(02-26-2016, 10:08 AM)ExAtomos Wrote: I MUCH prefer seeing a few short sentence of emotes & dialog than some wall of text. Am I alone in this? Plus, I like including the little details like what people do irl (such as looking over a menu, describing body language such as shifting uncomfortably when questioned, or doing things such as adding another log to the campfire); is this seen as chat clutter and unwanted?
This bit in particular, I just HAVE to comment on- I think that body language and other such 'fluff emotes' in the midst of a conversation are SUPER important. They help with scene continuity, they give a better idea of who a character is, they can make awkward silences feel more purposeful, and they add that little bit of uncertainty that always comes with communication.
If Arblis is kicking her heels against the foot of her chair, what does that mean? Is she nervous? Bored? Thoughtful? Does she even realize she's doing it? If the other person reacts to it, you have created An Interaction, and that's kind of the whole point of RP, isn't it? Plus it lets you set up expectations and understanding of a character's normal behavior, and by making them notably absent or making little changes to them, companions WILL notice, in a way that's much more organic than just saying '/em looks like she's real tired of all these negotiations.'
I'm still a mess over figuring out proper post length though. If a character has a very choppy train of thought, isn't it better to chop up disparate thoughts into separate lines? But that can be annoying because then the other person is already writing a response and you shove another thing in there and that changes things and it's a pain. But maybe it's still the right thing to do because the character is supposed to be kind of annoying and disruptive. But it's still OOC annoying and that's never a good thing to aim for.
*emits commiseration rays*
![[Image: DzyoF5Q.png]](http://i.imgur.com/DzyoF5Q.png)
