[Talk] Longform vs Shortform

[Ettenmoor]

What advantages and disadvantages do you think each have? Do you prefer one over the other? If so, why?

I prefer shortform due to its ease of access and more open format. It's easy to jump into one without having to create a detailed character with a fleshed out backstory and character development. It makes it more like playing a game, which is how I personally see roleplaying.

 

[gimmepie]

I greatly prefer longform. You get a lot more depth to characters, worlds and storytelling and a much more coherent narrative in a longform style RP than in shortform. It's also not nearly as hard to get into as people think, it looks more intimidating because it requires a bit more effort, but once you actually get involved it's not very hard and I think the result is a lot more rewarding as a result of that greater effort.

I'll admit though that shortform probably looks a lot less intimidating, which is an advantage of itself.

 

[Eleanor]

Well, this will be interesting :fufu:

I believe nearly 100% of the roleplays I've tried in my life were long-form forum roleplays, so I'm not sure how helpful I will be. But I can say that there are a few things that may actually throw me off about short-form text...

The main thing is, I've noticed that I tend to write some of my posts as if they were some mini stories or acts of their own, trying to give them some closure and only then adding a cliffhanger if it's needed. That may really just become a bad habit for short-form because I'd have to be faster with writing posts and really let the overall setting and plot drive my own writing, instead of adding lots of personal elements and references to my character's own story.
But that's exactly what I like to do, and sometimes even feel obligated to do, in order to make my character feel more defined, interesting, and involved in the actual setting of the roleplay! And here's the interesting point - I feel like even in a short-form roleplay I'd probably be drawn, like a magnet, towards those longer and more detailed posts. And of course, I'd have to try my best to make those posts interesting and fresh each time, thus adding to the nuance, the things I need to add, the length of the posts ^^;

I have to say, though: I don't think that a roleplay, just because it's short-form, will require less character planning. Or rather, that shouldn't feel like an excuse... even in a short-form roleplay, where I know that - presumably - I'll have less time to indulge in self-reflection or anything like that, I'd want to make sure that I know my character well, maybe set a few goals for them to accomplish or work towards, and be consistent with how they react to what happens around them. Those are all things that help a lot when writing the actual posts, no matter what those end up being like!

 

[Ettenmoor]

A couple of thoughts I'd like to share;
Long-form rps do generally allow more room to develop characters and a more personal narrative, but a problem I find is that it requires more time to write (which not everyone has), but also consistent dedication from both the host and players, which makes it easy for such a roleplay to fail, whereas, in a shortform roleplay, the players can drive the plot forward without nearly as much host involvement.
If there were open longform rps available to join I'd likely be interested in joining, but none have popped up (at least not while I've been active here, and not pokemon ones). The one time I tried to join one the rp was shut down and the hour I spent making an SU went to waste 😓

Plus, from what I've seen PCs interact much less in longform and that defeats the main point of rps for me.

 

[Aquacorde]

Plus, from what I've seen PCs interact much less in longform and that defeats the main point of rps for me.

I see where you're coming from- I would say short-form RPs tend to rely more on interaction between players, where long-form allows significantly more solo time. But long-form doesn't necessarily end up having less player character interaction: by my quick count on my Trainers spreadsheet, I've been involved with 135 posts. 96 of those have been JPs, which means the post was mostly an interaction between two player characters. That's 70% of my writing being with other players. Admittedly I make a definite point to engage other players in my adventures, which not everyone does in long form, but again- wouldn't say the interaction is so much less in long-form.

Short-form is interesting, and I haven't made up my mind on if I like it or not yet. I can see what it would be good for- quick back and forth interaction etc- but I fear that it's easy for people to get left behind if two or three others have a long interaction that they are not present for. I think short-form also works better with small casts for that reason. Like, really small- I think four might even be pushing it. Two or three people on an adventure together seems legit; the thread won't get clogged up with like eight different plots and interactions and people won't get left behind. Maybe a post order would help mitigate that for the 3-6 player range?

I do think short form as much as anything still relies on GM input to keep things flowing smoothly. New areas, some guidance, some enforcement of player activity, etc. People will probably keep having fun interactions if you leave em alone but that only lasts for so long without new content, right?

 

[Ettenmoor]

I do think short form as much as anything still relies on GM input to keep things flowing smoothly. New areas, some guidance, some enforcement of player activity, etc. People will probably keep having fun interactions if you leave em alone but that only lasts for so long without new content, right?

If you don't mind, I'd like to show you the short-form I'm familiar with; this is on another forum site I frequent.
https://www.marioboards.com/threads/40705/
The person who started the rp is basically another player, rather than a "manager" of the game, and the world and ongoing plots are essentially created entirely by/as a result of the players and their interactions.

 

[Aquacorde]

If you don't mind, I'd like to show you the short-form I'm familiar with; this is on another forum site I frequent.
https://www.marioboards.com/threads/40705/
The person who started the rp is basically another player, rather than a "manager" of the game, and the world and ongoing plots are essentially created entirely by/as a result of the players and their interactions.

Ah, I see. My own definition of short-form is primarily the wordcount and the interaction being in the thread itself (Riki's Deliverance is a current example), but this style of gameplay is less directed. I guess I would call it sandboxy, and/or drop-in/drop-out? Labels aren't that important honestly. I started a few very similar play-as-yourself type of games years and years ago! But yeah, more of a like. Pick a character and run with it type of game.

It's hard to say if people would get into it here. We certainly allow it, and I'd like to see anything that starts here be fun and successful! But clearly the current roster of RP participants lean toward more structured setups. ^^;

 

[moon]

I don't like classifying - at least my own - RPs as one or the other. It might be useful if the GM makes it clear from the start what is to be expected in the RP from their vision of course, and I believe I did with Deliverance. But sometimes a post is 70 words and other times maybe it ends up being 2000. Whatever the situation needs. We're doing JPs as well as direct IC interaction also, depending on what suits the current interaction and characters and players best. But since I realized the other day that there is no longer any minimum word count rule here, we might end up not needing JPs at all actually. Unless some really want to make a single more coherent post of course - as I said before, preference. And this whole paragraph was written about Deliverance, not in general.

I'm probably not at a glance a fan of "script-form" RPing though, as in the examples in Ettenmoor's RP's opening post. It might be because I'm used to writing it like a story, to be read like a story (tense shifts between posts are fine with me though - but not within the same post haha). I've also never done IM-based RPing, so yeah.