe we can cater to both sides of the fence? How about an approved list of descriptors with matching chart detailing the numerical specifics of what those descriptors represent? Less work on us, more busy-work on you.

[Piken]

Me personally, I don't think I've ever used exact weights/heights during RP past character sheets/profiles. I've never had any reason to as my characters don't just spout out their measurements. I can understand the reasoning for when it comes to dungeon-crawling events and the like, though.

For me, I'd prefer the tall/very tall/etc. because I think it's simpler. Maybe just have a base height for races and then from that people are average, tall, so on. I'unno, throwing random ideas out thurr.

[Demigod204]

It is possible for a "how tall are you?" Question to pop up in RP. I don't think "tall" would be a good answer unless your character is sarcastic. I also don't think the average height for races should determine anything because I tend to like rolling shorter characters. In short, height should not be an issue in profiles but it should be something to maybe keep in mind.

[Rowgen]

@Ural We could always make a chart where you can essentially convert these 'descriptive words' into 'scales', which can in turn be converted into 'heights' if people want to.

For example, this:

Huge: 1.11-1.15
Very Large: 1.07-1.10
Large: 1.03-1.06
Average: 0.98-1.02
Small: 0.97-0.94
Very Small: 0.93-0.90
Tiny: 0.89-0.85

Now, that chart hasn't been worked with or anything, but if we got an even table and stuff like that, it could look nice. It's just to give people an idea of what the chart could look like.

EDIT: I might add, I used the terms 'Large' and 'Small' in the case we decided that scales can be used to represent width, not only height.

[Demigod204]

Another issue is relativity. Being huge for a Tauren is different than huge for a gnome.

[Ural]

Another issue is relativity. Being huge for a Tauren is different than huge for a gnome.

I don't see this bring a problem. Nor questions about height ICly. "I'm tall for a Tauren." or "Yes, your observation is correct. I am short even for a gnome."

[Reigen]

That's why you'd simply add 'for his/her race'.

Tall for her race.
Short for his race.
Huge for his race.
Tiny for her race.

Ect.

Edit: Ninja'd by Ural

[Rowgen]

I would generally assume that a huge gnome isn't bigger than a small tauren. :P

[Xigo]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ussCHoQttyQ[/youtube]

[Demigod204]

I'm a numbers person. xD

[Whorak]

Thinking a bit mathematically, we could perhaps set up a system where you ask, "If my character was a human, how tall and heavy would he be?"

Then you simply multiply the height and weight with a set coefficient for each race, and you have successfully converted your character to the correct class, using a human as reference.

For example (Sorry Reigen, I only know metric system ), you would like to make a Night Elf who is slightly shorter than normal. You then start by comparing your character to a human. If your character was a human, his height would be 1.7m and his weight 68kg. Simply multiply these values by a set number for the race (The coefficient for Night Elves would be larger than one), and you have the values you would use as height and length.

We could use this technique to develop more accurate heights and weights for our characters than what the wiki supplies.

[sunday12321]

The tables are also not entirely ingame accurate.
I only know for a certain about humans, since I barely have any hordies, but I've noticed this:
According to the wiki, a human female at scale 1.1 is 5'11", an inch short from the male 1.00 which is 6'0".
But... If you go ingame, and make a human female at 1.1, and put it next to a human at 1.0... Well, she's not only NOT shorter than him, she's -taller- than him.
After massive fiddling with the smaller decimals I found that the most accurate ratio for humans is male 1.0000 = female 1.0475 approximate. I just can't fiddle with lower decimals as the visual difference is too minor.

And so, according to that logic... Shouldn't a human female at ~1.05 be considered 6'? Apparently not according to the tables.

So... What about that little issue? Do you go by ingame, or by wiki?

(This is also true to all erect standing races. Female ~1.5 is approx male 1.0. But for most erect races the math is solid on the tables.)

[Loxmardin]

I would be supportive of making "actual height/weight" optional in profiles. Some people think it's easier to base their appearences on actual numbers, so I don't see why that's a problem.

... Just give the option to be vague about it. It's not like it really matters in the long run.

Alternatively, completely remove the "height/weight" parts of the profile and let them incorporate that into their "Appearence" section as they please (since that'd still be required for people who want to scale themselves to abnormal heights).

[Maulbane]

I kinda feel this fits because many, many players (see: just me) tend to sneak this into their height/weight sections to begin with, so stop me if this doesn't fit in this thread (I'll edit out half of my post, as if I were dramatically cut down mid-typing, to reflect any chastising).

Where does "physical appearance" fit? I almost always put it into weight, because the ideas tend to cascade in my head (Weight > Body Type > Body Description > All of the above must be okay), but the fact that there's a designation for the character's hair and not, well... Their body type, arguably far more discernible at a glance and, in my opinion, objectively having more to do with who they are than their hair (but I'm sure there's some ancient adage about being able to figure people out from their haircuts). So, basically:

What's the deal with not having a 'physical' section, and is 'other' a sufficient alternative for it to be, considering it's lower in the character-info hierarchy than garments/armor (arguably far less reflective of a character)?

On topic: I think that, considering most of this information is relative to begin with, "vague" measurements rather than exact numbers is pretty much always better. Not once in my, uh, seven (?) profiles have I ever actually been able to visualise my character, nor glean any relevant info on them from the exact numbers - I generally just base the numbers off my image of them, and even then it's just taking a rough number off the official measurements and tweaking it a bit to ensure it fits. "Heavier than the average Dwarf" in my opinion could do with expansion but is a perfectly neat alternative to X kilograms over the average in the weight section, et cetera.