NPO - Novel Post Obession

  • Thread starter KuroBuros The Infected
  • Start date
I think bravo has hit the nail on the hid really, it is quality not quantity and I probably stray on the side of quantity too often but hey ho.

Personally as a "novelist" writer the reason I write longer posts is because this is my sole outlet for the small amount of creativity I have. I love writing but I'm sad to say I don't have the commitment or the imagination to write my own novel or short story. Here I get a forum to share my writing and also live out some incredible scenarios all with direction of how to proceed.

For that reason I put effort into my posts and use a fair bit of desciption to really set a scene. I love to explore thoughts and feelings and pour through my characters emotions. I can understand why it would frustrate quicker posters and for that reason I personally try and make it clear that I am a one post a week guy and stick away from 1 v 1 rps as it can be very frustration waiting on a guy for ages when all you want to do is move on the story.

I think also some smaller posters get frustrated as longer posters make them feel they have to do more to keep up. Personally I always say in any of my rps that I gm that I am looking for advanced level but within that for them to be the best they can be. I would never criticise someone for doing one or two paragraphs if it was good content or needed to advance the story.
Honestly if I don't feel a role play or creative enough I don't reply till I get inspiration.. I try never to give lack luster posts :c
 
Alright, but of a brief history of me and why I ended up taking a several year hiatus from roleplaying before returning to it by joining a dedicated roleplay site in January 2012.

Back when I started roleplaying in late 2001, it was a Starfox fan board that had a roleplay section that didn't have rules or standards past the site rules, namely keep it PG-13 and be respectful to fellow members. The roleplay forum, being unregulated and without structure, ended up having the various roleplayers playing persistent characters across several games, and you fell into groups of regulars who would join everything together. Games were often long-lived, everybody wrote a few short paragraphs per post, and it was pretty fun and a great introduction to roleplaying.

Then one day, after a lot of the regulars had moved on, all the people I usually RPed with got into "speed posting" and would pump out literally dozens, if not hundreds, of one liner posts a night over the course of several hours. This wasn't working for me, and I had to drop all the games early because even writing a couple paragraphs would have me completely overwhelmed by the amount of posts and ignored because I wasn't keeping up. At the time, I figured all roleplays were kind of like that and I didn't have another community to do it in, so I quit roleplaying and decided to leave the site, it moved on without me and I wasn't happy about my creative outlet getting screwed.

When I picked up roleplaying again, I ended up finding a proper site that had proper structure and writing standard enforcement and I found myself able to write how I was comfortable in doing so. I always wrote in paragraphs, and still do, because there's a lot of stuff to cover in a post, and I really like to sit down and read a particularly well-written post in my games because I get invested in the story and the characters, and with the longer posts it's a lot easier to develop characters and plots, I find. In my games, I have a standard of two paragraph posts minimum, one a week or more, and it's meant for people like me who want a game to keep steady, but also to give everyone a chance to post in a comfortable time frame. It's a lot less stressful than feeling like you have to dedicate your entire evening to sitting on the computer and mashing the refresh button because a few people are going back and forth several times a minute for several hours.

I'm not even going to say sorry for saying it, but standards are there for a reason and it cuts out a lot of unnecessary drama right away by letting prospective players know what's expected of them. It's not about discriminating against other players who can't or don't want to write that much, it's so the people playing can enjoy playing in a game that everyone posts similar quality and lengths. Much like how I wouldn't expect a fast, short poster to accommodate me in playing in their game, the same thing goes for them; two paragraphs are not that much, and while I usually write between 5-7 per post, I let my players know I don't expect that, but encourage them to do it if that's what they want. Speaking from experience, nothing makes a game go bad as when you end up having players of different skill and comfort levels in the same game. If somebody writes a 3 paragraph post and is replied with a one liner, then you're going to have two very unsatisfied players that obviously aren't compatible.
 
Alright, but of a brief history of me and why I ended up taking a several year hiatus from roleplaying before returning to it by joining a dedicated roleplay site in January 2012.

Back when I started roleplaying in late 2001, it was a Starfox fan board that had a roleplay section that didn't have rules or standards past the site rules, namely keep it PG-13 and be respectful to fellow members. The roleplay forum, being unregulated and without structure, ended up having the various roleplayers playing persistent characters across several games, and you fell into groups of regulars who would join everything together. Games were often long-lived, everybody wrote a few short paragraphs per post, and it was pretty fun and a great introduction to roleplaying.

Then one day, after a lot of the regulars had moved on, all the people I usually RPed with got into "speed posting" and would pump out literally dozens, if not hundreds, of one liner posts a night over the course of several hours. This wasn't working for me, and I had to drop all the games early because even writing a couple paragraphs would have me completely overwhelmed by the amount of posts and ignored because I wasn't keeping up. At the time, I figured all roleplays were kind of like that and I didn't have another community to do it in, so I quit roleplaying and decided to leave the site, it moved on without me and I wasn't happy about my creative outlet getting screwed.

When I picked up roleplaying again, I ended up finding a proper site that had proper structure and writing standard enforcement and I found myself able to write how I was comfortable in doing so. I always wrote in paragraphs, and still do, because there's a lot of stuff to cover in a post, and I really like to sit down and read a particularly well-written post in my games because I get invested in the story and the characters, and with the longer posts it's a lot easier to develop characters and plots, I find. In my games, I have a standard of two paragraph posts minimum, one a week or more, and it's meant for people like me who want a game to keep steady, but also to give everyone a chance to post in a comfortable time frame. It's a lot less stressful than feeling like you have to dedicate your entire evening to sitting on the computer and mashing the refresh button because a few people are going back and forth several times a minute for several hours.

I'm not even going to say sorry for saying it, but standards are there for a reason and it cuts out a lot of unnecessary drama right away by letting prospective players know what's expected of them. It's not about discriminating against other players who can't or don't want to write that much, it's so the people playing can enjoy playing in a game that everyone posts similar quality and lengths. Much like how I wouldn't expect a fast, short poster to accommodate me in playing in their game, the same thing goes for them; two paragraphs are not that much, and while I usually write between 5-7 per post, I let my players know I don't expect that, but encourage them to do it if that's what they want. Speaking from experience, nothing makes a game go bad as when you end up having players of different skill and comfort levels in the same game. If somebody writes a 3 paragraph post and is replied with a one liner, then you're going to have two very unsatisfied players that obviously aren't compatible.
I understand I did role playing on youtube in a Naruto community that did chat rping so switch to Iwaku was very refreshing.
 
I think, in a nutshell, it all comes down to the environment of the RP.

For example, in Ilium, the writers tend to be held to a pretty high standard. Not only that, but we are essentially creating lore for the world as we write, which usually involves being more thorough with details and explanations and things.

It's actually a lot of fun, because you get to see how the things you've come up with before get held as canon by other players in future posts. For example, a mountain pass named by a player in Chapter 2 still gets brought up and we're in Chapter 9, almost a year later.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I am also in some other RPs where my posts are significantly shorter. Three or four paragraphs at most, with just a few sentences each and maybe some dialogue.

Ultimately, it's all up to how the GM or GMs decide they want to set the tone of the RP.
 
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Okay what is up with the obsession with writing 5+ paragraphs with 20 sentences per post? I get some people have more imagination then me but if I wanted to read a novel well I'd pick up a book. For me writing is something I like to do but my farsightedness and attention prevents me from really writing long posts. Also I like being able to write posts when my partners are online so we really get role playing. Hell, last month ChaosMage and I finished a role play in 2 days.


Honestly can somebody tell me why this a thing? Specially with peoples demand on Minimum 4 paragraphs/post ...
Had drama twice today because I asked people to stop this ^^

speaking of posts between 12k to 42k letter. 12k are 2 and a half screen on a 1920x1080 resolution.

llium is actually very comfortable and very readable, despite the length. Must be that everybody keeps to the Code of Conduct in some way or another ^^