Geas

I'm sorry but 456 characters is WAAAAAYYYYY too short for a long desc. That only leaves enough room for something like this.
The frame of this man’s body is not particularly tall, but imposing nonetheless due to his large and well toned musculature. His muscled body shows many scars of battle and combat whenever any part of it is shown. His facial features show a silent stoicism, but they do not necessarily seem cold or uninviting, but more determined and somewhat mysterious. His hair is a normal brown color and seems rather unremarkable.

I disagree.

It'd be neat if players had more control over descriptions, eg. sentences that are hidden by armor slots (I want my Yakuza-style back tattoos) and adding "look at X on player" features.

But the main description itself should ideally be short and sweet. ^^

Edit: Most common "hidden sentence" would be hair, of course, even though it's not a standard armor slot. ^^

I'm not against having a limit. But I feel like it should be more in the area of 800ish characters.

I have seen some incredibly well written descriptions that fit perfectly within the limit of the 6 lines. I can think of at least 4 specific characters who managed to work in that 6 line limit and I have no misconception of EXACTLY how they look. I think its important to begin to use words beyond basic and typical adjectives to describe things in more detail using less characters. If you struggle to find words to fit, ask around. Some of us really do enjoy writing descriptions and would love to help!

What I would love to see instead would be maybe a way to put a "temporary" description in. Something along the lines of "she has ink covering her hands" etc. Even just a single line worth of description above or below the normal long description would give the players a lot more flexibility in their roleplay. So something like xdesc but for your actual character not just in the room.

Longer descriptions sound good as an idea but are a bit cumbersome when you have to read them. I kinda regret the wall of text one of my custom items generates when looked at...

It could work if you could look at someone without having to read their long description. Also I feel that while a longer description does mean more vivid details, which is all good and well, it also means that it is harder to pick relevant details from the text on a moments notice.

Most descriptions are bad anyway, and cover things that are obvious, or things that aren't even visual anyway.

The frame of this man’s body is not particularly tall, but imposing nonetheless due to his large and well toned musculature. His muscled body shows many scars of battle and combat whenever any part of it is shown. His facial features show a silent stoicism, but they do not necessarily seem cold or uninviting, but more determined and somewhat mysterious. His hair is a normal brown color and seems rather unremarkable.

Bloke is stronk and scarred from battle. Also a stoneface.

Height and hair colour are handled by the game already and don't need to be part of the description.

The key to a good description is to rewrite it 20 times.

I know my own descriptions are bad too