Does size matter? What about duration?
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There's that old saying about how it's not the size or how long you go, it's about 'the motion in the ocean'. And y'all likely know what old saying I mean.
I find the same applies to a scene.
Short or long poses, long scene or short, none of it matters so much as how well it flows and what gets accomplished.
Oh fucking well.
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Yeah, I don't really feel like there's a one-size-fits-all to poses or RP. It's not the meat, it's the motion!!
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I also know some people fistshake at me because I pose too fast ( @Sunny, @Gingerlily). #sorrynotsorry.
Honestly though, this is a newer thing for me. We may recall, those of us who read my posts here and thus know my text gaming history that I come from an RP MUD background. Land of the fast-poses because they are in real time, if you take five minutes that is considered being slow, and pose order what's that? This game is LIVE man and if you take too long other people will just keep going and the pose you are writing that contains not just your dialogue but some description of your pensive-but-also-irritated facial expression will be lost and then irrelevant because in the meantime someone punched your best friend. I know how to pose fast, I know how to pose short, I know how to have scenes that are almost entirely dialogue and finish in two hours! I DO.
However, about 10 years or so give or take I discovered MUSH, and it was just in time as I was finishing grad school and then about to do some breeding. Life changed, and my ability to play on the computer in a way where my -entire focus- was on the screen and not ever broken was never going to be the same. Thus now I enjoy the fact that games exist where real time is not necessary, where I can set the pace, where if I have to glance away from my keyboard for a bit because someone wants a glass of juice or has spilled the glass of juice I just got them that does not make or break my ability to participate in a text rpg. So I switched over, and in doing so developed a taste for the long, the flowery, the paragraphs of prose that include way more simile and metaphor than necessary, and playing with language for no particular reason can be as much fun as the actual 'game' part of the game when I find partners that enjoy it too. I know not everyone does, but lots of people seem to, so when I cross paths with them we have good times.
I can DO focused and faster, and sometimes try to. But other times I deliberately seek out the people I know take 15-20 minutes per pose, because that way I can have a scene and also prepare dinner, do the dishes, read my child her bedtime story, put the night's load of laundry in, do the last part of lesson prep for the next day...in other words, I can be a geek AND an adult at the same time. It's sweet.
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@surreality said in Does size matter? What about duration?:
There's that old saying about how it's not the size or how long you go, it's about 'the motion in the ocean'. And y'all likely know what old saying I mean.
?? ... There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
Its about going all the way, long or short?
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@Gingerlily So much this,
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applause So very much that.
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Quality over quantity, but given good quality prose with interesting characters that are well portrayed and offering engaging hooks? I like it long and hard. Shut! Up! It allows for a depth of experience not seen in lighter interaction.
Fast can be okay, and even a good thing, but:
- Did you miss responding to someone's pose?
- Excessive spelling and grammatical errors?
- Are you meta-posing thoughts instead of describing actions?
- Are you hand-waving descriptions or making excessively large assumptions to shorten things?
None of those are a scene-killer for me, necessarily, but they do start to detract. Certainly, long poses can be just as problematic if done poorly.
For long poses, please:
- Match pose-time with others in the scene, roughly. If everyone is posing in 3 minutes, don't take longer than 6. If everyone is posing in 10-15 minutes, don't take less than five unless you have something Earth-shatteringly profound to write in a few flawlessly tuned lines; balancing expectations makes everyone happier.
- Don't try to multitask. If you are going to do multiple scenes concurrently, great-- but do not presume that changes your speed requirements within a single scene. It's almost always better to bow out with an ooc explanation that the other scene is taking up too much time. It doesn't even have to be a long explanation. "Sorry, gotta go. Pack-mate is pregnant with Azlu, and guess-who's coming to dinner."
- Don't try to multitask. If you're playing a video game while waiting for others, the scene probably is a bad match for you, or vice versa. You really can't play League of Legends between poses, no matter how slow they are, without looking like an ass.
Many of my best scenes had an average pose rate of 10-15minutes, with 3-5 people present. I've had a lot of fantastic RP with pose rates of 3-4 minutes, but I find that challenging if I'm trying to cough up 2-3 paragraphs worth in that timeframe. Longer pose rates, like 30-60 minutes are feasible, but that quickly becomes more like a play-by-mail setup. Fortunately, I like those too... and RPing with some people is always worth the wait.
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All I care about is furthering and engaging with the story.
Give me something to respond to and keep the story going or it's time to end the RP as it's not going anywhere at that point.
Every other factor is of much less importance.
I am not a grammar nazi, if I can understand it then it's all good.
I am not a spelling nazi. We all make mistakes.
The only other factor that 'matters' to me is length of time between poses. If I am falling asleep because you're taking more than 15 minutes to pose, then I am probably not going to stick around for much longer. I have limited time. Don't abuse it.
