The Biggest Problem Role-Players Face

It can all be summed up in these three words: quality over quantity! Too often I see RPs die, and I know exactly why. It's because RPers feel the unnecessary need to write really long posts. It all comes down to how we care too much what others think. We feel inadequate (yes, I feel this way many times too) when we write short posts, because we don't feel it's enough, especially when there are other players writing really long posts. If that works for them, great! But not everyone has the same writing style. Don't try to be like another writer. Be yourself. Don't treat RPs like a competition to see who's the better writer. They're games! They're for fun! If you can get your point across well enough in a short post, why make it any longer? Anything else you add will be just unnecessary, and it will subtract from the quality of the post.

Not only that, but when you try to write more than you really need to, you strain yourself. RPing becomes a chore, and then it's no longer fun. Not just for you, but also for the readers. All that unnecessary stuff added in makes reading your posts boring, and then reading the RP isn't fun anymore, and then you don't know what's going on, and then you just drift away from it. Some RPers I've noticed don't post sometimes because they "don't know what to post." We're all writers here. We all have really good imaginations. Of course you know what to post! But you don't want to because you think it would be too short. That's a mistake. I've been lucky enough to see one of my RPs to the end, and to see another RP I took part in go through several story arcs. The reason is because the posts weren't really long. Some were, but others weren't. Even then they were longer than necessary, but that's because most of us weren't as good at writing as we are now. But the bottom line is, we were having fun with it. We weren't straining ourselves. We weren't forcing it. We were doing what came natural. Understand, a single sentence can carry a lot of weight. Even just a word can carry a lot of weight.

This is especially true when it comes to conversation and combat. You can't control another person's character, so when you feel the need to write long posts, conversation and combat become awkward. It becomes less cooperative storytelling when you can't do those things. Combat is quick. Short posts are better when it comes to combat. Conversation is also quick to an extent. People don't talk for paragraphs at a time in real life. Worse is how RPers seem to avoid conversations entirely in RPs! Usually it goes you'll ask a question and then do something not related to that other character. Then the other person posts the answer and does something not related to that character. Conversation becomes almost non-existent. Combat is almost never with other characters, and almost always with NPCs. There is some teamwork in combat in RPs, but not as much as there could be if posts were shorter. If we all wrote shorter posts, sure they'd be shorter, but there would also be more. We'd all be more enthusiastic about posting because we wouldn't feel the need to write really long posts. This isn't serious writing guys. This is a game. This is for fun. Try and have fun, ok?

Don't take my rant too personally, please. I'm just trying to help everyone out. I'm trying to make RPing fun again for us all. Some of my fondest memories are of RPing, but it's hard to get into it when you make a chore of it.