RP Safari - Pacing Styles
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asynchronous babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
that or I also enjoy “work slow”/staggered or whatever because I, too, am old and slow-brained, and tbh I have always hated feeling the pressure of “live” pacing.
I was never very good at it and it made me feel bad whenever strangers started getting impatient, so everybody kinda easing up more or less has been nice.
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if async has no haters it means that i am dead
she/her | playlist
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@Roz
fuckinFITE ME
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I stopped hating on async when I started refusing to stay up way too late for any of you
hoescourtesans. -
THIS IS A NO JUDGMENT ZONE
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@Yam There isn’t a universal terminology of course, but just for context… In Ares the terms used in the scene dropdown are:
Your Term Ares Term Instant Not Used Standard/Live Traditional Async Distracted Novella Asynchronous I mention this not to be pedantic, but just to highlight that the same term (e.g., “Async”) can mean wildly different pacing styles to different people. (In Storium, their “Fast” pacing is on par with our Distracted, lol.)
In my experience, the distinction between Distracted and Async is that a Distracted scene is likely to get done in the span of a single day and Async usually takes much longer.
While I see Async (Ares definition) scenes as a necessary evil when schedules don’t align or a scene can’t be wrapped up neatly, I don’t actually like them much. One of the defining characteristics of MUs for me is the fact that the in-game time passes at a set rate compared to the RL time. Async RP screws with the continuity and often leads to scenes petering out / left hanging.
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@Faraday Makes sense. I didn’t include distracted because to me that’s just like “hey I want to angle for live/standard but I’m at work, you okay with delays longer than maybe 15 mins” but it ultimately finishes within a day. USUALLY. I was trying to keep it platform agnostic, although I realize we’re all a bunch of mushers and ares facilitates a new pace within this niche environment, even if this pace has existed in forums since forever.
Curious how many people resolve their workslow/distracted scenes within a day.
I see more async scenes than distracted, spanning weeks.
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‘async’ to me reads as ‘we are going into this expecting it will be ongoing for days, weeks, or even months’ and i just cannot
fr fr
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@Yam said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
Curious how many people resolve their workslow/distracted scenes within a day.
I haven’t been able to play for awhile, but previously? Almost always. Multi-day async scenes were limited to cases where our schedules couldn’t line up and something important needed to happen.
I find it interesting that the norm is so different in other online RP styles. In Storium, the multi-week async scenes are the norm, and people use Google Docs for the more rapid back-and-forths that are closer to MU distracted or shorter async ones.
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@hellfrog said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
‘async’ to me reads as ‘we are going into this expecting it will be ongoing for days, weeks, or even months’ and i just cannot
personally speaking, days, probably. weeks? a few times but not often. I don’t know that any one async scene I have been in has ever gone on for more than a month, it messes with continuity too much.
a scene that takes about a week became my new norm and I KNOW AND LOVE THAT IT IS HERESY
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@Wizz Yeah, I would say a week is the new norm
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I think I’ve always been a slower-ish poser. Whether because I used to smoke and would take quick breaks or because I was just typing so much - I donno. So even now, my live rp tends to be 7-10 minutes to pose.
Recently I’ve abandoned clients for the Ares portal and with that shift, have also become more of an async rp’er. I work a LOT and having a scene that I know can run a few days to fit my schedule is just awesome. No stress, no rush - I’m digging it. It’s rare that I have more than one scene going on though.
I still do live scenes on the weekends here and there, but async is kinda my new jam.
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@Yam said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
Curious how many people resolve their workslow/distracted scenes within a day.
Me, generally. Sometimes two if there’s a need to pause but I pick that pacing specifically so they won’t go on forever.
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Definitely standard/live.
I’ve tried to do async (Ares, forums, etc.) but have not had great success with those. Most often, the scenes don’t finish or they drag past the point of their natural lifespan; inevitably, I just feel dread and guilt about them lasting too long and that kills my desire to RP.
I need the slight pressure of time - and the tight focus on a single scenario - to wrap a scene, rather than let it shamble on into inconclusive perpetuity.
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Where are ya’ll playing that you’re finishing scenes in a day or less lol
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@lucidmaus said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
I need the slight pressure of time - and the tight focus on a single scenario - to wrap a scene, rather than let it shamble on into inconclusive perpetuity.
what I’ve found is that without the former pressure of time so much, all you need to do is concentrate more on the latter. you think about the goal of the scene as you go and each pose becomes a little more focused and driven.
it does take away a bit of that like, split second-spirit of improv feeling, which is a big part of what plenty of people enjoy about this medium, but it’s still been fun and exciting and you have the opportunity to try a lil more on the writing side of things when it’s not like “oh god I gotta kick this out in the next couple of minutes.”
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@lucidmaus said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
I need the slight pressure of time - and the tight focus on a single scenario - to wrap a scene, rather than let it shamble on into inconclusive perpetuity.
Saaame. Absolutely need that pressure, else it just becomes me trying to fill paragraphs with fluff. I noticed the big novella style RPers on discord doing a lot of meta posing, crafting thoughts about other characters that those characters can’t respond to, and this is either very very popular or very not. I gather that style is more about the writing part than the collaborative part of collaborative writing.
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My preferred pacing is distracted. I like posing every 20-30 minutes, finishing a scene the same-day if possible, but okay if it carries over and we finish tomorrow.
My lived experience is async, where scenes take as long as they take.
I see a lot of comments about async scenes dragging on forever, and I wonder if that’s a content issue? I never RP social stuff (period at this point but specifically) async. When I set up a scene, it’s always specific.
We’re meeting to discuss the hobgoblin situation.
Let’s RP robbing the 7-11.
Please provide my PC necessary medical attention.
Etc.If I am going to play something social, it absolutely has to be live/real-time, finished in a couple hours max, or I will have gotten bored and started the “:nods and takes a drink” poses.
