Alright RPC – We Gotta Talk About Passive Replies.

This is one of my worst pet peeves in Role playing or doing any collaborative writing with other people. It’s something I myself have been guilty of, especially if my muse is running low and I am forcing out replies. It’s something I see a lot of even from very good writers. It’s a widespread problem, that is exhausting for an RP partner to deal with in threads especially if it’s every reply.

And just like any problem – the first step in resolving it is looking out for it and realizing it’s there to begin with. Being conscious about this I personally believe separates a good RP partner from a great one.

I’m talking about passive replies.

Passive replies come in various forms. They can be anything from a novella sized reply – to a one-liner but they all share a similar trait. They do not contribute to pushing the action of a thread forward. They tend to be a summary of the reply preceding it through their character’s eyes with a small verbal or nonverbal reaction to the character they are interacting with. They do not add any new information for the other character to react to because the reply is pure reaction without any proactive elements.

This means your thread basically becomes the equivalent of a conversation like this:

Hey, you! Oh, Hey! How are you? Oh, I’m good. What are you up to? Nothing much, really. Have any plans? No. Not really.

It’s a functional conversation – sure, but it’s one-sided and relies on one person driving the action while the other simply responds. It is exhausting for one mun to constantly be the one driving the action of a scene forward. It makes things harder to respond to because you’re giving your RP partner fairly little to work with. The example above is obviously an extremely simplified example - but I hope you can get the gist of what I am getting at.

Even if your character is shy, or anti-social, or maladjusted in someway – your replies can still play and active role in the situation. Being an active participant in a thread doesn’t meant that your muse has to be crazy and outgoing. It means that you have to do more than simply react to what is happening. Every reply should add at least one new thing for your partner to react to.

This can be anything from adding to the conversation – not just reacting to what was said prior. This can be your character doing some non verbal action. This could be and NPC or outside situation or the weather doing something to react to. No matter what the situation is – there are things your muse can do to be an active part of the scene, and not just a reactionary prop.

If your replies or even your starters are one of these two things:

1) Expecting someone to find or stumble upon your muse in someway. Or relies on your partner to initiate some action between your characters. 2) Is just a summary of what happened in their reply through your character’s eyes without adding anything new.

It’s a passive reply – and by nature harder to respond to. It means you should consider looking over your reply and tweaking it to give the other character something more to work with to take the pressure off and your partners should be doing the same for you. After all a conversation like this:

Hey, haven’t seen you in forever! I know right? What have you been up to? Honestly – nothing much. Work’s been murder. What about you? Ah that’s unfortunate. I’m the same, but I’m going out for drinks later want to come? I can’t tonight, have to wake up early tomorrow. Maybe we can catch up later?

Is a much more interesting conversation because both parties are doing their part to drive the action forward.

It’s easy to say that passive replies are spawned from laziness or poor writing. But they’re not (the vast majority of the time anyway). Even good writers who make beautiful replies do it. I personally think it spawns from equal parts insecurity and good intentions. People don’t want to rock the boat, or take risks with their writing in case they accidentally step on any toes. Not realizing of course that they are putting strain on the writer they are working with by letting them drive all the action.

It can be exhausting.

Roleplaying is a collaborative writing experience. A great RP partner is someone who works with you as a team to tell the story of both your characters. Each person should be putting forth new things to react to and being an active part in building something awesome. It makes for a more interesting read and more dynamic plots and quite frankly more chances for characters to build genuine chemistry.

Otherwise, you end up with a lopsided plot and a burnt out RP partner. No one wants that.