Roleplaying writing styles
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A quick brainstorm of pose preference traits:
Posing Style Traits
A few lines
A paragraph
A few paragraphsI most enjoy poses matching my range of pose length
Poses should stop when there are one to two things to react to
Poses may include long arguments, rants diatribes or other unbroken actionsWrite as a narrator with character speaking directly to the audience "Now them Duke Boys were in a whole passel of trouble..."
write as a neutral narrator as in a bookIncludes ambience of setting
Included ambient characterization such as gesture, timing, posture, habitual movesincludes emotional reaction cues of character or NPC
Meta perspective on feel or history of a place or NPC
including possible motives and causes and effects with wording as a possibility
includes motives and causes and effects as fact (likely only OOC, but open to dicussion)mentions or describes accent
poses out enough accent to convey it
lays out the acccentincreases information if the audience is skilled at noticing the given thing vs OOC communication of same
address the poses personally, "you"
use personal pronouns "I"I can't stand frequent typos
I can't stand frequent homonymsI can't stand more than 2/5/10/15/20/30 minutes between poses
Response poses should include acknowledgement and reaction to the last pose.
Setting poses should include a reason for characters to interact.
Initial character specific poses after a setting pose should include a reason for the characters to interact.Small talk, travel, long pauses for NPC or PC action can be narrated over quickly as desired.
I like descriptions of how a character does a task, at least for the first time my character witnesses it, or when how that task is done changes.
Show me your fashion/food/skill use/performance descripotion porn.
I as a player prefer to take the lead in an interaction.
I as a player will take the lead if the other person doesn't.I make use of and write for minor NPCs in the scene
I want to showcase or demonstrate something about my character or the setting.
I like to support your demonstration of your character or topic within the setting and theme.I only enjoy poses that are at my skill level or greater
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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Here's one:
In a large scene do you (consciously) change your posing style? For example do you pose less specifically in order to avoid spamming others and not for other reasons, such as being overwhelmed, less engaged or anything of that sort?
(I don't).
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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In large scenes I cut my poses to the overall group to 1-3 lines, and only what all could see. I use table talk, or pages to give more detailed interactions with those close by. I'll answer questions from peeps if they are OOC interested, or trying to use a skill or power.
Mainly, i don't want to RP through large scenes. As far as I am concerned, you can just pre-write the whole thing and let players paste in the scene poses as they wish within their own version of the scene.
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The games I started on -- and this goes back a ways -- tended to focus on shorter, more frequent poses rather than longer ones. It was totally expected that people would just pose something like 'X grunts' or 'Y rolls her eyes' and then in another thirty seconds or whatever they'd pose again. People who would routinely pose things four or five lines long would get roundly mocked on backchannels for being too wordy. The focus was all about keeping the action moving, rather than about carefully crafting evocative prose.
There were some people who could do very effective things with this. If anyone remembers the original player of Finndo @AmberMUSH, this was very much his signature style, and he managed to put an amazing air of menace into poses that, today, would get laughed out of the room for being too curt and lacking in detail.
As late as about 2005-2006 this was still more or less the style I adhered to. Somewhere between one to three lines, weighted toward the former, except for the occasional scene-setting or highly dramatic pose. A lot of short, choppy, dialog-oriented lines. Keeping the action moving. By 2008 I had pretty much migrated to the longer, less compressed style, although even a lot of what I wrote that late now looks a little curt, a little too rushed, to my eye today.
I still think this is a valid way of doing things, and it has some advantages over the long line-by-line, one-person-after-another style. When there are 20 people in a barroom, there's just not enough time to complete a scene if we wait for everyone to complete a paragraph in succession. But going short also has a lot of disadvantages; it privileges people who think and type fast over those who are more contemplative, it doesn't mesh well with a hard initiative/turn-by-turn combat system, and it's hard to be as effective on a limited word count and in a very short time as it is when you have more time to think and more words to spend. Like the old joke "I was going to write you a short letter, but I didn't have time -- so I wrote you a long letter instead."
In a large scene do you (consciously) change your posing style?
My style changes gradually as a scene size increases. In one-on-ones I'm at my most indulgent, but, as more people are involved, I get progressively less and less wordy. I focus less on being artistic, and more on being clear, fast, and timely. My 1995 self would still think that my 2016 self's fastest posing rate was still unconscionably slow and wordy, but there's a lot of other things we'd disagree on, too.
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@Arkandel
In a large scene I definitely do change my posing style. I normally put out a solid paragraph though once a scene has more then four people (that is what I tend to consider large) I tend to cut that in half, in a large scene my poses become very descriptive with almost no embellishments, " X does this while says this" just the facts ma'am sort of thing, because good lord to big scenes start to drag so I do what i can to keep them moving. -
Over the past few years, I've grown to 'expect' things like the example @Arkandel mentioned earlier as part of good RP.
For example: "Bob sits down and grows silent. Ever since he returned from the war he's been reserved in social settings with people he doesn't know well. He lifts his glass and...".
Because the alternative is...what, exactly? "Bob sits down, grows silent, grabs a beer, and adds fuck all to the scene because edgy loner." Once upon a time, I was in the "omg thoughtposing is bad" crowd, but now..I mean, we're writing a story together, that sort of stuff adds flavor to the story. (Unless you're one of the bitches who does it passive aggressively in group scenes to take shots at people you don't like.)
I've also grown way more verbose in my poses over the years. Lots of fluff. I can cut it down to a paragraph or two in big group scenes, but if that's all I'm writing, I'm probably bored quickly.
"Tempest smiles and waves back at Jane. "Hey, how are you?" She keeps smiling. When Bob talks she looks at Bob and laughs. "That's so funny!" She sits in a chair nearby."
I can't tolerate poses like that any longer. I used to be able to 'make do' with that sort of stuff, but now it just makes me want to pull my hair out.
And it's usually the prevailing sort of RP you'll see in Elysiums/other gathering places, which has kind of led me to be more and more insular as time goes by, regarding who I play with, and not venturing into public much. I'm a jaded, bitter bitch
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@Tempest said in Roleplaying writing styles:
For example: "Bob sits down and grows silent. Ever since he returned from the war he's been reserved in social settings with people he doesn't know well. He lifts his glass and...".
Because the alternative is...what, exactly? "Bob sits down, grows silent, grabs a beer, and adds fuck all to the scene because edgy loner."Although I pose like that myself - more often these days than I used to - I think the point is that neither of those things gives you, Bob's partner, something to play about. Sure you know the guy isn't just an antisocial loner but your character doesn't, and you weren't really given something to hook into.
It doesn't need to be much. A soldier dog-tag to go with the grumpiness will do just fine to give you something to ask him about.
What I've found more useful is offering some context to a situation. For example my paranoid mercenary walks in and doesn't put a hand on his weapon, sits with his back facing the door, throws his head back when he laughs... and I explain in the pose these are signs of being at ease - he doesn't feel threatened here. Sure, I can pose just the physical actions and maybe it'll sink in, but some narration doesn't hurt especially with unknown partners.
I've also grown way more verbose in my poses over the years. Lots of fluff. I can cut it down to a paragraph or two in big group scenes, but if that's all I'm writing, I'm probably bored quickly.
Same. As for verbosity (or its absence) I want to stress that neither really means someone is a good roleplayer. I'm more biased toward longer poses with additional detail but the truth is portraying a fun character can't be measured in words and paragraphs.
"Tempest smiles and waves back at Jane. "Hey, how are you?" She keeps smiling. When Bob talks she looks at Bob and laughs. "That's so funny!" She sits in a chair nearby."
I can't tolerate poses like that any longer. I used to be able to 'make do' with that sort of stuff, but now it just makes me want to pull my hair out.
Oh, peeves. Okay, here is mine - please show some goddamn subtlety, don't just parse my pose for keywords. I don't mean being politically or even socially savvy but where it falls just short of metaposing. For instance: "Bob walks into the busy room. He sighs for some reason then he goes to take a seat." "Jane looks at Bob. 'Hey man, why did you sigh?'".
... This bugs me more than it probably should.
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@Arkandel said in Roleplaying writing styles:
On the contrary I've learned to associate brevity with subpar roleplay. It's largely a bias, I'll freely admit it, and there are definitely players who can pull it off. @Coin, for all he's a blight on this world, can make every word count but most people can't get away with it. There's also a stigma about it being a sign of distraction such as when someone's playing on multiple scenes and just churns out a quick pose once in a while.
I can't help but feel 'brevity' is bad. This is just personal taste, of course, and I'm sure it works for some people.
On the other hand, I agree with @Arkandel entirely in that by /no means/ does verbosity mean someone is good. Anybody can vomit out 5 paragraphs if they try hard enough (Protip : Tempest's #1 obvious sign of a verbose, shitty roleplayer, they write paragraph after paragraph about how special and awesome their character is and manage to add nothing to the scene, somehow.)
I just have a hard time remaining interested for long if you can't /at least/ give me 2 paragraphs every pose. Because, tbh, you're probably not giving me a lot to work with. And honestly, that might be more a flaw with me. Or it's just different tastes.
When I hear 'brevity' I just picture those Elysium-sort of poses we're all familiar with. Or people who will just pose "She smiles." or some other 2/3/4 word action in every pose they write. Yes, we all abuse those small gesture, but like...give me some flavor please. "She laughs and flashes a cocky smile at Jane after the woman's comment." Not just "She smiles."
I am definitely an elitist in terms of RPing styles.
Random pet peeve. People who don't seem to understand that you can combine an action and dialogue into 1 sentence with a comma.
She smiles. "Hey Jane." She looks around. "Where is everyone?"
She smiles, "Hey Jane." She looks around, "Where is everyone?"
Something about that genuinely bugs me and will make me think less of you.
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@Tempest said in Roleplaying writing styles:
Random pet peeve. People who don't seem to understand that you can combine an action and dialogue into 1 sentence with a comma.
She smiles. "Hey Jane." She looks around. "Where is everyone?"
She smiles, "Hey Jane." She looks around, "Where is everyone?"
Something about that genuinely bugs me and will make me think less of you.
Um that's not grammatically correct though.
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@Roz What isn't? o_o
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@Autumn said in Roleplaying writing styles:
My style changes gradually as a scene size increases. In one-on-ones I'm at my most indulgent, but, as more people are involved, I get progressively less and less wordy.
My style changes distinctly when you're involved. You know what I mean.
@Tempest said in Roleplaying writing styles:
She smiles. "Hey Jane." She looks around. "Where is everyone?"
This is grammatically correct, if somewhat inartful. Then again, Hemingway made a healthy living.
She smiles, "Hey Jane." She looks around, "Where is everyone?"
This is not grammatically correct.
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@Tempest said in Roleplaying writing styles:
She smiles, "Hey Jane." She looks around, "Where is everyone?"
That isn't grammatically correct. You can't actually just make those into one sentence because you can't smile words. Or look around words. Your pet peeve version (the first one, where it's four sentences) is the one that's actually correct.
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@Roz My life is a lie.
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I'm a big fan of a more judicious use of brevity. I've always had a bad tendency to glaze over when confronted with giant walls of text in both descs and poses, so I appreciate when someone is able to edit themselves gracefully.
For example, it's perfectly acceptable to me to write, 'Jane's expression turns regretful as Robert voices his opinion, and she looks down at her hands, contemplating the way the light plays off of the gold and diamond rings on her fingers. With a quiet sigh she taps her manicured nails against the tabletop, a nervous gesture, then focuses her brown eyes upon Robert again, her gaze steely. "How /dare/ they bring the child into this?" She asks the attorney, her voice cracking. Clearly there's a degree of protection she feels for the little girl, regardless of how it undercuts her carefully cultivated cool demeanor.'
I prefer poses be about 4-5 sentences, unless it's rapid-fire conversation. I like description to a degree - it's okay to say, for example, Elizabeth wears a series of gold and diamond rings on her fingers', but annoying as fuck (to me) to read a very specific detailing of the cut and clarity and provenance of each piece of jewelry, when it's not something that would be immediately noticeable upon first perusal of the character desc. It's rarely something that is of much import to a scene, and, well, if they're all Treasures or Wonders or enchanted artifacts, then that's something that you can throw into a +view. But I am digressing.
I like to see poses that: have an idea of the time and place/space in which they are occurring; show a behavioral quirk of the character, be it a nervous gesture or a tic or reflection of a flaw; don't delve into thought-posing or meta-posing overmuch (but I still buy Telepathy to react to those anyway); resolutely refuse to veer into second person; and provide actual meat to react to - unless, again, it is rapid-fire conversation. I hate feeling like the setting and space and anything else that I have striven to provide for others is completely fucking ignored by their need to showboat and be the center of attention, rather than actually collaborative.
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@Tempest said in Roleplaying writing styles:
Over the past few years, I've grown to 'expect' things like the example @Arkandel mentioned earlier as part of good RP.
Like you, my expectations have adjusted over the years. I've been doing this a long time.
My poses tend to come out in a style that mixes scripts and prose. My prose is straight-forward and blunt because I write persuasively before tribunals. Hanging participles and flowery writing are rightfully derided. Legal writing rises and falls on the ability to get the argument across quickly, succinctly, and without confusion.
There is also a bit of conceit. I use it expressively to point out where a PC isn't apparently clear or where there is a hook to grasp onto. For example, today:
"Do not forget about Cannae." Whatever that means. "My Sire told me much of your Covenant. Of its origins. Of how it believed itself to be so -- so /different/ -- when it was just like anything else, anyone else. Zeal by doctrine, rather than faith by revelation. Enforced, not believed." Beat. "But I do not believe you have come to talk about doctrine. And I do not believe for a second that you truly fear me." Another beat. "And if you did, then being here -- " He chuckles quietly. " -- being so close to me? Is not prudent."
This sandwiched by two other paragraphs: the introductory paragraph, wherein I try to set up context for the "meat"; and the conclusion, which is usually one or two sentences I use to try and offer suggestions as to what to interact with.
But I limit my expectations to what I can do. We all express ourselves differently. I'm not going to get annoyed if someone expresses themselves poorly, flamboyantly, or otherwise differently.
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@Tempest I'm sorry.
If it makes you feel any better, your grammatically incorrect version is one of my pet peeves.But yes, the rule is that if you're using a comma to introduce or close dialogue, your verb has to be something that can actually speak the words. Says, yells, exclaims, murmurs, mumbles, etc. Otherwise, it should be a period.
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In small scenes, especially one on ones, I am in the school of @Arkandel. I enjoy writing long multiparagraph poses and making them all kind of purple and flowery, with similes and metaphors and allegory and whatever else. I don't consider it 'good rp' necessarily, in fact some of it probably bogs down some parts of rp. But it is fun/soothing/relaxing to just play around with pretty words. I do tend to keep the long fancy poses contained to rp partners I know also enjoy that style so I'm not driving someone (or several someones) crazy.
That said, I can do the quick back and forth dialogue with people who prefer that style, so long as the short poses I am getting give me something to respond to. I just need to know that is the plan, because it also requires me to focus more and multitask less. A scene where it is my turn to respond every 3-5 minutes is something I will set aside time to do with no distractions, whereas the ones where I get a 15 minute break between turns allows me to put a set of dishes in the washer or check over homework or whatever.
Poses that have a bit of 'narrator' voice I find fun, so long as its not narrator voice that seems like it is just taunting me because I can't react to it.
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@Tempest said in Roleplaying writing styles:
I just have a hard time remaining interested for long if you can't /at least/ give me 2 paragraphs every pose. Because, tbh, you're probably not giving me a lot to work with. And honestly, that might be more a flaw with me. Or it's just different tastes.
I mean, that is a hugely variable measure. Two paragraphs can mean something very different across players. I tend to do one paragraph poses, but they can be bigger paragraphs than some folks who regularly pose multiple paragraphs. So. YMMV. I would object to the idea that I don't give people stuff to work with in 4-6 sentences, though.
