The Usage of Future Tense

[Caspar]

When I played forum rp, it was almost always in past tense, as if it were a novel. In general the feel of RP was much more akin to collab writing than improv and this issue rarely emerged.

[FreelanceWizard]

I usually try to write as if the actions are happening in the now. Present tense I guess. I avoid accusations of godmodding by giving clear indication of my character's intent as well as leaving the result open for the other person to put in.

 

For example: "Cecilia makes a tackle at (insert character name here)'s legs in an attempt to trip them up." This leaves it open for the other player to decide if my character succeeds in her attempt.

 

This is pretty much how I handle it. In forum posts, I usually write in past tense, but that's because I typically write in past tense... but I'll go with whatever people lead with. Present tense with an "out" is, in my experience, the most common form going all the way back to "talkie" MUSHes and continuing through the MMO world. The future conditional is something I hadn't seen until relatively recently. XIV's a melting pot of a lot of different RP styles, though.

 

Using the future conditional exclusively (even for non-conditional actions, like "So-and-so would take a bite of his cookie" -- your cookie isn't going to stop you! Just eat it!) actually reminds of a bit from American Dad:

 

"You may well have lost a son!"

"Well, did I or didn't I?"

"You may well have!"

[Verad]

 

I'm sure the former roleplaying userbase of Yahoo IM's roleplaying forums appreciate your generalization based on the manner they mutually and often respectably handled combat with strangers with no dice pools present or mutual backstory.

 

As a fellow member of that former community, trust me, we were grognard assholes, and so were the people you played with.

 

The ability to effectively handle a bad technique does not mean the technique is not bad. It just means you were really good at something bad.

[Kage]

 

Using the future conditional exclusively (even for non-conditional actions, like "So-and-so would take a bite of his cookie" -- your cookie isn't going to stop you! Just eat it!) actually reminds of a bit from American Dad:

 

"You may well have lost a son!"

"Well, did I or didn't I?"

"You may well have!"

I think this is what irked me... or what I found so odd/awkward about how these types of things are written.

[Tyndles]

I dunno about tenses, but the word "would" gets used too much.  "Gilles would go to the bar, and he would get a mug of ale and he would sit down."

 

That is a real post I saw, name replaced by my own.  One would should be enough for the entirety of the post.

[Flickering Ember]

So people dont accuse you of godmodding for.. No reason other than to just be difficult.

 

Future tense leaves the other person open to react however they please rather than taking what you did because you used present or past tense.

 

That's how I've always seen this being used as well. It's saying that - if the other person in the RP allows it - this is what would happen. If not blocked or dodged, this punch would strike them in the jaw. He would move to wrap his arm arm around her waist. Implying intent of action without flat-out stating it is what happens in order to give the other person more agency in said action.

 

I've already addressed this in the opening post, as some people do it outside of just making sure that they're not taking away the other roleplayers' agency. They use it for everything.

 

These are cases were someone is going to do it. There's no ifs, ands or buts. There's no other person that would be there to say "NO YOU CAN'T WALK DOWN THIS STREET I HAVE AGENCY OVER THIS."

 

It's just seeing... "She would go to the store and see if there were apples in stock."

 

She's going to go to the store.

 

There isn't a reason other than habit. If it isn't to prevent godmodding then that RPer may have just gotten used to using it.

 

Same reason why RPers in general have writing quirks.

 

I know it is a pet peeve to a decent amount of people but we are here to have fun, not write a college essay. Some RPers really care about grammatical correctness. I would call that being 'high strung.' If someone mistakenly uses 'would' they're probably just pumping out a post in a leisurely manner and trying to keep up with RP flow.

[Ignacius]

To be honest, this apparent need of "would" etc seems like it is a need stemming from metamodding. The entire need of tactical checkmating just seems like a lot of needing to have a forceful OOC player writing to force such and such IC consequences.

 

I don't know, that's just my opinion of what I'm reading. Then again, I'm also not in the mood to roleplay with people who would randomly want to cut off my character's head so that might be it. Any other time it is someone sending me a tell or PM saying "Are you ok with your character being kidnapped in public?" or "Are you ok with this possible consequence?"

 

Well, I suppose I'm not so guarded as an RPer.  Like I said, a LOT of people don't adapt to the scene they're in; I try to do so.  If my character says something and someone tries to cut their head off, I pride myself on not making my first reaction an OOC reaction.  Sure, some people might try to troll you, but the amount of people randomly decapitating people in any scenario is fairly low.  Almost suspiciously low if you consider many of our characters raised their in-game levels by randomly cutting the heads off of pretty much anything that got in their way.

 

But then, I've done a lot and seen a lot, and I feel it's a poor reflection on me if I immediately judge people by some sort of reaction.  Plenty of my best RP friends did things that, I suppose, a lot of people just wrote off as horrific:

 

 

I'm sure the former roleplaying userbase of Yahoo IM's roleplaying forums appreciate your generalization based on the manner they mutually and often respectably handled combat with strangers with no dice pools present or mutual backstory.

 

As a fellow member of that former community, trust me, we were grognard assholes, and so were the people you played with.

 

The ability to effectively handle a bad technique does not mean the technique is not bad. It just means you were really good at something bad.

 

My reaction to someone who got into a fight with me without asking my permission first wasn't, "They're an asshole."  Nor were they assholes for trying to kill my character.  I made probably the best thread of my life on Yahoo IM with very few character deaths (right up until the end) despite being completely open to the public.

 

In short, my world's full of a lot less "assholes" because I would never presume to judge anyone on that ground.  I don't have the right; the people I met there were perfectly good roleplayers.  I certainly feel it would be judgmental to say, "I'm in this open RP forum, you did something a way I don't like it, therefore YOU are the horrible person."

 

It's open RP.  If every altercation doesn't require a break for you to formally complain in OOC about format, you have to learn how to RP with people.  Yes, that means being careful about how you write things, but apparently, that broadened the base of people I could play with.  I wasn't actually aware of how many until this moment, but I've never really contemplated how lucky I am that I seem to be able to enter more scenarios with fewer problems and play with more people effectively.

 

I've certainly not had cause to call many people I'd met on Yahoo assholes and, assuming I met the same people these folks did and without usually killing people in threads, I came out of a scenario where people were disgusted by the people around them with a good reputation and a great group of regular roleplayers.

 

It's certainly put a smile on our faces.  I passed this thread around to the old community members I talked to in order to get their opinions.

[Ignacius]

I dunno about tenses, but the word "would" gets used too much.  "Gilles would go to the bar, and he would get a mug of ale and he would sit down."

 

That is a real post I saw, name replaced by my own.  One would should be enough for the entirety of the post.

 

At issue here is how much needs to be conditional.  FFXIV players are a relatively scripted lot, so I'm not sure why people think getting a mug of ale would be written that way.  We operate under the real-life basis that nobody's going to give much of a shit if you get up to get a drink in a bar.

 

The conditional is only used in actions you're assuming will be contested (whether you'll tackle someone after diving at their legs).  I write mostly in the present tense because nobody's going to interrupt Orleans lighting a cigar.

 

There's an idea that every "would" is an invitation, but it's hardly necessary.  It's even less necessary in FFXIV.  Your character is physically walking to the bar.  I wouldn't think that even needs to be narrated.  My post would simply be me ordering the mug of ale, then walking to the bar, walking back to the table, and sitting down all gets handled with WASD and the /sit emote.

[Kage]

I dunno about tenses, but the word "would" gets used too much.  "Gilles would go to the bar, and he would get a mug of ale and he would sit down."

 

That is a real post I saw, name replaced by my own.  One would should be enough for the entirety of the post.

So... did he actually... do any of them?

[Kismet]

I've said this in another thread, but I'll repeat it here:

 

I have a friend who likes to fill in the following part of emotes that include would in them (without explaining what prevented them from doing said action) with "but they were mauled by a bear". Mind you, we don't actually post that in chat to anyone. It's just an inside joke of our guild's Mumble. But it's what I'm always going to think in my mind about that character's actions, unless they fill in the blanks.

 

Sarah would prance down the street, humming a tune that was full of joy... but she was mauled by a bear.

 

This keeps me sane.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

I've said this in another thread, but I'll repeat it here:

 

I have a friend who likes to fill in the following part of emotes that include would in them (without explaining what prevented them from doing said action) with "but they were mauled by a bear". Mind you, we don't actually post that in chat to anyone. It's just an inside joke of our guild's Mumble. But it's what I'm always going to think in my mind about that character's actions, unless they fill in the blanks.

 

Sarah would prance down the street, humming a tune that was full of joy... but she was mauled by a bear.

 

This keeps me sane.

 

Love it.

 

I was just going to reply something similar. The use of "Hero would..." as an opener to sentences grammatically implies that there is a second segment to the sentence which prevents what Hero had been intending to do. 

 

In my case, I finish the sentences in my head-canon with "...but a shiny thing was distracting." It turns everyone who writes that way into Kender.

[Chris Ganale]

The only time I use future tense is when I'm fighting someone and describing what I'm doing. The things I put in future tense say what the results of my attack will be if it's not avoided.

[Mia Moui]

I use present tense, because it's the only one that makes sense to me.

 

Future tense makes my eye twitch.

 

Edited to add: It's not common in LARPs ot tabletop games I have been a part of.

 

I don't know how off the rails this discussion has become as I write this but this might be an artifact of older players like myself.  Way, way back I did table-top RP with a group and we used future tense so that any action might be countered.

 

My character would stagger back and fall.  And the other player goes, "my character would try to catch you before you fell."  And so forth.

 

This kind of thing made RP take forever (entire weekends) but there was no Internet so what else was there to do?

[LiadansWhisper]

I use present tense, because it's the only one that makes sense to me.

 

Future tense makes my eye twitch.

 

Edited to add: It's not common in LARPs ot tabletop games I have been a part of.

 

I don't know how off the rails this discussion has become as I write this but this might be an artifact of older players like myself.  Way, way back I did table-top RP with a group and we used future tense so that any action might be countered.

 

My character would stagger back and fall.  And the other player goes, "my character would try to catch you before you fell."  And so forth.

 

This kind of thing made RP take forever (entire weekends) but there was no Internet so what else was there to do?

 

Present tense can be countered. You just have to leave openings for people to react instead if writing everything as a "done deal."

 

I'll admit I didn't get into gaming until after the internet came around, but I've pretty much always used present tense. In table top games, I simply say, "my character tries" or simply ask whether I can do something before doing it.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

It was said much earlier in the thread, but I'd want ot bring it up again.

 

...when everything keeps getting stacked up if "would"s and "if"s, when does it end?

 

me: /em would trip on a banana peel and start sliding.

person2: /em would have actually moved that banana peel away, ensuring that Franz could not slip, should it have happened.

person3: /em would have moved the moved banana peel back, seeing how if person2 moved it, their evil plan to make Franz slide into the wall would be foiled.

person4: /em would have then attempted to try to once again move the banana peel to make sure that Franz is safe.

me: FRANZ IS UNSURE WHERE THIS BANANA PEEL IS ANYMORE BECAUSE PEOPLE KEEP THINKING ABOUT MOVING IT.

 

To me, it looks like there is no accountability for actions on either side. Which is good and bad. If something is supposed to be left so open that literally anyone can interfere with it, nothing will ever get done unless someone finally takes action. Eventually, someone -has- to take an action that other people can react to. Otherwise, we end up in endless speculation.

[Ignacius]

I use present tense, because it's the only one that makes sense to me.

 

Future tense makes my eye twitch.

 

Edited to add: It's not common in LARPs ot tabletop games I have been a part of.

 

I don't know how off the rails this discussion has become as I write this but this might be an artifact of older players like myself.  Way, way back I did table-top RP with a group and we used future tense so that any action might be countered.

 

My character would stagger back and fall.  And the other player goes, "my character would try to catch you before you fell."  And so forth.

 

This kind of thing made RP take forever (entire weekends) but there was no Internet so what else was there to do?

 

Present tense can be countered. You just have to leave openings for people to react instead if writing everything as a "done deal."

 

I'll admit I didn't get into gaming until after the internet came around, but I've pretty much always used present tense. In table top games, I simply say, "my character tries" or simply ask whether I can do something before doing it.

 

It used to be far more common that things simply evolved as they happened rather than stopping to have an OOC conversation.  People in random situations certainly didn't leave openings for people to react.  You said what you were doing and what your intentions will be.  It was pretty straightforward, and required a lot less scripting.

 

Priorities may have shifted, but that used to certainly be why it was done.  Many of us still do it today for much the same reason.  Saying you "would" do everything is pretty extreme, but some of us still feel it's better to have the intended consequences on display in the future tense.  It may not sound like a book, but the end result gets across a lot of the OOC hoopla within the actual post.

[Ignacius]

It was said much earlier in the thread, but I'd want ot bring it up again.

 

...when everything keeps getting stacked up if "would"s and "if"s, when does it end?

 

me: /em would trip on a banana peel and start sliding.

person2: /em would have actually moved that banana peel away, ensuring that Franz could not slip, should it have happened.

person3: /em would have moved the moved banana peel back, seeing how if person2 moved it, their evil plan to make Franz slide into the wall would be foiled.

person4: /em would have then attempted to try to once again move the banana peel to make sure that Franz is safe.

me: FRANZ IS UNSURE WHERE THIS BANANA PEEL IS ANYMORE BECAUSE PEOPLE KEEP THINKING ABOUT MOVING IT.

 

To me, it looks like there is no accountability for actions on either side. Which is good and bad. If something is supposed to be left so open that literally anyone can interfere with it, nothing will ever get done unless someone finally takes action. Eventually, someone -has- to take an action that other people can react to. Otherwise, we end up in endless speculation.

 

Again, the form begins in the present tense with a future conditional.  If everything is a conditional, it doesn't make an awful lot of sense.  That's not necessarily what you're supposed to do.  You write in contestable actions in the future conditional.

 

It's at your discretion to know what's contestable, and that used to be fairly logical.  Nobody is going to stop you from eating a bagel, but someone will try to stop you from setting them on fire.  Generally speaking, you only need to use that future conditional tense for a consequence of an action that you need to be apparent when you do something.  Like if you were eating a bagel, no one cares.  If you were eating someone else's bagel that you plucked from the table, that might be different and you might need to say, "....fully intending to consume it in front of him," in your post.

 

I didn't want to add this (again, I really dislike getting on people's cases or snickering behind their backs for how they write), but the idea of someone constantly performing contestable and conditional actions is a sign of someone really wanting attention.  It's a bit attention-whorish; there's no reason to think someone is going to interrupt your stroll to the store unless you expect it so there's no reason to "would" anything there.

 

It's only an issue on contestable actions, where your character turns and intends to enter the store after having an argument outside.  You want to leave it open for the person to stop you, yell after you, run after you, etc, but they need to know you will go inside the store unless interrupted.

[Warren Castille]

To summarize: Make your actions display intent, but make sure you do it correctly otherwise its your fault for leaving things open to interpretation.

[Ignacius]

To summarize: Make your actions display intent, but make sure you do it correctly otherwise its your fault for leaving things open to interpretation.

 

Or, you know, don't pick fights with strangers.

[FreelanceWizard]

To summarize: Make your actions display intent, but make sure you do it correctly otherwise its your fault for leaving things open to interpretation.

 

Or, you know, don't pick fights with strangers.

 

That's just generally good advice.

 

If you do, though, talking about it OOC is probably a good idea.

[Aya]

...you only need to use that future conditional tense for a consequence of an action that you need to be apparent when you do something.

Just going to say again: there is no need.  You can.  If you really want to. There are many other ways to express the same idea.

[Hyakki]

Mamushi would wonder how much wood a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood.

 

The use of "would" is way too passive for my taste and there are better ways of expressing a possible future action without relying on that word.

[Berrod Armstrong]

To summarize: Make your actions display intent, but make sure you do it correctly otherwise its your fault for leaving things open to interpretation.

 

Or, you know, don't pick fights with strangers.

 

That's just generally good advice.

 

If you do, though, talking about it OOC is probably a good idea.

THIS. THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. It is possible to talk to strangers OOCly and come to an agreement/compromise instead of doing tense gymnastics. Whether John Doe stabbed Berrod in the heart ten years ago or if he's woulding into the sun, a quick discussion between John and Berrod's players can make things flow well with each one sticking to their style/tense. If John and Berrod don't want to communicate, then...then they're not going to gain much by roleplaying with each other.

[Ignacius]

...you only need to use that future conditional tense for a consequence of an action that you need to be apparent when you do something.

Just going to say again... the is no need[/].  You can.  If you really want to.

 

To use the format we're talking about, that's the only time you would need to.  I assume if you're not using this format, you aren't as worried about what would happen as the consequences unfold.  Though I had thought we were speaking specifically about those using the system to use far more numerous conditional words than were necessary, I suppose it should be reiterated that if you are not using this system, then you are not subject to best practices using it.

[Faye]

It's bad. Don't do it. Icky grammar. We're not telling the future here.

 

This also extends to combat RP (sorry to those who believe it's useful there, but it's really not).

 

Saying "She would punch him in the face" seems to A) imply that she would have done this had something not stopped her (see Kismet's "mauled by a bear" joke above for reference), or B) if we're going by the assumption that all the "woulds" of those who write in future tense are/will be completed actions, it can be interpreted as auto-hitting just as much as "She punched him in the face" or "She punches him in the face" could.

 

Instead, "She swung a closed fist toward his face in a punch." (Or "She swings," for those who prefer to use pretense tense.) There is not autohit or godmodding. There is no assumption the punch will hit. The swing, however, is now cemented as something that certainly did happen (or is happening, for present tense).

 

Editing to add:

Some people use it for variable conditions such as, "She swung a closed fist toward his face in a punch... if the punch hit its mark, she would then kick at his shin." This isn't the only way to write something like this, however, and is probably not even the best way. One option is to simply wait for the other role-player to respond to see if the punch hits, even if it makes the post shorter. Short posts aren't inherently bad. Combat posts with a character making several actions/attacks become messy and confusing at best, and annoying and god-moddy at worst.

 

The other alternative is posting something along the lines of, "She swung a closed fist toward his face in a punch... if the punch hit its mark, she then kicked at his shin." The variable is still there, without the "would." No more awkward tense switching mid-post. The sentence flows better, is shorter, and has less unnecessary clutter. The meaning is still the same and just as easy to understand.