Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

What are the most important things when posting a "reply or response" to a post in roleplay?

Agreed with Solo on point number one. You can write the most beautiful prose, lengthy and poetic, but it is kind of wasted if you have left the other person in a restricted space in which to respond. Like, I've started rps with folks before and they write this long reply, even have their character interacting with their own secondaries/minor characters in believable dialogue and everything. But at the end of it, I can't figure out where I am supposed to be or what my character is supposed to be doing.

That's where I start to side with the rp side of this hobby rather than calling it writing. Because you have to think of the other person and their characters in every response. It's why I don't like cop x serial killer rp stories or any story ideas where our characters are separated for an extended length of time. Because you're writing by yourself with the back and forth posts not affecting each other.
 
A Few key takeaways for everyone. More suggestions welcome for sure

Meaningful Post - Substance vs Length
Response to draw out a suitable response
OOC preferences - Staying Connected

@The Goodman would you care to elaborate on the second portion of your post a bit more, i mean am in two minds when you said characters ergo roleplayers doing their own thing in the RP or for a specific portion of the rp - would it not make sense if characters have a preface that draws to a particular scenario or situation and if the role players have mutually decided on it.
 
One thing I always try to keep in mind is making sure MC reacts appropriately to my partner's actions. For instance, if their character asked a probing question to open up a plot within the story and I glossed over it without a response in my reply, it would show my partner that I'm lost in my own world rather than writing one with them.

Often times, I will have their response on one screen and Word on the other to make sure I hit all of the important reactions without basically repeating their post back to them. I'll pepper in responses and reactions while making sure to move the story forward so they don't feel they're responsible for carrying the RP.
 
Quality over quantity, a response to the previous post, an opening for the next post, and if you can work it: character behavior through show don't tell
 
Solo said:
Personally, my #1 priority has always been making sure my post gives the other person something to respond to.
Click to expand...

That definitely, so my partner doesn't have to sit and rake their brain on what to do. There should be a unifying flow that allows partners to piggyback each other and push the story on. Deadpanning can be hard to get around and draining when done often. I try my best to leave the reply where my partners' character(s) can easily step in, setting them up to take over for the next post. I also make sure to checkmark important points, without taking things too far forward that my partner then has no say.

I always want to progress things too, even if it's characters having a conversation. Letting a scene sit because neither partner/character will move causes staleness, and staleness is no fun. If our characters are walking somewhere, I'll have my reply end with either their being halfway there, or having reached their destination. If my partner ends on it being nighttime and our characters sleeping, my reply will end on it being morning and our characters awakening. Occasionally there's something that needs to happen in that time - like a midnight attack or such - and then I'll have my response progress to the attack's beginning. It's similar to walking - my post is step one, their post is step two, my next post is step three, etc.
 
Leonheart said:
Often times, I will have their response on one screen and Word on the other
Click to expand...
This is a very solid tip, especially for those of us who write lengthier posts back and forth. It also makes editing your response much easier should you feel the need to do so, which I often do.

On a more general note I agree that you have to realise that when in a roleplay you are not able to control every aspect of the storyline and that in itself is at least half the fun but it also means that you have to leave openings for your collaborator/s to evolve their characters, to move the story forward. Even during conversation people do things, small things, perhaps even relatively unimportant things but as they saying goes, the devil is in the details. During conversation a character can either move from one place to another within a confined space, say for instance get up and start making coffee, look out the window and notice something, or if the characters are moving from one place to another while having a conversation I often like to describe things along the way inbetween lines.

Length as such is not as important to me since it can often vary depending on the context.

It is also important to stay true to the previously agreed upon settings for the roleplay and not add things without first discussing it with your collaborator/s I have sadly had far too many experiences with players who agree to a certain set up only to then, once the roleplay is underway, change everything to their own preferences, or worse, start to play MC, moving them about, what they think, what they say in dialogues and so on.

Another important thing is to not write too far ahead leaving your collaborator/s with too many actions to respond to since as we all hopefully know, each action has not only a re-action but a consequence which may or may not change the context of the next action and re-action to be taken. To give your collaborator/s too many actions to react to can be restricting to their creativity as they have to match their re-actions to match the next action you have written.
 
Last edited:
I think 'Does it matter?'

I can have MC recollect some anecdote from their past to get up to novel-length, but if it doesn't objectively effect now or isn't something YC is supposed to know or act on, then I'm just doing my own thing and hoping you're entertained by it.

Can someone reasonably move forward from what I posted? Even if MC is tied up, gagged, and blindfolded, I'm going to write internal physical/mental reactions, and at least end with something like, "holds his breath, expecting more" until my partner gives me something else to react to. And that's the worst case scenario.

Someone recently ended a game on me, but I wasn't disappointed because 90% of what they typed was repeating what I said, reworded, high school research paper style.. (They weren't bound and gagged.) Every time it was an eyeroll of a waste of my life to read what I wrote regurgitated back at me.

Quality, not quantity. Bad quantity is worse than low-quality. I want to give my partner something interesting to read as well as something to either react to or encourage them on the path that they're on.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom