Dion

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

oh

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

dude what

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

<Snipped quote by Odin>

Really? I don't feel that at all. I stopped participating in Casual about five years ago and every time I've tried to go back, the roleplays have too many people participating that roleplay at a level I'm not comfortable with. It's not about their English skills or even their writing skills but the characters they make and the things those characters do. It's often so immature that I just can't be bothered.

On the other hand I also only participate in two Advanced RPs with some very strict application procedures (to the point that I was myself rejected the first time I applied to one of them). My experience might be skewed towards the absolute "best" (or most elitist, depends on how you look at it) the Guild has to offer.

@Father Hank

Just because you can move between the two doesn't mean you neccesarily want to. The crowd casual roleplays attract are definitely something I pay attention to, now more than ever, given how many people are in casual that are not meant to be there.

Realistically, you could play in casual -- you just don't want to, and that's fine. Similarly, casual players could move to advanced if they strained themselves and applied some effort into 'improving' or just taking a while longer to brood over a post -- and they might not neccesarily want to do that.

I agree that casual roleplays tend to attract some uhhhhhhh, overflow of 'free' characters that, despite trying to be well thought out and/or better written, retain some of the features that you typically see in free level characters. It's why I don't really participate in casual myself either, unless I'm running an RP (which, when you run Naruto roleplays like me, is a neccessity and not something I neccesarily want to do -- but the players are in casual and I need to fill an RP somehow. I feel the burn of players making characters that are just immature every time I do so, so I definitely get what you are saying and it does bother me too).

But I think that if I strained myself to find those characters in advanced, I could. Two roleplays are not really indicative of that I think (and even if they were, maturity of a character is somewhat subjective, as is writing quality, and all other things we judge people on).

I do think that casual players could move to advanced, and vice versa, so I'll stand by that, but you are right in that most people probably do not want to (I know I'm hesitant to venture into casual for that very reason) even if they technically can.

And on that note, since you brought up maturity -- I think that's a more important distinction between casual and advanced than actual writing quality, since advanced does house the typically more matured players (natural progression? a desire to improve? something else?) and casual houses those that, well, I'm not sure.

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

My point was that role playing and writing are two different things, and should be acknowledged as such.

@tex

Finally Tex says something I can agree with.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
No. I think that - "I would include any post that overuses fluff for no mechanical purpose, posts that dump piles of pace-breaking exposition, and posts that break 3000-4000 words."

@tex

So disregarding that bad writing = long posts, which makes no sense to me but I guess falls under the misnomer of 'too long,' 3000-4000 posts could accurately describe a post as 'long' without inherently having a value judgement attached to them. I'd say that that is an accurate cut-off point, but I'm not sure since I rarely go around measuring wordcount.

The primary appeal of shorter, or more concise posts, is to allow more prompt and effective reaction from other players.

@tex

Fair. But I have had no problems doing this even with longer or drawn out posts -- in fact, the greatest measure I've been able to do this in was in longer posts. I think this comes down to 'writing style' more than just length, but I'm not sure.

For example, if one of your characters goes on a 30 second spiel about how much they love oven mitts, I cannot assume that a chatty character who likes to butt into other people's conversations wouldn't cut them off 15 seconds in. While there's always a margin for error and control here, it's these moments of 'what if' that should be taken into consideration by all parties.

@tex

There are ways to do this effectively -- atleast, there are ways in which I do this effectively -- beyond having shorter posts, though. Besides, when I am writing my character, I want to play their role, and so I want them to be able to say what they have to say.

Another example: If a post describes somebody running 15 KMs, and then describes what they're doing by the time they reach the end of that route, what happens if another character intercepts them half-way? Does half of the post get invalidated?

@tex

Depends on the GM. Short answer, if I were the GM, and the interception was reasonable (i.e. no free roleplay style interceptions because heuheu randum xD reasoning) then yes, it gets invalidated, assuming that the other person is OK with it. Collaborative writing, and all.

Were other characters simply not allowed to interact with this character because 'too bad I don't want to'?

@Tex

Yes, but at that point I'd probably kick the person who doesn't want to interact with the others because I don't want people playing in their own corner of the world in my roleplay, no matter whether it's free, casual, or advanced.

Why would it be acceptable to put such a broad seal on a character's ability to interfere with another? It's these huge leaps that make it difficult to play a role. There's some level of balance to be agreed on, and I believe that longer posts do little to find a middle ground on an issue like this.

@Tex

Just discuss it with your roleplaying partners, or other players in a thread. You ask why it would be acceptable to place such a broad seal and in contra-argument we can also just ask why is it okay to place such a broad seal on forcing people to accept interference. You are right that there is a balance, and that balance is to be made up by the GM in question. I know the answer would be simple for me -- if its agreed on by two parties, or the subject in question doesn't object to it, why would it have to be an issue? Let the players figure it out for themselves.

I think there's a disconnect somewhere. To condense does not mean to invalidate. It's important to decide on what details to include, while also taking into consideration your fellow players, and not barring off their ability to play a role. Ultimately, the difference in experience is decisive here. We clearly have different perspectives and/or have witnessed completely different examples in advanced. I myself have rarely come across longer posts which are so well executed, that they bring shame to shorter posts with similar amounts of palpable content. Additionally, I don't frequent the advanced section. Most of what I've read dates back to pre-death guild, or 2016-2017.

@tex

This explains a lot.

I think that this disconnect in both our intent, and experience, makes it difficult to argue anything that isn't anecdotal. Considering the spectrum of experiences with Advanced though, I'm willing to believe that there are varying opinions on what constitutes good writing, and a great deal of those experiences I've heard seem to agree that Advanced and casual are not all that different. But that would be an entirely different discussion altogether, and veer viciously away from the thread's topic of comparing writing levels/sections.

@tex

Cas and adv used to be very different but they are the same now, bar maybe the fact that advanced houses more of the competent writers and casual houses the roleplayers. Both sides can move dynamically between these two I feel like, though, so it's kind of the same, yeah.

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

I don't think long post should be measured specifically in word count. Your post can be 400 words and be too long because it's a goddamn chore to get through and your post can be 5,000 words and not long enough.

@Fabricant451

nah

bad writing doesn't make a post long, it makes a post bad. a one liner could be the worst one liner written and it might be funny to call it 'too long' but it is, by no extent of the meaning of that word or any word even close to it, a long post.

unless we are going by the definition that 'too long' is not the same as plain old 'long' in which case yeah sure but that's not really what i asked.

When it comes to length, I wouldn't consider a post to be 'long' unless it overstays its welcome.

@tex

so an essay worth of roleplaying posts that requires you to separate your post into 3 subsequent posts in rapid succession is not 'long' to you so long as it's well written, but a one liner that overstays it welcome (strange way of categorizing it, gonna assume you mean the same as fabricant above) is 'long?'

The issue that comes up when people 'prettify' their writing, is that many young readers will flop over and applaud when they see 5 adjectives in one sentence.

you mean like adding artificial indents like you were writing a paper? in all seriousness i have yet to once see someone have five adjectives in one sentence, and even if that were to be hyperbole, i barely ever see anything resembling that type of fluff.

In what sense? Does it have any pertinence?

in my experience better writers write longer posts (though longer posts are not indicative of good writing... that's an important notion to make here, hence the quality=/=quantity) simply because they know their way around prose better and can write longer posts, expositioning more of their character, without having to resort to artificial fluffing of a post. in other words.. the additional length of the post they gain is used for the right purpose and, thus, is part of good writing, and therefore is interesting to read.

we could play your game where we condense everything while remaining true to the key points, in which case a carefully written dialogue between (a character) and (their NPC mother) on the phone in the morning during the morning routine turns into 'their mother called in the morning and then they left.' it's just a question of which you prefer.

of course, my experience is purely anecdotal, but then again so are five adjectives in one sentence, so i feel relatively comfortable using anecdotal evidence here.

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

So... is 1000 words considered a long post? We have all this talk about fluff and so forth but I never really stopped to think about what actually constitutes a long post (and that's something that would differentiate between the subsections too -- rather than bad writing, which is omnipresent).

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

For everyone seemingly in agreement that it's bad, I don't see a lot of tackling of the question "why?"

Why do so many people conflate quality with quantity? As someone running an RP in the advanced section that seemingly has not incurred this problem to remotely the same degree as the cited examples, do I just have really wonderful players or is there something that provokes this (and by extension, can be done to avoid it)?

@Sierra

Quality =/= quantity but they are intrinsically related in most cases. I'm not reading a post for skill involved either, I'm reading a post because I want to indulge myself in a literary experience (that sounds inflated, but I imagine it sounds better than 'lul i like read word') and longer posts with more details achieve that better than short posts with little details, even if the end result is the same (which is why free roleplay consists primarily of characters performing actions, not so much characters having an actual life).

I've also never incurred this problem, neither in the same degree or even lesser degree. I'm of the opinion that it is subjective -- people see a wall of words and instead of going 'hey, I can read that' decide 'I don't want to read that' and shove it aside as NEEDLESS FLUFF without really sitting down to read it properly and try to enjoy it, just because they need an excuse to not read it.

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

My gripe is much less with you since your position was more nuanced than the other party I was 'partially' responding to, but yes, you are right, I think the point definitely warrants some discussion since that was the point of this thread from what I can tell.

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

@pugbutter I was under the impression this was a group discussion, much less us answering Haley's question on a 1-on-1 basis. Fact of the matter is that you're putting forth ideas that are so mind numbingly basic that I'm surprised someone of your calibre would even feel the need to point them out. I'm also not really sure what 'those (things?)' are that Haley agreed to. I never agreed to anything, however, and that's why I commented on your post.

It's similar to Tex's whole 'I can reduce advanced posts to 1 or 2 paragraphs without losing the core essence' which is equally missing the point as 'advanced posts are a lot of fluff' because this is not a thing I perceive as something inherent to advanced, or even limited to advanced -- I've hosted more than enough casual RP's, and if we wanna talk about fluff, we might as well talk about casual. The part that makes me feel like you're just saying 'bad writing is bad writing' however is when you say:

Details are bad if they're not, minimally, inspiring a sense of awe for this fictional place and its inhabitants, and ideally also developing characters; forwarding a plot; creating themes, symbols, and imagery; establishing a narrative tone.

So, I will summarize what you said here in the way I read it, but I'm quite sure I captured the essence of what you meant. You are saying that if details do not perform the minimal thing details are written into the story for, they are bad. Hmmkay. Turn that any one way, you could make a similar blanket statement about any of the subsections.

Writing in flashy combat moves in arena is bad if they do not minimally inspire a sense of awe for the combatant, and ideally, forward the fight, create a persona, etc.

Writing in no details at all for the sake of minimalism is bad if this does not, minimally, make reading the post easier for the reader, or reduce visual clutter, etc.

They all come down to one core thing; "if the thing you do does not accomplish the goal of the thing you do, it's not done good," which isn't really an interesting point to me. Besides that, the beauty of it is that all these things are subjective as hell and what would not inspire a sense of awe for you could theoretically inspire a sense of awe for me.

Tex's 'game' of reducing advanced fluffy posts to a few paragraphs.. is then a magnificent WOOSH at the very least but in my humble opinion not much more than a blanket position on writing that he and seemingly you(?) take that lacks much more depth than 'many words for purpose of words are bad, ugg ugg huh huh'. And in my very subjective eyes, it makes you seem a little out of touch with writing, and perhaps a tad elitist. "I can write what you write in less words." I'm sure you can, but I'd probably enjoy reading it less.

I Wanna Hear Your Opinions On The Different Wrting Levels/Forums.

@tex is 100% correct: the worst side of Advanced is just a whole lot of words for words' own sake.

@pugbutter

And the worst side of free roleplay are uninspiring posts condensed into one or two sentences.

This argument goes for literally any of the sections -- and at that point becomes a non-argument. What you are saying here is much less an argument than 'bad writing is bad writing.'