/erp/ - Erotic Roleplay

>>65918

Speaking as someone whose post length is two to six paragraphs With an average of three to four, I can say that a lot of my partners have to stretch to try to match my post length. I frequently tell them not to, but some of them try it anyway, and their posts always, always suffer for it.

Whenever I ask why, the responses I get are along the lines of feeling inadequate, feeling they aren't giving as good as they're getting, feeling that if they can't match in quality they at least should try to match in quantity- these are all sentiments I tend to disagree with, as if I've got a problem with the RP I'll speak up, but those are the explanations I always get.

>Do you think that as long as the response is good enough, or hot enough, or whatever, then does length really matter?

Length does matter, like you said, responding with two lines to a four-paragraph post is kind of shit, but if you try to force yourself to write length…

"She licks your length, and then licks it again, and then trails her tongue along it, then laps at it while twirling her tongue along the underside, then licks back and forth over the head, then licks all the way down to the base, then"

…you end up with what I call word vomit, because you're getting mired down in needless over-description rather than doing anything interesting with the extra length. Sure, you could say that little snippet is detailed, but it is also boring as fuck. My posts get long because I'm sitting there writing and my mind goes 'ooh, wouldn't it be hot if I' or 'Oh, I want to respond to their X with my Y' or 'I wonder what they'll do if I XXX their ZZZ" something like that.

tl;dr: If your partner's posts are longer than yours, ask if they are okay with shorter posts so long as you're putting in EFFORT. I don't like forced-length posting, and I'm reasonably sure your partner won't either if they aren't an elitist shitter.

>>65918

I write a decently large amount per post to the point where I usually am out writing my partner unless they decide to go full fucking novelist on me. I write enough to where I feel I am describing my actions and any other relevant details to a point that I'm comfortable with and I feel accurately describes whatever I am thinking. As such, the amount I post fluctuates based on whatever is happening at the moment. Intro/description posts are long but action ones are shorter. The only issues I have faced are people feeling like they haven't wrote enough in comparison sometimes.

Honestly, I feel that trying to artificially elevate yourself to some sort of post length standard is fucking retarded. Sometimes an RP doesn't call for a five paragraph essay between actions, and trying to make long posts leads to weird, repetitive, or otherwise needlessly inflated posts and just slows down the momentum of the whole thing. I'm usually wary about these post length elitists as so much of the time they end up being really boring. One time I got this trap who wrote fucking huge flowery posts with no substance as they all ultimately boiled down to "I stay still and moan a bunch" with no actions at all. I was almost impressed with how somebody could be such a dead fish with so many words.

Posts that are too tiny with no effort or substance are also an issue for obvious reasons. However, I think the best thing to do is to simply not give a fuck about post length and just write however you feel and to the best of your ability. I've had people apologize for writing posts that were too short, but as long as their content was good, I didn't mind it at all.

People should just post what they feel comfortable with posting. There's a reason why I, who fluctuate from two short paragraphs to four hefty ones, only play with people who are comfortable doing 1-2 paragraphs as a default.

The worst thing to hear is "I usually post 2-4 sentences, but I can match my partner!"

It might seem like it's a super cool thing to do, but if you're happy posting 2-4 sentences, you're not likely going to be adding a lot of immersive details, just focusing on basic action and reaction. And that's PERFECT, it's a completely acceptable method of playing a scene! It's just not one I enjoy, and I won't enjoy it when my partner stretches those 2-4 sentences to match my three paragraphs, by doing what a user above called word vomit so aptly. It's just going to suck. If you can't do it comfortably and have fun with it, just don't do it.

>>65918

I would argue for the cliche that "less is more". If you can adequately entertain your partner with shorter lengths then do that, but make sure that you explain your situation to them so that they understand (communication is key). Also, sometimes my main RP partner and I use only 1 - 2 sentences because we want to keep a fast pace (we RP on YIM; we don't note) and it can also be a lot of information to take in at once. Usually if you force yourself to make an extremely long length then you'll get what >>65919 says: word vomit.

Most of it for me is just trying to push my limits. ERP is as much writing practice for me as it is having fun typefucking.

There's a little bit of a sense of trying to keep pace but I don't stress over much about it. Really I'm more concerned with length as the result of content, thus I push myself to try to make as long a post as I can while maintaining a certain level of actual content/quality. Right now I usually put out about two to four paragraphs (~1 page in word at 12 point usually) fairly comfortably in a chat environment though I need to work on the speed a bit. In notes I can hit the upper end more consistently but that's usually because I don't feel as rushed with them.

That said I usually end up having to scale my stuff back for my partner so that's something I guess (though I've been careful about that since I've found that if you give them too much slack you can often find yourself in a spiral heading towards low detail one liners on their end, at least going by how often it's happened to me in the past.)

My post length varies a lot based on the content. Sometimes there just isn't much to write about depending on the scene and what's happening. I've found people who put a lot of stock into length and post half a fucking book in each post usually waste so many words on garbage. You don't need to describe every tree you walk past and which direction the wind is going, but unfortunately a lot of people think pushing detail too far is good writing.

I tend to try to match my partner's post length at first, until I feel comfortable with their writing style and think I know what to expect. At that point I'll fluctuate more, but I don't usually go significantly over my partner's post length. I won't intentionally limit myself if I have more to say, but I will to some extent try to avoid writing a lot more. I do this because I've heard plenty of times that some people feel inadequate if they don't write as much and that's just no fun. I want my partner to feel good, not bad!

Quality over quantity, but the two aren't necessarily always mutually exclusive.

Okay, now what do most of you longer repliers actually do? I read that someone generally describe their actions and relevant things but generally what are you doing? Describing the senses in some kind of entertaining narrative? If it's just sex (the actual fucking part and not foreplay) then is there really much to say out side of two or so paragraphs? And how often do you repeat yourself or come off as redundant?

>>65943

This is >>65919 here.

I do… whatever comes to mind, really. It's no different from the people who do shorter replies; I think of things I want to do in my post, and I do them. I could try to figure out what particular qualities make my posts longer than ____ person's, but I feel that would make me sound like a pretentious cunt.

In general, since I'm a dom (and usually the one who came up with the scene idea to begin with), I usually order-of-operations this shit. I have three things in mind when I write a post.

1: The overall flow of the scene. What did I just do? What am I doing now? What do I still want to do before the scene is over?

2: What is there that my partner has done? What sort of responses should I give them? This is a lot more than just moaning because they decided my clit would be a good lollipop, it's also along the lines of what sorts of actions theirs prompt in my character. Pleasure is obvious, but what sort of thoughts or emotions does their sudden tonguing bring out? Does she grab their head and push them deeper? Chastise them? Get a bit of revenge, holding them just a scant inch too far away?

3: What sorts of fun/hot/impulsive things has their post inspired in me? Maybe some offhanded remark has made me want to push them a little lower and make them tongue my ass instead, or turn them over and sit on their face. Maybe they've been describing how they're fingering themselves or jerking off, and I've decided I want a taste myself. Maybe they've got me or my character worked up enough that the time for foreplay is over. Maybe the foreplay will be over after I milk their cock for a cumshot or two with my fingers.

So, to put it simply: Scene flow in general -> Response to Partner -> Impulsive Fun. That's what is generally going on in my head during sex scenes.

>>65947

Now, what generally makes a scenery? I like picking exotic places like the bathroom of a demure coffee place while it's raining outside–my general go to. I like cozier, sheltered places. I've had lots of people just be in bedrooms with very little description, making it hard to key-in on visualization.

–You seem interesting. I'd like to know more about how you work. Do you normally start scenes like how you reply to them? Or is there a different method to the madness, anon?

Lastly, what's your "cup of tea"? As a novice myself, I like studying novels I like to help better my delivery with occasionally flipping through a thesaurus to see words I can learn to help substitute words I use too frequently.

>>65957

Although I play all genders (And have 3 male profiles and 2 female ones), my main profile is a herm, so… more often than not, people approach me with scene ideas. That said, when I do get to work my creative juices, I don't think too much about scenery details, at least at first. When I start trading ideas with a (potential) partner, I tend to start with the broad strokes first. What sort of scene we're going to play.

It's a bit like a painting. Start with the base colors, then you add shadows, highlights. "We're going to be doing a non-con? Hmmm, I see someone likes drugs. Your girl's a bit young, too, so how about… the town's premiere nightclub? She snuck in with a fake ID, so all it takes is one hint of a call-out before she's wrapped around my character's finger, not realizing what's in the drink she just chugged."

Once you have the basics down, then you can get into the nitty-gritty of things. What sorts of sex (if any) you're going to be having, the types of things your partner enjoys having during a scene… say they like being degraded, you could find some part of their character to really double-down on. A good example would be, say, a partner with a curvy ass. If they like spanking too, jackpot! Just give the naughty thing a spanking while they're getting railed, adding on comments about how a 'fat-assed' slut like them shouldn't be doing such-and-such with so-and-so. With some kinks it's better to 'clear' their use with your partner first, with others I find it's more fun if you throw them in without asking… usually the ones on your partner's favorites.

Now mind you, when the actual scene starts… sometimes when it comes to scenery, it's good to frontload it. Make a single, slightly-larger post that both you and they can look back and reference off of, establish where everything is in the room. Other times, an approach like that can be a bit too heavy-handed, I think. Say your characters are already getting handsy by the time they get back to their character's apartment. Clothes are already being shifted aside, buckles and clasps are being rightly abused for doing their job… in a situation like that, it can be better to let the details bleed in over time. "The two of you careen into her bedroom, driven by your lusts and her firm grip on your shaft. She tosses you down onto the silken purple sheets, and your eyes briefly roam the cream-colored walls before being pinned to her figure as she bares her breasts for you to see…"

I'm not sure what you mean by my 'cup of tea'. My fetishes? My method of study? My taste in type of scene (Sex-driven, story driven, etcetera)?

>>65960

Fascinating. This has definitely proved to be useful information, in my opinion.

By cup of tea I mean, yes, what do you typically study or what did you study before that was useful in your endeavors?

I find that when someone says they 'excel at smaller posts' towards me, I get some of the most vapid drivel that is 90% repeating what I said, 10% action thrown back at me in sub-six lines that just makes me want to gouge my eyes out. In my experience I have yet to meet someone who can write fantastic short posts, and somehow fucks up the transition to my lengths. It simply hasn't happened to me; so why not have fuckin' more? Just about the closest I've found is, 'I don't feel like writing out your post length'. That's it. Not "Example really great short post" to "this person loses all coherent function and thought at multi-para".

Which is why I've never really understood the quantity =/= quality argument. If you're capable of writing the latter, you're capable of doing the former. There are times where it's -very- clear this "really great roleplayer that doesn't type a lot" couldn't text fuck out of a paper bag even if you throw a lewd lexicon at their face. It's real neato getting people they fuck themselves raw to your logs, but when the time comes, "I d-don't think I could write out at that length." when they've shown themselves to be more than capable.

But to answer the OPs questions, it's a competitive thing for me. Literally a show of dominance reminding my partner that I can even type out more words quicker than them, more lewd than them, and they're pathetic. Now, If my partner gives me 4 lines to 15, it's generally a deal breaker. Effort for Effort, and a lot of time in that small post they could have brought up -really fucking arousing- details that would have made the scene 12/10 but failed to capitalize on it. And I never feel like I'm.. fluffing the post? Sure there's extra words that when thought about could be truncated, but to say there's such nonsense like 'unnecessary detail' when our medium is literally -nothing but descriptive writing-? Is borderline absurd to me. It's like a craftsman making a basic bookcase, that is functional; compared to a master woodsmith who fucking contorts the wood into something eye-catching and beautiful. Molding a singular trunk of a tree into a singular unbreakable whole of book-holding - and then the normal bookcase being touted as the superior piece because it took less time to make. Sure. The regular ol' bookcase works.

The other one is still better by fucking, all sides.

>>65961

To be honest: At this point I don't really study. Maybe that makes me a dirty plateau writer (re: Bruce Lee), but at this point I find it more useful to observe my own work very keenly, or to have an editor comment upon it. We are harshest on ourselves, and I find I can spot a lot of errors in posts that my partners call flawless (at least to my face).

As for what I studied in the past… hm, I suppose it would be better to explain my writing history. This might get long, so I apologize.

I did not start out as a "writer". I started out as the typical netizen: younger than should really be on the computer, talking lik this u know its cool nobody bothers to puntcuate or spelcheck or anything, and with absolutely zero interest in writing whatsoever. Then I found a roleplaying RPG forum for a game series I particularly enjoyed, and I evolved from a typical netizen to an *emote* roleplayer.

At about that time I found fanfiction.net (cue Psycho chord) and began to read work off of there. This might seem like the most grand, idiotic step backwards, but I did it. I found authors whose work was relatable to my awful, awful lack of skill, and I realized that theirs was better than mine! So I picked up punctuation, spelling, I probably went through twenty different kinds of prose (most of them grammatically incorrect) as I honed my own style. From there I kept roleplaying and reading for years upon years, until I had surpassed, well, most fanfiction.net writers I could find. At that point I shifted to asking people who were better writers than me to give me tips and advice, I took to apprenticing, in a fashion, off of their work.

Then when I finally felt I wasn't gaining anything from that, I shifted to my current method: Self-improvement for technique and referencing for vocabulary. People say you shouldn't get overly wordy and they're correct, you need to be, well, readable, but having a big vocabulary cuts down on word vomit-tier repeating of your phrases, and generally lets you add inflection to your writing that you couldn't otherwise. There's a million different words for 'hit', for instance, and each one carries a slightly-to-vastly different tone. Strike, batter, slam, whack, bonk, slap, punch, maim, slash, stab, shank, etc etc. I find a good place to look up words is dictionary.reference.com .

>>65970

Ah, that last remark kind of relates to a situation I'm experiencing with someone I know. I told them that length doesn't equal quality and they agreed to the opposite.

I then took a one-liner another friend provided and typed it while describing: touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight at varying degrees. The line involved snow falling from the sky. It didn't need to be that descriptive. He then said it lacked detail and just loaded the one-liner with processed meat, cheeses, and other condiments just to make it detailed for the sake of detail, and it did, in-fact, make the text longer than what I typed, and I said: "that isn't right. All you did was over-saturate the text with you probably just took from a thesaurus. You aren't describing an army. It's just snow falling. Describe things different based on the event. " Then I used a road as an analogy: let text breathe; those white strips you see that separates road aren't long, continues white lines. They're broken up but still follow the path of the road. Same thing with writing.

I don't like throwing in detail for everything I do. Sometimes I like to have some "optical mixing" take place and let my partner fill in the gaps.

>>65973

>Length doesn't equal quality

I think everyone's seen enough word vomit to agree that just because a post is three Word pages long, that won't make it good. However (at least on f-list) I've found that people who argue a bit too passionately about how quality>quantity tend to be really bad roleplayers trying to justify typing two sentences per post and pass it as quality material.

They'll always try to hide it behind this kind of comment:

"I type what I feel is right for scene. Sometimes that will be a whole paragraph, but when two characters are just chatting with each other, sometimes one sentence is more than enough."

I instantly turn away any potential scenes with these players, because of that key phrasing: "sometimes one sentence is enough". I might just have very high standars, but even when two characters have fallen into a comfortable lull of conversation without much going on around them, one measly sentence hardly seems justified.

I mean, I'm not interested in knowing what the other character says to mine exclusively, which is what that phrasing seems to imply. Roleplaying isn't a novel where I'm in full control of the environment and all characters: I'm in charge of my character, and so I'm in charge of illustrating them for my partner. So maybe my character just has "Yeah, that sounds good," to say to a question from my partner. But that's too bland, too impersonal. Did my character make any sort of physical gesture to indicate discomfort or resignation? Did they scream their answer, huff it between gritted teeth, mumble it tiredly while running their hand over their eyes?

My posts rarely ever dip under four sentences because of these basic emoting gestures, but when you add in any particular details of the background, they easily get past that length. And there's where people will usually go:

>What fucking good is it describing a blade of grass in three paragraphs, though?

Which is a huge indication they can't (or refuse to) distinguish what is important to a post. I'm not going to describe everything around my character in detail, but if they're the nervous sort, doesn't it make sense they'd take notice of anyone staring at them, whether there's a lot of people in the room or not? If the characters are walking by a kitchen, does the smell of it make my character nauseous, or does it make their mouth water? They're tiny details, but they're useful in that they let you immerse yourself in the scene and learn more about the character without having to be told everything by the character themselves, or a too-huge description in a profile.

>>65988

>I think everyone's seen enough word vomit to agree that just because a post is three Word pages long, that won't make it good. However (at least on f-list) I've found that people who argue a bit too passionately about how quality>quantity tend to be really bad roleplayers trying to justify typing two sentences per post and pass it as quality material.

Honestly, people who say quality is entirely independent of quantity are wrong. The truth of it is that quantity gives you room for quality. It guarantees nothing. And one can, in fact, create plenty with just a simple sentence or two.

A rather famous example of a 'micro-story' is 6 words, about a classified ad.

For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.

You don't necessarily NEED length to create quality, but the size of your post determines pretty harshly how much wiggle room you have for adding it.

One thing that bugs me is the ifs and mights.

When you get to the point where you're describing things that should follow my character's response, you've gone too far.

This seems to be taking the idea of time overlap and going overboard.

>>65988

To expand upon your second point a bit, it's also not usually about describing the blade of grass in three paragraphs (or hell most ANYTHING in three paragraphs unless it's like, a macro-description of a location or structure.) The blade of grass is irrelevant beyond how it feels scraping against your skin as you get railed behind some bushes in the park. Simple, basic tactile, aural, and visual descriptions can get you a lot of mileage, like, vastly more than simple "I [verb] the [adjective] [noun]" style posts.

It's not about the grass or the brand of clothes you wear or the lint in the carpet, it's the coarseness of his work calloused hands as he caresses her shoulder, the wobble of her ass as she's spanked, the glistening sweat on their brow, even the tenor of one's voice if it's an important point (I have a femboy who acts all gruff and powerful and has a normalish voice when speaking but once fucking starts he turns into a fuckin soprano with his moans even when he's on top, it's a lovely bit of contrast I find.) All of this can be knocked out in a sentence or two each, and when you factor in dialogue you've easily got a paragraph minimum.

Out of curiosity, it'd be nice to see some of the really long non-intro kind of posts if anybody is willing to volunteer to give some examples (minus any names or other such info that might be in there). Trying to wrap my head around what people write in like 3+ paragraphs while in the middle of the action, especially since I'm thinking these are big full paragraphs rather than short ones.

OP here, and for clarity: I'm new here. First post. Not even a member of F-list. Not long ago I was role-playing almost entirely on MMOs. (Then there was that strange period of role-playing on Facebook, but we won't go far into that, heh…) So I'm incredibly green. I'm not opposed to much of anything: women, men, femboys, never tried furries, so there's that, however I'm curious how people go about making those impressions where you seem like you know what you're talking about, because you lot clearly are beyond the intermediate value of eroticism when it comes to this stuff.

Lurking around here this past week or so it's been interesting reading stories of people who are flat out ignored or reprimanded for how they might roleplay or just seem inexperienced overall. Looking through a veteran's optics I can only imagine that guiding the hips of someone with less experience than you can be trying especially if you see potential.

>>65997

Yeah, I'm not arguing short posts can never have quality in them, it's just, well, I doubt 5% of the short/very short preference posters have that kind of skill in f-list. They just want fast-paced reply without much extraneous detail to them, which is fine, everyone has their preference.

>>65998

It definitely goes overboard. It's godmodding with the illusion that it might not be. I've been guilty of it once or twice – like, when the characters first meet with each other, I might say "if they looked up at the canopy, they would see X, who is like Y." But since Y ends up being a description of my character, my post is not actually dependent on the character looking up, so if they decide not to look up, it disturbs nothing.

But more often than not, it's used to assume a response from your character. E.g. "If Sarah said yes, Johnny would go and do twenty more things in the kitchen and bring her her meal, setting it before her." And what are you supposed to do? Say, "Sarah said no, of course, because she'd had a late breakfast" and negate 80% of their post?

…I actually do go out of my way to negate any mights and ifs if I'm feeling in a sour mood.

"Gee I sure love waiting 20 minutes for a post" said nobody fucking ever

The worst part is that lots of it is future tense "he would" bullshit or just describing the lint in a characters pockets

Shame that most literate people on F-List seem to also be the sort to write small novels for each post

Generally I write around a paragraph, except when the situation calls for something longer, like description, or shorter, like dialogue

You don't have to write the same length posts for every situation

>>66008

>I Didn't Read Any Post In The Thread: The Post.

I've always been pretty flexible when it came to post length. First learned to RP through someone who did huge, multi-paragraph stuff (which was a pain, as it was back in the days of MSN messenger. Even with an addon, the post size limit was real), and later came to find I also enjoyed much shorter stuff, where posts only wind up huge if there's something actually worth writing a lot about (such as scenes focusing on whatever major fetish is going on, etc. I tend to go really overboard when describing transformations, for example)

I guess I try to match post sizes just because people tend to post in the style/length that they enjoy reading and receiving. If someone posts something fairly short, I'll reply with something fairly short (outside of some exceptions) because that's probably what they're looking for. Likewise, if I know someone wants paragraphs, I'll respond in kind; I don't feel it's fair to either partner to force them to wade through a ton of text/try to formulate a huge response to a minimal amount, when they have a style they clearly prefer, and I'm perfectly capable of enjoying either.

That said, some people RP in really weird ways I could never bring myself to emulate. One sentence RP simultaneously demands a lot of attention because it goes so fast, but isn't all that interesting, for example.

Still think the weirdest was some guy who wrote RP posts like they were stage directions to a play. That was just bizarre.

>>66051

>Still think the weirdest was some guy who wrote RP posts like they were stage directions to a play. That was just bizarre.

Was the scene a porn version of Death of a Salesman?

I find that one reason post lengths tend to match is that, by their very nature, each one is playing off the previous reply.

>>66003

I sometimes will use ifs and mights, but if I do then I always make sure to include alternate options. Which means I'm basically creating timelines within my own writing but WHATEVER