Bad Form

As a player, I noticed that I find myself roleplaying Tasenu just saying (telling, talking, ect.) something without showing how she spoke. I understand that this is a storytelling and a writing game, is it bad form just tell and not show, if that makes sense?

No, I don't think that's bad form at all - or at least not necessarily. In fact, we're a bit encouraged, if anything, to keep up a good pace of RP, rather than spending minutes and minutes composing long flowery emotes. Nothing really wrong with flowery emotes in and of themselves, either, but if it takes someone a long time to write them they can really slow the pace of RP or be out of sync in a group scene. Some people here like to include a lot of detail in their emotes and such, and that is fine to do again so long as you're not making everyone in a scene wait 10 minutes for you. The only time I would consider it bad form might be if someone were deliberately using a lack of additional information in emotes to conceal things about their character in an OOC fashion. Otherwise, if that is what your character would be doing, then you're doing roleplay correctly, imo :]

This subject has come up a few times in various forms over the years. You can read one such discussion here if you like! But to answer your question: no, it's not bad form.

Established play culture has settled into moderate pacing and descriptive level, but that doesn't mean anything else is unwelcome. Naturally, you'll find some players whose pace (and style, vibe, content, everything else) meshes well with yours and others less well. Just in the same way as some players might find 10 minutes too long to wait for an emote, some might also find it difficult to deeply or meaningfully engage with very short or nondescript emotes. It doesn't mean anyone is doing anything wrong.

It also depends on context. In group scenes, longer/slower emotes are going to get left behind. That's just the nature of the beast. One-on-one though, it's an exercise in discovering preference and compromise.

But none of this is an etiquette issue -- rest assured, you are fine. In all cases, I do encourage flexibility and a willingness to experiment with and accommodate other styles, from all parties involved. But even that's not mandatory; play how you wanna play! Find your fun!

Another voice chiming in to say it isn't wrong/bad form at all! I agree pretty completely with everything Rakim and Mathias have said so far, even as somebody who tends to err on the longer/slower side myself. (Mea culpa, sometimes I'm wordy, sometimes I'm distracted, sometimes I'm just very, very tired.)

I do think this question of telling vs. showing in RP is an interesting one. To me, RP is this funny hybrid thing where the regular rules of writing don't necessarily apply at all, because fundamentally we're here to create a story live with other people. I "tell" a lot more in RP than I would in classic writing, and I think for good reasons. For example, sometimes I'll just come out and say what my character looks like they're feeling. Usually it's in situations where it truly matters that nuances get across, because you need to give your scene partner enough content with your emotes that they have something to work with. Since I'm playing a character who has no vocal intonation and almost no facial affect; I spell things out sometimes to avoid making every interaction an exhausting guessing game. Or for another example, sometimes I even write little asides commenting on my character's actions explicitly, because dunking on your own character in the narrative text is a nice way to show people that whatever shenanigans you're engaging in are 100% IC. If I have to emote "Kamenes ignores <so-and-so>", tossing in a little "How rude" does a lot to clarify that this action isn't some kind of OOC passive aggression but something IC. So I'd say there are many good uses for "telling" in RP, even if "showing" absolutely has its place.

And re: emote length directly... 

While there's nothing wrong with lighter emotes, If you find yourself WANTING to write longer emotes with more description after not being used to doing so? I'd say using the think/imote commands are a good way to start. I rely on think heavily to figure out how my character is responding to things emotionally. Are they amused, or doubtful, or torn, or thoughtful... Just defining those basic things explicitly tends to make me write more, as now I have something I need to convey. Especially because there's often an added layer of 'do they want that feeling to show, or do they try to conceal it'.

But I don't do this stuff because I think it's required to be a good RPer! For me personally, digging into that kind of stuff is just really... inherently fun. Understanding and expressing how a mind different from my own might process the world is a huge portion of the enjoyment I get out of RP. 

Thank you for all your replies! <3 <3 <3

TL;DR version

I'm agree with other players to it's not an etiquette issue, but a "keep in mind of the pacing" between how many characters one is interacting with. It's more of a follow what is set already or lead by example on how the pacing but still allow the freedom for whatever works for the player. Also RP uses the second person point of view which allows more getting into character before outwardly showing and telling that.

Long version

I read other topics and posts before posting this, mainly this one by pilgrim, before posting this one. Every time that I do think about this topic, pacing does come in mind more than anything. The speed of everyone's emoting that I encountered is a bit on the slow side but again, that's me and what MU* background I come from; I come solely from ArmMUD where there was chracter limits to emotes/commands of all kinds. Very fast paced and even though the in-game time was sped up, some scenes were dragged out due to the nature of these games. Not to mention how often players go through characters which is a different story and topic for another day that's more SoA related.

The biggest issue that I see is that scenes do drag out way to often in both games. A 15 minute interaction should not drag out into an 150 minute scene if you do 10 minute per emotion guideline. It's very unrealistic as time does go in game. Sure, you can say, "pof Tasenu, SoA is a sandbox where players are allowed to experiment and work together to world/story build" and I get that. Which, in turn, you could then say that maybe a turn-based, play-by-post RP is more suited for you. But it's not for me- I do want to learn and grow as a player and as a collaborator of story and worldbuilding.  I feel that the pacing and the (sorry for quoting my ownself as in Reply #17 in "Prime Time" topic), "simulation of day-today life and a slice-of-life MU* than a than a big-story narrative RPG", doesn't cut it for me as it only makes me feel that I want to log on less. Maybe it's wise for me to do that in order to say that Tasenu does socialize during certain times of the day and week and so on. The last two interactions and scenes that I had were great but it left me wanting more often. Again, it's the pacing that affecting me both ways.  I want almost daily interaction and gettting plots/things done as soon as possible but at the same time the in game time and pacing doesn't allow it. It feels that I do want to play as a support to the DM/GM as helping them in combat or even just playing short term NPCs. I done that a few times where I helped the DM by playing the monsters in combat when I started to get into D&D. Is it possible to play Support NPCs at this moment?

09/04/2026 As an afterthought here, what I just said above, I would say that I'm playing a character who can get socially awkward when she is out of her comfort zone due to getting overwhelmed. I feel that I'm somewhat playing myself (again, another topic for another day), but I feel that I'm also playing a realistic character who just moved to a new place and out of her sheltered life. I know that did happen to me in real life, not the move to a new place but leaving that sheltered life. But at same time, I feel that due to the low player count and small playerbase, it also affects on how I play her and how often I log on. I learned my lesson from ArmMUD to not log on and just idle. This is why I'm asking if there is a way to play other characters but not commit to them as heavily as my main character. While I do want my main character to star in her stories, I do want to be as a support character in other players characters' plots. And I don't mind doing it with NPCs as long as I help to move plots along and make it enjoyable to play together to storytell.

I'm going to take on your advice, pof Rakim, on using one-on-one RP as an exercise along with respecting every player! I do want to create a meaningful and mindful engaging interactions and I feel that's one of the biggest pulls to SoA for me. I'm fully aware of the Xcard system and will use it when I do feel the need for it. And I already have twice!

In response to pof Kamenes, I do agree that RP is a different beast from normal writing where, first of all, the point of view is in the second person, which is another biggest pull to these types of games. I even wrote a little story for my creative writing fiction class that was in second person point of view. This leads into really getting into character, getting into how they would think and feel (and remember!) and then how would they show that outwardly. I noticed that I really started to really use the thinks and feels heavier than I did on Arm; where I struggled to do that because I would externalize it to myself (a quirk of ADHD).

I have a feeling that I will have a few more topics to disuss about as I do care for the community and culture of the playerbase of SoA. I do really want to invest in meanful stories and interactions and at the same time cultivate a healthy playerbase. The best way for me to do it is by being a sevant leader leading by example and learning from my experiences either via solo RP or with others, to help others.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't often log in only to realize I simply don't have the social battery to sit still and trade paragraphs with other players, even if I very much love the game, its setting, and the various player characters who inhabit it. Sometimes I want to have a quick little RP session when I've got a free hour to burn, and then to just... dip out. While I think I've done a fairly decent job of establishing my character as someone who tends to do that, it often feels like not much has happened in that short time due to the passing of said paragraphs. I'm honestly not trying to say anything in particular with this, apart from simply tossing in my two cents; I do think everyone does a wonderful job of RPing and it's always fun when I've got the energy to manage it. I guess I just wanted to chime in to note that—sometimes—I do wish the pace was a bit faster, and I understand a bit of where Tanesu is coming from.

I will say, part of the pace difference on Armageddon was that idling or taking too long there literally meant your character could starve and/or thirst and/or sweat to death. So it encouraged a very goal-oriented purpose to interactions. 

I do wonder at times if like ... weekly community RP times might help with some of this. Just so folks can have a place/time to blip into that might provide some faster-paced moments (or enough people to keep things moving at a different pace.)

Vahi, I feel you in many ways from not having the social battery to play down to nothing really has happened to our characters. It does feel like nothing really has happened outside the daily life of our characters. I understand that SoA setting is close to Earth in the 1200's(?) with some magic flowing through and general realism for most settings/worlds which leads to these (for the lack of the a better word) lackluster draining interactions- at least to me. This is nothing against the community here or the wonderful staff that work hard to bring the game to life. I can also accept that this game is not for me either as I noticed that I want to study how these communties function to be healthier than how they were before and to understand what other issues that players experience; for example, I get very frustrated when I can't spell and spellcheck can't help me.

I 100%+ agree with Jannah about weekly community RP times. It would be nice to really bring the player community together more often where we can really get to know our characters well and to have a change in pace for sure. Maybe we could have the location change between each RPT since we have so many RP-welcoming places. My worry is that with how slow the world's or city-wide happenings, this is going to frizzle out to quickly and also if one player runs it for too long.

It would also bring in new players in as it seem that our player count dropped to like 4 players at peak where a differnt three of them really seem to know which other at any given time while the other one tries to fit in.

Side note here: I'm finding myself really also matching the pacing of the forum posts which is something that I never have done on ArmMUD's forums (both offical and the Shadowboards). ;)

This is one of those things where individual differences really shine - like, one of the major reasons I never played Armageddon is I don't enjoy an RP standard of single-liners in most scenes! Now in casual or multiperson RP it's totally fine, and I can adapt to people's individual styles pretty happily, but nothing tickles my brain like Emotional Paragraph Talk Time.

But! I think to some extent we might be conflating two different kinds of pacing here: the pacing of an individual scene, and the pacing of RP in general. I don't think they're actually super related, in the end, and it's worth being explicit which we're talking about. Scene pacing is influenced by game culture, but individual players also have a lot of control over it, and you'll see it differ a ton from scene to scene.

The question of RP pacing in general, though, is more a game-wide norm set by plot and story progression. Games are rarely explicit about their timelines/philosophy of pacing for how stories unfold, as it's one of those things people take for granted. But the differences between places like Avaria and RPIs like Armageddon or TI:Legacy where I spent most of my RP history are HUGE on this front, so I think it's worth talking about. 

Essentially:  Avaria runs on close to genuine 1:1 time in RP as well as on paper. Most games I've played, a PC that lasts 6 months has had a 'full life', and a year+ of active play on the same character makes you an old-timer. There's an expectation in those settings that with 6 months you could probably resolve the central idea of a character's story and send them off to the farm, so to speak, if you wanted. But think about it from an IRL realism lens: a year is a tiny sliver of the narrative of your life, right? I think that's much closer to the logic Avaria functions on, where single plots and stories might expect to unfold over actual YEARS. 

This does mean that the RP pace is simply not one that supports a playstyle of having heavy daily play, unless you enjoy large amounts of slice-of-life-style RP. You're not going to have something new to talk about in your plot/story progression every day, or even every week. And that is not meant as a criticism, just a fact! It's a game with a small playerbase of folks with busy lives, an alpha codebase, and Mistsparrow handling basically all plots simultaneously with filling in the ginormous grid. (Which is a CRAZY amount of work.) I'll say this pace does have some real upsides - for example, you don't have to play the game like a full-time job or risk being left behind. But, yeah, for those of us who do tend to be daily log-ins, it does also have some downsides. You do have to become good at thinking about things that can keep your RP fresh and interesting beyond progress on stories/plots, and you do have to accept that some days you are just not going to be able to RP because nobody's around/available. C'est la vie, MUDding in 2026.

In the end, I think enjoying Avaria involves actively accepting this isn't going to be a standard RPI experience where something will happen every day if you play every day. But what you gain in trade lies in the possibility of really intriguing things emerging from the complexity of the world, and the deep psychological realism you can get out of developing a character over a longer timespan rather than compressing things into "standard" RP speed-run style.

But! All that said, we could certainly find ways to make the day-to-day between 'events' a little more active, right? I think the idea of some scheduled RP times just to encourage people to be around is a really good one. It's the kind of thing I'd have done already ICly if I didn't play God's most neurotic weirdo. And I'd echo that if it's possible some ways to support players controlling NPCs for each other or potentially running stories as mini-GMs could be nice, with the obvious caveats about not touching the secret/special parts of the theme. I'd be very happy to be a part of something like that myself, with my wealth of free time and stupid ideas. 

Hopefully no one is taking anything here personally and I do have respect towards everyone- especially Mistsparrow and those who are helping them. I'm only trying to share my experiences. I understand where you coming from pof Kamenes and I understand that maybe SoA isn't my cup tea or any RP as I'm starting to question what is roleplaying for me is.