Tips for having long posts without God-Modding

[Wapato]

I've been role playing on forums for years, but I'm new to Blue Moon.

One thing that really sticks out as a difference is that expectations about post length are often central to request threads. Now, I get the "no one liners" thing, but a three paragraph post seems about the shortest expectation, while many demand or at least prefer longer. Sometimes much longer.

If my character was off on their own doing things with NPCs that I also write for that would be easy enough. But this is a forum where the characters would seem to be...highly interactive.

Based on my non-erotic RP experience, after a few paragraphs you're at a point where the other player needs to make some decisions.

But folks here do like their long posts so it must work for you. I'm looking for tips on how. Thanks!

 

[Solo]

I think length expectations are silly, personally. As long as a post gives me enough detail to go off of and respond to, I think that's most important. Requiring a certain amount of paragraphs per post regardless of scene makes RPing more of work than fun to me.

I try to re-read my posts after writing them and see if there's anything I can add that would make the actions clearer, make the environment or character easier to envision, and give at least one clear option for my partner's post to react to, but I think it's a bit ridiculous to measure word count rather than what the post actually does.

TL;DR - Long posts aren't automatically good, and good posts aren't automatically long.

 

[The Crooked Kind]

I think it should be more of a matter on how you want to convey your character's thoughts and actions in writing, and sometimes, that can lead to what you would say a "long post". But like solo mentioned, a long post doesn't automatically make it a good post, and vice versa. Sometimes, a character's thought can be conveyed pretty concisely, so a few paragraphs ends up being enough. Other times, you might be having a lot of stuff progressively going on in the plot, so more things may or may not need to be fleshed out. I'd say your goal shouldn't necessarily be to strive to make a post long, but to make sure you're happy with how and what you've conveyed of your character/plot progression, even if it only takes like, three paragraphs to do so.

 

[Silvered Sutures]

I agree with Solo that post length expectations for post length's sake is silly, provided there's enough detail to keep the story going. Here's a quick and easy to beat the 3 paragraph requirement with low effort;

Paragraph 1: Describe what happened in your partner's post and how it affected your character.

Paragraph 2: Go over the sensations, emotions, anticipations, and thought process of your character.

Paragraph 3: Execute the actions that come from the conclusion of those two paragraphs.

Here's a quick and cheap example using one liners, in the context of an RP fight:

"Jack's ears rung as he felt Mike's fist make contact with his face, the loud thud of the impact echoing through his skull.

He felt disorientated, he could taste and smell the iron of his own blood, and he was angry, wanting to hit Mike back for what he'd just done; hit him hard, make it hurt.

Jack launched a toe kick aiming at Mike's inner thigh with his steel-toed boot."

This has the advantage of; 1. Showing you read your partner's post. 2. Showing things about your character's personality and character. 3. Giving something for your partner to react to.

 

[Wapato]

I appreciate the posts on flexibility and shorter (3 para) posts being fine. I also see that solo and Silvered Sutures have particularly flexible request threads when it comes to post length. Though I suppose I've been reading the female request board. Maybe the lesson here is that you can get interest in your request threads, and so set the expectation that three sentence replies can be fine?

I'm curious about how The Crooked Kind works though. You indicate you do prefer longer posts, 600+ words, and it seems you particularly enjoyed a game where each post was around 3000 words. Did I get that right? If so, how are you managing to write that much each post while the characters are interacting without substantially taking the other character over?