The burden of interaction

Roleplaying distinguishes itself from writing through the interaction, and the collective world building. Planning out interaction between player characters may not be easy at every moment though. Different RPs take different approaches, allowing the players to have a lot of individual freedom, or having posts orders. Player characters talking can be done through different manners, having characters say a sentence, and have the other react in the next post, or through collaborative writing through a joint post. How do you like player interaction to be dealt with?

(Wow Ice, third post I'm replying to you today, love your willingness to throw topics out there)

I find interaction to be both the easiest and most difficult thing to do when it comes to roleplaying. When it comes to interaction, it highly depends on the other people that you are playing with, but I prefer to use joint posts. It makes it really easy to have long conversations that get really in depth into the characters and who they really are.

But that's not always an option, whether other players don't like joint posts or just are too busy for them. When it comes to that I think its kind of hard to describe. I usually just write a response to what they say, then try to direct the conversation from there, or advance the story somehow. I think that its important for people to remember that its just not enough to respond to what others do and call it a post, but you need to further the action after that.

I guess my general advice for interaction between characters is to always acknowledge what others do, and always further the action or conversation from there.

I prefer joint posting about 95% of the time. There are very few instances where I would prefer it done another way. When you're doing a jp not only do you get to see someone's writing process and get an insight to how their mind works, but if you and the person you're jping with do your work separately and have an idea for the conclusion of the event or whatever that you're working to achieve then you'll most likely come to that end. Whereas if you're jping with someone, writing yourself and seeing what they're writing then the two of you can more easily brainstorm and come up with better and more interesting things as you go rather than just popping in every now and then and say "hey you know what would be cool" or giving it a read through before they post it and correcting or helping to describe things better.

I prefer joint posting by miles, it's makes for a much better flowing conversation and is a lot more fun to read than a bunch of three line posts. It's not always the fastest/most efficient method of handling player interaction, but I think the quality of the posts that get produced easily outweighs that con.

As a side note, I don't like the idea of post orders much either. It forces active people to wait and busy people to post and honestly just over complicates things a lot.

I actually like back and forth posting IC rather than JPing. I seem to be a minority these days, haha.

Of course, if it's a RP with many players (like, 10 or more), JPs are much simpler to keep track of who's currently with whom. But when there are only a few players, especially if they are roughly in the same location, it can simply be easier and faster to make shorter posts. Even in this way, I never had a problem making over 100 words in a post.

Pikachu said:

I actually like back and forth posting IC rather than JPing. I seem to be a minority these days, haha.

Of course, if it's a RP with many players (like, 10 or more), JPs are much simpler to keep track of who's currently with whom. But when there are only a few players, especially if they are roughly in the same location, it can simply be easier and faster to make shorter posts. Even in this way, I never had a problem making over 100 words in a post.

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I guess it comes down to "Would you rather go fast or make a really nice post". Aside from the though, don't you think it's easy for players to be missed out of an interaction they should be a part of going with the back and forth method?

gimmepie said:

I guess it comes down to "Would you rather go fast or make a really nice post". Aside from the though, don't you think it's easy for players to be missed out of an interaction they should be a part of going with the back and forth method?

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Not really. If you are two people making a JP, the two of you do your thing and you could invite others if needed, but.

If you make posts IC, you'll stop once you expect somebody else to act, and in a properly functioning RP you also discuss OOC (one place or another) what's going on. If somebody misses out, it can also be rectified. I haven't really had problems :)

But sometimes JPing is simplest. Which is why I'd still love a feature in PC 2.0 where you can invite other members to edit your post, or implement a shared pad on the forums so we didn't have to go off site haha. A girl can dream.

As people have said earlier, joint posting is probably the most fun way to participate in a RP - though not the most efficient. It usually takes a lot more time than regular solo posts (since both people have to be there), but in return are also usually much longer. They're also the best way to get to know a fellow roleplayer and build friendship bonds <3

Though this isn't what you asked, on the subject of interaction, I just have to go on this quick tangent--



Anyway!! Back on the subject, I enjoyed joint posting to an extent when I first tried it, and thought it was a really great idea until I realized that it was basically just the same as making short back and forth posts when both parties aren't present. LOL ... and now I think joint posting can really just kind of be a drag since it slows the visual progress of the RP down. It's nice for when characters are having a fast back-and-forth conversation that's mostly just dialogue, but I don't really see what the harm is in making an RP post that's only like, 3 lines long if it accomplishes all it needs to in that short space.

Jps make for a cleaner overall appearance, but going reply style is just more fun to me. You have to think quicker while staying in character.

The classic method of essentially "monkey see, monkey do" is always a favourite. Someone does something, you react. Someone posts their character in a idle position... you interact accordingly.

I love a good JP, honestly. But at the same time... I feel like they're a bit overdone if not churned out quick enough. It gets annoying waiting on a JP forever when you have RP hype. *Cough* Unova. *Cough*

I think a healthy balance is required. JPs are great for building up relationships with your fellow RPers and getting a sense of community with those in your RP, at the same time... overdoing them leads to serious slowdown and nobody (nobody smart anyway) realistically wants a snail-speed RP.

it's funny - when i first started out RPing on this website, short, quick reply posts were the norm, but now it seems to have completely shifted to JPs. i found these rather intimidating at first, because it was usually the more skilled writers who insisted on them, and i tend to get self-conscious when others can basically look over my shoulder while i'm writing, like in an etherpad... also because for solo posts, i can take days to write one because of rewriting a bunch of times, while there's not really an opportunity for that if you're writing simultaneously in a pad.

i'd say JPs are most useful for one-on-one interaction, but for group activities i think replying once at a time is actually better. for that, i would actually employ a posting order, because i dislike seeing people miss out on opportunities to post on account of being offline while many others in the interaction were on. of course, if it occurs that certain people in this posting order are holding up the group, the remaining players may of course forego this order to speed things along.

Deceptio said:

The classic method of essentially "monkey see, monkey do" is always a favourite. Someone does something, you react. Someone posts their character in a idle position... you interact accordingly.

I love a good JP, honestly. But at the same time... I feel like they're a bit overdone if not churned out quick enough. It gets annoying waiting on a JP forever when you have RP hype. *Cough* Unova. *Cough*

I think a healthy balance is required. JPs are great for building up relationships with your fellow RPers and getting a sense of community with those in your RP, at the same time... overdoing them leads to serious slowdown and nobody (nobody smart anyway) realistically wants a snail-speed RP.

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You say that, but I've found that slower paced RPs - so long as the interest is there - usually last a lot longer and produce much more interesting plots that RPs that just constantly churn out quick posts. Don't you think this is probably true looking at the RPs that have found the most success?

It definitely didn't used to be that way though.

gimmepie said:

It definitely didn't used to be that way though.

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Ah, the good old days of one-liner post RPs...

Person said:

"How are you?" siad Character McPerson.

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Fox said:

"I'm fine." said Ryan (m͈͓͕a͉̝y͔͎ ̖͝h̭̮͔͚̥̩̟͡e҉̳ ̩b̳ụ̪̩̮̻͙̝r̫͉̟͇͇̀n ̰̣̱͇̤ͅi̡̱̱̫͖n̠̯͈͖ ͎̮̦̩̥t͙͞h̀e̖̝̤͇̼ ̻̟̲d͕͇̥̫̣̰͚̀e̗̣͇͢e̱̞̘̳̳̜̞p̯̝͙̺e̴͓s̙̱ț͕ ̳pi̴̪̺͔t̼̰s҉ ̙̺̺of̸ ͕h̢e̫̖͙l̤̱l͟)

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Person said:

"How fine are you?" Character McPerson asked.

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Fox said:

"I am very fine."

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Well, I prefer joint posts when handling player interaction as it is much faster and more efficient than creating a whole new post then just have the next player react to the last thing you said. Joint posts, on the other hand, allows regular conversation to happen between players which kinds of spices some things up.

Varys said:

Well, I prefer joint posts when handling player interaction as it is much faster and more efficient than creating a whole new post then just have the next player react to the last thing you said. Joint posts, on the other hand, allows regular conversation to happen between players which kinds of spices some things up.

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I agree with this a lot. I also prefer joint posts for the above reasons as well as it allows for some peer review of sorts. I've found that having some review your writing as it is happening can be a good tool for improvement and exploration of one's writing skills. Being able to get instant feedback is a major positive for me when it comes to interaction and a reason why I'm so very open to writing with another person.

I'm quite used to the back-and-forth style of PC RPing as it was common like long ago XD Of course, JPing has its merits especially when continuous posting would clutter up threads with short/moderate length posts.

Though, irregardless, it's a pain to interact with a character of someone else in a different timezone (which is like why I'm never one to initiate a JP >.<).

so obviously JPs are the most preferred method of interaction around here... but then, i was wondering, how exactly do you prefer to write JPs? do you prefer to be online at the same time as your partner so you can churn out the entire post in one go, or do you prefer to each add on a little at a time and take turns?

Nagi said:

so obviously JPs are the most preferred method of interaction around here... but then, i was wondering, how exactly do you prefer to write JPs? do you prefer to be online at the same time as your partner so you can churn out the entire post in one go, or do you prefer to each add on a little at a time and take turns?

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I generally prefer to write JPs together with the other person online but obviously that's not always possible, so I don't mind the latter method either.

Nagi said:

so obviously JPs are the most preferred method of interaction around here... but then, i was wondering, how exactly do you prefer to write JPs? do you prefer to be online at the same time as your partner so you can churn out the entire post in one go, or do you prefer to each add on a little at a time and take turns?

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It actually depends. I'm on a weird timezone as everyone else so I prefer adding a little everytime and just adding bits of passages here and there. But if it is possible, I would like to be online at the same time the other guy is. It's better to have instant feedback.