wankgate | The Fifty-Third

Wankgate, am I crazy, or do some of the problems in RP (as far as writing quality goes) come from people not really "writing" and more trying to replicate the feel of the medium their character is from?

Given that most of us play from visual media of one kind or another, that means that most words are going to be dialogue, and actions, even thoughts, get neglected.

I know networks also have a lot to do with this, but I'm just musing. Maybe if people really tried to write, instead of being so fixated on a character's literal voice, we'd be better off.

While I sort of disagree with this, I also sometimes feel like people feel the need to have an action in every tag and it can make their characters seem pretty fidgety. Even in novels, characters can have long conversations with only occasional references to their actions. As for thoughts, I like including a character's inner thoughts in tags, but I'm also trying to cut back on doing this too much since I think it can lead to infomodding, which might even be unintentional on the part of the other player.

I guess I think the best approach is a middle-ground approach--not focusing only on dialogue, but not forcing thoughts or actions where they're unneeded either. Either extreme is bad writing.

That kind of thing works in novels because it's only one writer. You can have a dialogue section of two characters going back and forth, character A bringing up topics in sequence with character B just giving short responses. But in RP because each player only controls one character, just answering "yes" isn't enough and so you get the problems of tons of pointless info dumped, or multiple conversations happening at the same time.

I'm a little confused how you got short answers like only saying "yes" out of what I said? I just meant you don't have to have your character doing some sort of action (adjusting their collar, crossing their legs, etc) in every single tag, or a paragraph on their inner thoughts.

I think I agree with most of what you're saying. The kind of imbalance, for lack of a better word, is definitely a problem, though I wonder if it really has a different source. I think if people really focused on writing their character, which can of course involve various levels of action or dialogue at different times, it might work better.

Maybe it really is just the fact that people don't actually know how to write well, in general. I'm just trying to articulate this vibe I get, which is that people are trying to play out scenes while imagining them visually, rather than truly focusing on putting them into words properly.

I was thinking mostly about "Even in novels, characters can have long conversations with only occasional references to their actions." In a novel scene, writers don't have to do that because they don't swap character perspectives each time a new character speaks.

Meanwhile in RP, where the perspective does switch every tag, just putting in the conversation part seems too short to a lot of players (especially in prose) and so they cram in lots of actions or thoughts because they feel like they have to make it longer or more interesting somehow.

gotcha. Well, in that case I personally feel like forcing action or thoughts into every tag just to make them look more substantial is the wrong approach. If it's not something notable, or something that gives me insight into the character or something for my character to respond to, then I just think it's a distraction.

I understand why people might feel they need to do that? But there's this weird thing I've noticed in DWRP where length = quality in a lot of people's minds, and that's often not really true.

The length = quality thing is probably an artifact of journal rp's forefather known as ye olde 'literate multipara rp.'

In ancient history, making people write a lot of relatively grammatically correct prose was often one of the few ways to weed out the absolute dregs. It didn't make for high quality RP very often, but it was so much better than dealing with goku29342's I KAMAHAMEHAED AND KILLED U.

The downside is that it's so ingrained that it really damages the fun of roleplaying and generally degrades the quality, too.

i agree with you. and yes, it's all about literal voice from what i've encountered.

Yeah, this actually came up in a conversation with a friend about the overuse of verbal tics and other speech patterns. Said friend thought it was weird how much these were used (she's not from around here, but has begun poking her head in recently).

We kind of figured out what was setting her apart - the fact that she was really writing, like she was working on a story from one character's perspective, and even when it came to dialogue, she used words that made it sound like the character, rather than just overloading the speech with that character's verbal tic.

and even when it came to dialogue, she used words that made it sound like the character, rather than just overloading the speech with that character's verbal tic.

Oh man, yes. That's SUPER important, and often one of the weaknesses of characters that people find boring to play with IMO. Word choice says a lot about a character.

And it is genuinely hard, so in some ways, I'm not surprised that a lot of people get it wrong, but it seems like lots of people don't even realize it. If more did, I'm sure we could squeeze out more competency from some people.

Homestuck text

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Pretty much the poster child of what you mean. People value form over actual content. See also tittybabies that freak out when someone with an icon with borders tags them.

Eh, people rp for different reasons.

I focus on dialogue because I think of rp as being more like improvisational drama not a "writing hobby." I prefer to reveal thoughts and motivations via dialogue and action, versus agonizing over multiple delicately worded paragraphs of prose.

If I wanted to write I would write fanfic. And I could put in plot twists and cliffhangers and foreshadowing and all that other stuff. What I love about rp is the energy and unexpectedness that comes from playing with other people.

Honestly I'd say the biggest "problem" in role playing at dwrp is loss of that sense of play and sheer fun, which in turn stunts creativity.

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN

HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE ANYTHING

your boring commentspam is not fun for some of us tho

Your prolix prose is no fun for me either.

where the hell did you pull boring commentspam out of "action and dialogue"...

not all "action and dialogue"-heavy writing styles are ECATS sort of things.

you're overthinking it

there are prosers who are shitty writers, just like there are commentspammers who are shitty writers

some people just can't or won't write well, no need for this "tv shows are ruining rp" business

A+ for combining medium wank and style wank though

This is pretty different from the usual medium wank, though. Like... visual media vs books?

i know! that's what makes it interesting

Some of what I play are from video games that practically might as well be visual novels- but particularly heavy on the dialogue side of things and less on the ongoing narrative (there isn't one). There's some simple body cues and languages to signal certain kinds of moods, but the rest is from character voice, dialogue, and tone.

It's entirely third-person objective, with no perspective flipping or delving deep into the inner thoughts of either/any character involved in a conversation, and yet you know what? It works. You can get the feel of everything going on, what they're thinking, what's going on in their heads, just from what they're saying or doing- or what they're not, for the quieter characters. I strive for that natural sort of feel, though I'll be the first to admit I'm nowhere near that.

It's just stylistic differences. It's less the methods and more the execution; people can be shitty writers no matter their style.

So yeah, I think you're overthinking.

For me it depends.

1.) Random network convo about nothing important? Not going to worry too much about actions/inner thoughts especially if it's voice or text. Here the characters having interaction/exchanging info is what's important. So I try to focus on it and voice cues have preference (pauses, sighs, etc)

2.) Random general convo about nothing/semi important? I'll toss in visual cues as/inner thoughts as I think they're needed, but I'm not going to overload a scene with them. Kind of the same thing as above.

3.) Something more important/plotted? Length will vary on character and subject and what I think the other person is interested in seeing/needs to see. Here it becomes about mood and feel at least for me. The heavier the subject/scene the more I want to see of the other character and what they're thinking. One of the characters that I play is HIGHLY perceptive in canon and to play that character well I really do need some background info from the other person.

I like to stay as true to the 'feel' of the source and character as I can otherwise they start sounding too generic. Something through the eyes of character A won't be the same as with others and I try to steer clear of third person omniscient perspective unless it just for setting purposes.

The Fifty-Third

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