'Gang Talk' Bleed off into /me and OOC

[omgomgomg!!]

/me's should only be used to describe actions IMO (literally what it was made for) and as universal as possible in public or even among the ppl you rp with.

But this is a prime example of novel /me's that should never ever be used

[owen]

A trend in making long, convoluted /mes has begun and it's not good (in my opinion). I've pasted a snippet from a guide someone else made a long time ago (Kipps) explaining why you shouldn't do it below, it's a very informative and helpful guide overall if anyone here would like it:

 

As a general rule, I would recommend you keep your /mes concise and to the point. Longer /mes can often become cumbersome and unwieldy. This not only disrupts the flow of role-play – because longer /mes take longer to produce – but it also creates communication difficulties. Avoiding verbose /mes will maintain the flow of role-play, avoid confusion, and make for more enjoyable reading.

So, why & when should you resort to a longer /me? As long as your longer /mes aren't disrupting the flow of role-play, creating confusion, or being expressed in more words than necessary, it's okay to use them. The last point is the most important (“being expressed in more words than necessary”). Your /mes should always convey something; if an emote is using words that aren't adding anything, those words give no positive effect and should be removed.

 

The last part is most important because there is a time and place to use long /mes, you just need to figure out when that right time is.

Edited January 1, 2020 by jop

[Halloween]

I prefer roleplaying with someone who uses simple and succinct /me's. I don't like when people use extremely long /me's for something as simple as taking laundry out of a washing machine. I don't need a detailed description of how someone unloads a dishwasher or opening a door. I know what that looks like. On the other hand though, if someone is doing something technical like fixing a car, cooking crack or selling guns and drugs etc, I'd expect the person to have detailed /me's about what they are doing. This of course all draws back to researching what you're roleplaying. It adds to the whole experience and it allows people to really visualize what you're doing. I for one enjoy going into in depth roleplay about the guns I'm selling to a given person. I really try to give the buyer a great sense of immersion. I manage to keep my /me's succinct but I also get my point across. I will use specific names for guns and use the proper words for certain items. An example would be using the word "cannabis" instead of weed or pot. Another example is using the word magazine instead of clip. I look at /me's as the meat and potatoes of roleplay. If I can't visualize your actions properly, you're not doing it right. Having better /me's isn't about having a better vocabulary. 

[Westen]

15 minutes ago, jop said:

As a general rule, I would recommend you keep your /mes concise and to the point. Longer /mes can often become cumbersome and unwieldy. This not only disrupts the flow of role-play – because longer /mes take longer to produce

 

This is something that frustrates me. There are times when there are certain things that need to be done quick, for example, securing someone in Forum Drive. Lengthy /me's have no place unless you are trying to accurately describe a complex tactic, and increase the risk for everyone involved as the longer you are sat there, the more chance you have of simply just getting shot.

[eTaylor]

18 minutes ago, jop said:

A trend in making long, convoluted /mes has begun and it's not good (in my opinion). I've pasted a snippet from a guide someone else made a long time ago explaining why you shouldn't do it below, it's a very informative and helpful guide overall if anyone here would like it:

 

As a general rule, I would recommend you keep your /mes concise and to the point. Longer /mes can often become cumbersome and unwieldy. This not only disrupts the flow of role-play – because longer /mes take longer to produce – but it also creates communication difficulties. Avoiding verbose /mes will maintain the flow of role-play, avoid confusion, and make for more enjoyable reading.

So, why & when should you resort to a longer /me? As long as your longer /mes aren't disrupting the flow of role-play, creating confusion, or being expressed in more words than necessary, it's okay to use them. The last point is the most important (“being expressed in more words than necessary”). Your /mes should always convey something; if an emote is using words that aren't adding anything, those words give no positive effect and should be removed.

 

The last part is most important because there is as time and place, you just need to figure out when that right time is.

 

Here are two examples to illustrate the point:

1.  /me purses his lips against the glass and then, having done this, takes a sip.
2.  /me sips from his glass.

What does the first /me say about your character or the process that the latter doesn't? The two are indistinguishable in terms of what they add to the character. The first is cumbersome and verbose. The additional words add nothing meaningful to the picture. Here are two further examples:

1.  /me shakily clutches the coffee mug.
2.  /me holds a coffee mug.

 

The first example is longer, but the additional words serve to give some meaningful insight into the character. He's probably nervous. If your character is nervous, the first /me is more suited. If your character isn't nervous, the latter is perfectly serviceable. Don't turn your character into some insanely theatrical slapstick caricature for the sake of justifying long /mes about their physical behaviour. Most people, often even when unsettled, don't writhe with fear. Try against overstating your character's feelings in their physical descriptions and behaviour. If your character is a little shaken, they could be quiet, withdrawn, hesitant, or speak in a certain way – they don't need to be a constant quivering mess irrespective of context. Moderate the physical descriptions you choose to use. Be subtle, throw in the odd word to suggest a certain anxiousness here and there. You want your character to feel real and not a silly cartoon-like exaggeration.

 

/me shakes constantly. His shaky hands clutch tightly on to his cup. His eyes are full of dread.

This reads like the behaviour of somebody who's been told they're about to become the rear end of the Human Caterpillar, not a guy who's just introducing himself to a stranger. As I said, try not to go overboard. Let's examine an extreme example of a long /me:

/me slowly inhales, twisting his head slowly downwards, his eyes momentarily darting towards and catching sight of a dull, bland set of heavily scratched steel hand-cuffs that are loosely fitted to his clumsily placed and partly twisted black police belt, hand-cuffs which he then swiftly and deliberately slaps two chubby fingers against, simultaneously releasing them from his belt and spinning them once around his index finger, before, as he exhales, snatches a firm hold of them, thus capturing the cuffs securely in his left hand.

Firstly, this /me is staggeringly hard to decipher. It lacks any fluidity and is near impenetrable. If somebody threw this hard-ball at you in a role-playing scene, they'd bring everything to a halt. It's the mid-air collision of /mes. It's the type of gut-wrenching disaster that Michael Bay could shoot a movie around.

 

Let's pretend there's no issue with the really clumsy grammar and it's actually well expressed. From this long description, we can understand the officer to be quite scruffy and careless. Maybe he's lost pride in his job (as suggested by the old hand-cuffs and the clumsily placed belt). Maybe him spinning the cuffs suggests he's trying to entertain himself, or he's bored and less interested in efficient police work.

However, we can also understand that this scene is going to take all night if Thomas Hardy doesn't get a fucking move on. It's good to convey details about your character in his appearance and behaviour as well as in his dialogue, but this should be tempered. You completely disrupt the flow of a scene with verbose /mes. The longer the /me, the more careful you should be to ensure it reads well and isn't diffuse.

 

 

Use language and phrasing that you feel confident with to help ensure easy readability. If you're tempted by a thesaurus, don't be. Learning new words is healthy and they can give your writing flare, but resorting to thesaurus-checking too often is a bad habit. Candidly plucking words from a thesaurus is the LS-RP equivalent of reading words from the Book of the Dead. All that awaits you is pain, misery, and a character kill. Stick mostly to what you know you know rather than relying on inaccurate 'synonyms' that really don't mean what the online budget thesaurus suggests they do.

 

To summarise, don't take an absolute allegiance to either long or short sentences. Keep your /mes concise, meaningful and relevant. Every additional word should serve a purpose – either implying something about your character's traits, or explaining something vitally important (like how your character hot-wires a car). A long /me is only fine if it remains meaningful and readable.

[liq]

Know your audience. Emotes are made to be understood by everybody if they were to read them and to get the point across. Put in the right amount of detail you feel you need to be putting out so you can let the reader grasp what you mean but don't disrupt the flow of the whole scenario by doing so. For example, putting synonyms in emotes unless they prove a different point is also just trying too hard.

 

If you wanna know more, have a read at Concise Actions, Stronger Words & More and Grammar and Emotes because I actually put them up to address these kinds of topics and misconceptions. This is in no way some sort of rule or what you should be doing because you do you, but it's a rule of thumb across the board and roleplayers who know what they're doing and upkeep a specific standard usually follow it.

 

At the end of the day, roleplaying is creation. Storytelling's not bad for as long as you don't incite borderline metagaming through it.

Edited January 1, 2020 by liq

[DeadPlaya]

On 12/30/2019 at 2:03 PM, Deuce said:

Why would you /me what you're saying. You have an IC chat for a reason, it's just like: Hey *smiles* how are you? 

It's the same thing, you have /me for roleplay actions.

 

Where I come from, and many others, you would get sent back to app stage if you would to that, mixing up your RP between chats.

That's incredibly stupid. Both are used and it just depends on the context. You use normal speech in /me's every now and then if you wanna both break down the monotony and not spam chat lines for a "wassup" or a "yeah". Saying this would "send you back to the app stage" is such bullshit and really makes me wonder where a large majority of GTA:W roleplayers got their RP experience.

 

Seriously. What the dude here said and the thread itself are just pet peeves blown out of proportion.

[Max3]

10 hours ago, Machiavelli said:

Imagine being proud about that, lol. I hope this is a meme and not a genuine thing happening. 

Happens much more than you’d think.

[Machiavelli]

Just now, Max3 said:

Happens much more than you’d think.

Well RIP. I never thought i'd live to see the day where literal gang members are roleplaying their lifestyle online. Wew lad, this world is loonie. 

[Garras Up]

13 hours ago, DeadPlaya said:

That's incredibly stupid. Both are used and it just depends on the context. You use normal speech in /me's every now and then if you wanna both break down the monotony and not spam chat lines for a "wassup" or a "yeah". Saying this would "send you back to the app stage" is such bullshit and really makes me wonder where a large majority of GTA:W roleplayers got their RP experience.

 

Seriously. What the dude here said and the thread itself are just pet peeves blown out of proportion.

This... ???? Imagine being sent back to the app stage because you DARED to include speech in one of your /me's.

 

9 hours ago, Machiavelli said:

Well RIP. I never thought i'd live to see the day where literal gang members are roleplaying their lifestyle online. Wew lad, this world is loonie. 

 

Gang members are human beings too, yknow... They have hobbies, just like us. I know plenty of people connected with gangs in LA that RP on GTA. It's a way of escaping from the fucked up environment that they live in.

Edited January 2, 2020 by El Ghetto Man