The Correlation Between Roleplaying and Writing

Since I wanted to re-introduce myself with a discussion, let's hear some thoughts based on this idea:

How important are developed creative writing skills, regarding roleplaying? Do you believe, necessarily, that it is essential to be a talented writer in order to be a talented roleplayer? Or is more important to hone other skills, and if so, what are these skills?

I remember stating before somewhere that a good roleplayer cannot solely be a good writer or vise versa. Roleplaying is a collaborative effort, see, and not just a showcase for one's individual talent.

But I won't go in-depth into my perspective as I'm more interested in hearing everyone else's. Based on how the question is answered, the discussion may take a different direction, anyway.

I mean, it helps. For the most part here, role-playing is collaborative writing. The only other skill I'd imagine you need is being good at cooperation with others.

Johnny mostly said everything I was going to say, different writers are better at different styles of writing, so someone who is amazing at RPing may be terrible at writing a novel, and vice versa - so there isn't any good or bad style. If you mean grammar/spelling, I think we at least owe it to the reader to have those well in check if they took the time to read xD

I think being a great writer is a great asset, but in no way a requirement to be an RPer. Of course being good at something makes you better at something related, but you can by just fine without those skills. I don't see RPing as something that is made to be read by an audience, but being more geared towards the writers and allowing them to create a story and world together. It's mainly about the ideas you wanna incorporate, and the interaction between people.

Having said that, it's by no means a bad training ground. People can constantly give each other feedback, help each other grow in the writing department, and people can learn because of that. But it's not an essential skill to being a good RPer. Being fun, sociable, and active are all things I rank above that.

Oh, oh hoho. I used to write loads of fics and be pretty bad at it imo, despite loving to do it. Then I discovered written roleplaying, specifically forum style. Specifically, here. And through roleplaying, I have developed both my English language skills, but also - first and foremost! - my ability to create and see characters and what makes them believable and interesting. I'm in no way saying that all my characters are awesome, haha, but it has really helped me in many ways to be forced to really think about my characters here.

But about the proper topic of this thread:
How important are developed creative writing skills, regarding roleplaying? Do you believe, necessarily, that it is essential to be a talented writer in order to be a talented roleplayer? Or is more important to hone other skills, and if so, what are these skills?

No I don't actually think you need to be a "skilled writer" in order to be able to RP well. Not here, certainly not in many other places. I mean, I must admit that I enjoy well written posts more than posts that are hard to read or very repetitive or even wrong when it comes to language. But even though we pride ourselves here in creating stories that people can read and enjoy even years later, as a collaborative archived work, I'm not sure I think that's the main point of RPing. Not even here. We are just here to have fun! And you can have loads of fun with half-bad English skills or if you only make Mary Sue characters, as long as you have fun and make others have fun by interacting with you.

So more important skills than pure language/writing skills are social skills (le gasp! on a pokémon forum?? yes, we are actually being social, we roleplayers <3) and a feel for characters. The latter does not go hand in hand with how well you spell, or even with how well you build settings and portray action, imo. But of course that varies with the players.

Basically, characters are core and if you can make believable or memorable characters and have fun with them together with others, then you are on the right track!

Well, I agree that not all good writers are good RPers. While being able to write good pieces are essential, it is just 50% of RPing. You need to write more than what is expected of you as your actions could mean something else to another control you cannot control which might in turn have effects on you. Plus, writing is solo. RPing is more of a group effort and anybody who doesn't work well in a group is not really a good RPer.

(Disclaimer: I didn't read all of the posts so sorry if I just repeat what everyone else said.)

A think being a good writer and being a good RP can go hand in hand. I don't think being a skilled writer is everything, though. The most important thing about writing/RPing for me is character development and plot generation. The plot part is more towards being a good GM than a good player, though so I won't really get into that.

I think making a believable and compelling character is very important and one of the best ways to do that is to make a relatable, realistic character. You don't need to be Shakespeare to make a character that someone can relate to, or at least, someone that has flaws.

After that, I think the next most important part is being able to interact with others. Both IC and OOC. If you can't find a way to get your character interacting with others or you have difficulty making posts that people can reply to, that is definitely a sign of a lack of skill in roleplaying. I think it's a relatively easy skill to improve on, though, so I don't put TOO TOO much weight on it. Especially if you're a kind person OOC. I don't think you need to be a social butterfly, but as long as you know how to interact with, be kind to, and make compromises with others you are already showing great skill as an RPer.

Writing ability has never really been a big deal to me. I mean, it has to be readable of course but post length and speciality of prose isn't too big of a deal. Like I said, the most important part to me is character development. You don't need to write all of that well to do that. Good writing comes with practice too. So eh. I have my pet peeves, but I don't judge too much on writing skill. X)

JohnnyMustang said:

You're considering wrong then.

Click to expand...

ROFL! I'm starting to think, with remarks like these, you guys think I'm all for writing > interaction or something, which I very obviously am not. Note how in my last post I remarked that I agreed with mostly everything. However, I feel that in any discussion, we shouldn't all be making same sort of statements, so I tried to lead the thread in a different direction with additional questions.

That's just a reminder. I'm still on board with the idea that creative writing prowess is not the main priority with roleplaying. I believe interaction and the ability to interact and share roles with others, as well as collaborate and build a storytogether, is what matters most. (I also liked Ice's point about how this board could function as a bit of a 'training ground'.) But writing skills do matter. Johnny pointed out how helpful word choice is, for example. Roleplaying is writing, essentially. It's writing alongside other people. Writing skills tie into good posts and proper characters.

If you've a broad vocabulary, you can describe a multitude of situations in which your character is involved in. With figurative language you can better connect with your fellows, draw empathy for your character. Of course, grammar, punctuation and spelling makes your post understandable. It's with description and variety and experience that you best tell these stories. It's not all about seeming skillful; that's a limited way of thinking about it. When it comes down to it, a 'feel for characters' and 'social skills' are really what link players to players. What about characters and players, characters and characters? Creative writing skills help drastically in those areas, I feel.

Not to mention, PC seems particularly fond of sandbox-style RPs, RPs that don't necessary rely on interaction as all characters simply exist in a common setting. Player communication shouldn't be too great of a priority, then, if character interaction is practically optional in cases such as Gunpowder.

That's most likely all I'll say on the matter...

I'm too lazy to write an enormous post, but I'm still going to give my two cents. I think that being a good writer can only help your roleplaying, it makes your characters more interesting and your posts more enthralling to read and just generally makes you more fun to RP with. I don't think it's the be-all and end-all of it though. RPing is collaborative in nature so first and foremost I think your ability to work with others is the most important skill for an RPer.

A good writer is not synonymous to a good roleplayer, as everyone has established in this thread. (Sorry idk how to not sound like a parrot xD) While the medium is the same (words), the skills are not. Unlike writing, roleplaying has less emphasis on plot, with exception to the GM, as well as world building. Character development should be the same across the board unless one likes to roleplay as a character that stagnates and becames predictable and dull to interact with. Not to mention the obvious, roleplaying occurs real-time so you have to stay on the ball throughout the course of the roleplay, read up and learn about other roleplayers' characters and OOC ideas. It's not an activity that you can be a social hermit and succeed at (success measured in the currency of fun of course :3).

as everyone has said already, good writing does not equal good roleplaying. I honestly think that as long as you put in the effort and are pretty creative, you can be a good RPer and the necessary writing skills will develop as you go along.

I think it is much more important to have a mind thats good for collaboration and be able to come up with ideas for your character. As you write more for RPs, the writing skills will come and the detail and format will improve accordingly. Anyone can be a good RPer regardless of writing skills, just have to show the effort and some creative ability (which is pretty innate for most people).

I don't think they're a requirement, but I would say that they can help out quite a bit. Luckily though, the more you RP you tend to build up these skills, learning a bit of grammar here and there, maybe the alternate spelling to several words. I know writing in Japanese has helped me a lot with learning the language, so for our non primary English peoples RPing is probably a great way to get a grip on the language itself.