02/11/01: Life's Lessons: Brevity and Description
by Sass Mun

There are many variations of online role playing, from rolling the auto dice roller to in-depth specific rules in some rooms. But one things holds true throughout the online text-based role playing community and that is that no action takes place without someone typing it into their keyboard and someone else reading it.

We have all been in a room when some mega post has blown through, leaving us wondering where the post will end. Just as we have all been in a room were someone "enters". There has been debate among role players as to whether it is the post that takes 10 minutes to read or the one that gives you no description makes the better role player. Well, what if I told you they both are?

Lets first take a look at the person who uses brevity in their role playing, shall we? This type of person takes up little space on our limited computer screens to get across the basic actions, thoughts and ideas of his character. They merely ‘enter’, ‘sit’, or ‘drink’. While most people use more than one word to communicate these actions, lets use this extreme. It lets us, the reader of the post, know that the character is there or what they may be doing. It does not give us a large background of the character, which means, if you want to know this character, you HAVE to play to them and weed out the information in order to learn anything about them. Much like in real life, when we see someone ‘enter’ the room and wish to get to know them better. This type of role playing leaves the other person to try to weed out the information, or it gives them greater ground for interpretation of things such as surroundings, or even what the other character looks like. It gives us more ways in which to use our own creativity in role playing. This also gives the player an opportunity to figure out and develop his character on the fly occasionally. It can give more freedom of movement for both sides of play in an RP.

On the other hand, there are those who have gone into depth in developing their characters and take great pleasure in describing to the exact minute detail everything about them, their surroundings and what they are doing, sometimes right down to a particular muscle twitch. These types of role players delight in the art of writing long posts and letting others know exactly what is going on, which can leave little way out for an unsuspecting victim of one of their characters, or making sure their character can not be caught off guard. These are the mega posters. Those posts that make you scroll more than a screen at a time to get past them sometimes. Yes, they take up a lot of space, especially for those not playing in that particular scene. Yes, it does mean a longer wait for your partner's post. It also makes you think harder when replying, it can be just as productive in forcing those creative juices as the lack of content. Some people consider players who post like this as wonderful role players, while others consider them a nuisance. But take the time to read some of these very long posts and you will find out more about an individual character (and occasionally the player) than you may expect to.

Just as more freedom for interpretation can inspire the creativity we all love in role playing, so can the long detailed descriptions that squish us in their wake. Neither of them are good, just as neither of them are bad. They are different animals that inspire the same thing out of us. The pleasure to create in our own minds a little world all our own that reality can't touch.  

Sass Mun will be sharing the lessons she has learned in her life, on and offline, every issue!