A question for my beloved guild colleagues

[Dervish]

I'm on the opinion that when you read a novel, you don't skip character sections you don't like. It puts holes in the narrative and you might miss out on crucial information.

With roleplaying, it's a similar situation. Even if characters aren't directly involved with yours, it's still a nice courtesy to read their post because they put work into it and ideally, the goal is to be writing something others in your game enjoy to read. Roleplaying is at its core collaborative storytelling, everyone who's apart of said story deserve to have their voice heard.

If you're finding it hard to keep up with all the posts or just don't like a person's character, then maybe look for games with less players in the future or at the bare minimum skim over the post for relevant information. I don't necessarily agree with doing that, but whereas people argue that ignorance can be a satisfying strength to the story, I'd argue it more often than not leads to confusion, and not in a good way.

It really makes it hard to read other people's posts when 90% is pure fluff and personal thoughts of their character.

In a perfect world you would put their thoughts into hiders and just write your 2 damn actual sentences(out of 5 paragraphs) which describe to others what their actions are.

And the dialogue... God that thing is slow when in casual and advanced and if not slow it outright forces others to become psychics.
Example:
A asks B something. A *nods their head* at B's response and changes subject to something else. A also gives B a hint on how to do something and A continues to show B how to do it in detail

I mean, the perfect dialogue model are one liners but those are only found in Free Rps and you can't pull that off in casual and advanced since you wouldn't have enough time to finish the conversation or it would be so long that it would slow the RP to a halt. So now players are forced to *use* premonition and say many things at once while *responding* to what the other might say with gestures that universally go with any thing the other might say.

Collab is the way to go for conversations but even that is too much work since you need to coordinate times when you're free and whatnot...

@Bishop

This is entirely your preferences and not indicative of how things should be, so I vehemently disagree with the sentiment that it's a "perfect world". Personally, I can't stand one liners and I find really short and detail devoid posts completely uninteresting and it's hard to give a crap about a character if there's no development or personal insight. One liners force a very utilitarian approach and a simple conversation/ short scene can take pages to complete whereas in Casual or Advanced it can be tidily wrapped up in a single collab, which honestly isn't a nightmare to do because if you just reply when you get on and see a notification/ check the writing pad, it can get done pretty quickly.

[mickilennial]

@Lady Amalthea “It was just a social experiment!”

Personally, I can't stand one liners and I find really short and detail devoid posts completely uninteresting and it's hard to give a crap about a character if there's no development or personal insight.

@Dervish

I agree with Derv's whole post, but this is probably the most central bit that drives it home for me on a unrelated subject to the current topic.

[yoshua171]

Well isn't this an interesting little corner of the Guild :3

I will say preemptively, I have a tendency to ramble, so...bear with me.

Hmm, I'm sort of not in any one "camp" in regards to this subject, but I must say that I definitely agree on some of the points made and definitely disagree very strongly with others.

I agree first and foremost with Odin and Innue I'd say. I, most of all, feel that in RPs with more than 5 people (in particular if they have more than one character each) wherein are not in a single tightly knit (or multiple closely related) group(s) that people should not be forced to read every post. For much the same reasons as were stated before, because yeah those characters may never even come across eachother, their stories might remain separate and if they do come across one another it is more likely than not an intentional act or plan by the players (or the GM) in which case their physical state (appearance etc) and other details ought to be described in their posts anyways. I'm not saying that, in a situation where characters A and B are in a room and characters C and D are in another room far away, and character D leaves and walks passed the open door of the room A and B are in that character D's player should have to describe what they're wearing in every post to make sure people don't miss details like that. However, I am saying that if you transition from one interaction into a new interaction involving more characters (in particular if it was not planned beforehand) that people should be describing in their posts what the other characters are going to be seeing.

If it's a situation where character A enters into a scenario with characters C and D, then the player of character A should be reading the posts AT LEAST just prior to their entrance, OR should be COMMUNICATING with their fellow RPers so that everyone is on the same page.

Also, please don't come to me and say "well that's in an ideal world Yoshua," because all this requires is that people communicate, and if you can't take a few minutes to throw people a message--or don't have the patience to wait for someone to get online to respond to you--then guess what, you need to change because you're missing the point.

If you're that impatient or unwilling to cooperate/communicate, then guess what the whole "you should read all the posts," applies to you in particular.

Also, I'd like to bring up something @Lady Amalthea and co. You said it's necessary for people to read ALL the posts in the RP before posting. I've seen your RPs before (which always seem to be very successful by the way, it's impressive I must say) and some of them are huge, but they're not usually as big as, say something like...oh, I don't know Phoenix Wing. Would you say in the case of a RP like the aforementioned Phoenix Wing, that it is in any way reasonable to ask someone to read all the posts in the IC thread (at the very least)?

For a bit of context for anyone who doesn't look at that link. Phoenix Wing's character tab alone (which is usually the smallest tab in RPs in my experience) has 160 posts. The OOC thread? 53,240 posts. The IC thread is an insane 7,286 posts.

For further context, there are 20 posts on any given page of the Guild, which means the Character Tab is 8 pages; the OOC is 2662 pages; the IC is 364.3 pages all at current time of posting. Additionally I can tell you--having briefly been in that RP--that the characters are distributed amongst several different guilds and do not always interact nor do they necessarily know of eachother in the least. I can tell you that many of the characters may not have even been posted in the CS tab, and I can tell you that many players have joined and left since the RP began roughly 3 years ago meaning that there are any number of players/characters that are almost certainly NEVER going to be relevant to your experience or your character's knowledge base in any way.

So yeah, I'd definitely say that a RP needs one of two things, preferably both. These being either very good and consistent communication and/or people to read all the posts. If you can't do either...I don't know what to tell you.

Oh yeah, and I totally disagree with the whole "put internal monologue/character thought process and "fluff" in hiders or just don't have it exist at all," thing that Bishop put forth. Frankly if you feel that way maybe you would enjoy Free more, or maybe you should run RPs where that is the case, because honestly only giving the bare bones actions/dialogue of your characters is just...well, boring unless the writer really knows how to make less more (which most people do not know how to do it seems, not that that is really a problem at all in my opinion).

So yeah, small tightly knit groups? Read the posts or cooperate a bunch, but DEFINITELY read the posts. Large group RPs, sorry, no, communicate and coordinate with your players and the GMs, because reading all those posts...not terribly viable for people who have lives of any sort--even if it's just high school or the like. I also feel like reading all the posts in a RP prior to the time that you joined is ridiculous, if only because it ought to be the GM's responsibility to integrate new players, rather than the player's. Mind you, I am not at all saying that a player should not be doing their utmost to figure out what they want to do/where they want to be.

[POOHEAD189]

Ok, I see people on both ends of the spectrum, and for awhile I was thinking I'd withhold an opinion from this thread. But I'll give my 2 cents.

---

Should you read all posts thoroughly? Yes. What possible reason would you not? (Other than a possible meta-game, which most people above the free roleplay don't do anyway). The reasons why you wouldn't want to are 1) Time it takes to read, 2) Attention span, 3) outside stress, and 4) posting deadlines.

Now, a lot of people on here who are strict into the 'read all posts intensely' generally have a good grasp on all of these things that keep people from doing it. Not saying it's always easy, but they have a system or a mindset that helps them do it. A system that doesn't necessarily work for other people. Not all have/can do that. Those who don't have that aren't necessarily worse at roleplaying either. They could be really good at writing (posts), they could have a far better imagination than most, and do well with smaller interactions, just not the best at reading or keeping up with 8 people who also write 16 paragraphs and do 3 collabs in 10 days. (Also, some other people in the roleplay could just have shit characters that the GM allowed in for some reason, who do nothing and just confuse people) I don't think they should feel bad about having those issues. I think they should work on them, definitely. And do as Dervs said, with either trying harder or choosing different roleplays in the future. But I think to say they're bad at roleplaying is just plain elitism.

However yes, at the end of the day, if you're responsible enough to not meta-game, you should read every post thoroughly. A roleplay is a shared experience, ideally. Not just your say. However, I will say

Personally, I can't stand one liners and I find really short and detail devoid posts completely uninteresting and it's hard to give a crap about a character if there's no development or personal insight.

@Dervish

that while I agree with the gist of this, small summaries are very good for NRP's. At least to put at the bottom of a post. Not so that's all they read, but it helps them focus on when they do read a post so they know what army is going where, or what political upheaval has transpired and they don't miss it through a typo or flowery wording.

If they don't read the entire post, they will miss subtle hints that my King is either a grim faced hard ass, or he is jolly enough to break bread with your faction, and if they miss that then it is their loss (and they deserve the loss). However, at least the narrative will continue easier and they'll know that my army of 10,000 northmen has crossed the border. (And again, it will be an incentive to read because they'll be wondering why they crossed, and what kind of troops are they, and who leads them, etc.)

Thank you for reading thoroughly :)

[mickilennial]

There's gonna be characters that my characters will never interact with, there's gonna be characters I simply don't give a fuck about, so I'm not gonna read all posts.

@Odin

Doesn’t that set a bad precedent for a collaborative story in the first place?

Would you say in the case of a RP like the aforementioned Phoenix Wing, that it is in any way reasonable to ask someone to read all the posts in the IC thread (at the very least)?

@yoshua171

The difference here is Phoenix Wing is an established RP with a lot of content pre-established. In the case someone is to join that RP in question, it is either up to the GM to establish a requirement to read the RP to understand the content or to create a list of important events to ease that person into an ongoing RP. However, it is not the same as being with a RP from the beginning and refusing to read posts which I think what the topic is more centrally about.

If they don't read the entire post, they will miss subtle hints that my King is either a grim faced hard ass, or he is jolly enough to break bread with your faction, and if they miss that then it is their loss (and they deserve the loss). However, at least the narrative will continue easier and they'll know that my army of 10,000 northmen has crossed the border. (And again, it will be an incentive to read because they'll be wondering why they crossed, and what kind of troops are they, and who leads them, etc.)

@POOHEAD189

This kind of falls into the “if you skim read or skip a post it is a fundamental issue” category in my mind. I can understand hobby writers might be strapped for time, but if they actually care about the project more often than not they will read a piece and if they have issues remembering all the details they will communicate that fact. It is not the writer’s responsibility to write a summary or synopsis. It is the reader’s responsibility to read.

But I think to say they're bad at roleplaying is just plain elitism.

@POOHEAD189

Elitism seems to be a nice buzzword in arguments like this but I do not think myself or others are being elitist when we iterate that if you don’t respect the collaborative project and your peers enough to read their material then you probably aren’t suited to the medium. Role-playing is a collaborative medium and if you aren’t being actually collaborative then what really is the point? It might be pompous and kind of rude for me to basically tell someone to not bother, sure, but it isn’t elitism.

[Innue]

However, it is not the same as being with a RP from the beginning and refusing to read posts which I think what the topic is more centrally about.

@Inkarnate

I think yes, for a new thread it is definitely an instance to be reading all of the posts. However, I think the question was broadly posed to all threads, unless I missed something in the OP.

---

I think @yoshua171 is right to stress the important of communication. If a player is interested, willing to communicate with a sufficient understanding of what is going on, and one one of my threads where I know they really don't need to be reading every post because of a large amount of filler, I'm going to work with them to get them involved.

This is the type of thing I'll judge on a thread by thread basis when I GM and ultimately it is just that - it is up to the GM. RP has very few hard set rules.

[Gullinkambi]

Spiacente, but I have withdrawn from this topic.

[NuttsnBolts]

I believe that claiming elitism in this scenario can be a bit of a misguided claim. For instance the topic of this debate is "If it does not concern my character, or is not a GM post, it does not necessarily need to be read."

As I said before I believe this to be false. To back up that claim please keep in mind how the size of the post, whether it is 2 paragraphs or 20, should not not factor into this equasion, so that includes Free Roleplayers all the way through to Advance. The GM could have quite possibly given some important information to a player for them to write about in their post, so wouldn't you become the fool if you did not take note of something quite important. On top of all this I believe it's just simple respect, give and take, on the belief that your post will be read by your fellow players.

Also want to tackle the bad roleplayer comment and that connection to elitism... Someone can be both a great story teller and a horrible roleplayer. I know of some people that are bad roleplayers (like the player that edited out ALL my collab work from OUR collaboration without telling me) but for me to state that they are bad roleplayers may not be not an opinion, but a fact. Does this mean it is an elitist view? Not always.

However, I may have digressed from the topic at hand and that can be discussed more in a later thread.

---

Now with the other comment of large, long term roleplays roleplays; I can understand not wanting to read dozens of pages of lore, posts, and meaningless events. In those situations it does come down to the GM to bring the new players up to speed on what's happening, but that new player needs to make some kind of effort and not expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter.

In one of our roleplays we had a couple people that joined a later season with two of them going back and reread all the work, while a separate member did a Q&A with us so they could understand the world and story so far. Both scenarios worked out well but this is for people signing into a new roleplay, which again is not tackling the question of "If it does not concern my character, or is not a GM post, it does not necessarily need to be read" as this would assume you are already in the said roleplay.

[Lady Absinthia]

@yoshua171 Phoenix Wing is a large RP yes, Caits the Gm is currently in TWD RP of mine, so I am familiar with it due to the posting habit check I do on anyone wanting to join one of the Rp's I GM. This is an RP that has been running for over 3 years. What I am referring to is when you are already in an RP - you read as you go. You read every post both IC and OOC between your last post before you post again.

If someone is in an RP from the beginning then yes, they should have read the entire OOC and IC over that three years period. Yes, some might be strapped for time, hell who isn't these days? This is one of the reasons why my rule list is so very long compared to most Gm's. I know the amount of time and dedication it takes to be in one of my Rp's but I hold each Rper to the same standard when it comes to posting and reading the posts.

As far as someone coming into an RP after it begins - No. I don't require they read everything. I may require them to read the last round of posting so they know positions of everyone or I may require them to start without reading at all and just to wait for the World Narrative I post after they are approved. Now once they make their first IC post, yes, a must to read every post from there on out while they are in the RP.

Now touching on the what if they aren't anywhere near the others. Say another city, another state, country? Yes, I still do. I have Rp's here people are in different parts of the same city, I have Rps where people are in different countries, still read. You never know what could be dropped where or by who. Especially in situations like in my Rp's or in NRP's. I know summaries are used in some cases, was exposed to that on my previous account here, Afina, when I was in Brimstone. Yes, it is useful as a way to remember certain things in a long post after you read it but I still am with the read everything. (Hell I joined Brimstone late and ended up reading the entire RP before I joined lol)

Outside the realm of "well you will miss something" or "my character isn't near them" or what ever argument you have for or against the need to read all posts - for me take all that away and it boils down to one thing... I want people to read my posts, I put time and effort into them and because of this I will read everyone's post out of respect for the time and effort they made to create their post. It's just common courtesy and something I fear is far lacking in many areas of the RP world.

[Innue]

So the agreement seems to be just because the character interaction doesn't involve yours allows you to dismiss it as unimportant (as per the OP), but that also 'you must read all posts' (as per some of the immediately following comments) has certain conditions that I think have been well documented. I'm glad there has been some clarification and discussion from some of the earlier posts. Made an interesting read at least.

At least for the most part, 'you should read all posts on most threads and most posts on all threads' has held true.

[Ammokkx]

I'm gonna clarify that my argument on the whole thing is aimed at the point where you join a RP, not for an entire thread that already had 1000 posts before you joined. That's just an easy 100 stress.

[Dion]

Doesn’t that set a bad precedent for a collaborative story in the first place?

@Inkarnate

What are you asking me here? You think it sets a bad precedent for collaborative story, so then the only advice I can offer you is to avoid people who don't read all posts. As is evidence from this entire thread, there are people that disagree. So no, it's not gonna set a bad precedent for everyone. It puts you of, but that doesn't speak for everyone and therefore also doesn't set an entire precedent. ^{And to clarify, yes I do think in most/99% of the roleplays, not reading posts is bad practice.}

I think there is a time and place where you can safely not read or skim-read a post and not have it affect the end result of your own post.

But consider another argument: if I don't read your post but still manage to write a post that makes sense, is interesting to read, and incorporates key interactions (by skim-reading a post before it, or by just being aware of what is going on) and never tell you that I didn't read your post then isn't that factually the same outcome than if I did read it and produced the exact same post?

Or in other words; if I never tell you I didn't read your post, you'd never know, and thus there would be no problem to begin with?

And that is the entire point I was making -> if you can write a post that is virtually the same as when you did read the post, the outcome is the same, and the roleplay is good as.

A consideration there is that I'd never go around screaming HEHEHEHE I DIDN'T READ UR POST LOLOL or anything because that's kinda rude because yes, I do believe that it sets a bad precedent for collaborative writing if people ignore posts if they involve your character or it is reasonable to assume you might need the information/are interested in the characters. I never stated otherwise, I never stated I think not reading posts is a good thing or even excusable within reason.

I think there are times when not reading posts is excusable, but it is still preferable you read all posts regardless. But, and I will continue to use this example (and it should be noted that those that have agreed with me were either part of the same roleplay I was talking about when I mentioned 15+ people, or were in the same group of people that partook in such RP's) in an RP with 15+ people, where there are different teams of people (you're a Naruto roleplayer, Gowi, you should know that when you have 6 teams in different villages that there's no reasonable reason to read these posts if they're doing missions on the other side of the world for example) that the only reason to read posts is common courtesy towards other RPers.

And that brings me to @Lady Amalthea's point. People put work and time into their posts (alright, I know that's not always true, but for the sake of argument I will simply assume that we are always roleplaying with capable and willing partners) and so it's reasonable to expect at least some sort of return on that effort. It always irks me when people don't comment on a post, give feedback, or simply say they liked it. I expect people to read my posts, in roleplays where it seems fitting.

So yeah, I'm not of the opinion that all posts must be read in large scale roleplays. I think it's a good idea and definitely 'best practice' for roleplaying, but logistically it can just burn you out and besides that, in a large scale RP with 15+ people, you don't get to pick and choose everyone that partakes. It's too easy to say 'then just pick another RP lululul' because that's not how shit works. Atleast for me. If you're a big boy/girl you will suck it up and partake in an RP even if there's people or characters you don't like. I'm not gonna leave an RP simply because of one person, or two or three.

I think not reading posts is lazy and bad practice but I also think that it can be done in special occasions. As long as the person doing it understands that it's not really a good idea.

[mickilennial]

What are you asking me here?

@Odin

What I was asking (partially playing devil’s advocate for the sake of discussion) was doesn’t it set a bad precedent to go into a collaborative project with the perspective of “not giving a fuck about” your peers characters and as a byproduct their posts and prose? This isn’t to suggest you are going to tell them such a thing, but rather the speculation of negatively framing your peers and having an apathetic outlook being largely unproductive and against the whole point your collaborating in the first place.

I think there are times when not reading posts is excusable, but it is still preferable you read all posts regardless. But, and I will continue to use this example (and it should be noted that those that have agreed with me were either part of the same roleplay I was talking about when I mentioned 15+ people, or were in the same group of people that partook in such RP's) in an RP with 15+ people, where there are different teams of people (you're a Naruto roleplayer, Gowi, you should know that when you have 6 teams in different villages that there's no reasonable reason to read these posts if they're doing missions on the other side of the world for example) that the only reason to read posts is common courtesy towards other RPers.

@Odin

Yeah, and I don’t completely disagree with you. We’ve been in those Naruto sandboxes and I understand it can be a chore to read through everything. Now this may be just me, but even when I’m not a GM (whom, in my honest opinion, has an obligation and responsibility to read those posts) I still read every post in an IC even if it may not make sense per your purview to read them. I view it as an expected respect for those I am writing with whether I am in their ‘group’ or not within the framing of an IC. I feel it’s important to do that. I do see where you are coming from on this, though. Am I obligated to read those posts? Beyond GM expectations, I’m probably not required to, no.

[POOHEAD189]

This kind of falls into the “if you skim read or skip a post it is a fundamental issue” category in my mind. I can understand hobby writers might be strapped for time, but if they actually care about the project more often than not they will read a piece and if they have issues remembering all the details they will communicate that fact. It is not the writer’s responsibility to write a summary or synopsis. It is the reader’s responsibility to read.

@Inkarnate

I didn't say if they had memory issues. Why would they? The post isn't going anywhere. I said it's good to have it to help them concentrate on what is in the post.

Elitism seems to be a nice buzzword in arguments like this but I do not think myself or others are being elitist when we iterate that if you don’t respect the collaborative project and your peers enough to read their material then you probably aren’t suited to the medium. Role-playing is a collaborative medium and if you aren’t being actually collaborative then what really is the point? It might be pompous and kind of rude for me to basically tell someone to not bother, sure, but it isn’t elitism.

I believe that claiming elitism in this scenario can be a bit of a misguided claim. For instance the topic of this debate is "If it does not concern my character, or is not a GM post, it does not necessarily need to be read."

As I said before I believe this to be false. To back up that claim please keep in mind how the size of the post, whether it is 2 paragraphs or 20, should not not factor into this equasion, so that includes Free Roleplayers all the way through to Advance. The GM could have quite possibly given some important information to a player for them to write about in their post, so wouldn't you become the fool if you did not take note of something quite important. On top of all this I believe it's just simple respect, give and take, on the belief that your post will be read by your fellow players.

Also want to tackle the bad roleplayer comment and that connection to elitism... Someone can be both a great story teller and a horrible roleplayer. I know of some people that are bad roleplayers (like the player that edited out ALL my collab work from OUR collaboration without telling me) but for me to state that they are bad roleplayers may not be not an opinion, but a fact. Does this mean it is an elitist view? Not always.

@NuttsnBolts

Well, I agreed with you both initially that you should indeed read all posts. However I think it's the definition of words we're disagreeing on.

Roleplayer: Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role.

Roleplaying is made up of many parts. Being able to write in character, being able to make a good character, posting well, etc. Reading other posts is an adult, responsible thing to do. You should do it. But it doesn't make a bad roleplayer, because as above, they can be better than you at making a character, better than you a staying in character, better than you at posting, etc. That's why I think it's an elitist thing to say, because one peg of what they do you don't like, which means they're off the definition of roleplaying, which is just not factual.

Now, I think we're all in agreement that if someone just doesn't want to put effort into the roleplay you're in, they shouldn't be in the roleplay. But in our heads for the sake of argument, we see two different scenarios. If you're a GM, you see someone who missed something and thinks "this person does not put in the effort, gtfo."

I'm more talking about if someone gets overwhelmed and they have a bad day or something. As long as it's not a recurring theme and they don't mess up the RP I GM, then cool. They got overwhelmed, they'll do better next time. If they don't, then we have a problem. Although that's a very sympathetic view for a certain scenario, granted. But perhaps I RP with people who I trust more, I suppose.

At the end of the day, I am saying this:

Is it ok to not want people to join your RP if they don't read every post thoroughly? Of course.
If they don't, are they bad at RPing? No, it's not that black and white.

[Dion]

<Snipped quote by Odin>
What I was asking (partially playing devil’s advocate for the sake of discussion) was doesn’t it set a bad precedent to go into a collaborative project with the perspective of “not giving a fuck about” your peers characters and as a byproduct their posts and prose? This isn’t to suggest you are going to tell them such a thing, but rather the speculation of negatively framing your peers and having an apathetic outlook being largely unproductive and against the whole point your collaborating in the first place.

@Inkarnate

Yeah but see, I'm not a roleplayer that believes everyone should be treated equally in the roleplay. There are stronger roleplayers and there are weaker roleplayers. That is fine, but there are also those that come in from free roleplay without the willingness to learn or adapt, who seem to lack any and all awareness about what they're doing, and at that point, and that is a point that is relatively hard to reach but somehow still gets reached everytime I am in an RP, at that point I decide not to care.

I am roleplaying not to write a great story of untold epic proportions, if I were doing that I'd definitely not be in any group RP's and definitely wouldn't be finding my partners on a website where, by all intents and purposes, people are just average writers at best with a few outliers to the better side of that spectrum and a lot of outliers to the worse side of that spectrum.

Now you can be idealistic and propose that I simply bear with these people and give their objectively worse characters as much attention as other people who put much more time and energy into not only their posts but just the creation of their character as well, just to be equal and fair.

But I just don't feel like doing that.

against the whole point your collaborating in the first place.

Commenting on that further, as I explicitly stated two times, if there is a large group and no interaction between my character and theirs, then this argument is nihil, nul, zero, absolutely worthless, because I am not collaborating with their character in the first place. If I were to do so in the future, either by choice of force of the plot, yes, naturally I'd read their posts. Begrudgingly perhaps, but I'd still do so, because I want my posts to make sense and to incorporate elements of the other posts. Collaborative writing. But if my character isn't collaborating with them, them I don't really feel there is any need (logistically) to read their posts.

Perhaps out of respect. But as mentioned before, if their character just isn't qualitatively as good as the rest and is far, far below the standard of the roleplay.. eh. No. If they are willing and trying to improve, yeah, sure. But that's an if. And that's an if that personally I've stopped seeing on RPG after rebooting RPG.

Yeah, and I don’t completely disagree with you. We’ve been in those Naruto sandboxes and I understand it can be a chore to read through everything. Now this may be just me, but even when I’m not a GM (whom, in my honest opinion, has an obligation and responsibility to read those posts) I still read every post in an IC even if it may not make sense per your purview to read them. I view it as an expected respect for those I am writing with whether I am in their ‘group’ or not within the framing of an IC. I feel it’s important to do that. I do see where you are coming from on this, though. Am I obligated to read those posts? Beyond GM expectations, I’m probably not required to, no.

@Inkarnate

See, but that's the big question of this thread. The question isn't 'are you personally compelled to read every post either out of obligation or out of respect'. Rather the question was

Is it 100% needed for a RPer to read posts that don't concern your character, nor is a GM post or something that affects the story ?

@Ashevelendar

The answer to that question is, rudimentarily, no. There is no 100% need to read posts that don't concern your character, or posts that don't affect the story. You can still write a good post without doing so, given the writers skill level is good enough.

Reading a post out of respect =/= 100% requirement to read any and all posts.

Is it still smart to do so? Naturally. But a 100% requirement I'd never call it.

It also raises the question, what if I read the post after a while when I have time to read their posts? The post wasn't directly important to my character and I wanted, no, needed to get a post out today. If I go back the next day or, say, in a week, does that still count? The post following that was already written. I've already missed details potentially. But I still read the post?

What about people who read posts but who are so caught up in their own world that they assume 99% of the post in their own post and their post makes no sense anymore? They read the post. They just didn't read and understand. I suppose, following the logic of this thread and the people like @NuttsnBolts we should just tell these people to fuck off because they read the post but didn't understand it correctly.

Questions, questions.

[Dervish]

<Snipped quote by Dervish>
that while I agree with the gist of this, small summaries are very good for NRP's. At least to put at the bottom of a post. Not so that's all they read, but it helps them focus on when they do read a post so they know what army is going where, or what political upheaval has transpired and they don't miss it through a typo or flowery wording.

If they don't read the entire post, they will miss subtle hints that my King is either a grim faced hard ass, or he is jolly enough to break bread with your faction, and if they miss that then it is their loss (and they deserve the loss). However, at least the narrative will continue easier and they'll know that my army of 10,000 northmen has crossed the border. (And again, it will be an incentive to read because they'll be wondering why they crossed, and what kind of troops are they, and who leads them, etc.)

Thank you for reading thoroughly :)

@POOHEAD189

I think end post summaries are kind of a different beast than what I was referring to. I mean something like,

Poo smiled coyly, and said "hi." being the entire extent of the post rather than in your NRP example writing out a few paragraphs detailing what your nation or army or Juggalo Posse did in your turn and quickly recapping the important points to act as a quick reference or to ensure nobody missed anything.

@yoshua171 In regards to how far back someone should read if they're joining an established RP, I tend to err towards 3-5 pages as a guideline so you can get a feel for what's going on and the characters so I can put my best foot forward. I don't think I'd ever tell someome to read an entire roleplay they were just joining unless they really wanted to.

I think @Odin brings up a fair point about massive games and not reading posts that really have nothing to do with characters. I personally haven't been in a game where characters are apart for too long since they're a part of the same group, so that's where I am coming from. But sandboxes like Create a Hero, for instance, seems to run off of different cities and characters doing entirely different arcs. It's a giant playground where you're all playing tag but everyone is at different schools. If there's literally dozens of characters and you've not even in the same region as other groups, then I kind of think it's an insane amount of work to follow with everything.

[NuttsnBolts]

I suppose, following the logic of this thread and the people like @NuttsnBolts we should just tell these people to fuck off because they read the post but didn't understand it correctly.

@Odin

You may be reading too far between the lines in what it is that I said if this is how you believe I view other roleplayers.

[Dion]

If you are not going to make the effort to read other's work, then seriously stop roleplaying and go elsewhere to write a book instead.

@NuttsnBolts

IDK man, I don't feel like it's such a far stretch.

[NuttsnBolts]

Yeah. I'll stand by what I said, but you may as well quote the entire post to understand my reasoning for saying that line.

If you are not going to make the effort to read other's work, then seriously stop roleplaying and go elsewhere to write a book instead.

Your sole job as a roleplayer (including the possible role as a Game Master), is to read through every post, to engage your character with the various other characters that have been created, and to interact with your fellow players both in the IC and OOC. Roleplaying is a collaborative effort that requires people to work together. By ignoring someone's hard spent work you have honestly failed to grasp the concept of what roleplaying is about, and that is what kills roleplays.

@NuttsnBolts

[Innue]

@NuttsnBolts

I think the opinion could have been better phrased because (it seem sufficient without the first line), to be frank, the only reason I commented was because of that post.