@HeySeuss

No, I understood that. I was more talking to the people who make it sound like a long post is simply a lot of purple prose or internal monologuing and while long posts can be like that, they usually aren't. When it comes to group RPs I expect posts to be a bit shorter than my 1x1's. 3 paragraphs sounds pretty reasonable. In the case of group RPs in the Advanced section I feel like a lot of that "Advanced-ness" comes from how in-depth the world lore is, the complexity of plot, and the ability of the GM to keep up with that shit and encourage players to build their own characters and even do side-rps amongst themselves.

Regarding post length, I'd say I'm flexible with it as long as it's not a one-liner without any proper context for the next person respond to. (Not everyone is Hemingway, yeah.)

Ironically, Hemingway had a very sparse style of prose. He is honestly one of the reasons I try to chop it down to the essentials. I am always trying to fix run-on sentences and other embellishments. It's a never-ending thing.

Professionally, when writing e-mails, I do that because I'm trying to keep them as short as possible. People get too many e-mails and have a very 'tl;dr' mentality as a result. Typically, five lines is the golden mean.

One thing I'm noticing when people make assholes is that they tack something like "has a sensitive side" or "Is really a nice guy" at the end of their personality section. But, never showing it in their IC-posts.

I'm guilty of this myself, but there are other, more organic, ways of showing your character isn't a total cunt, or just writing down their dickish aspects like they really want to so people will like their character.

The Hemingway App is hilariously terrible, though.

I'm cross with personality sections, in part because of things like that. It sticks you with a very set boundary for a character you've yet to use or flesh out. I don't think Tolkien took to a diary and wrote out a couple paragraphs detailing how his major characters would react to specific scenarios. I don't even see why other people need to be told, word for word, how my character is supposed to behave. Observe their actions through the IC and make your own conclusions.

@Asura When I ask people to fill out the personality section of a character sheet, I try to make it more about their interests and desires then how they behave in a situation. I think it's one of the more misunderstood aspects of the character sheet, so much so that even some GMs don't know why they're asking for this information.

Personality sections on character forms are always a bit weird to me. Like, I totally understand why people have them/use them/what have you, but theyre just... kind of a pain in the ass? I consider my OCs living in a sense, and it's always hard to describe their personality in words. That's why personality sections where you just list a couple of traits always felt like less pressure to me.

<Snipped quote by Mysaren>

I prefer to go with 'psychological profile.'

<Snipped quote by Mysaren>

I prefer to go with 'psychological profile.'

<Snipped quote by HeySeuss>

That's usually pretty good too. Tells you enough about the character but doesn't constrict you that much.