Trivantis

-William Shakespeare

In this little guide/rant/essay I want to talk about the trend of post length, and more broadly talk about making the most of your posts. To start, Trivantis does not have any rules regarding post length. We want to be accessible to roleplayers of all skill levels. Individual players naturally have the right to expect certain post lengths, but I would ask that they at least read the following, and maybe think a little more about them.

Way back when, before I discovered Furcadia, I roleplayed mostly on whatever little MMO I happened to be crushing on at the time, or really any game with a chat function. Since chat was more for small phrases in those days most roleplay was done in very short actions and phrases. Imagine trying to RP in Twitter and you'll have an idea. It was an interesting challenge that, admittedly, I wasn't really able to appreciate until now.

Post length, for those who are unfamiliar, is an informal "rule" that players in Furcadia adopted at some point. The idea is that players would ask that a post would have a minimum number of lines to read through, and thus would ensure some form of quality control. Some players refuse to RP with anyone who can't keep up, and they expect a certain post size with each turn. In extreme cases, this can be very large indeed.

It can be a challenge in it's own way, but as anyone who had to deal with minimum word counts on essays in schools might remember, the drawbacks of this approach are obvious. Granted, no one likes roleplaying with someone who does nothing but two-word actions, but going in the opposite direction creates new problems:

1. Time: Long posts can take a while to put together, especially if they are to be done well. Furcadia is a slow enough game as it is, but between reading and understanding the situation, coming up with your own character's turn of action, scripting it out and finally posting it, the time-to-events ratio of an RP drops like a rock. By the time anything gets anywhere it's been a few hours and people have to log for the night. No fun.

2. Overly flowery descriptions: While a bit of purple prose can be fun to indulge in now and then, it's confoundingly debilitating to peruse one's way forward through a seemingly insurmountable manuscript of increasingly long-winded and overly grandiose descriptors with overly obscure and esoteric synonyms. If I had a nickel for every time I saw the word "orbs" used for eyes...

3. Overabundant inner-dialogue: This is a literary faux pas most of the time, and ESPECIALLY when writing for roleplaying. I'm guilty of it, but mostly because it's great padding for keeping up with another player's post length, though I should really know better. This is when you start writing about your character's thoughts and logical flows as they reason out their actions. For reasons I'll get into later, I'll explain why this is especially bad.

Writing for an RP has different demands from writing a story or any other form for that matter. You're no longer controlling the entirety of a story, but rather are a collaborator, an active participant. Where this differs from normal writing is that a lot of it can be very improvisational, i.e. you're making it up as you go. There's no script or outline of what happens next, just a story made up of what's happened so far and the current situation.

Naturally, the players want to get to where they're going. Furcadia, as I stated before, is not fast-paced, but a good flow can carry a story quite well. When things aren't dragged on for too long, the best parts become more frequent. You get to do the cool sword-fight, the emotional reveals, the juicy bits. But, forcing post length can overload parts of the story that really don't need that much explanation. Overloading the descriptors of a given post can make what should be a quick and easy read into a slog that goes on way too long. Which one's easier to read?

"Garrick turned to his companion and nodded in agreement. He then quietly stood up and walked out the door, a hand on his hat as the wind blew in".

or...

"Garrick slowly turned his head to meet the eyes of his confidant. His head made a slow and deliberate bow, a nod of assent to their mutual agreement. With wordless and stoic aplomb, he arose to his feet, the floorboards creaking as he did so. He took one step, then another, making his way close to the old wooden doorframe. His hand grasped the handle and pushed with but the mildest of heaves. He rested a heavy palm atop his head, steadying his cap as the gales beyond the door whipped around him".

The first is short and to the point. We get what's happening in seconds. The second is three times longer and feels a LOT more plodding. Everything feels weighty and significant, when really all he's doing is leaving quietly. The first is also descriptive enough that we can imagine what's happening, but the second is pretty much drawing the scene for us. The reader gets to visualize the first, but has to be told the second.

This is what I meant by being a participant. Minimal detail invites the reader to fill in the blanks, and in that moment they get a little more invested in what's happening. The second post is a chore to read (and write), and it feels like that simple walk to the door took an extra five minutes. A minimal level of detail helps make things easier to understand, which helps make posts happen faster.

Which brings me to a second perk of concise posting: Implication.

To illustrate, I'll take the above example and combine both approaches into the best post of all three.

"Garrick nodded and quietly stood up. He made his way to the door and pushed it open. A sudden fierce wind whipped around him, and his hand snapped up to hold onto that feathered hat of his. He kept his hand pressed down atop the cap, and he soon vanished from sight."

There's an implication that the hat is somehow important. We can see this because more words are used regarding the hat, we use more detailed descriptors and we give it a bit more definition. This can be useful in RP for giving little hooks that a player might want to share, sort of a breadcrumb trail leading to a new part of the story to explore. Techniques like this require measured use of detail and an overall adherence to minimalism. After all, you need some contrast to tell when things are important.

I mentioned that #3 was especially bad, and implication is the reason why. Other players can't and really shouldn't be able to read your own character's mind or heart. Your character's actions should imply their thoughts and emotional state. The more you tell, the less you can imply, and an implied story will always be far more powerful than one told directly. As the robot devil said:



The above quote concisely (ha!) describes this principle, but another quote from the same play (Hamlet) really rounds it out:

"More matter with less art"

You want substance to your posts, meaning and purpose. Filler and fluff dilutes and diminishes the experience for yourself and for the others. Not everything you do needs to be significant, but your time and energy are better spent detailing and describing the things that matter most, rather than all the other stuff.

Focus your efforts where they count most, and don't be afraid of smaller words and simpler descriptors. You will find both have their uses, and no matter the length of your posts, your fellow roleplayers will have a much deeper and more meaningful experience.

I felt the need to add in another important point: dialogue. It takes up a very large part of the interactions between most characters and is among our primary vehicles for delivering information. A lot of roleplay is considered 'casual' in that the scenes don't always involve a whole lot more than characters hanging out and engaging in conversation together, especially with people they've already met.

It's hard to have a healthy flow of dialogue when people feel pressured to fill up the space with unnecessary 'fluff' actions or more frequently, their character monologuing or forcing the other character into temporary silence, assuming their polite listening skills by speaking quite a lot more than they need to.

In healthy conversations, there's much more back and forth exchange, frequent interruptions, short questions and short answers - some people are more easily interrupted, stuttering or quiet or not well respected. Some might be more commanding and loud, with a tendency to talk over others - in that case saying a lot makes sense! When you think about how your characters are speaking and worry less about length, you might find it makes dialogue more lively!

It's why every new person speaking starts a new sentence in proper formatted writing, to make the flow of conversation easy to follow. It's all right to have a post as short as one word - the idea is to give the other player what they need and nothing more (or less).