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Kallera · **01-31-2017, 05:33 PM**

Thank you for you responses and I'll continue to welcome more. I've found myself writing lots of internal dialogue but emoting and saying not a lot of stuff. That might work for unconsciousness but not for someone that is actively interacting or wants to get closer and easier to get along with to people. so I'm going to make a good note of that, that a post that is mostly dialog and emotes is not necessarily a bad post if the actions and motivation are conveyed in a clear manner.

Warren Castille · **01-31-2017, 05:43 PM**

(01-31-2017, 05:33 PM)Kallera Wrote: Thank you for you responses and I'll continue to welcome more. I've found myself writing lots of internal dialogue but emoting and saying not a lot of stuff. That might work for unconsciousness but not for someone that is actively interacting or wants to get closer and easier to get along with to people. so I'm going to make a good note of that, that a post that is mostly dialog and emotes is not necessarily a bad post if the actions and motivation are conveyed in a clear manner.

Not all posts need dialogue, keep in mind. If you're capable enough at it, it's perfectly fair to just demonstrate an opening without the need to verbally prompt someone. If you're asked about a touchy subject, for example, emoting distress and looking away or otherwise descriptive body language can be just as powerful as outright telling someone something.

Like Gegenji mentioned, I've also seen people just string together long runs about thinking of their harsh journey and how difficult their life was and how challenging it is for them to hold together despite the immense crushing pressure of their responsibilities and - good for them, but if you don't mention any of this at all in your body language or expression, it's not possible for people to jump in on that juiciness.

If the only way you leave for someone to get into your attention is to force them to metagame, that feels unjust to me. Just one dude's opinion!

Tyndles · **01-31-2017, 07:03 PM**

Writing and role-playing are two different things. When you're writing, you're strictly entertaining an audience, not directly interacting with other people.

When you write, you have license and ability to put all the thought and feeling that you want, because you're the only one telling the story, so you should knock yourself out. This works in forum RP to a an extent because you cannot physically see anything going on around you, so expression must be explained and expanded upon.

When you Role-play, you are interacting very directly with one or more other people, so beyond a couple adverbs now and then to allow for something the game mechanics will not, a lot of description is unnecessary and really slows down the pace of RP. We don't need to know everything that your character is thinking, because they should say it to someone else. They should not have an inner monologue with themselves as if there is no one else around. If there are things that the character is thinking that are being kept to themselves, then the other RPers don't need to know it either. Their characters can figure out what your character is thinking based on the situation at hand and your characters reaction.

As to description, the game IS limited in what you can do. You can only move in certain ways, emote in certain ways etc, but if you need more than a single block of text that the game permits to describe something outside of combat, you're probably going on too long.

Ritsu · **01-31-2017, 07:27 PM**

I tend to rely on actions and speech for the most part. I also tend to emote actions as well, generally with text off unless we are somewhere traffic heavy. I do throw out thoughts sometimes, generally for humor sake.

Personally I am not a huge fan of para unless it is needed for description - like a DM'ed event. If we are sitting having tea or something, I rather if be shorter as if we were speaking to each other.

Kazukata · **01-31-2017, 10:28 PM**

(01-31-2017, 05:33 PM)Kallera Wrote: Thank you for you responses and I'll continue to welcome more. I've found myself writing lots of internal dialogue but emoting and saying not a lot of stuff. That might work for unconsciousness but not for someone that is actively interacting or wants to get closer and easier to get along with to people. so I'm going to make a good note of that, that a post that is mostly dialog and emotes is not necessarily a bad post if the actions and motivation are conveyed in a clear manner.

I'd say that's definitely a good takeaway. Heck, some people are even fine with posts that are pure dialog, though I personally really like having accompanying emotes to catch those things like body posture and a person's expressions. From the sound of it, you put in enough thought and care that I don't think a lack of detail will be much of a concern.

ExAtomos · **02-03-2017, 11:06 AM**

I'm gonna toss in something really important that (in my admittedly brief skimming) I haven't seen anyone else mention yet.

I can't respond to your inner thoughts.

That's the biggest issue, imo. A player can say all kinds of stuff, even mean and rude stuff (and yes, this happens)(a lot), and I. Can't. Do. Anything. Back. My characters aren't mind readers.

As an example, I was rping one day and my rp partner said something. I responded. They then said, "lol, i didn't say that out loud." : |Â Ok, so I'm just supposed to stand there looking dumb? No thanks.

This is not fun.

Can someone's inner thoughts being broadcast be funny? Of course! But are you there to roleplay with other people or to just entertain others with your funny commentary?

As others have already mentioned, there are many ways to add in body language and expressions, patterns of speech, etc. through your /em text.

Example: /em winced as he overhead someone mention a house fire. He rubbed nervously at the burn scars on his arm and seemed to shrink into his seat.

There. That's all stuff that other people can actually see on their own and respond to. No inner thoughts about fear, pain, and memories needed.

Mia Moui · **02-03-2017, 01:56 PM**

I don't do "inner dialogue" in role play. Â I can't presume other characters can read minds and I certainly wouldn't want them to. Â And I definitely don't want to read other character's minds.
FFXIV has a number of useful emotes and I have macros for the ones I use most and I have my UI customized for play and for role play. Â One thing that I can't do is through emotes is display the subtle movements of Mia's ears and tail. Â I will write out what her ears and tail are doing if it's relevant. Â For example, if she's getting irritated with someone.

/em Smiles at you weakly using only her lips as her tail swishes quickly from side to side.

If you know cat behavior, that's a sign of getting angry or intolerant. Â If you don't know cat behavior, that's fine too. Â As a role player, I don't expect you to know what I'm about or where I want to go. Â

In fact, I don't usually have a plan. Â It's like meeting and talking to people in real life. Â I don't have a plan for an interaction. Â If, after 20 minutes or so, it's not going anywhere, I might excuse myself and move on. Â My point is, I don't want to use people to further my own plot. Â If our conversation serves to move my plot, that's great. Â If not, that's also fine.

And sure, it can be frustrating for the person I'm role playing with. Â They don't know what I was looking for but that's like real life too. Â If we are getting together to specifically work out a scene or a plot development, that's different. Â But just casually role playing a chance meeting, I don't want someone writing their life story into internal dialogue, expecting me to read it.

Faye · **02-03-2017, 03:12 PM**

When to speak - A pretty simple rule of thumb here is to ask yourself what you would do or what would be appropriate IRL. Sometimes we may talk to ourselves or mumble things aloud, but we don't speak out our every thought or talk to ourselves at length in public, because it just makes you look like a crazy person. Unless your character is a crazy person, when it would be logical for your character to speak, or when you want to clearly convey an idea directly from your character is when to speak.

When to think - I guess I'm going to break the mold here and say that internal monologue is okay. I'm really not sure why MMO RPers have such a stigma against it. Sure, we've all run into people who ramble on for paragraphs in thoughts we can't respond to, or who have used internal monologue to get in passive aggressive OOC inspired jabs, but people misusing the idea doesn't make the idea itself bad.

You insert your character's thoughts into the RP when you feel it adds something meaningful to the RP--something funny/witty to entertain the other RPer, some important detail that gives us more insight into who your character is as a person, etc. You'll need to clarify whether your character's thoughts are potentially being broadcasted via their expression and body language, and you'll need to make sure that there's some more substance to your post. The other character can't respond to your character's thoughts alone, so you'll need to give them something more substantial to reply to in your post. I'd also be cautious about sharing any negative or rude thoughts your character has, as this can be used as a way to toss around insults while pretending it's all IC yet also being immune to the any IC consequences from it. Even if you're not using it this way, it can be mistaken for it if you aren't careful.

Use thoughts when you want to convey something about your character (usually for purely meta value) that is too complicated or abstract to get across simply with body language, and that your character for any reason would not speak aloud. Don't use thoughts when you expect the other character to pick up on them and react to them (they might, if you make it seem like the thoughts or obvious and/or if the other character is intuitive--or they might not). Use thoughts sparingly and impactfully, and try to avoid using them when you could simply use description instead, which brings us to...

When to describe - Always! Whenever possible! Description is good! You can show us how your character feels. Put your character's feelings into their body language. The better your character is at hiding their feelings, the more subtle and subdued you can make the cues. The flaw here is that sometimes it may be unclear what the body language is supposed to mean--misunderstanding and miscommunication do happen. Sometimes that ambiguousness is good--in real life, you don't always have a perfect insight into someone else's feelings based on their facial expressions. But sometimes, you may want to convey something more clearly, in which case...

You can also tell us how your character feels. You can outright state that your character is happy, sad, etc. The flaw here is that, much like with thoughts, unless you specify, the other role-player will not know if these feelings are visibly obvious to their own character. It's a lot more impactful and makes the scene feel more real for your RP partner to have an idea what your character looks like, what they are doing, what they sound like, etc. That being said, imo the most effective thing in most situations is to show and tell. You can combine the two to tell us how your character is feeling is clear to see ("Her expression was forlorn.") or you can use both at once ("She jumped up and down, ecstatic.").

The only time I would avoid using description is when it's something you don't want the other character to pick up on (i.e. don't say your character frowns or that she is upset if you don't want the other character to have a sense that your character is unhappy). Otherwise, description is almost always useful to have, and only best left avoided when it's a scene that calls for short, quick emotes and/or doesn't involve much complex emotion to need described, like a casual conversation at a crowded place.

Marcy · **02-03-2017, 04:34 PM**

I guess it depends who you're writing with. I'm not terribly attached to either style, and will pepper internal monologue or fourth-wall breaking pieces into my emotes here and there. So far, no complaints -- if people don't like my RP style, they have the choice of not RPing with me. Actually, more often than not I get whispers from strangers saying my RP made them laugh or smile and that's always nice to hear.

Just do what feels natural, don't use RP as a means to be nasty OOC, and don't assume reactions for other characters. You can say a lot with body language and play with your emotes to decide how much you want to conceal and how much you want to reveal, and that depends entirely on the type of character you write and the kind of scene you are doing. Sometimes it's just easier to say "Marcellain looks perturbed" than typing out four paragraphs about chewing nails and pulling hair in the corner.

Kilieit · **02-03-2017, 04:52 PM**

I find I vary it based on what mood the scene I'm writing has. More serious = more "showing", more speech. More silly = more "telling", more amusing internal thoughts.

I say "I find" because the switch isn't really conscious, but I can definitely see it when I review my chat logs. >.>

Alderique · **02-03-2017, 05:31 PM**

(02-03-2017, 03:12 PM)Faye Wrote: When to think - I guess I'm going to break the mold here and say that internal monologue is okay. I'm really not sure why MMO RPers have such a stigma against it. Sure, we've all run into people who ramble on for paragraphs in thoughts we can't respond to, or who have used internal monologue to get in passive aggressive OOC inspired jabs, but people misusing the idea doesn't make the idea itself bad.

I absolutely love emoting thoughts, and I really don't get the "My character can't read minds!!" attitude that flies around. I think of roleplay as a collaborative story, and part of a story is getting glimpses into what's going on in the character's head. I'd agree, you need more in the most to work with than a thought, but mixing thoughts with actions or dialogue can express the character in ways that speech and action cannot on their own. Adds a bit of different flavor to the RP to mix it up a bit.

My approach, like Marcy's, is very "you don't have to play with me", and that's totally fine.

Kilieit · **02-03-2017, 05:37 PM**

I think as long as every emote has ONE THING, AT LEAST that you can respond to, it's not so frustrating...

I've had it before when someone's spent a couple char-limit emotes elaborating what their character's thinking about, but there's no actions for me to respond to. Just thoughts.

So I either have to wait for them to give me something, emote my character doing something completely unrelated and hope they take the hint, or just... assume they made a face while thinking and have my character react to that.

The last is both the most effective and the most risky, since it's basically a power-emote, and if called out on that there's really no defence other than "then give me something to work with"... the middle is passive-aggressive, and the former is just passive-passive. It's much better if people make sure to include actions in their emotes to begin with.

Character thoughts are flavour, not substance, and they should be treated as such. Lemon essence makes cupcakes taste better, but you wouldn't eat just lemon essence, on its own, without the cupcake. Make sure you're remembering to include the cupcakes as well as your lemon essence and you're all good with me.

Can you tell I've been getting back into baking lately? >_>

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[Discussion] When to SPEAK, when to THINK, and when to DESCRIBE

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes