As much as people disparage semantics, you only need to ask a law school alumni to get an idea on how important minding your p's and q's can be in certain circumstances, as there's one line of text and it's downright mind-boggling at the many ways you can interpret it if you're not precise enough. I suppose I have a bit of a bias in this matter as I play a character who primarily communicates non-verbally in regular RP, requiring me to have to convey more in expression and body language than the average person who can just say, "Bloody flaming gods, you're grinding my goat". Most RP circumstances are nowhere near as extreme as fishing for loopholes as an attorney, but in regular RP and forum posting you do convey a lot in text alone whether it was your intention or not.
Endelyon's earlier post, while doing a good job at trying to explain the importance of body language in regular communication, kind of misses a crucial part: brevity. Writing an entire paragraph in place of a single sentence is not really practical, especially in an RP environment that requires you to output your character's actions and reactions regularly, sometimes quickly. Because you people have now ruined the word "annoying" for me (
) I will use another emotion as an example.Code: Select all
"The man looks happy as he accepts the gift."Code: Select all
"The man smiles warmly, eyes shining, as he accepts the gift."You can even play with this, too! Before you write "CHARNAME feels X", take a step back, think on what "X" would look like if CHARNAME was conveying it, depending on the character's quirks, and write it down without ever mentioning the emotion you want to convey. Happiness could be a bright, genuine smile, as from the example above, or even simply a more restrained smile if your character is more reticent. Happiness could also be shown in a more animated and vivacious demeanor if your character is listless. Is CHARNAME irritated by an incessant badger of a person? Perhaps you can emote a scowl, a twitching eyelid, glancing from side to side as if you want to get away, shifting of feet towards a direction away from the irritating person, so on and so forth. You do not need to write entire paragraphs, or name-drop, to describe a personality.
I don't ask people to change overnight, if they want to change, because it is roleplaying and it's not worth being an A-class conscientious descriptor if you're not having fun with it. And honestly, it should be fun for you, even when you're working on improving your writing skills...no, no, playing with words.
Ultimately, though, it boils down to tolerance for other peoples' writing styles, and to be willing to communicate and clear up misunderstandings. Thanks to Deathgrowl explaining the basis behind his particular brand of RP, I would no longer feel offended if his characters express negative dispositions towards my own, as I know that is how he RPs and meant no offense towards me as a player, even though for me it sometimes feels like square-dancing with someone who just says "dol-si-do" instead of actually doing a dol-si-do at the cue (
). Likewise, if someone's roleplaying bothers you OOCly, try to clear things out between the both of you before you call for the DMs or shut them out of your clique, because who knows? The other person may not have intended such. And at the worst case? The DMs will know you tried.
