Echoing that forum RP is a different beast altogether. I don't prefer it to in-game or "live" roleplay but it serves a much different purpose. Emoting in-game is usually stating what you're doing, and it gets a little... off... if someone begins putting thoughts into emotes.
* Warren Castille remembers that he had steak for breakfast, and reminds himself to finish off that chicken later too.
None of that is useful in-game! You can't read my mind (probably) so posting what Warren is thinking or feeling doesn't accomplish jack squat. This is a shame, because I kind of feel that the why of something being done is as-important if not more important than the deed. Something I tried to do in a lot of my forum writing is show the trains of thought, or the jumps in logic or the reason for doing something.
Chachanji and Warren had some scenes in his very excellent Paladin thread and we waffled in PMs about whether to meet up in-game or do it on the forum. He made the very good point that we can't do flash-backs or internal dialogues in-game in a satisfactory manner, so we went to the forums and got to have a relaxing conversation under one of the big trees in Thanalan, but could also revisit both character's pasts and histories.
Writing long-form has different requirements, too. I tend to have a specific story (or more accurately, one pivotal scene or event I want to showcase) and work towards that - If you're writing solo, you don't have the support of other roleplayers to drive things so you need to make sure you've got an impetus for things to occur. If you DO have people writing in your thread with you, you want to make sure that things don't just bog down into dialogue and short back-and-forths. Nothing wrong with taking turns around a table at the Quicksand, but there's got to be depth to it. That's where those internal thoughts and explanations come in handy.
If you wanted to try it, I'd suggest doing a one-off in the Bulletin Board. You can get a feel for how much you like it that way, then decide if you want to establish a thread.
* Warren Castille wrote a lot more than he thought he would.
* Warren Castille remembers that he had steak for breakfast, and reminds himself to finish off that chicken later too.
None of that is useful in-game! You can't read my mind (probably) so posting what Warren is thinking or feeling doesn't accomplish jack squat. This is a shame, because I kind of feel that the why of something being done is as-important if not more important than the deed. Something I tried to do in a lot of my forum writing is show the trains of thought, or the jumps in logic or the reason for doing something.
Chachanji and Warren had some scenes in his very excellent Paladin thread and we waffled in PMs about whether to meet up in-game or do it on the forum. He made the very good point that we can't do flash-backs or internal dialogues in-game in a satisfactory manner, so we went to the forums and got to have a relaxing conversation under one of the big trees in Thanalan, but could also revisit both character's pasts and histories.
Writing long-form has different requirements, too. I tend to have a specific story (or more accurately, one pivotal scene or event I want to showcase) and work towards that - If you're writing solo, you don't have the support of other roleplayers to drive things so you need to make sure you've got an impetus for things to occur. If you DO have people writing in your thread with you, you want to make sure that things don't just bog down into dialogue and short back-and-forths. Nothing wrong with taking turns around a table at the Quicksand, but there's got to be depth to it. That's where those internal thoughts and explanations come in handy.
If you wanted to try it, I'd suggest doing a one-off in the Bulletin Board. You can get a feel for how much you like it that way, then decide if you want to establish a thread.
* Warren Castille wrote a lot more than he thought he would.
![[Image: yEROfKO.png]](http://i.imgur.com/yEROfKO.png)
