i believe that the labels should change for rp threads

[alex the fox]

I have come across many rp's in which believe that they can say a casual rp can be 3 para min and i don't agree. i believe they should change the labels to the post lengths. because you can still have multiple genre's but now people won't be like what happened because they thought it wasn't that much post length.


i am hoping this happens so I and new comers don't have to deal with confusing tags.


pros:

• less confusion
  
• knowing post amount need before joining
  
• name would tell you what genre it is
  

cons:

• none
  

i hope you consider these when making your choice. think of the newcomers, think of the newbies, and think about me. thank you for your time

 

[Girouette]

If you read the rules on a roleplay, it should tell you how much you need to post ; the tags aren't only for post length, it's a general skill level overview.

 

[alex the fox]

then how come casual mean post more then once. casual is like whenever you can. detailed i can understand.


simple means you don't put much detail. and then peeps just go and put in multiple paragraphs of description of their appearance and their weapons and other stuff. so why is it called simple when people do that?

 

[Girouette]

Well, it's still up to the discretion of the RP creators to do what they want with it.

 

[Captain Hesperus]

Judging a RP based on thread length is a terrible thing to do. We used to do it that way, but found that it bred an elitist attitude in which an RP Creator would reject a player/character simply because the player had no previous experience 'at their level', thus shutting out beginners from trying more advanced games. To this end, we altered the prefixes and redefined their meanings to encompass more than simply post length. RP Creators create their games and set the 'level' based upon how detailed their game will be, whether they will be managing all aspects of the game setting or whether they will be expecting players to contribute to the game world/setting with their own ideas and what depth the game will be reaching in terms of mature themes (such as drugs, slavery and the like).


As mentioned by Girouette, the RP Creator can request a certain minimum post rate and length of post, but that is no longer the primary basis of the system.


Captain Hesperus

 

[alex the fox]

true.


 
okay. what if they had only the genre tags. like a further expanded genre tag system. fantasy can split up into stuff like. dragons, mythical,superpower, ect.


that would actually make sense.

 

[Girouette]

That's what titles are for, and wouldn't really make much sense.

 

[Mordecai]

I really do agree with Captain Hesperus on this one. I have been apart of sites where roleplay type was separated by post length and it truly created an elite group of roleplayers who thought they were considerably better than everyone else. This doesn't give an opportunity for players to learn and grow as writers if they feel constantly shunted out from a certain group. As such, it was a breeding ground for hurt feelings. As long as the OP posts enough information in their opening post about post length and what is expected of the players, I don't see it being an issue.

 

[alex the fox]

[QUOTE="alex the fox]true.
 
okay. what if they had only the genre tags. like a further expanded genre tag system. fantasy can split up into stuff like. dragons, mythical,superpower, ect.


that would actually make sense.


futruristic could be like ; aliens, mechs, robots.


realistic could be like;


insane asylum, highschool, ect.


fandom remains the same because it is lame though >

[/QUOTE]

 

[Captain Hesperus]

[QUOTE="alex the fox]okay. what if they had only the genre tags. like a further expanded genre tag system. fantasy can split up into stuff like. dragons, mythical,superpower, ect.
that would actually make sense.

[/QUOTE]
Because any particular game could end up with multiple different genres. Any single RP could have a vast number of genres tossed in. I was previously in a game that was set in a Steampunk Victorian setting where the continental US had not been greatly explored due to various reasons. To generate all the potential genre tags an RP might use would be unwieldy for the database and time-intensive for the staff.


Trust me, before RPNation and RPdom merged, RPdom had a very comprehensive prefix system and it was very server intensive (i.e. site speed suffered).


There's nothing stopping you from using the search bar in whatever section for keywords, 'dragon', 'superpower', etc.


Captain Hesperus

 

[CloudyBlueDay]

I do not mean to offend you, but I've seen you go around on interest checks and get upset because people label their RPs as Detailed. That's an opinion. That's totally okay, some people like it simple, some people are pretty crazy when it comes to creating lore or post length. I don't think it's alright to want only genre tags or to change the labelling system because of this. Before, the labels were Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced, and it upset some people because they felt they were being judged, thus the change to Simple, Casual, and Detailed.


A Simple RP: One with no/not many rules, chill, free.


A Novice RP: For beginners.


Do you see how much it's changed already? The staff has come up with a wonderful way to categorize roleplays without being hurtful. I like how everything is right now. If we were to elaborate on just genre tags, things would get hectic and it would be messy. There would be many extra things that we don't really need. Fantasy covers dragons, witches, magic, all of it. Futuristic can cover steampunk, a zombie apocalypse, it's all there already. You can always elaborate more in the RP info - I think what I'm trying to say here is that tags don't need to cover it all. You do! Because you're the creator, it's your roleplay, you don't want to be completely bound to only specific genres. That's the beauty of roleplaying - it can go wherever it wants to go, no matter the level, no matter the genre.

 

[JayTee]

This discussion has come up in the recent past, so if I may be allowed to indulge myself and quote my prior posts on the subject, I'll give the various counter arguments as to why the old designations and definitions were a bad idea:

Spoiler

My biggest qualm with the arbitrary and artificial notion of segregating players by how much they can write is that it enforces the false belief that more text = better writing.


I did freeform RPing for years before I gave up on it and went to dice games, and I rapidly grew tired of reading through four or five paragraphs of meaningless text before I could find something I could actually respond to. My overall reaction to such nonsense was something to the effect of "Why did you bother writing all that crap when you're just going to write a single sentence that I can build off of for my own post?"


When it comes to more text = better writing, I have found the opposite to be true 9 times out of 10.

Spoiler

Lets compare and contrast two examples of how more text DOES NOT equal better writing.


The first example is a masterpiece of writing that is commonly attributed to Ernest Hemingway, the six word novel - "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn."


From those six words and a bit of thinking on their meaning, you can get a wealth of meaning behind them. From the terse phrasing, you can practically feel the joy and excitement of the soon-to-be parents that was crushed under the tragedy of their stillborn child, or even worse, the husband selling the clothing of the child that died along with his wife in childbirth. A truly poignant and tragic story all told in fewer words than this sentence.


Now compare an example that is somewhat more personal. I was once on a freeform RP site that ruled that the winner of a fight was to be decided by the number of words in the post (among other factors, but that was the main condition of victory). Being in a "must win at all costs" state of mind at the time, I started letting go and rambling stream-0f-consciousness style.


I first mentioned mentioned how the weather would give my character an advantage, and from there I drifted in to a monolog about how the weather worked, rayleigh scattering, the effects of light and wind on the construction of buildings, the composition and history of concrete, and how glass was so important in the medical and scientific field.


In short, six paragraphs of mindless, meaningless bullshit utterly unrelated to the topic of the thread.


Because victory was primarily determined by how much you wrote, I won that fight handily and was even complimented by the admin for my "quality" of writing.


By the standards of more text = better writing, my six paragraphs of bullshit are magically a better piece of writing than a six word story that is full of far greater meaning and depth than most people could ever hope to accomplish.


This is complete nonsense.

In short, the ratings of Casual, Intermediate and Advanced are misleading in terms of quality of writing, elitist and promote an unhealthy, unfun atmosphere for the community.

 

[Mordecai]

Interesting argument Jaytee, and I must say I agree with you for the most part. However, I get the sense that you were arguing that long and extremely descriptive posts are (usually) bad for roleplaying.


While I agree that more text does not equate to better writing, I don't think short posts necessarily equate to better writing, either. Good writing is good writing, no matter how many words are involved, whether it be six or a thousand. I've seen instances where I was given a one thousand word post that was brilliantly written, engaging, descriptive, and imaginative even if our characters weren't directly interacting yet. As such, while my character was only able to verbally respond to a very small portion of the person's post, I was able to build off their description in my own way. In other cases, I was given a short paragraph post that was more "too the point," but equally good-- in a different way.


In the end, I don't think it comes down to who is better or who is worse when it comes to post length. It really comes down to preference. Do I love long, flowery, descriptive posts? You bet! Does that mean everyone has to like them? Of course not.

 

[Auren]

I believe the question has been answered, and concerns have been considered.


Thank you all for contributing!! This thread is now locked.