Speaking OOC

[kroner]

Expressing thoughts adds to the overall experience in my view. It gives insight into a character from an OOC perspective. After all, if you read a book that gave none of the thoughts of the characters you were reading about, wouldn't that be rather boring? So too would Cantr be. All talk and action with no thoughts makes for rather boring experience...and if someone says *He sighs, thinking about how sad he is* well, that sigh and the resulting expression say it all.

just imagine it's Hemingway.
a well placed sigh or the right choice of words can often portay emotion as effectively as (and much more realistically than) saying *looking sad* or, even worse, *feeling sad*.

[wichita]

I often throw in *looks sad* or *looks confused* rather than restricting my vocabulary to a simple *sighs* *smiles* *raises an eyebrow* simply because the simpler phrases become so repetitive after a while. I belive that the former types of statements can reflect on complicated combinations of facial expressions without revealing the thoughts behind them. And most of the time, I feel like the text loses something without anything at all there.

Just to repeat the common message here again. *looks sad* is okay, because it is easy to interpret a sad looking expression in terms of mood. *looks sad because of blah, blah, blah* is a problem, becasue you wouldn't pick up the blah, blah, blah without the context of previous conversation or internal dialogue.


What does everybody think about something like this statement?

*pauses for a moment seeming to search for a way to express himself*

I started using that occassionally with my vocab challenged character, because I feel I need to imply that there is an intensely thoughtful and frustrated look on his face that wouldn't quite come across with just a simple *pauses for a moment*.

[Solfius]

"Show, don't tell." It's the #1 rule in writing and ought to be extended to roleplay, too.

I think that nicely sums up my preffered approach to RP, even if I'm not very good at doing it myself I do avoid simply telling people how I'm feeling

[Solfius]

Wichita,

I'd say that's borderline.

I'd throw in some ellipses, a few umms, errs, and somthing like *stares at the ground for a few seconds, his/her brow furrowed*

[Lumin]

*pauses for a moment seeming to search for a way to express himself*

I would think that's fine, I can actually picture a person doing that. To me, the important thing is to keep it on a visual level; if you'd cut out the 'seeming' that emote wouldn't work as well.

Edit: Though yes, Solfius' suggestion of RPing it in more detail might be more interesting, though a bunch of "umms and errs" is something I'd associate with a nervous or flustered character, while 'searching for the words to express himself' to my mind would be someone more thoughtful or intense. (though 'starign at the ground' works for the latter)

[wichita]

Yeah, I guess the um thing could fit. I do that with normal characters. I guess I just have a problem sometimes trying to figure out how to spell an onomatopoeia for a lot of the vocal filler material I hear in my head while writing dialogue. I'm not sure what kind of grunting noises he should be making. I could try and think of way to rephrase it without the "seems" too, I guess.

Thanks for the input.

[Lumin]

No, no, I meant leave the 'seems' part in. I admit if you were writing a story or something it's a pretty weak word, but when roleplaying I'd rather have it 'seem' or 'appear' that someone is searching for words than to be flat out told that that's what they're doing.

[wichita]

Oh sorry. Misread you there.

[Solfius]

well, the umms and ahhs come from me playing a character who not only doesn't speak the language, but also pronounces words differently as he has no knowledge of his home town's language.

Seemed like a good idea, but in retrospect is a minor CR breach as technically he should understand and speak English fine unless he has another impediment.

[Missy]

so no *her mention of "commitment" confuses him, and it shows on his face*

Ah, but that would imply to me that exactly when she said "commitment" or mentioned it in some fashion, that look came over his face.

But how do you know his confusion is at her mention of commitment, is the point? You can say *looks confused*, and that way the characters can INFER that that's what it's about, just like we do in real life.

Her player knows, but the character may or may not know that thats why.


When your watching someones facial expressions, and they're confused about what you're discussing, their brow would aise perhaps at a specific time which would indicate what word they were confused about.

You can't just type *His brow raises at her mention of comittment.* Because that doesn't tell enough. It doesn't tell that he's looking confused. And you would know, if the character meant you to know he was confused. I don't have facial expressions for no reason. When someone confuses me, I raise my brow purposely and at the right time.

The one visualizing the raised brow would obviously not necessarily know why the brow was raised, but the characters player would. That gives them a choice in how their character perceives the confused character. Does their character notice or doesn't it?

*Raises her brow in confusion at all of you.*

*Looks at Missy oddly.* Is there something wrong? / Missy: "Im confused"


These types of things add depth to characters. They make them more real to me.

I can't help it, but I'm in agreeance with Genevieve and thats been my stand all along. However, I've learned to refrain from putting any thoughts in public RP due to the fact peoople do like to let their characters use the thoughts when they shouldn't.

IE once Catherine Avery had thoughts *Glances at the fool.* And then some character said "Im not a fool." It really turned into a big mess. lol

[The Industriallist]

Because of the way cantrians live, you really can't raise your brow at the right time. If you say, 15 minutes (let alone 4 hours) later, that you did something as someone else said something...that may very well violate continuity.

People have been talking, maybe even coming and going since then...so you (can) have the wrong people seeing it happen, and they've been discussing whatever it was for an hour without knowing that your eyebrow went up.

That just doesn't work.

[Genevieve]

Because of the way cantrians live, you really can't raise your brow at the right time. If you say, 15 minutes (let alone 4 hours) later, that you did something as someone else said something...that may very well violate continuity.

People have been talking, maybe even coming and going since then...so you (can) have the wrong people seeing it happen, and they've been discussing whatever it was for an hour without knowing that your eyebrow went up.

That just doesn't work.

I agree you can't really raise your brow at the right time unless it was in a conversation that happened when two people were on at once. Thus it is necessary to clarify exactly WHAT the raised eyebrow was in response to. I think it does make sense to say something like:

*She raises her eyebrow, a look of confusion marring the normally tranquil expression on her face at the mention of "commitment" by Jimmy*

or something of that nature...both confusion and raised eyebrow saying "when" it happened so that if a fight had been going on between two other characters or somesuch in the meantime, nobody thinks she is confused about THAT.

I'm not saying I use thoughts ALL THE TIME but in some circumstances, I think it just enriches the play. *Looks at all her charries pages* Nope, no thoughts today. lol

BTW: Arg! You've all gotten me out of my :::action here::: into *action here* and I'm not liking it! But I was told that it makes me very OBVIOUS in Cantr when I use ::action:: and that some people were able to know who I was, which while it shouldn't could influence how those charries are perceived. So....*action here* it is.

_____
edit: forgot to mention the second part of the quote.

As for continuity...you have to expect some going back and forth...especially if a discussion directly involves you, if you weren't on when it happened what is wrong with reacting a few hours later? Sometimes it isn't necessary but sometimes it really is.

[SekoETC]

Some people use :: like Armulus Satchula in Tircqi... but it's pretty rare and stands out.

[The Industriallist]

edit: forgot to mention the second part of the quote.

As for continuity...you have to expect some going back and forth...especially if a discussion directly involves you, if you weren't on when it happened what is wrong with reacting a few hours later? Sometimes it isn't necessary but sometimes it really is.

Reacting after the fact (when you 'wake up', for instance), is fine.

Reacting after the fact and implying that you reacted at the same time is problematic.

Having people know what word you're supposed to be reacting to, when you can't have reacted exactly at the time, seems a bit telepathic to me...

[Genevieve]

Having people know what word you're supposed to be reacting to, when you can't have reacted exactly at the time, seems a bit telepathic to me...

Depends on how long it has been. Obviously hours later and many actions between make it dumb. However I think of speaking in Cantr as I would irl....and thus can react at a certain time to a certain word...because either my character "hears" it and reacts at the time he/she "hears" the word...or "reads" it and reacts at the time he/she "reads" it. Either way, I have them react at the time I read it....if it is fairly quick...and go from there.

In the normal flow of conversation, this isn't a problem. You are right when you say it doesn't make sense to react to a word hours later supposidly at the same time..unless you have an agreement ooc w/ the player (I have) that a convo is all at once for the two of you, just spaced out over Cantr time because of OOC things...like jobs.