Are one-liners ever acceptable?

[valariee]

I love long paragraphs and 1000+ replies from time to time. Are one liners ever acceptable? Sometimes I use them in short speech or sudden moments. What do y’all think?

 

[Cat]

it really depends on the flow of the scene and the expectations of the writers involved. long paragraphs and detailed replies are fantastic for deep storytelling, rich character exploration, and immersive worldbuilding. they give scenes weight and meaning, especially in slower-paced or highly descriptive roleplays.

that said, one-liners have their place too! quick dialogue exchanges, snappy banter, or sudden, high-intensity moments (like an unexpected realization or reaction) can benefit from short responses. a well-placed one-liner can add to the pacing, making a scene feel more dynamic and alive.

ultimately, it's all about communication with your writing partners. some people love the variety, while others prefer to stick to longer responses for consistency. as long as it fits the scene and respects everyone's style, there's room for both!

 

[Anarchia]

I've found that if you're in a very dialogue heavy part of the RP, to keep up to the momentum of the RP you can just do a bunch of one-liners in a seperate PM of the characters talking back and forth, and then one partners takes all of those and posts it in the main thread, that's pretty much the only time I tend to use one liners! Helps to keep the RP moving forward when all you can do is back and forth dialogue.

 

[jarek56]

I'm okay with them if, obviously, my partner and I agreed to them; sometimes, super short form RPs are fun for pockets of time! Doing it out of nowhere can derail things a little, and be potentially upsetting if one partner made a far larger post and unexpectedly received a very short, even outright tiny post in turn; that's understandable. Lashing out about that, though, isn't the way to go either.

 

[Leave Kaylee A Message]

Theatrics are a natural part of a roleplay for me and sometimes dramatic one liners can change a plot but I'd be a little disappointed if I were to have a one-liner without any real momentum shift behind it.

 

[jarek56]

Theatrics are a natural part of a roleplay for me and sometimes dramatic one liners can change a plot but I'd be a little disappointed if I were to have a one-liner without any real momentum shift behind it.

I agree with you completely. It's VERY context sensitive.

 

[Zephyra]

If you agreed to them beforehand I don't see why not. For me personally, I can never see a situation where I'd be okay with one, I definitely prefer the consistency of longer replies even if those replies themselves vary in word count; I like to stick to a certain range. Everyone's different though, but I think they're controversial enough that you should definitely talk about it with your partner before just up and dropping one on them when the other posts have all been paragraphs or more. I know it'd throw me off for sure if someone did that.

 

[Wapato]

If you're going to be a GM I think it's very reasonable to accept one liners from players. Without the ability to control the setting and NPCs sometimes a one liner is just appropriate. And maybe they really want to find out what happens after they open a door or whatever.

That's not how most games here work, but there are some.