Tense and Perspective in Roleplaying

[Kassarock]

So this is thread is inspired by a status bar discussion we had on the site a few weeks ago that I keep thinking about and would like to have some more input on. The long and short of it is:

When Roleplaying, what tense and perspectives do you find appropriate and/or useful to write from?

The general consensus seemed to be that most people preferred (and expected) roleplays to be primarily conducted through the third person past - although there were a few exceptions. I also generally prefer the third person past as a default for roleplaying. It makes the weaving of different character perspectives easier, and as the most common style of roleplaying (at least on this site) its safest bet in terms of meshing well with other writers. But, I have written and still do write in other styles for specific reasons I will outline below:

1) Thoughts - This one is actually very common I think, and its using first person in order to portray inner dialogue or your character's feelings.

2) Dreams - The other change in writing style I like to use relatively often is changing tense/perspective for dream sequences or states of altered consciousness. The slip from past to present I think is a really good way to make the experience seem more disorientating, more fluid, more unstable. Changing to first person can also emphasis the inherent subjectivity of such experiences, rather than the more omniscient third person.

3) GMing - Some people like to use second person perspective for describing events while GMing a scene. I've seen people do this, and I do this in table top roleplays, but generally not in a play by post - although I don't rule out using it in the future.

So, other than these, are there any other times you would change Tense or Perspective when roleplaying? Do you roleplay in a tense other than third person past? If not, would you ever consider it?

Leave your thoughts below.

[POOHEAD189]

I wish I could give a more cognisant answer to your topic, my friend. But I'm a simple man with simple tastes. I always read my novels in third person, and so I write that way. Generally when my character's have thoughts, I put them in italics and even say "thought X character."

[BrokenPromise]

I do not like to randomly change tense or perspective, and prefer to write everything in past tense from some variation of third person.

And in case anyone didn't know, there are (at least) three ways to handle third person. You've got omniscient, where the narrative knows everything that's going on, and limited, which tells the story primarily from a character's perspective or the narrator's perspective. I tend to prefer limited, and which type of limited depends on the character.

Tense just sounds better when it's past tense. But you're never writing exclusively in one tense because there will be times you need to explain when something is happening at the same time or how something correlates to things that have happened.

[Fiscbryne]

Generally, I favor third-person limited in the context of RP. In regards to first-person, I’m not writing the singular viewpoint character but rather one among many, and while I like good usage of first-person every now and them, in my opinion it either centers the narrative around whatever character is using ‘I’ or can otherwise potentially become confusing if everyone is using ‘I’ at once. In regards to second-person, it’s something that I’ll use verbally in tabletop DMing from time to time but I’m wary of it—I want to make clear the distinction between a character and a player because when those wires cross it can often spell disaster.

Writing on RPGuild, I favor past tense because it’s more common and because RP is more commonly received after the fact; in an environment like MMO RP, with the ephemeral and snappy nature of MMO chat, I tend to write with present tense both because it’s common there and because I think it suits how you receive the writing a little better. One thing that I think encourages present tense in MMO RP is a healthy aversion to godmodding—if you don’t want to step on too many toes, you’ll be using the subjunctive especially in combat situations, and I think that encourages the present tense because “would hit” is generally less wordy than “would have hit.” I don’t dislike present tense as many seem to and I find the distaste for it to be curious; it can be a crutch at times, as it is in a lot of YA fiction, but I like the quality of immediacy it has as well as the way it becomes more akin to how most people recount stories orally (i.e. “So I’m talking to this guy and....”) which can be good and bad.

It’s a little tangentially-related but I’ll mention interiority as well: that changes for me depending on what I’m writing, though from what I’ve seen on RPG most tend to include it even in collabs which can be somewhat omniescent in feel in an interesting way that seems a little peculiar to RP. It’s not omniscient but rather limited and shifting.

[Ammokkx]

It’s a little tangentially-related but I’ll mention interiority as well: that changes for me depending on what I’m writing, though from what I’ve seen on RPG most tend to include it even in collabs which can be somewhat omniescent in feel in an interesting way that seems a little peculiar to RP. It’s not omniscient but rather limited and shifting.

@Fiscbryne

God I hate collabs

I try to actively avoid any kind of interior monologue and try to only ever use the surface-level actions of what my characters are doing, including facial expressions, because I know the other person is going to toss in an "I thought" somewhere in there and being inside of the headspace of two people feels so wrong to read.

I much prefer solo posting when I have full control over the narrative flow, and at least any mistakes or oddities are going to be entirely on my shoulders and not partially the fault of somebody else.

That little rant aside, personally I always stick to third person past with a tiny sliver of introspection when it comes to the main meat of my posts. That's the most natural, least intrusive way to have others be able to pick up what I'm putting down.

I've also tried to explain how I tend to use first and second person in separate 'chunks' of my writing, especially recently, but I'm finding my explanations often come up short. I'll just give you this, this and this example and call it a day. The first was an attempt at a sort of dream sequence, the second was me trying to find a good way to "reply" to the GM's original prompt for a dream sequence everyone had (leaving out the parts of his post and only writing out Cyll's replies). The third was a prompt I'd written for both me and Charak to help get a feel for what it's like inside of a sort of parallel dimensional space which both our characters had a recurring dream of, which helped inform the mood for the first post. The stuff inside of IC posts is always sectioned off so I make clear what is and isn't part of the "main" narrative through line, happening before or after certain events and clearly being its own thing. Stuff like the third is what you could call an example of "GMing" though it being a 1x1 does mess with that idea a little.

Basically, while I find it hard to explain why I switch tenses, it's usually because I feel my first or second perspective writing is a lot better at conveying a "raw emotion" to the reader compared to my third.

[BrokenPromise]

God I hate collabs

I try to actively avoid any kind of interior monologue and try to only ever use the surface-level actions of what my characters are doing, including facial expressions, because I know the other person is going to toss in an "I thought" somewhere in there and being inside of the headspace of two people feels so wrong to read.

@Ammokkx

This is pretty much why I try to collab one-on-one as much as possible, because most roleplayers aren't aware of this.

Though you can still make neutral observations. As an example, you don't have to write "Bill thought Abigail looked good tonight," as that is clearly inside of Bill's head. As soon as Abigail's player inner monologs about how she doesn't understand why Bill is standing so close we'll have two perspectives. You could instead go for "Everyone knew Bill was into Abigail, except Abigail herself." That type of description doesn't come across as being inside of Bill's head. It's just an observation from the narrator that could be made by anyone, even Abigail.

[Kassarock]

Tense just sounds better when it's past tense.

@BrokenPromise

I have to disagree on this. The present tense can be just as beautiful when in the right hands. I think it is often unfairly maligned as the sole property of frankly poorly written young-adult novels. But the present tense has given us novels like Hilary Mantell's Wolf Hall, Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See, and Maraget Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. It's not a problem with the tool, its a problem with those who use it poorly.

I understand why most people don't use it to RP with, because we want to have a consistent style while writing a story and the majority of people are most comfortable writing in the past. But when it comes to the poetry of language, the present is not inferior to the past in my opinion.

As for everyone's thoughts on collabs, I 100% agree. In fact trying to co-ordinate people to create collabs that don't read like an absolute mess is one of my personal banes when it comes to roleplaying. I always try to have it that whoever is the person posting the collab when its finished is the only one who gets to use interior monologues or thoughts.

One of the things I like about collabs though (or switching to a more distant third person perspective in general) is how it can build a sense of mystery about your character. When we get out of a character's head, the reader does not know necessarily why they are doing what they are doing. It builds intrigue. So often, in pivotal moments I will either deliberately join someone else's collab, or I'll just switch to a more distant third person because I don't want to explain my character's actions. I want my partner to wonder at them, to be thrown off, to be surprised. I always love it when that happens to me in an RP.

[Rogue Sloth]

One of the most interesting books I've read in recent years was from second person perspective ("you" instead of I or they). It forced the reader (me) to step into the shoes of a character who was nothing like myself, and it was delightfully uncomfortable to explore.

Anecdote aside, I tend to stick to third person in my RPs because I've heard some partners say that reading posts that use I/me/my throws off their voice for their character, so it just feels safer. Most of the time, I use third person limited, but I'm trying to branch out and dabble in omniscient lately to practice weaving more than one POV together without staggering the flow of my writing. Like the people discussing collabs were saying, it's pretty difficult to do, but I've read some authors who tackle it beautifully, and in my opinion I'll only grow as much as I challenge myself, so I'm hoping to make progress as I work on it.

[POOHEAD189]

I just realized I typed "first person" rather than "third person" and now I wish I, myself, was past tense.

[Rapid Reader]

I tend to think that third person past tense is best person in most cases. Within that umbrella, I'm also most partial to adopting a limited point of view.

You can do some fun things with first and second person, but overall it's more work than I find most people are interested in.

Third person presence has an unfortunate habit of annoying me in longer length RP posts, but it does make quite a bit of sense to use when an RP is very fast paced, uses table top mechanics on each post, or is being played out on some other medium.