Lengthy Roleplaying

Ok. So as I have been roleplaying for a certain number of years I have realized there are tons of different ways and styles to roleplay. But what I have been aware of is there is one common misunderstanding that lots of roleplayers have. And that is that people think that Length= Good Roleplaying. Not necessarily true. Yes, long roleplay posts are usually very descriptive and well written but its not because its a big post.

You see, what good roleplaying really is, is that is descriptive, creative, and you can understand it easily. You can see it in your minds eye, and it makes it fun for both you and your roleplaying partner.

Now when people think they have gotten better and want to show off their roleplaying skills, (And I have done this too) you post like 13 paragraphs just to show off how amazing you are. The thing is, as long as you can describe the actions of your characters and your surroundings in a creative, descriptive, and clear understandable way, it doesn't matter how long the post is.

You can easily describe what your character is doing just as descriptive, but much less of the post length.

Honestly, its great you wanna make a great visual picture in the other persons mind, but I do I really care what color your kunai holder is, or how you have a speck of green in your eyes when you get mad? Truthfully, most people don't have time to read a 7 paragraph post of you walking into the battle field and saying "Lets do this". You can easily do just 3 paragraphs or 2 and do it just as officiantly. Now Im not saying that you have to shorten your posts, its anyone's choice how they roleplay, but just to make this clear, big posts dont necessarily mean good posts. Just cause you post a million words each time you reply does not mean that you are automatically an amazing roleplayer.

Had to make that clear.
Whats your thoughts on this?

Sometimes people, like me, just get into it and like bouncing off of what other people wrote up and then adding their addition in the time frame. I agree quality beats quantity every time, but being able to keep up a good quality post in a large quantity is even better.

I agree. Sometimes longer posts are even considered bad role-playing because some people don't want to read that much. The conception that a long post is better than a short post is really a generalization extrapolated from the fact that most often one cannot write enough in a really short post to fully showcase what is going on. Sadly, as humans we are more inclined to accept extreme concepts rather than shades of gray. They're just easier to think about.

Personally, I enjoy long posts. I feel that if I write a two paragraph post I am not depicting things as well as I should be and it is more to my own satisfaction than anyone else's that I write long things. And I get carried away too. XP But that's a personal opinion, to someone else what I consider a good post they might consider bad or just mediocre. We all have different tastes after all.

Yeah I agree as well. But still, some times you dont have to post a 8 paragarph post saying that you walked into the battle field. It was cold and you didn't see your enemy. Thats overkill. Now if you like doing that, then go ahead, but if you feel like you have to because your pressured to be a good roleplayer and that means posting huge everytime, then your mistaken.

-.-



And I agree, roleplaying is really to each his/her own. Its all about opinion and your own opinion, rather then others.

What Im saying is 3 paragraphs to me is a short, but well written post in comparison to a 6 paragraph post.

It all depends on the action of the post. If your battling or doing lots of extreme things, then of course a 2 or 3 paragraph post is not going to do it justice, but if your just sitting down and listening to your sensei or drawing a kunai, you rarely need to make a 5 paragraph post about it. Just saying

it all kinda depends on the style... I like to make shorter posts that explain more about actions and thoughts then repeating details about the scenery or other actions that have already taken place.

In battle, the first half of my post always summarizes what happened in the previous post of the opponent because my character analyzes them and also, your not going to just be standing there the entire time either, theres a time defunct that has to be taken into consideration, and by summarizing than analyzing, it beefs my posts up to a bit larger. Then in the second half I make my move along with some other things including thoughts etc. An occasional flashback is always nice too, .

Length has nothing to do with your skill. Hey, i have enormous talent in RP'ing, but i choose not to do too lengthy of posts unless i really need to, or want to. =3

When I'm mad, i usually do angry RP's with nice-length posts, but the detail SUCKS beyond compare. When I'm depressed, i do Sad RP's with some length, the detail is fairly good.

Here's my thing: Find your own way to RP, use your emotions the way your character does, and you can RP with w/e length you want. Just make sure everyone knows what the f*ck your talking about.

Zane-kun. ~
2 Year Rp'er~

I absolutely agree Zane-kun.

And....

Ketiou-Sama
3 Year Rp'er~

Okay, well I personally find this a interesting argument. Anybody can post up a lengthy post and you read it and it's terrible, sentences don't make sense, wrong grammar, all and all terrible to read. But then, somebody can post barely anything but it sounds a lot nicer.
Anybody can ramble on about anything and make a longer post, I tend to do it myself sometimes because it's something you wanna include in your post.

My issue is, people use this metaphor in the wrong contents, example, I see a lot of people posting really small and when I pull them up on this they say "Quality beats Quantity" of course I go to read this thread and it's terribly written, therefore breaking the metaphor. A good roleplayer should balance out quality and quantity because if you do a decent sized beautiful quality post, it's going to be a fantastic thread to read of course. I've found this out after I was hired to be a Topic Evaluator on NWOTN 3.0 and of course, I enjoyed reading these good quality and lengthy post, but when I read massive posts that are a terrible looking read, I just don't wanna read anymore T.T

All and all, I honestly don't think quality is better than quantity, I think balance is the best.

Adam wrote:

Okay, well I personally find this a interesting argument. Anybody can post up a lengthy post and you read it and it's terrible, sentences don't make sense, wrong grammar, all and all terrible to read. But then, somebody can post barely anything but it sounds a lot nicer.
Anybody can ramble on about anything and make a longer post, I tend to do it myself sometimes because it's something you wanna include in your post.

My issue is, people use this metaphor in the wrong contents, example, I see a lot of people posting really small and when I pull them up on this they say "Quality beats Quantity" of course I go to read this thread and it's terribly written, therefore breaking the metaphor. A good roleplayer should balance out quality and quantity because if you do a decent sized beautiful quality post, it's going to be a fantastic thread to read of course. I've found this out after I was hired to be a Topic Evaluator on NWOTN 3.0 and of course, I enjoyed reading these good quality and lengthy post, but when I read massive posts that are a terrible looking read, I just don't wanna read anymore T.T

All and all, I honestly don't think quality is better than quantity, I think balance is the best.

Agreed

Seconded. Quantity is not everything but then quality can be difficult to achieve under 250 words and more so under 150. A good post should including the following:

• Set the scene if not previously done, especially the mood, be it tense, emotional or amusing
  
• Include your characters actions and the motivations behind them. If possible the actions should be interesting, colourful and thought provoking. They should never be out of character
  
• Incorporate your character reactions, especially their thoughts, on the other characters and what they have said. This is critical to making it engaging to others and showing that their posts matter
  
• Should not include great swathes of other PC’s speech, repeated speech does not get more interesting the second time around however good it was originally
  
• Should be spell checked before posting
  
• Most importantly of all if you do not have time to do a good post it is normally not worth doing one at all. Better to wait 24 hours and do the post justice

I think that Quality and Quality should be balanced also.
I think that a good post is 3-5 paragraphs with descriptive details, because personally if i keep on typing, my mind begins to repeat things that i already typed and that just ruins my post. So im down with the whole balance idea.

Meh I like writing shorter posts. Around 2 paragraphs because if I would post long, I would never finish the RP because I would get bored really fast.

Adam wrote:

Okay, well I personally find this a interesting argument. Anybody can post up a lengthy post and you read it and it's terrible, sentences don't make sense, wrong grammar, all and all terrible to read. But then, somebody can post barely anything but it sounds a lot nicer.
Anybody can ramble on about anything and make a longer post, I tend to do it myself sometimes because it's something you wanna include in your post.

My issue is, people use this metaphor in the wrong contents, example, I see a lot of people posting really small and when I pull them up on this they say "Quality beats Quantity" of course I go to read this thread and it's terribly written, therefore breaking the metaphor. A good roleplayer should balance out quality and quantity because if you do a decent sized beautiful quality post, it's going to be a fantastic thread to read of course. I've found this out after I was hired to be a Topic Evaluator on NWOTN 3.0 and of course, I enjoyed reading these good quality and lengthy post, but when I read massive posts that are a terrible looking read, I just don't wanna read anymore T.T

All and all, I honestly don't think quality is better than quantity, I think balance is the best.

So very true.

No one said anything about mine.. D;

Rasen Shuriken wrote:

Adam wrote:

Okay, well I personally find this a interesting argument. Anybody can post up a lengthy post and you read it and it's terrible, sentences don't make sense, wrong grammar, all and all terrible to read. But then, somebody can post barely anything but it sounds a lot nicer.
Anybody can ramble on about anything and make a longer post, I tend to do it myself sometimes because it's something you wanna include in your post.

My issue is, people use this metaphor in the wrong contents, example, I see a lot of people posting really small and when I pull them up on this they say "Quality beats Quantity" of course I go to read this thread and it's terribly written, therefore breaking the metaphor. A good roleplayer should balance out quality and quantity because if you do a decent sized beautiful quality post, it's going to be a fantastic thread to read of course. I've found this out after I was hired to be a Topic Evaluator on NWOTN 3.0 and of course, I enjoyed reading these good quality and lengthy post, but when I read massive posts that are a terrible looking read, I just don't wanna read anymore T.T

All and all, I honestly don't think quality is better than quantity, I think balance is the best.

So very true.

I beat you didn't even read it, just agreed because everybody else did...

I read it. I agree actually, I do think there should be a balance between quality and quantity.
And I agree with Jiro of what a post should entail. Thats really helpful. You should post that as an announcement.

I think its really hard to find the balance, because if the only contest in your post is that you are going to that place, and says "hi" to that person, and the person who made the test allready described area, weather, etc. its hard to find anything relevant to type, that wont just draw out, and bore people, and thereby destroy the quality.
I know its stupid when people goes in and write "I shoot fire at you!" (just an example, it could be worse though...), but i think f you are in a thread, with 3 others maybe, it makes it a lot more exiting, and cool, if your short and precise. (that only counts for combat threads, in social threads, you can be more detailed, cause thats the charm of it ^^)

I believe your both Wrong. A good Role Player is a role player who has fun regardless of the posting quality or quantity,

You can be the most amazing Rper Ever seen on the face of the earth, but if your not having fun its all for null.

So my statement of the day:

Don't Worry about your posts, Just have fun.
(:

~Skylar

we are, but if someone destroys the fun, by making an unprecise, and bad post, that should be regulated right? so that we all could have fun.

I agree. And sky, thats really what its all about. But its almost like acting, when you roleplay, its like your in a scene with them. Of course you want to have fun and it will be fun, but you also want to do your best because you represent that scene, just like everyone else in that scene. If one person forgets there lines or slacks off, the whole scene falls apart. Its a group effort, and as much as it is about having fun its not really about you, its about supporting the other person roleplaying as they will support you. Making a believable environment you both can rp in. If one person is slacking or just not really putting that much effort into their posts, then its just unbalanced and not fun. So for you to have fun, is to make sure that both of you are having fun. It really is a group effort. If not then your just writing a fanfiction . Which is awesome as well but its not roleplaying.

Thats all Im saying ^_^

Giera wrote:

we are, but if someone destroys the fun, by making an unprecise, and bad post, that should be regulated right? so that we all could have fun.

should think about what your saying, because from this end it sounds really quite selfish ):

As for you Ketiou, I agree to a point, but just like in Acting you can't bug the hell out of a person to memerise their lines and do everything perfect, because that will just make them want to stop acting.

same thing in RP.

Have Fun, thats the point. Not to be the best.

*yawn* This is quite an important topic, but I feel that people focus too much at the fact that it is 'quantitative'. I feel that for me personally, if it is something that I like personally, or favor more or see that it is an important aspect towards me; that I will create a really big post. For example, to help develop my character's history I have recently deserted the village hidden in the leaves, Konohagakure no Sato and have since traveled to the water country where I have met up with my KKG clan. Currently, I've made a 5000 word topic that I am only 2/3 the way through. So, if it is important; bigger and descriptive is better ;D

So Dream, is it acceptable for me to destroy the entire village with a paper bomb, then your all like what the hell godmodding? But I'll say "It's okay, I'm having fun so its allowed."

Over exaggeration of course but YEAH!

Godmodding and poor RPing skills are two different things.

=/