high word counts (300+)

See, I'm not sure I understand this.

On one hand, you argue for the presence of using 700+ words as opposed to someone who may use, say... 200 words per post, by claiming that your character goes through details, small movements, introspection, and the like. But then you turn around and claim that if someone writes 3000 words, they're being a narcoleptic.

Wouldn't the same logic apply to them? They too may have a level of detail, introspection, small movements, and such that you didn't consider at 700 words, just like you may write something the person who wrote 200 words didn't consider.

It sounds to me like you're saying, "Oh, I think 700 words weeds out a quality of writing I don't like, but if someone writes considerably longer, I think they're a fool." In other words, it seems like you believe your writing length (which I don't know why anyone would equate length to anything other than length; it's not equivalent to quality, it's not equivalent to vividity, it's not equivalent to detail) is the ideal writing length, and if someone is shorter, you don't like it, and if someone is longer, you also don't like it.

And here is the piece of the puzzle that I was waiting to hear! I understand better now. My ~200 - ~300 words make up one single instance of interaction to the tag before, that includes a few sentences of dialog, my character's physical reaction, and my character's inner thoughts about what's going on at the time. I try to avoid splicing as best I can. So in other words, you and me write the same amount, I just break mine up into single instances of interaction.

My point is that your post came across to me as lacking perspective. You may think the 3000 word post is ALL fluff except for a few actions, while someone who routinely writes 200 or 300 words may feel your 700-1000 word post is all fluff except for a few interactions. They may, for example, like keeping their interactions short because they despise when posts get spliced and multithreaded.

The reality is, if you believe that you somehow include a higher level of detail, nuance, and sophistication in your 700 word post as someone does in their 200 post, you have to be willing to accept that there may be someone who believes—using the same logic as you do—that their 3000 word post contains an even further level of detail, nuance, and sophistication that your 700 word post lacks.

Are they right? Perhaps, perhaps not. Just like you may or may no be right on your perspective on posts shorter than yours. It's all about perspective, something I feel everyone should make an effort to gain.

I see the 200 word post people saying, "Well I'm not writing one-liners" (as if one-liners are inherently flawed and bad) "but I don't want to write 700 words of fluff" (as if 700 word posts are inherently filled with fluff). You have your group which claims "well I write more detail and interaction than those 200 word posters" (as if 200 word posters are inherently devoid of detail or interaction), "but I think 3000 word posts are fluffy" (as if 3000 word posts are inherently filled with fluff).

It's actually looks like a funny game of passing the hot potato.

I'm not trying to single you out as much as you were the one that gave the most concrete, numerical example. I know your 3000 word post was mostly in jest (I, for one, would not want to play with someone who consistently posts 3000 word posts, even if they were brilliant, because that makes me feel bad for not putting anywhere near the same effort).

If you splice your post, aren't you effectively just combining 2 or 3 200 or so word posts together into one post? I don't see why that's necessarily a case to look down on a 200 word post, especially if those posts span a shorter IC timeframe and are posted in quicker succession to move the plot forward. It seems like the same quality of writing and level of interactivity can happen with more, shorter posts than fewer, longer ones. But that's just me.

For the record, I have no problem with any length of post. I usually write around 500 or so words, but I absolutely hate it when posts start to get spliced, and I'll usually do something to try to merge the topic back together.

It's their sandbox. They can enforce whatever standards that they like.

In my own games we enforce 400+. Does it scare some people away? Sure. Does it attract others? Sure. Does it bother us in the slightest? Nope, because that's our standards, and the aim of the game is to play with other like-minded people. The aim isn't to please everyone. Once you start compromising your own values of entertainment and standards in order to jack up the member count and be part of the popular or mainstream crowd, then it can be an issue. It definitely would for me and my staff, but we would never think of practicing that theory.

If the majority of the target audience is doing it doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do, or if it's something you'd enjoy personally.

Can we stop attacking one side or the other now?

If shorter posts meant more posts, I'd be all over that like white on rice. /random

just as long as it's not styrofoam.

See this is just as insulting to us, people who write long posts as saying that short posters are bad writers. A lot of you seem to have a wrong image about long posts. It's not about adding poetic fluff. It's not about being elitist. Those things are 100% unrelated to long posts.

Why do people like long posts? Detail. And there's a good reason to. The more detail you put in your post, the more options the other has to reply. If you write a short post (like 100 words) you can only say so much. For instance:

It's not exactly 100 words (it's a scale model!). I don't want to stroke my own feathers, but it's not a bad post. The thing is, if you would write it out like this:

See. A lot more detail now. (Yes I realize that now I've written a 100 words, but this is a scale model, remember). There is more detail in this. This paragraph is about 1 sentence the other person spoke. Now if that other person did another action, you can do another paragraph. If he is wearing specific clothes, another. You can describe the area and what it reminds you off etc.

Why does this give more options? Well I can only reply on the first post with two reactions: A. I see his angry and I start an argument or make myself scarce. B. I do not see it and I continue talking about dog-eating Chinese people.

On reply 2 I can do more reactions. The description of his anger makes me reminisce about the facial expression of some people on the toilet. Hey! My character is socially awkward. He could confuse those emotions and try to fix Max with a laxative instead of getting the hell out of there. Bam. A fun thread. And did I even use Victorian prose or poetic fluff once? Did I write something elitist or did I use Dickens's vocab?

Reply 1 wouldn't have given that option because I don't know what the hell he looks like when he's angry. Voila. A reason to write long posts has been given. Of course, I realize that reply 2 is about 100 words so it can count as a short reply. Yes. But a long post is basically many of those paragraphs and thus it gives a LOT more options to advance your thread. That is why I think long threads do not make you run out of ideas like the OP said, or why it isn't just poetic fluff to be all elitist.

And it bothers me a lot that all the short posters here act all defensive and say "we're not bad writers" while this thread is actually insulting to the long posters.The premise in the OP revolves around the fact "people that write long posts are doing it to scare off newbies and write only bombastic prose" and it asks why we do that.

That's not how you start a topic. You cannot just force an unproven fact on someone at the beginning of a discussion. To participate we almost have to agree that we, long posters, do that. A better question would've been: "do you think long posters write long posts to scare off newbies and that they only write bombastic prose". Instead of just treating that as a fact and asking a "why?".

Again, please don't think I'm aggressive or angry. I'm just a little bothered by all this and I want to clarify my own motives to write longer posts (other than I like to do that). No offense intended to the OP or to JaeFeathered. I'm just trying to add to the discussion. Also, I do see the merit in shorter posts (threads advance faster, it takes less time, your muse doesn't die out to much, you have momentum etc.) but that doesn't meant here is no merit in longer posts. And some people seem to think there isn't!

I'll be the horrible person here and say that sometimes one liners are an appropriate response and people shouldn't be afraid of writing one liner posts or two liner posts or a post that's like 100 words or so, brief and to the point. It's all stylistic, but I thinks sometimes the more concise you are in your writing the better it is. It's boring to read a lot of description and it's boring to hear all of your characters thoughts because I'd rather figure them out for myself. So in a post, ideally, if you're not going for any specific experimental theme, you should give me this:

The character's actions, outlined very specifically
The character's dialog (if any)
Some slight description of something, be it the setting, the character's actions.

Sometimes, it's alright to put some internal dialog in there, but I think it's something to be used carefully because you don't want to use it as a crutch to go-around show vs tell problems.

Good writers know how to condense their writing and expand it. I happen to prefer a shorter, concise post over a rich, lush, lengthy one. I don't like embedded conversations, for one. Another thing is you sort of lose the sense of reality because there are five things going on in one post that could have been spanned out into five little posts and allowed for proper character reactions.

Short posts are nice if you have instant access to your partner. When playing on a timezone difference I prefer the "less realistic", bigger posts.

Also, when your partner/setting puts you on a time limit (Example: My character participates in a dm'd thread - dm announces you have one round to get your shit and get out, we're going to go punch monsters in the mouth). Also, when you have a lot of interaction with the environment to get down - I'm not going to volley post with you if we're in the middle of a horde, the characters aren't interacting, they're fighting for their lives. Personally I haven't "lost a sense of reality" in my posts or so I don't think, though the longer the post, the less interactive it typically is in my experience.

I've done shorter posts (neopets had/s a very tiny character count per post. If you post more than one or two posts in a row, people get whiny), I prefer the larger, more "stable" posts, as they are to me. That said, not everyone is a good writer by that definition, @slant, because some people cannot write short posts well. Some people, as well, cannot expand into larger ones. Not pointing or telling people they're crappy writers, but really, this is a hobby. Not everyone is great at it.

Interestingly, I lose interest in shorter posts though I do like chatplays or crackplays for doing goofy things or serial plots.

I'm not trying to say one is better than the other or trying to imply that you're a bad writer if you can't, but I think it's a good idea for writers to challenge themselves until they are able to write short and long posts because of the dynamic world of writing that opens up to them. I used to only be able to write long posts and there were certain really good writers I wasn't able to play with because they preferred short posts and I'd come back with a huge mountain of stuff and it kind of ruined the flow of the thread. I learned how to write short, interesting posts and my world seriously opened up. I think the same is true for the opposite. It's good to be able to write both because at some point you might want/need to write in a different style.

@slant I was never suggesting you had - I'm saying that by defining the capability of a good writer as doing both large and small posts... well, concise or not some people are not good writers. I write both long and short posts and I'm confident enough that I'm not really concerned with what anyone has to say about it. I also don't have a word count and I believe that if you play with someone you should try to match them stylistically/length-wise. As @Little_Sparrow pointed out, this thread began on a very ugly tone speaking of long posters. I think we have the right to defend it, just as much as you have the right to defend short posts.

In conclusion: NO we do not all fluff our posts with purple bullcrap, NO we do not necessarily lose a sense of "reality", YES post length is a matter of preference, YES some very concise writers are very good - this doesn't mean all concise writers are so short posts are NOT inherently superior. /thread.

I stopped setting postcount limits on my sites simply because i found them annoying. i like the fact that newcomers can come straight into my site without feeling as though they are forced to write their posts. It also stops people from adding in useless or long words into sentences just to make their paragraphs longer.

My site already has a lot of rules so the less rules to enforce the better. Most people use their common sense and if one liners these days on forum roleplays are very rare.

I used to extend my posts a lot because I wanted to match, but I often times ran out of things to talk about and would start typing random things that had no relevance to the post just to make the word count. I generally stay away from sites now if they have a word count above 200, because I know I won't be able to hit it without struggling. Even if I like the site a lot, I don't want to burden them.

Generally I write very concise posts now with a few of my character's thoughts. Then again, as of late I've been playing a person who punches things and likes kids, so unless he's talking to a kid he doesn't do a whole lot. I think it depends on the character. Different characters can create different word counts depending on how they see things.