Length of Poses

[Klapman]

This is something I've been wondering about for some time - how long is the ideal pose?

For me personally, I tend to go for the very, very long ones. I come from games where a one paragraph pose was considered a 'quickie', and where five paragraph poses were considered only somewhat exceptional. I've grown concerned that this might actually be holding things up - I try to keep from filler as much as possible, but there's a very real concern that I might be overdoing it for simple bar scenes. And the more interested I get in the roleplay, the more words I find myself adding - and since most of my experience is in MUSHes rather than MUDs, I don't know the unwritten rules regarding length so well.

So I figured I'd type up another really long forum post! I'm looking forward to hearing from you guys, I don't want to be stomping all over the flow of a scene - but if it adds to it instead, that would be excellent!

[Voxumo]

It really depends on the situation. Sometimes you don't need a long pose to convey something simple. I'd rather have a pose that is to the point versus one that is full of flowery filler crap to make it look fancy. I'd also say it depends on the person you are rping with as well. However I do suggest keeping Time in mind. If it's a important scene or you know someone might have to leave soon, skip the long drawn out poses and just make sure to keep that scene moving.

It's really just situational. Though I will say this. Don't ever expect the person or people you rp with to have the same length poses you put out. When I first started playing here, I rped with someone who through ooc methods basically told me that if they are taking the time to put out long poses, that I should have the decency to do the same, they literally had me redo my prior pose until it met their standards.... Don't be like this person (Whose name I have not included out of respect). Not everyone is a literary genius like yourself, and can crank out multiple paragraph long poses like it was second nature to them. Some people just have their own styles or they are learning. I mean it's ok to encourage them and give tips to better their poses, but not outright force them to meet your standards.

[Pixie]

As a player who prefers long, thoroughly filled-out paragraph emotes, I have never had a hard time roleplaying with anyone but folks who use one-liners.

Quickfire emotes (one or two lines) just aren't enough for me to go on. I will usually find a way to recuse myself from the scene in that rare case, as it's not their problem -- it's mine.

There really is a huge spread of lengths and styles on TI. Just do whatever you prefer!

[Dice]

Agreed with Pixie. People who perpetually fire off short emotes can cause me real trouble in terms of getting involved/interested in the scene. It's not -actually- about length, per se; it's about giving people enough material in your pose to respond to. Roleplay is give and take, and everyone should be thinking about keeping up their end of the scene, etc.

Now, I don't need novels, or paragraphs, and there are 1) some places where one-liners are good and 2) some players who can write one-liners that still give you enough to "do". Certainly I pose faster in bar scenes.

But for me, personally? There's no such thing as 'too long' unless you're legitimately holding up group RP (taking 20 mins for each pose in a scene where your fellow RPers are 5 mins or so and sticking to turn order, for example), whereas I feel I often struggle with replying to poses that are too short. And there are few things I hate more than when somebody throwing one-liners will utterly ignore any sort of pose order in a small scene while you're struggling to pose.

For example, this is not good:

Player A: *one-liners*

Player B: *introduces complication to the scene*

Player C: *starts typing thoughtful reaction to player B's emote*

Player A: *rushes in with one-liner to instantly revolve Player B's complication before player C is given any chance to react*

But I think a tavern scene of lively bantering one-liners is fine, and so is a private scene of 2 people exchanging paragraphs, and so is a scene of 4-5 people with varying pose lengths but everybody given a chance to participate/react.

TL;DR: Pose whatever length you like so long as your emotes contribute to the scene in terms of content and timing.

[Klapman]

Alright, cool! I avoid filler as much as possible - which basically means I like some flowery descriptions once in a while even if they don't really fit. Mostly I just have fun typing long poses, and I don't particularly mind if I get a short one back so long as, yeah, it isn't immediately resolving some problem I've brought up. My only real pet peeve is when I'm sitting in a bar, someone comes in, and I establish a long pose with several different hooks for RP - and then they sit at a table far away from the situation. I guess I should be happy my peeves have gotten so specific.

[Gerolf]

I agree with Dice, it isn't about length per se so much as keeping the scene flowing. When I have to play from my phone, my poses are shorter to keep the scene flowing. If people are writing very long poses, I will actually shorten my poses so as to keep the scene moving.

That being said one paragraph is about what I think should be an appropriate. I tend to follow a three to four sentence outline: Body language reaction to your RP partner, few sentences in response, more body language.

I will also be honest, I am a horrible person, if you write more than a paragraph in a pose, I wont read the whole thing.

[Kinaed]

From what I can tell, I'm a middle of the road poser as far as TI's players go. I tend to naturally sit at somewhere between two-to-three sentences as a baseline. However, if my RP partners are a bit more lengthy than I am, I find myself doing better out of the basic need to be as good of an RPer as anyone I'm RPing with. By all means, do encourage me to be better with your longer poses!

I have only a few irritations when it comes to emoting, in the same vein as others, I suppose:

1) When an RP partner's emote goes no further than I could get out of a social "Kinaed nods." "Kinaed says, "Yeah." ... replies like that to my stuff like that will make me scram fast. In part because there's not enough there to react off of in my style, and in part because it's just dreadfully boring to me.

2) As it takes me 1-5 minutes to get a pose out, I can get irritated waiting 20 minutes for an RP partner to get a single emote IF I DON'T KNOW THEY'RE ACTIVELY ENGAGED. I start to wonder if they've left me there to stew, have idled out, or just don't care to invest their time in the RP. They don't even have to idle out, just take a long time to give me a bland one-liner like the above examples.

HOWEVER, I'm totally fine if someone either lets me know "I write long poses, so please bear with me" or if they demonstrate their poses are worth the wait. I love it when players type longer poses than I do because I enjoy the physical act of reading, the quiet nudge to think about what I'm doing more thoroughly, and I find longer posed people more creative than I am. If it takes a person 20 minutes to write THAT emote, I'm hooked.

[The_Last_Good_Dragon]

For me, I love filler motes. I love reading your additions to the scene about the random bird flying by, or the cat hissing from the corner, or the band of irate freemen sulking in the corner. I love it when you describe the details of your character: does he just smile, or do his lips twitch, suggesting a growing grin that blossoms into a full-fledged beam that widens his eyes and threatens to suffuse his entire body with joy? Do you mount your horse, or do you give a tired sigh while a gauntleted hand slowly traces along the chestnut hair of your horse's neck before grasping the horn of the saddle and hauling yourself up? Description, to me, is what I care for. The little narrative details that bring a scene to life and allow -me- something to act upon myself. That usually takes a longer emote and longer to write. I love that. If you do that, if you add description and color and your own imprint on the game's setting, I adore you.

But for a base minimum, I always want to add — and, frankly, expect others to add — something for other people to go off of. If all you're doing is nodding and answering whatever statement is asked, I get bored. And when I get bored, I leave.