Roleplaying writing styles

[Julia Cornelia]

@Arkandel
What kind of stimulant drugs do you do in order to belch out so much prose?

Adderall? Meth?

I'm gonna assume meth-fueled rants unless you indicate otherwise.

[Arkandel]

@Julia-Cornelia said in Roleplaying writing styles:

I'm gonna assume meth-fueled rants unless you indicate otherwise.

I can't stop you! But what are you referring to?

[Julia Cornelia]

@Arkandel

No, well, you said that you tend to write YUGE poses.

And I was saying - partly from personal experience, and partly from being around people who use meth, adderall, and other stimulants - that you're on drugs that make you belch out lots of words.

To be fair, you could also be on MDMA or 2CB. Nevermind that now - what drugs - legal or otherwise - do you use in order to facilitate your lengthy poses?

[Arkandel]

@Julia-Cornelia Oh! Oh, I'm sorry - I didn't realize you were trolling me. For a moment I thought you were trying to make a point.

Carry on.

[Julia Cornelia]

@Arkandel

I was making a point. What drugs do you use? Answer the friggin' question, dude, we're all adults here. I'm smoking weed right now and just drank a Michelob. It's a simple question that anyone can answer, I don't see why you've got to make a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical song-and-dance number about it.

Caffeine is a drug, too.

Or are you gonna be coy and be like "Oh, I don't use drugs. [wipes powder from nose, sniffles, Trump-style]"

In which case, whatever, man.

[Finn]

@Arkandel I tend to pose with brevity over length, but punch as much detail in said pose. I'm a big fan of James Ellroy's "Underworld USA" trilogy which used this to "telegraph" heaps of information as concisely as possible. Admittedly, this works better for more "modern" settings.

Stylistically this makes something like this:
Ray looks tired, as if he's been up all night on MUSoapbox. His wrinkled uniform created great undulating waves of fabric as he sat down to talk about the dungeon crawl. His cold grey eyes flitted from each dungeon crawler, to the barkeep who'd put out the word for this kind of battle. His aloof body language seemed to say: Not interested.

TO: Meet Ray the tired fuck and his wrinkled outfit. Dead grey eyes shift/assess/judge the table of misfits. A long stare spoke for the bartender: "No thanks."

I also think if characters get into heavy dialogue, they shouldn't spend too much posing around their character's sentences.

[EmmahSue]

Inasmuch as I haven't posed in a minute, I try v. hard to keep all 5 senses in mind at all times. We live in a layered 4D world, yo!

Also, just because I-the-writer have complete control over what text goes on the screen doesn't mean I-the-PC has complete control over what's happening in the scene; that is to say, include things that your PC might be doing to betray hidden or unconscious thoughts and motives.

OOC insertions in poses are only okay if you're making fun of yourself.

And whoever said above that telepathy (if you don't actually have the power) is lazy is correct. Write better poses that allow for interpretation and don't shove your character's thoughts at me in a way I can't respond-to. I don't have telepathy, so I can't hear that shit, and if I can't hear it, I don't want to read it. It's superfluous and becomes more about some external third-party view of the scene, rather than the interplay between people involved in it.

There are exceptions to every rule.

ES

[Deleted]

I match my partner's pose length almost exactly, because it's fun for me to play that sort of limiter game with my word usage.

I also match their tense and tone if at all possible. Because.

[Paris]

@Admiral likewise. It often eventually builds up a good rhythm, I find.

[Paris]

@EmmahSue said in Roleplaying writing styles:

Inasmuch as I haven't posed in a minute, I try v. hard to keep all 5 senses in mind at all times. We live in a layered 4D world, yo!

Also, just because I-the-writer have complete control over what text goes on the screen doesn't mean I-the-PC has complete control over what's happening in the scene; that is to say, include things that your PC might be doing to betray hidden or unconscious thoughts and motives.

OOC insertions in poses are only okay if you're making fun of yourself.

And whoever said above that telepathy (if you don't actually have the power) is lazy is correct. Write better poses that allow for interpretation and don't shove your character's thoughts at me in a way I can't respond-to. I don't have telepathy, so I can't hear that shit, and if I can't hear it, I don't want to read it. It's superfluous and becomes more about some external third-party view of the scene, rather than the interplay between people involved in it.

There are exceptions to every rule.

ES

Yeah. I will sometimes give more of an omniscient narrative if the character opposite mine has a reason for the insight (especially if it's a familiar friend, very empathetic person, my character is being really transparent, etc); other times I'll give only external cues, when it makes more sense to be more enigmatic-- first meetings, good composure rolls, etc.

I try, as the narrator, to poke fun at my characters whenever I can. I stay hands-off on other characters, though, for the usual meta reasons.

[SG]

@Admiral said in Roleplaying writing styles:

I match my partner's pose length almost exactly, because it's fun for me to play that sort of limiter game with my word usage.

I also match their tense and tone if at all possible. Because.

Sometimes if I'm in a mood, I'll do this as a passive aggressive thing. Seriously, ten minute one line responses all the time? Eff that, I can play video games in another window, too.

[Arkandel]

@SG At that point I'd just walk out or at least stop posing. If a scene isn't fun what's the point?

[SG]

@Arkandel It's not something I'm proud of, but sometimes I even comment on youtube videos. On my GURPS sheet, I'd have a 1pt disadvantage of Somebody's Wrong On The Internet (6)

[Arkandel]

@SG Come on man, youtube video comments is the closest thing I've seen to hell on earth.

[Alamias]

I can be guilty of longer idle times between poses, even a one line pose, because I tend to play from work so I have to focus on that as the primary. However, I do let it be known before hand that I am playing from work, and will possibly have these idle times, to let people bow out of a scene if they think it will be a issue for them.

shrug

[Arkandel]

@Alamias said in Roleplaying writing styles:

I can be guilty of longer idle times between poses, even a one line pose, because I tend to play from work so I have to focus on that as the primary. However, I do let it be known before hand that I am playing from work, and will possibly have these idle times, to let people bow out of a scene if they think it will be a issue for them.

If you let people know you are absolved of all sin.

Unlike commenting on youtube videos, which is unredeemable and I still can't get over.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel said in Roleplaying writing styles:

@SG Come on man, youtube video comments is the closest thing I've seen to hell on earth.

I see you have never read the comments on ESPN.com articles or Yahoo articles, do yourself a favor and don't.
Though Youtube takes the bronze in the worst comment section event.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere No way. Every time I delve into youtube I lose my faith in humanity.

The outright racist, hateful things there... they're not even pretending to be decent human beings. N-bombs at each other, fat shaming, open homophobia... and over literally anything. It can be a random completely uncontroversial interview for a movie and WHAM full-on racism.

[Rook]

I learned a style, influenced heavily by the 'mentors' that I looked up to in RP as I started out my RP 'career' to be something of the following:

On pose pace -
This depends heavily on the complexity and pace of the scene. A lazy, daytime (while people are working) social bar scene doesn't really demand a fast pace. A gunfight with seven players, however, should. In large scenes with more than 3 characters (including NPCs if they are being posed separately), I adopt the 3-pose rule. After three poses by anyone else, it is acceptable for me to jump in with my next. In scenes where there are fragmented mini-scenes (think huge public events with knots of people NOT at Places), I only consider my 'group' within the larger scene for pose pace. To me, this is normally the guiding, deciding factor on how well a scene is going (unless there are RL interruptions). The more interested people are, generally, the more they are engaged with the pace, I have found.

On pose length:
I intentionally try to prioritize pace over length in most scenes, out of courtesy. However, with that said, I generally pose an entire paragraph of several 80-character lines, or sometimes two. Scene sets can be almost a screen full, especially if sandboxed or setting up a new plot, whathaveyou. In faster scenes, with faster action, I will cut this way back to keep the frenetic pace up. Sometimes down to two lines. I will intentionally break poses up if there is a point in my pose that someone should get a decision or action or a chance to pose a response, with the second half of my pose ready to go based on their decision. This is rare, but it has been met with smiles and thank-yous, in the past.

I have found that I can have several lines or just a few. There are times when the latter is more impactful and character-meaningful. It is the mic drop of posing, the silent stare and walking out after a confrontation and saying your piece. Sometimes it works to make your point more fully than a two paragraph pose can.

On content -
I have played with all kinds of personalities. Some that abhor any sort of non-visible/non-detectable elements of the pose transmitting OOC information (such as character thought, intention or whatever). Others actually will embrace that style of posing, as they find (and I admit it swayed me when I loosened up about it) that it can save a lot of misinterpretation (the idea being to 'translate' a bunch of real-world body language, inflection, etc into a text medium in a clear and concise manner). Sometimes this makes great sense, and is done very intentionally. When done right, it changed my RP style to include it. I now feel that this is more 'cooperative' RP to give people hints into motivation, intention and perhaps reactions.

Of course, this is a balance. It can be done wrongly, so very easily. I don't agree that including thoughts is a good example of this. But including things that can be inferred from facial expression, body language, etc, are.

Finally, my thoughts on clarity -
I don't go into huge detail unless I find that it is warranted, that the object or action of detail is the crux of the pose. If I am swinging a punch at someone's jaw, I am not going to go on for two sentences about how my glove is custom-tailored and lined in gold thread. I am going to wax poetic about the swing itself, the power behind it, yada yada yada. I, personally, find that when people expound on several things in a pose, granting heavy detail to multiple points of interest, that I can lose the grip on what they are trying to say.

To me, a pose should have a thesis, not four. It should have a central point that it is trying to make to those in the scene, maybe with a few supporting emotions, quips or minor actions.

Oh, and posing five different comments to five different people in a scene "just to keep up", to me, is scene overload. It happens to me in RL, if multiple people are talking to me directly (versus having a group conversation). I tend to answer in turn, and I do this in my poses. I find that it is much more realistic and manageable for me.

[Arkandel]

@Rook said in Roleplaying writing styles:

I learned a style, influenced heavily by the 'mentors' that I looked up to in RP as I started out my RP 'career' to be something of the following:

I actually think this may be the determining factor for the majority of us. How we learned to play initially or at least where we played the most in our early times seems to greatly determine the style we prefer; people who got their start in chat-based games (web chat forums, IRC, etc) appear to prefer brevity and faster poses, and people like me who happened to play where longer verbose poses were valued have in turned learned to value them highly as well.

Do you folks think that's a fair generalization?