[Debate] What Qualifies as Roleplay Proficiency?

[Artemis]

With roleplay forums being one of the more common kinds out there, it falls upon many administrators to decide what kind of roleplay they want, everything from topic, design, layout, organization, but more importantly to some, roleplay proficiency. Beginning, intermediate and advanced/elite roleplays are quite different, with many sites adding in certain requirements about post lengths, word count, and even years of experience as a roleplay.

However, there are many different opinions as to what actually constitutes as a roleplay 'rank.' Some are of the opinion that quality is more important, while others think that length is a good show of writing skill, and everything in between.

How do you define any of these levels of roleplay? Do you use word counts and other requirements, or are you more relaxed? Does your forum have these requirements to begin with?

In my opinion, quality is everything, or at least, most of it. I'd usually prefer more than a few sentences even if it was written with Shakespearean quality, but beyond that I don't enforce any length rules or word counts. I think it's absolutely silly to believe that longer posts make better writers, and considering I believe roleplay to be a fun pastime and hobby instead of a chore, I'd like people to feel comfortable with writing however much they feel is necessary, whether it be a single paragraph, or a multitude of pages for every post. I'm a firm believer that a good roleplay comes from the message conveyed by the words a person chooses, not how many words it took to reach that message.

[HoudiniDerek]

I don't really define levels of roleplay. I think my writing comes across as mature and well planned, but I had never RPed until a couple of years ago. I had a hard time distancing myself from the novel mindset and it showed. Even though I was considered to be a very good writer, my RPing was not very advanced. I think too many times people confuse writing talent with RP talent.

I think over time my RPing has developed and that has helped me consider my characters in new ways and made my writing better too. They are not joined at the hip, but they can share a symbiotic relationship.

I agree that quality is everything. I do not enforce word counts or paragraph length or anything of that nature. I do suggest that people make sure that enough happens in the post that the other people involved are able to effectively respond back to what has happened. If this continuously happens where someone is not giving the other RPers something to work with, I will consider them less advanced in their roleplay technique and try to help them, but I would never be so bold as to publicly state it in terms of rank or whatnot...especially since a lot of people on the site I am on do not have English as a first language. It's hard to judge circumstances you know nothing about...

I started out as a member, became a mod, and then was given the flagship role of admin later on. The forum did not start out with requirements and I saw no reason to institute them. I think the best way to get people up to what you consider a more experienced level is to work with them via PM and offer to be in RPs with them so they can see what it is like. I try to do that and try to encourage my staff to do so as well.

[Andrea]

I agree with Derek, mostly. I've been told I'm a really good fiction writer, but it's never quite expressed in my roleplaying. I think they are two completely different things and shouldn't be judged on the same level.

How do you define any of these levels of roleplay?

Personally, in general, I do not define the level of roleplay based off of experience. When I started roleplaying, with no experience, I was posting over 200 words. In regards to word account, I get a little more leniant on the level of roleplay. If it's less than 200 words average per post, I say that's beginner. If it's between 200 and 550 words average per post, I say it's intermediate. If it's average of over 550 words per post, I'd say it's advanced. That's based off of word count.

Do you use word counts and other requirements, or are you more relaxed?

We do not have a set word-count limit, however we encourage that members post over 250 words per post. The main goal is that a member should post about equally what the previous poster provided. If I see someone post a 1000 word post and then someone follows with a 200 word post, that's a problem. They should be able to match what their roleplaying partner is doing. However, I do agree that quality is more important than quality... but I also believe that it's easy to get over 200 words with quality words.

I say that my forum is at the intermediate/advanced level so that they come with the expectation that they are expected to post at least 250 words per post.

[Seabiscuit]

Writing well and rping well are two different matters, I would rather roleplay with a good writer than a "good rper" any day since that seems defined by length. I have seen posts with upwards of a thousand words with absolutely nothing in them to respond to.

I'm a writer, not a roleplayer. All the forums I have ever run have a minimum of one hundred words or less. One of my sites asks just for a decent paragraph. That's long enough to get information without overdoing it. Everything important can be said in that space, sure it can be expanded on but every professor I've ever had always said less is more, the less words to express a thought the better. No one needs to know that the joints rolled as a character took a step, saying the character walked or moved or strided forward is enough.

[Kami]

How do you define any of these levels of roleplay?
- Well, for beginning roleplay, for me, it's anyone that can take one action and give us the bare minimum. EG, "Bob went to the store." Intermediate would take one action and give me a little more to work with: "Bob went to the store to buy some milk. It was hot out, and he had to walk." High Intermediate would tell me what actually happened on Bob's trip to the store, with some environment and other specifics along the way: "Bob went to the store to buy a gallon of milk; it was hot out, but his car was in the shop so he had to walk instead. It was only a couple blocks from his house to the market, but it seemed like eternity." Advanced, to me would not only tell me about the trip to the store, but would actually talk about Bob himself, what he's thinking as he's walking, his thoughts about his car being in the shop, why the car is in the shop in the first place, how the weather is affecting him, what he intends to use the milk for. It's not, for me, really about the length, it's the amount of things you actually give me to respond to, and whether or not your post is an enjoyable read.

Do you use word counts and other requirements, or are you more relaxed?
- My only requirement is 500 characters, which is roughly a standard five sentence paragraph. A paragraph is pretty basic, and you could probably pull one off even if you've no time, or just want to quickly post before heading off to work or something.

Does your forum have these requirements to begin with?
- Yes.

[western wolf]

How do you define any of these levels of roleplay? Do you use word counts and other requirements, or are you more relaxed? Does your forum have these requirements to begin with?

In response to the first question... well, it looks like everywhere out there it looks like rank is distinguished by quantity. But, in my opinion, I agree with just about everyone else. It should be distinguished by quality, because that's what really matters. Long posts are nice to look at, but most of the time people are just babbling through them about stuff that nobody cares about - unless it's a fight sequence or something. Quality posts are actually interesting to read, even if they are only a paragraph or two long.

As for the second question, I have a word count requirement of 150. Mainly to prevent one-liner posts, and 150 words isn't so hard. But I'm very lenient about it - if someone has a post of about a hundred words or less, that's fine with me. As long as it's quality and isn't one sentence long.

Third question; yeah. But very easy ones that shouldn't be too hard to work with.

[Connor]

There are many ways to go about "classifying" one as an advanced/intermediate role player, however, I do not class people in such ranks by the length of their posts. Why? Because some people can talk about how many tiles on the ceiling they've counted JUST to add length to the post. It's the most boring kind of role play, and has nothing to do with the topic-at-hand. I think that advanced role players are the ones who are able to give you a "base" and room to work with; meaning, they give you enough actions and dialogue to make it so that your post can flourish off of theirs, making the role play interesting. I have seen a fair share of people who are able to do this, and unfortunately, it is a very low percentage. Some roleplays classify that they are only open to the "advanced" role players, when (in the way I see it), half of their own members aren't even pushing advanced!

I guess there are different ways to go about it, like literacy and all; that also counts for another chunk of it. But I think an advanced rp'er gives you enough to work off of so you have the muse to finish the entire post, and dress it up a little! ;)

[/blockquote]

[grieves and squick]

My 2 cents:

Saying that a RPG is "advanced" because its members have to make 200 or 500 or whatever words per post is pretentious and inaccurate.

Requiring that sort of postcount per post eliminates the ability to produce some aspects of roleplaying in your threads, chiefly the ability to roleplay a natural-sounding conversation. Which I think is a real shame...it's one of my favourite things to roleplay which is why I stay away from such games. You wind up with threads that have a slow pace, too slow if it's really bad. That's to some people's tastes more than it is to others, so these games have a niche I think, which is why they have persisted. But calling such games "literate" is...Snobby, elitist and pretentious.

[viruszero]

What I believe is a proficient roleplayer isn't really about the word count. (But I will talk about this later on...) Rather proficiency is how one doesn't godmod and thus try and hog the limelight. As well as one who doesn't merely stumble at every challenge presented. The key being to find that balance of sucess and failure that brings forth a compelling and interesting character.

I imagine that everyone who roleplays has eventually discovered that player that absolutely has to be the best at everything. (If you've not found this player, consider yourself lucky.) So no matter what they do, they do it perfectly. Nothing is a challenge for them and they become boring to read. As well it makes it hard to reply to them because they tend to always want to do things their way.

Alternatively is the player who is so ineffectual they may as well not be there. This is the player who sits around all day going: "What is the plan?" or "What are we doing?" They also don't act or do anything unless prompted to by others, and even then they for some reason fail at doing whatever.
Maybe they're just misunderstanding what is and isn't godmodding, or maybe they're trying to create a character that they think allows others to roleplay with them... I don't know. But I do find these characters annoying.

Without the middle ground others will lose interest in the character and avoid them. The same thing happens if people continually use the same stereotype character. EX- The amnesiac swordsman or damsel in distress... Or the ever popular immortal bada** loner anti-hero.


Though as far as the actual post itself, and the lengths and requirements...
I honestly hate sites that enforce post requirements of/over a paragraph. I think it is silly and needless to create such a limitation. Even though I can typically meet and exceed the limits, I just hate being told that I have to have such an amount. (When I roleplay, I typically have about a thousand words per post with details that I hope give people enough info to reply intelligibly with what is going on.) The only real limit I can see would be something like 1-2 lines as that isn't really enough to capture anything. And if that is all the roleplayer can come up with then they obviously aren't trying or they need some form of assistance.

I mean in 1-2 lines you've more or less had one breif action and a line of speech... But how interesting is it to read something of this length, such as:

John walked into the kitchen. He saw Mary.
"Hey Mary, what's up?"

I mean for myself it doesn't exactly give alot to build upon... Sure it allows for a reply, maybe a short description of the room and Mary's thoughts... But too much internal exposition and I find it becomes repetitive and no one can really do anything with it anyway. (It is in the character's mind so others can't exactly have their character know what Mary is thinking.)


So when I am building a roleplay I set only the bare minimum for post lengths. I ask that they just be more than 1-2 lines, so I usually say something like: "If I can press backspace once and fit everything you've typed on 1 line, you haven't tried hard enough."
I mean 3 lines is a pretty low standard, and if you can't meet it then maybe you should consider doing something else...


For the construction of the post, as in the grammar... I don't mind some mistakes. But I absolutely hate it when someone has 13 periods in a row, or capitals randomly spaced throughout their post. So I do ask that people observe some level of literacy and skill with the grammar. But I don't ask that they be able to tell me when it's appropriate to use a semi colon instead of a comma. I just ask they not go nuts with the punctuation or shift key. I also ask that they don't ignore the grammar entirely either because reading a post without any periods or punctuation is just as annoying as having too much.

As far as spelling goes, I am pretty lenient on that because I recognise that some people aren't that great spelling things. All I ask for it is that people not use leetspeak, IRC chat or other things like that. Though I have oft considered adding the requirement of running posts through a spell checker... It's not like there aren't enough of them available. (The forum has one built in, Opera and Firefox have them, and there are free alternatives to Office that have spell checkers. )
But the reason I don't think I'll add this is because it's more of a hassle to chase after people's spelling than it would be worth.


Now if I were to describe the levels, they would be as such:

Amateur - The introductory level, this is where people are just learning about roleplaying so they are more apt to make mistakes and fall into traps about godmodding, stereotypes and whatnot. Posts may be basic, but this isn't guaranteed to be the case due to the writer's background. This level may or may not have issues with the grammar and basic useage of the language. (It depends upon the individual and their writing background.)
If the writer is particularly skilled they may pass right through this level and be classed as intermediate instead.

Intermediate - This is where people have advanced a bit, they might still have issues with their characters but they still show improvement. (Such as no weaknesses or the occasional outburst of a godmod situation.) They also may well show improvement with the use of the language, though this is not guarantee. It is also quite possible that the player now types longer replies for their posts. (This is not a given though.) But even if the replies are not longer they still show improvement over the previous level.

Advanced - This is the most advanced player. They typically show considerable skill in use of the language in describing situations and giving others quite a bit of detail or info to continue the story. They should also recognise when they have given enough description and should move on.
Characters from this level of player should be well balanced and posess both some strengths and some weaknesses. As well by this stage, players should well be aware of the stereotypes and try to avoid falling into them time after time. They should be able to mix their characters up a bit and provide an interesting story with them.
As such this level is should be more concerned with the quality of their posts than the length or number of posts they make.

[Sic In Principio]

Personally, i consider myself intermediately proficient. I think what the makes someone advanced would be if they can make the post descriptive, putting at least some effort rather than just

"He said "yes" he walked over there."

sure, there's the jist of the post, but there's not depth, how did he walk over there? carefully? excitedly? quietly? That kinds of things give it more story.

Sure, making long posts shows that you are a capable writer, but does it make you advanced? no. If you take 2 pages to explain how your character does a simple activity like picking up a cut for instance, that's way over the top and completely unnecessary. Being advanced means that you know how to extend an action giving details, though not making the action excessive.

With that said, i do implement a short post requirement (1 paragraph 4-6 sentences (which is pretty easy to do)), but from time to time ignore it (and tell my members its alright to NOT follow the post count rule) because of the situation that the RP is in.

[Keegan]

My one thought of this would be that when one is given a guideline for example, lets say 600 words. They will probably write all they want within the first 250 words then they sit there and say "Oh Crap, Now what" they then try think of ways to fill up the remanding words which leads to the person trying to write for a guideline then a quality, they will go into pointless information like why they have a cat, what is the color of the sky, history of the character which does not involve the actual RP so people will feel like he has lost quality.

so basicly i say better you let people decide but i believe in making a post at least a paragraph because any less means the person will say. "Hey, How are you" asked Mr Jones. You cannot RP with that, it takes the level of writing to nothing!!!

[Imprintation]

I have to agree.

Roleplaying isn't about who can post the most. It's about the contents within that post. If someone was to just post one paragraph but it was so detailed and full of everything that is needed, that sounds just fine to me. People who think that writing more makes them a higher standered of a roleplayer then, most admins should agree, they are wrong. If a person can post a high amount but make it detailed in everyway, well done them.

People who put restrictions isn't all that great. People should be able to enjoy roleplaying, if they feel it isn't nessecary to post a page long then they shouldn't have to. Even on advanced site, they need to ask for no more than a paragrpah. Four sentances. People should get the choice. That what I think anyway =]

[sunshine]

Personally, I think "proficiency" is a mix of both content and length, depending on where you are posting, of course. I absolutely don't agree with boards that have ridiculously high word requirements and judge based almost entirely on length, but I do think that it's important to set a loose minimum. At my roleplay board, we have a loose minimum of three decent paragraphs, simply because we want to know that you can keep up with our members who do prefer to post more lengthy threads. This is especially true since we consider ourselves more of a writing board than just a roleplay board; we want to see quality, but we also want to know that you won't waste our time and effort by replying with a 200 word response to our 500 words. Does that make sense?

However, on the other hand, an applicant at our site could give us a full-length novel that they spent a year on, but if it was inaccurate, badly-written, or just.. you know, stupid, it would still get denied. Soooo, a little of both is what I'm saying. :]

[Artemis]

Jul 28, 2009 20:40:39 GMT -8 sunshine said:

Personally, I think "proficiency" is a mix of both content and length, depending on where you are posting, of course. I absolutely don't agree with boards that have ridiculously high word requirements and judge based almost entirely on length, but I do think that it's important to set a loose minimum. At my roleplay board, we have a loose minimum of three decent paragraphs, simply because we want to know that you can keep up with our members who do prefer to post more lengthy threads. This is especially true since we consider ourselves more of a writing board than just a roleplay board; we want to see quality, but we also want to know that you won't waste our time and effort by replying with a 200 word response to our 500 words. Does that make sense?

However, on the other hand, an applicant at our site could give us a full-length novel that they spent a year on, but if it was inaccurate, badly-written, or just.. you know, stupid, it would still get denied. Soooo, a little of both is what I'm saying. :]

Would it be possible to instate some sort of guideline that would let members request what kind of roleplay they are interested in participating in? For example, members can post that they want only partners who can post a three paragraph minimum, or a more free roleplay. It would more people happy, I'm sure. That may be a 'loose minimum' in some eyes, but to others it may seem like pandering to the elite under the facade of free roleplay. Three paragraphs isn't bad, but you can have that option without forcing everyone to meet that minimum, because having less certainly doesn't mean that anyone is a bad roleplayer. ;]

[Sàm]

The only site I've ever had a word count minimum on is the one I'm currently trying to get active (and have been for awhile now ). Usually, length inspires people to think more about what they have to write, go into more detail about a situation or a setting, et cetera; I would only imagine (I say this because I don't do it) that it's difficult to use a bunch of short, choppy sentences when there's a minimum on how many words you have to use, so flowing sentences are also encouraged. The thing with minimums is: someone could be the most amazing role-player you have ever come across in the entire world, but if they only post one sentence, no matter how beautiful that sentence is, would you ever know?

I agree with minimums (mostly because I disagree with one-liners, two-liners, et cetera), but not because I think "length" is better -- but because I believe length inspires quality, and it's easier to have fun with role-playing when you have a nice, organized post that a) someone can have fun with, too, and b) someone can make their own post off of. I'm not saying you have to post a lot to be magnificent, by any means, but it's also easier for people who are "intermediate" or "advanced" to have fun when the other person has enough to work off of. As far as how enough is, that does rely entirely on the quality of the post; it's just more easily inspired to have a good post for everyone involved to enjoy when you're pushed to greater lengths, because it requires you to consider everyone involved, think more about the situation/setting, et cetera, whether the minumum is one paragraph or five hundred words.

Speaking personally, I think having a word count minimum is more efficient, and no, not because I'm using one on this one site. I think 500 words or, shoot, even 400 is outrageous, but 300 or something is very manageable. We all fall short of expectations sometimes, whether it's that of others or that of ourselves, and we can't be expected to make some gloriously magnificent post each and every time. Sometimes, even a paragraph has to suffice, although when other people post paragraphs, I usually don't have much to lead off on at all, and I end up being even more "modest" about the quality of my role-plays. If there was a minimum, though, I would be pushed even further to reanalyze my post, to add in detail that I could have put in before or to organize words/sentences in a way that not only fits the "requirements" of the minimum, but also makes me happier than I was before.

Reasonable length is important because a good role-player, no matter how "wonderful" their post is, will make the best of it.