To IM or not to IM

Hi, I am relatively new here and after reading a few posts I notice a polarity in how people feel about using IM or not. Can someone explain to me what seems to be the positives and negatives of using IM?
Thank you!

Positives: Quicker responses; ability to more accurately see if your partner is online (arguably, at least); greater ease of chatter/talking (arguably, I'd say)

Negatives: Works best if you and your partner are online at the same time, which may not always happen; possible shorter responses (can't confirm this, granted, just going off my experience from chat sites and otherwise limited IM RP experiences); may need to have an IM client open along with everything else

Ren Olvry said:

Positives: Quicker responses; ability to more accurately see if your partner is online (arguably, at least); greater ease of chatter/talking (arguably, I'd say)

Negatives: Works best if you and your partner are online at the same time, which may not always happen; possible shorter responses (can't confirm this, granted, just going off my experience from chat sites and otherwise limited IM RP experiences); may need to have an IM client open along with everything else

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Thank you Ren

I don't use IM personally because my IM is strictly for people I know real life and those that play on my GROUP roleplays - I don't use it to roleplay, just chat.

I don't use IM anymore with an exception of skype. I NEVER give out my skype to people I just started talking to. IM is only convenient when I have confirmed that I do want a long term roleplay with the person and I trust them enough not to bother me if I don't give them an immediate response. I am not good with pressure to post as soon as I get something and too many short responses in a roleplay will burn me out pretty fast on something.

But yeah, I don't clutter up my skype with a bunch of people I barely know.

I don't IM for roleplay any longer because some people can dominate your time on there. It ties you to the computer.

For me it's much nicer to be able to walk away and take care of other things and then to check on my PMs and threads at my convenience. When you IM and someone is waiting on your response then it can become a leash that keeps one or the other person from being able to do other things.

Ren Olvry said:

Negatives: ... possible shorter responses

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I would not automatically see this as a negative. IM roleplay allows for a more dynamic and interactive back and fourth.

Whether each participant takes - say - 6 Minutes to churn out a three paragraph post, or they alternate every two minutes posting a single paragraph, the same amount of text has been provided in about the same time, but in the second variant there is definitely more interaction happening, as there are more opportunities to react to what the other is doing. I would consider this a plus.

Cherubian said:

Ren Olvry said:

Negatives: ... possible shorter responses

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I would not automatically see this as a negative. IM roleplay allows for a more dynamic and interactive back and fourth.

Whether each participant takes - say - 6 Minutes to churn out a three paragraph post, or they alternate every two minutes posting a single paragraph, the same amount of text has been provided in about the same time, but in the second variant there is definitely more interaction happening, as there are more opportunities to react to what the other is doing. I would consider this a plus.

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I can have the same amount of interaction going on with a three paragraph post instead of a one paragraph post. I prefer my partner to spend more than two minutes responding to me so they can think about what they are writing to me and instead of focusing on just what their character is doing, I'd like them to focus on what their character is thinking, feeling AND doing.

Plus, the more characters involved in the story the longer your posts tend to be. Just my 2 cents.

Of course a three paragraph post can have the same interaction as one one paragraph post, but can it really have the same interaction as three one paragraph posts? I doubt it.

My feeling is that IM and threads are simply two different medium with different strengths and weaknesses, and that should be taken into account. If you see IM the same way as you see threads you do not play to its strengths. In a thread based roleplay, where the writers alternate posts once every day or maybe only once every three days sure, you want meat to every single one of them to give your partner something to work with.

On IM, though, things are different. If in a dialog, why make any assumptions about what the other character will reply/do? Why not simply pass priority and see what the reaction is? With a little bit of discipline thoughts and feelings can still be included in a post, and I honestly do not see the need to have every single sentence of a conversation accompanied by a deep soul searching introspection.

Like most things in Erotic Roleplay, though, this seems like a matter of preference mostly.

Deep soul searching introspection? I haven't seen that done in every post above a paragraph before.

You are right, it is a matter of preference mostly. The only time I'll ever really do a roleplay in IMs is with close friends, and I can enjoy the fun of it. However, during those roleplays, I never got attached to any of their characters, never even remembered half of them.

In threads my partner and I can take the time to enjoy and develop our characters personalities, something that IM roleplays rarely offer.

To each their own.

I have rp'd in IMs and I remember the characters and the world we created a decade later. It's true that in IMs you can and should wait to see the reaction of your partner, but if you're skilled and know this, you can write some fairly long paragraphs without making any assumptions. Where you place the things that require a reaction matters, but even that can be circumvented by skilled writing to that adds text after something that requires (even an immediate) reaction without the text that comes after seeming too long, out of place or unnatural, or without it even breaking the flow of the text. I think the best IM RPs happen when you've played with your partner for a long time and know then well enough that you can mentally coordinate the rp to be like a thread RP with well developed characters and well developed surroundings while still taking advantage of the speed that IMing offers. A good IM RP is like speed chess whereas thread RP is like correspondence chess where it can take up to a week to receive your partner's next move. However, if the players are good enough, you'll discover that while there are differences, if you speed one up (condense/combine) and slow one down (spread out/divide) you can see that both games are very similar and in each the opponents put very much thought into each of their moves, whether they had little time or a long time to do so.

Cherubian said:

Ren Olvry said:

Negatives: ... possible shorter responses

Click to expand...

I would not automatically see this as a negative. IM roleplay allows for a more dynamic and interactive back and fourth.

Whether each participant takes - say - 6 Minutes to churn out a three paragraph post, or they alternate every two minutes posting a single paragraph, the same amount of text has been provided in about the same time, but in the second variant there is definitely more interaction happening, as there are more opportunities to react to what the other is doing. I would consider this a plus.

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I agree. It's not an either or thing though. You can have times with rapid interaction and then you can move on to writing 10-15 minute paragraphs if you feel like it. IMs offer a diversity that threads don't because both kinds of responses can happen within the same day, even several times. In threads you have a pressure never to write short responses, because getting a short response after a whole day of waiting for a new post is a letdown for anyone. In IMs this problem doesn't exist. That's how I see it.

starfish said:

IMs offer a diversity that threads don't because both kinds of responses can happen within the same day, even several times. In threads you have a pressure never to write short responses, because getting a short response after a whole day of waiting for a new post is a letdown for anyone. In IMs this problem doesn't exist. That's how I see it.

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I disagree. Back when I wasn't as...detailed as I have grown to be over the years, it was easy to rack up post count on a thread every day. Even now, if I could find a partner who didn't have a life like me(and could respond whether they are at work or home), I could easily respond a lot more than once a day to all of my roleplays.

Unless things changed while I was gone, there is no pressure to write longer responses in threads. Unless you are flat out coming at your partner with one liners, which is no fun in IMs or Threads in my opinion, six sentences is a good pace for most of the people I've seen. The 'pressure' comes from people who prefer a certain amount of paragraphs. The simple answer to that is to just not roleplay with those types and find someone that expects less.

Pros - Quick responses, works well when both characters are actually conversing as it feels like a "Live" conversation, the pace can also make things seem more real and as you know you have someone on the other end what you come up with tends to be more immediate rather than having hours or days to think about your next step. You can also start and complete a story in a single session if you want/both have the time and depending on it's complexity.

Cons - It can be a drag waiting for someone to respond, especially as some people won't think twice about going out and leaving you sitting there wondering if they will be back soon or not as they haven't informed you of there whereabouts. Due to the fast pacing involved you are playing as it happens/progresses and that isn't always great as it sometimes takes time to develop ideas, your partner may not always be on when you are and if they don't like offline IM's then your story stagnates. Detail can sometimes be sacrificed to speed. You can literally waste/spend half a day or more doing nothing but typing away.

In terms of the post length debate, I used to play with someone a while ago who would write up to 12 paragraphs in a response, at the times I thought it was great as I was still new to all of this, after a while though it becomes a real drag and feels like hard work and a lot of the details are silly things that just get skipped over when I read them anyway or there are just lines of recaps of what I wrote previously.

Quite happy with 2-4 paragraphs, maybe more in the start up posts, I tend to be more about quality now than quantity.

I like IMs for OOC work, but I don't RP with them. I find it limiting, and I also dislike the irritation of how much more of a pin it is to either have to scroll through a mountain of lines to find the piece I want to review, or having to keep a sepearte window open for the Chat log.

My $0.02

Trilian is amazing for roleplayers.

I don't come up with quick enough responses for IM. Plus, I tend to make longer responses than those who like and use IM. I've done IM before, but I always visualized my partner at the other end tapping their fingers impatiently, waiting for me to respond. My mind doesn't work that way. I type long and I type detailed. And then I have to double-check for spelling errors, because I'm anal about that. On the other hand, the partners I've role played on IM with seemed less than concerned about their spelling and more concerned about getting their responses out as quickly as possible. Which drove me batty. So I prefer to take my own sweet time and role play on PM or on the forum. But then, that's just me.

I kinda think smut fits better IM for it short time. However, PM and thread you can do much longer thought out responses.

This thread has been dead for a month and should not have been necroed, so to keep it from getting out of hand I'll be locking this thread.