Cadre
the NPC bucket
Has this happened to you?
You're in a thread. It's glorious. The characters are clicking, the banter is flowing, everyone is having a great time.
Then your opponent's 600-word post arrives. Near the beginning, there's a little comment. A passing remark. A tiny insult. A perfectly placed bit of character-to-character sass. Excellent. You are absolutely going to respond to that.
Then, near the end of the post, there is the main conversation. A serious point. A meaningful exchange. A piece of dialogue that clearly needs a proper in-character response.
So now your next post has two jobs. First, your character has to fire back at the earlier insult, because realistically your character would never let that slide. That would be a crime against their nature. Second, your character has to respond to the bigger conversation at the end.
Congratulations. You are now fighting a two-front war. Because conversations are combat. We just don't always think of them that way.
If someone throws ten attacks, three feints, a dramatic flourish, and a surprise finishing move into one combat post, the other person's options are limited. They spend their entire turn parrying everything before they finally get a chance to do something proactive.
Dialogue works the same way. A conversation is a series of openings. Give someone too many openings at once, and suddenly they have to choose which ones their character can ignore. Sometimes the answer is: none of them. Terrifyingly, the answer is sometimes...all of them.
Of course, there are times for speeches. There are times for monologues. There are times when a character absolutely needs to stand on a balcony and deliver the dramatic villain speech while lightning crashes in the background.
But if it's a conversation, give your conversation partner room to actually converse.
Push the story forward. Throw interesting things into the scene. Just beware the dreaded split conversation.
Because today it's two conversations. Tomorrow it's three. And before you know it, your thread has become a hydra, and nobody remembers which head started talking first.
Feel free to tell me I am wrong in the comments below.
Also, this is not in relation to any specific thread or threads I am currently doing. I am not calling anyone out. Been doing this thing called RP for many years, and it is a common subject to which I return.
You're in a thread. It's glorious. The characters are clicking, the banter is flowing, everyone is having a great time.
Then your opponent's 600-word post arrives. Near the beginning, there's a little comment. A passing remark. A tiny insult. A perfectly placed bit of character-to-character sass. Excellent. You are absolutely going to respond to that.
Then, near the end of the post, there is the main conversation. A serious point. A meaningful exchange. A piece of dialogue that clearly needs a proper in-character response.
So now your next post has two jobs. First, your character has to fire back at the earlier insult, because realistically your character would never let that slide. That would be a crime against their nature. Second, your character has to respond to the bigger conversation at the end.
Congratulations. You are now fighting a two-front war. Because conversations are combat. We just don't always think of them that way.
If someone throws ten attacks, three feints, a dramatic flourish, and a surprise finishing move into one combat post, the other person's options are limited. They spend their entire turn parrying everything before they finally get a chance to do something proactive.
Dialogue works the same way. A conversation is a series of openings. Give someone too many openings at once, and suddenly they have to choose which ones their character can ignore. Sometimes the answer is: none of them. Terrifyingly, the answer is sometimes...all of them.
Of course, there are times for speeches. There are times for monologues. There are times when a character absolutely needs to stand on a balcony and deliver the dramatic villain speech while lightning crashes in the background.
But if it's a conversation, give your conversation partner room to actually converse.
Push the story forward. Throw interesting things into the scene. Just beware the dreaded split conversation.
Because today it's two conversations. Tomorrow it's three. And before you know it, your thread has become a hydra, and nobody remembers which head started talking first.
Feel free to tell me I am wrong in the comments below.
Also, this is not in relation to any specific thread or threads I am currently doing. I am not calling anyone out. Been doing this thing called RP for many years, and it is a common subject to which I return.