Gather 'round kids, 'cause mah bro about to show you how it's DONE.
This actually ain't my post, I'm just reposting falcons_honour being epic, because his journal is friends-only and the WHOLE WORLD DESERVES TO SEE THIS.
So. I roleplay things. Mostly with Nixx, my girlfriend, but occasionally with other people (hai, Cassius. I AM coming back to our Gdoc. I swear. I promise you. Beat me with sticks until I do. I promise you I haven't lost interest). Very occasionally, one or the other of us (Nixx and I, that is; Cass, you're excused forthwith from all incriminating mentions in the rest of this entry ;P) will venture off into the wilds of forum stuff. She came across one recently which looked decent, so we both had a look. And I was going to sign up and give it a shot, until I found this in the 'Advanced Roleplay Rules' thread...
- You should be VERY familiar with roleplaying and how it is done. Not recommended for first-timers.
- You should be a GOOD roleplayer.
- You must be VERY coherent and display good writing skills. Use a spellchecker, too!
- NO one-liners. You can't develop a character or plot by posting single sentences.
- Post at least a FEW full paragraphs. Did you react to the other characters in the scene? Did you act out and flesh out your character at all? Paragraphs are at least 5 sentences.
- Each post must advance some element of the story in a significant manner.
“A few full paragraphs” means exactly that: at least 2-3 full paragraphs, or at least 12-15 sentences. A handful of sentences are really the bare-bones of roleplaying, and we want an environment where roleplay can be deeper and more fully-fleshed than that.
Long posts may seem unnecessary, but be assured that they are. [...] Advancing the story in a significant manner is no simple task. We’re not splitting hairs when judging what is or is not significant. If you were able to post something in 5 sentences, chances are it was not significant. You can lengthen your post by including something significant.
Significant action can be almost anything. You might introduce a new element (or character) that advances the plot, have your character take an action that the other players can’t ignore, or that sets up something for later. You might simply characterize your character(s), be it by delving into his/her thoughts, or having them take seemingly trivial actions that reveal aspects of the character underneath. You might explore the relationships between the characters, be it between your own characters or with those of another player. These are all examples of significant roleplay.
Without something significant in your post, why are you posting at all? It is, after all, not significant.
Wait, what?
Look, I love paragraph-play, prose-style, whatever you want to call it, as much as the next person, but you're seriously laying down the law that a 'paragraph' is at least five sentences, and that a post has to have two or three or more of them? Excuse me one second while my head implodes.
I don't want to brag, but I do consider myself an advanced RPer. Hell, I know I'm a decent writer, and I'm pretty sure when I play prose-style, I'm pretty damn good at that too. (Cass? I know I said you were excused forthwith, but if you happen to see this, back me up?). And I think that rules like that are not only arbitrary, but completely stupid.
Let's take this from the top.
- You should be VERY familiar with roleplaying and how it is done. Not recommended for first-timers.
Okay, that's fair enough. I can see how long posts might intimidate newcomers, or newbies might have a tendency towards purple prose which doesn't do anything for anyone, just to flesh out the word-count requirements. Which are stupid anyway, but we'll ignore that for now.
- You should be a GOOD roleplayer.
No complaints from me on this one either, but what constitutes 'good'? Because by the definitions and rules given above, I'm not quite sure that word means what you think it means...
- You must be VERY coherent and display good writing skills. Use a spellchecker, too!
Good writing? Awesome. Coherent? Brilliant! Sounds like they don't really want purple prose. And nobody's going to complain at the use of a spellchecker. The odd typo is cool, but let's get things mostly right, at least.
- NO one-liners. You can't develop a character or plot by posting single sentences.
Now things are starting to fall apart. All right, I grant you can't do loads in a one-liner (and if that one-liner is literally "He nodded", I will grant you that's... not really that great). I would argue, though, that you can do plenty in a shortish paragraph. Say, off the top of my head...
As the first cannonball rocked the Elusive Dreamer, Archie forced himself to roll with it, using every ounce of his sea- and air-training to take the force of the blast and stay upright. He managed it, albeit just, and hoped none of the airship's crew saw their captain's desperate scramble at a convenient curtain of rigging to help him keep his balance. Where in the blazes had that come from? The cloud cover prevented him from seeing the flags on the attacking ship, and he'd pissed off too many people to have any hope of guessing their assailant's allegiance.
I wouldn't end it there, but I'm hoping to prove the point that it is possible to develop a character and a plot in four sentences. I kind of wrote that thinking it would be a second or subsequent post, rather than an intro, but... hey, guys, stop me if I'm wrong here. If I'm actually a crappy roleplayer and getting snitty about things I shouldn't. You tell me.
Honestly, though, in those four little sentences, we learned that there's an airship called the Elusive Dreamer, that its captain, Archie, has had significant experience on both sea- and airships in the past, that he's not infallible (he has to grab on to the rigging to keep his balance), and that he (and/or his crew) have pissed off a lot of people who might possibly want to shoot them out of the sky. We don't know how they pissed those people off yet or why they'd be so annoyed that they'd try to shoot an airship clean out of the sky, but we know they exist. That's backstory, right there. I figured it would be reasonable to expand the details later in the scene.
- Post at least a FEW full paragraphs. Did you react to the other characters in the scene? Did you act out and flesh out your character at all? Paragraphs are at least 5 sentences.
Right, so my first paragraph up there already fails for only being four sentences long, but let's press on. Let us assume that in the rest of that post, he shouts over to his first officer-come-pilot-and-navigator, Kip, to bring them about so they can retaliate, and also bellows up to Robin in the crow's nest to ask if she can see who's attacking them in the first place. Kip, since he's being written by someone awesome (he belongs to Nixx ;P) provides a non-purple, well-written, probably-less-than-five-sentences-per-paragraph-and-three-paragraphs response in which he does indeed bring the airship about, while Robin's trying to make out the livery on the attacking ship, to no avail. I'll grant you that maaaaybe that would go to three or four paragraphs, depending on how it was written, because there's two characters to deal with, but I still want to lodge a complaint with whoever decided PARAGRAPHS ARE FIVE SENTENCES END OF STORY.
Oh, and just to be a prick, I'm going to add that in this non-existent reply, through excellent use of show-don't-tell, we learn that Kip is a redheaded national of a country different to Archie's own homeland, has been Archie's crewmate and best friend for close to ten years, and is not afraid to tell his captain to stuff himself quite vehemently (demonstrating their relationship rather nicely with judicious use of selected curse words). Through similar excellent storytelling, we discover that Robin has only been with the Dreamer crew for a few months, but has more than disproved Archie's initial worries about putting a woman in the crow's nest by virtue of having as good a pair of lungs on her as any of the men. That'll do for Robin, because she's a minor character, and we can always 'flesh out' more later.
As Kip brought the Dreamer about -- just in time to dip the bow out of the way of a second cannonball, prompting Archie to thank the gods that while Kip's cartography left something to be desired, his piloting was second to none -- the captain took a second to gather his wits, knowing that taking any more time than that would only be putting the crew in more danger. He was almost tempted to damn Robin for not being able to see the colours of their attacker, but both superstition and a sense of fairness stopped him: it wasn't her fault they were under heavy cloud cover, and it wouldn't do to invoke any supernatural wrath when he didn't really mean it in the first place. Far better to damn the blasted curs shooting at them.
"Get down from there, Bob!" he bellowed up towards the crow's nest, not wishing to have her fall two hundred feet or more to the unwelcoming earth if the bastards got a lucky shot through the mast. "Shoot them out first, and we'll ask who they are later. Kipling! Hold her steady, if you think you can manage it! Francis!"
The final word caught the attention of the Dreamer's weapons officer. "Manning the cannon, Captain!"
Archie darted to his side, by now accustomed to the deck rolling as Kip undoubtedly did his best at the helm. "Incendiaries," he ordered without preamble. "If they're going to start shooting all over the place like that, I frankly don't give a damn about bringing them in undamaged."
"Sir!" Francis saluted sharply and set to, shouting orders across the deck to the rest of the crew as they rushed to the cannon.
Archie gave him the leeway to command, knowing the younger man was more than competent, and joined in with the crew's efforts, taking up a cannon of his own without the help of a loader. "Robin!" he called over his shoulder. "If you're down, I could use a hand here!"
Now that is admittedly six 'paragraphs', if you like, but every single one of them breaks the 'five sentences' rule.
Did you react to the other characters in the scene? Yup. Acted for Robin's safety (which is further characterisation of Archie, in a way, showing that he'd rather keep his crew safe), and ordered Kip to hold her steady. Which I will argue is a direct response to ... whatever good-natured insult Kip probably threw at him in the reply post. He also responded to Kip's action in bringing the ship about, admittedly with a thought rather than a spoken response, but he did comment, mentally, on Kip's cartography and piloting abilities. That counts as responding for me. And would, I would argue, give my playmate leeway to say something like "Knowing from past experience that Archie placed more faith in his piloting than his mapreading, Kip took stock of the aerial signals around him as well as the position of the enemy airships in planning the next best move."
Did you act out and flesh out your character at all? I'd say so. We now know that Archie is superstitious to some extent, that he doesn't want to put the crew into unnecessary danger, and that he's not afraid to get in there and captain from ground level. Or... deck level, at least, being as this is an airship. You know what I mean.
Paragraphs are at least 5 sentences. Nope. Mine were three sentences and ... the second one depends on how you want to count it. I'd be disinclined to call "Kipling!" and "Francis!" sentences, and I would tend to lump Archie's shout to Robin and the accompanying tag-line and action as one, which makes it three. Four if you want to count "Get down from there, Bob!" and "...he bellowed" as two separate sentences. The third is two; then three; then two or three if we're being generous; then four on the last one if we're generous again with how we count dialogue.
Oh, and yeah, I gave Robin something to react to. I'm going to leave Kip to handle himself for the next post; he's more than capable of it -- but at least one of my playmate's characters has a direct opening to respond to.
Again, if you think I'm shit, tell me. I'm open to critique.
- Each post must advance some element of the story in a significant manner.
I suppose that's arguable in my example, and I would hope it'd be judged on a case-by-case basis (though the idea of someone judging my posts frankly puts me right off anyway). Admittedly we don't know who's firing on the Elusive Dreamer or why, but at least the captain's responded, got in on the action, and ordered his weapons officer to use incendiary bombs, which I would say is fairly significant plot. Oh yes, and Robin's got an opening to respond to. And Kip or anyone else is welcome to leap in at any point. Is this bad RP? Would you call it 'advanced' (whatever that's supposed to mean)? I'm honestly asking your opinions here.
In short, I'm whining because I don't think "good RP" can be quantified. Sometimes -- especially in conversational situations -- it's really hard to write two or three paragraphs of five sentences or more without it getting bloody ridiculous. Just to prove this to myself, I'm going to put Kip and Archie in a bar, in a completely different situation. Let's say this is a few posts in, so again, it isn't an intro (as they're longer and quite reasonably so). They're on the ground now, the airship's docked for repairs, and Archie's getting melancholy (as he often does) about the fact the ground engineer he retains just isn't into him. Kip, who's more than used to this kind of moping, has been trying to get his attention for most of the previous post, and finally resorted to snapping his fingers practically under Archie's nose...
Archie barely heard Kip's response, his attention focused instead on the grimy window through which he could just about make out the roof of Drew's workshop, currently cranked open on its huge brass hinges so that the Dreamer could be land-docked right in the workshop itself. When Kip snapped his fingers in front of his face, he positively jumped.
"What? Sorry? Oh-- I was miles away..."
But Kip would know that, of course, surely. They had been friends for too long for him to have missed the longing stare through the cloudy glass, and despite his foreigner status, Kip knew the city well enough to work out which direction Archie had been looking in. The workshop -- and more than that, Drew. Was she standing on the deck of his beloved Dreamer right now, bringing his two most favoured females together in the most perfect way he could conceive? Or in her office, frowning over paperwork by the light of a flickering gas-lamp... or...
Snap out of it, he told himself, looking back to Kip with an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I'm back. What were you saying?"
Sentence count: two; three if we count 'what' and 'sorry' as complete sentences; actually five, my God, but I freely admit I was worried I'd started to waffle in that one. And maybe four if we're generous for the last 'paragraph', which I don't doubt certain forum rulemakers would call a one-liner.
Note I'm not deliberately trying to write short posts, or long posts, or any kind of posts; this is honestly how I roll with my prose RP. *shrug* Oh, and none of these are actual RP posts. I literally did make them up off the top of my head.
On the conversation post, I'm inclined to argue it was getting a bit long and waffly; I still think I advanced the plot and developed the character some, but I probably could have been neater about it. To keep up with the five-sentences rule, though, I would have had to start in adding utterly pointless shit: some crap about Drew's pretty brown hair, or God forbid a completely unwarranted flashback about their childhood together before he went off to join the sea-forces (pre-airship captaincy, that is) and she apprenticed as an engineer, or whatever else. I may also be biased because I'm assuming that these characters are familiar to both myself and my playmate, so I don't have to pad out the details too much. I might play differently with someone else; I don't know. Maybe. (Cass, was I especially waffly when we first started out, or did I nail the details effectively and advance the plot and all the rest of it? Because I swear to god I probably haven't followed all of these arbitrary rules more than a dozen times in our whole 43,000-word RP.)
So hey yeah rant over. Discussion open. What's 'good' RP to you? 'Advanced'? Should the whole community rally around and stop being so utterly stick-up-arse about stupid rules like this? I mean, I get standards, I really do -- I appreciate them -- and hell, maybe I'm coming off as a whiny snob here, but... five sentences is a paragraph? Or else? Seriously?
... my incredulity over that one may have to be beaten out of me. :/
Oh, and for your information, falcons_honour, YES, YOU ARE THAT FUCKING GOOD. One of the best dudes I've ever had the honour of playing with, in fact. (And not waffly in the least; if you ask me your writing's both concise and gripping enough that it should make the purple-prosers weep with envy. :B) But to everyone else, (especially aforementioned purple-prosers,) LOOK AT THIS. LOOK HARD. STUDY IT IN EVERY WAKING MOMENT, AND EVEN IN YOUR DREAMS, AND MAYBE SOMEDAY YOU CAN BE AS AWESOME AS THIS. The end. B <
So. I roleplay things. Mostly with Nixx, my girlfriend, but occasionally with other people (hai, Cassius. I AM coming back to our Gdoc. I swear. I promise you. Beat me with sticks until I do. I promise you I haven't lost interest). Very occasionally, one or the other of us (Nixx and I, that is; Cass, you're excused forthwith from all incriminating mentions in the rest of this entry ;P) will venture off into the wilds of forum stuff. She came across one recently which looked decent, so we both had a look. And I was going to sign up and give it a shot, until I found this in the 'Advanced Roleplay Rules' thread...
- You should be VERY familiar with roleplaying and how it is done. Not recommended for first-timers.
- You should be a GOOD roleplayer.
- You must be VERY coherent and display good writing skills. Use a spellchecker, too!
- NO one-liners. You can't develop a character or plot by posting single sentences.
- Post at least a FEW full paragraphs. Did you react to the other characters in the scene? Did you act out and flesh out your character at all? Paragraphs are at least 5 sentences.
- Each post must advance some element of the story in a significant manner.
“A few full paragraphs” means exactly that: at least 2-3 full paragraphs, or at least 12-15 sentences. A handful of sentences are really the bare-bones of roleplaying, and we want an environment where roleplay can be deeper and more fully-fleshed than that.
Long posts may seem unnecessary, but be assured that they are. [...] Advancing the story in a significant manner is no simple task. We’re not splitting hairs when judging what is or is not significant. If you were able to post something in 5 sentences, chances are it was not significant. You can lengthen your post by including something significant.
Significant action can be almost anything. You might introduce a new element (or character) that advances the plot, have your character take an action that the other players can’t ignore, or that sets up something for later. You might simply characterize your character(s), be it by delving into his/her thoughts, or having them take seemingly trivial actions that reveal aspects of the character underneath. You might explore the relationships between the characters, be it between your own characters or with those of another player. These are all examples of significant roleplay.
Without something significant in your post, why are you posting at all? It is, after all, not significant.
Wait, what?
Look, I love paragraph-play, prose-style, whatever you want to call it, as much as the next person, but you're seriously laying down the law that a 'paragraph' is at least five sentences, and that a post has to have two or three or more of them? Excuse me one second while my head implodes.
I don't want to brag, but I do consider myself an advanced RPer. Hell, I know I'm a decent writer, and I'm pretty sure when I play prose-style, I'm pretty damn good at that too. (Cass? I know I said you were excused forthwith, but if you happen to see this, back me up?). And I think that rules like that are not only arbitrary, but completely stupid.
Let's take this from the top.
- You should be VERY familiar with roleplaying and how it is done. Not recommended for first-timers.
Okay, that's fair enough. I can see how long posts might intimidate newcomers, or newbies might have a tendency towards purple prose which doesn't do anything for anyone, just to flesh out the word-count requirements. Which are stupid anyway, but we'll ignore that for now.
- You should be a GOOD roleplayer.
No complaints from me on this one either, but what constitutes 'good'? Because by the definitions and rules given above, I'm not quite sure that word means what you think it means...
- You must be VERY coherent and display good writing skills. Use a spellchecker, too!
Good writing? Awesome. Coherent? Brilliant! Sounds like they don't really want purple prose. And nobody's going to complain at the use of a spellchecker. The odd typo is cool, but let's get things mostly right, at least.
- NO one-liners. You can't develop a character or plot by posting single sentences.
Now things are starting to fall apart. All right, I grant you can't do loads in a one-liner (and if that one-liner is literally "He nodded", I will grant you that's... not really that great). I would argue, though, that you can do plenty in a shortish paragraph. Say, off the top of my head...
As the first cannonball rocked the Elusive Dreamer, Archie forced himself to roll with it, using every ounce of his sea- and air-training to take the force of the blast and stay upright. He managed it, albeit just, and hoped none of the airship's crew saw their captain's desperate scramble at a convenient curtain of rigging to help him keep his balance. Where in the blazes had that come from? The cloud cover prevented him from seeing the flags on the attacking ship, and he'd pissed off too many people to have any hope of guessing their assailant's allegiance.
I wouldn't end it there, but I'm hoping to prove the point that it is possible to develop a character and a plot in four sentences. I kind of wrote that thinking it would be a second or subsequent post, rather than an intro, but... hey, guys, stop me if I'm wrong here. If I'm actually a crappy roleplayer and getting snitty about things I shouldn't. You tell me.
Honestly, though, in those four little sentences, we learned that there's an airship called the Elusive Dreamer, that its captain, Archie, has had significant experience on both sea- and airships in the past, that he's not infallible (he has to grab on to the rigging to keep his balance), and that he (and/or his crew) have pissed off a lot of people who might possibly want to shoot them out of the sky. We don't know how they pissed those people off yet or why they'd be so annoyed that they'd try to shoot an airship clean out of the sky, but we know they exist. That's backstory, right there. I figured it would be reasonable to expand the details later in the scene.
- Post at least a FEW full paragraphs. Did you react to the other characters in the scene? Did you act out and flesh out your character at all? Paragraphs are at least 5 sentences.
Right, so my first paragraph up there already fails for only being four sentences long, but let's press on. Let us assume that in the rest of that post, he shouts over to his first officer-come-pilot-and-navigator, Kip, to bring them about so they can retaliate, and also bellows up to Robin in the crow's nest to ask if she can see who's attacking them in the first place. Kip, since he's being written by someone awesome (he belongs to Nixx ;P) provides a non-purple, well-written, probably-less-than-five-sentences-per-paragraph-and-three-paragraphs response in which he does indeed bring the airship about, while Robin's trying to make out the livery on the attacking ship, to no avail. I'll grant you that maaaaybe that would go to three or four paragraphs, depending on how it was written, because there's two characters to deal with, but I still want to lodge a complaint with whoever decided PARAGRAPHS ARE FIVE SENTENCES END OF STORY.
Oh, and just to be a prick, I'm going to add that in this non-existent reply, through excellent use of show-don't-tell, we learn that Kip is a redheaded national of a country different to Archie's own homeland, has been Archie's crewmate and best friend for close to ten years, and is not afraid to tell his captain to stuff himself quite vehemently (demonstrating their relationship rather nicely with judicious use of selected curse words). Through similar excellent storytelling, we discover that Robin has only been with the Dreamer crew for a few months, but has more than disproved Archie's initial worries about putting a woman in the crow's nest by virtue of having as good a pair of lungs on her as any of the men. That'll do for Robin, because she's a minor character, and we can always 'flesh out' more later.
As Kip brought the Dreamer about -- just in time to dip the bow out of the way of a second cannonball, prompting Archie to thank the gods that while Kip's cartography left something to be desired, his piloting was second to none -- the captain took a second to gather his wits, knowing that taking any more time than that would only be putting the crew in more danger. He was almost tempted to damn Robin for not being able to see the colours of their attacker, but both superstition and a sense of fairness stopped him: it wasn't her fault they were under heavy cloud cover, and it wouldn't do to invoke any supernatural wrath when he didn't really mean it in the first place. Far better to damn the blasted curs shooting at them.
"Get down from there, Bob!" he bellowed up towards the crow's nest, not wishing to have her fall two hundred feet or more to the unwelcoming earth if the bastards got a lucky shot through the mast. "Shoot them out first, and we'll ask who they are later. Kipling! Hold her steady, if you think you can manage it! Francis!"
The final word caught the attention of the Dreamer's weapons officer. "Manning the cannon, Captain!"
Archie darted to his side, by now accustomed to the deck rolling as Kip undoubtedly did his best at the helm. "Incendiaries," he ordered without preamble. "If they're going to start shooting all over the place like that, I frankly don't give a damn about bringing them in undamaged."
"Sir!" Francis saluted sharply and set to, shouting orders across the deck to the rest of the crew as they rushed to the cannon.
Archie gave him the leeway to command, knowing the younger man was more than competent, and joined in with the crew's efforts, taking up a cannon of his own without the help of a loader. "Robin!" he called over his shoulder. "If you're down, I could use a hand here!"
Now that is admittedly six 'paragraphs', if you like, but every single one of them breaks the 'five sentences' rule.
Did you react to the other characters in the scene? Yup. Acted for Robin's safety (which is further characterisation of Archie, in a way, showing that he'd rather keep his crew safe), and ordered Kip to hold her steady. Which I will argue is a direct response to ... whatever good-natured insult Kip probably threw at him in the reply post. He also responded to Kip's action in bringing the ship about, admittedly with a thought rather than a spoken response, but he did comment, mentally, on Kip's cartography and piloting abilities. That counts as responding for me. And would, I would argue, give my playmate leeway to say something like "Knowing from past experience that Archie placed more faith in his piloting than his mapreading, Kip took stock of the aerial signals around him as well as the position of the enemy airships in planning the next best move."
Did you act out and flesh out your character at all? I'd say so. We now know that Archie is superstitious to some extent, that he doesn't want to put the crew into unnecessary danger, and that he's not afraid to get in there and captain from ground level. Or... deck level, at least, being as this is an airship. You know what I mean.
Paragraphs are at least 5 sentences. Nope. Mine were three sentences and ... the second one depends on how you want to count it. I'd be disinclined to call "Kipling!" and "Francis!" sentences, and I would tend to lump Archie's shout to Robin and the accompanying tag-line and action as one, which makes it three. Four if you want to count "Get down from there, Bob!" and "...he bellowed" as two separate sentences. The third is two; then three; then two or three if we're being generous; then four on the last one if we're generous again with how we count dialogue.
Oh, and yeah, I gave Robin something to react to. I'm going to leave Kip to handle himself for the next post; he's more than capable of it -- but at least one of my playmate's characters has a direct opening to respond to.
Again, if you think I'm shit, tell me. I'm open to critique.
- Each post must advance some element of the story in a significant manner.
I suppose that's arguable in my example, and I would hope it'd be judged on a case-by-case basis (though the idea of someone judging my posts frankly puts me right off anyway). Admittedly we don't know who's firing on the Elusive Dreamer or why, but at least the captain's responded, got in on the action, and ordered his weapons officer to use incendiary bombs, which I would say is fairly significant plot. Oh yes, and Robin's got an opening to respond to. And Kip or anyone else is welcome to leap in at any point. Is this bad RP? Would you call it 'advanced' (whatever that's supposed to mean)? I'm honestly asking your opinions here.
In short, I'm whining because I don't think "good RP" can be quantified. Sometimes -- especially in conversational situations -- it's really hard to write two or three paragraphs of five sentences or more without it getting bloody ridiculous. Just to prove this to myself, I'm going to put Kip and Archie in a bar, in a completely different situation. Let's say this is a few posts in, so again, it isn't an intro (as they're longer and quite reasonably so). They're on the ground now, the airship's docked for repairs, and Archie's getting melancholy (as he often does) about the fact the ground engineer he retains just isn't into him. Kip, who's more than used to this kind of moping, has been trying to get his attention for most of the previous post, and finally resorted to snapping his fingers practically under Archie's nose...
Archie barely heard Kip's response, his attention focused instead on the grimy window through which he could just about make out the roof of Drew's workshop, currently cranked open on its huge brass hinges so that the Dreamer could be land-docked right in the workshop itself. When Kip snapped his fingers in front of his face, he positively jumped.
"What? Sorry? Oh-- I was miles away..."
But Kip would know that, of course, surely. They had been friends for too long for him to have missed the longing stare through the cloudy glass, and despite his foreigner status, Kip knew the city well enough to work out which direction Archie had been looking in. The workshop -- and more than that, Drew. Was she standing on the deck of his beloved Dreamer right now, bringing his two most favoured females together in the most perfect way he could conceive? Or in her office, frowning over paperwork by the light of a flickering gas-lamp... or...
Snap out of it, he told himself, looking back to Kip with an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I'm back. What were you saying?"
Sentence count: two; three if we count 'what' and 'sorry' as complete sentences; actually five, my God, but I freely admit I was worried I'd started to waffle in that one. And maybe four if we're generous for the last 'paragraph', which I don't doubt certain forum rulemakers would call a one-liner.
Note I'm not deliberately trying to write short posts, or long posts, or any kind of posts; this is honestly how I roll with my prose RP. *shrug* Oh, and none of these are actual RP posts. I literally did make them up off the top of my head.
On the conversation post, I'm inclined to argue it was getting a bit long and waffly; I still think I advanced the plot and developed the character some, but I probably could have been neater about it. To keep up with the five-sentences rule, though, I would have had to start in adding utterly pointless shit: some crap about Drew's pretty brown hair, or God forbid a completely unwarranted flashback about their childhood together before he went off to join the sea-forces (pre-airship captaincy, that is) and she apprenticed as an engineer, or whatever else. I may also be biased because I'm assuming that these characters are familiar to both myself and my playmate, so I don't have to pad out the details too much. I might play differently with someone else; I don't know. Maybe. (Cass, was I especially waffly when we first started out, or did I nail the details effectively and advance the plot and all the rest of it? Because I swear to god I probably haven't followed all of these arbitrary rules more than a dozen times in our whole 43,000-word RP.)
So hey yeah rant over. Discussion open. What's 'good' RP to you? 'Advanced'? Should the whole community rally around and stop being so utterly stick-up-arse about stupid rules like this? I mean, I get standards, I really do -- I appreciate them -- and hell, maybe I'm coming off as a whiny snob here, but... five sentences is a paragraph? Or else? Seriously?
... my incredulity over that one may have to be beaten out of me. :/
Oh, and for your information, falcons_honour, YES, YOU ARE THAT FUCKING GOOD. One of the best dudes I've ever had the honour of playing with, in fact. (And not waffly in the least; if you ask me your writing's both concise and gripping enough that it should make the purple-prosers weep with envy. :B) But to everyone else, (especially aforementioned purple-prosers,) LOOK AT THIS. LOOK HARD. STUDY IT IN EVERY WAKING MOMENT, AND EVEN IN YOUR DREAMS, AND MAYBE SOMEDAY YOU CAN BE AS AWESOME AS THIS. The end. B <