When people:
- Use funky, alternative words for something?
- Or basic words?
In anything related to RP IC or OOC.
For instance:
“He is a hostile person”
compared to
“A belligerent individual”
1 Like
It really depends on the character. A lowborn or less educated person is less likely to speak in flowery prose, whereas goblins use a LOT of slang and Gob-vernacular
8 Likes
It is all about the character utilizing the words, really.
I do not expect a ‘thug’ to be making a statement of, “A belligerent individual he was”.
Yeah as the others stated:
It depends on the character.
Could see a highborne using the phrase “A belligerent individual” followed by scoffing and the usual arrogance than some random westfallian thug.
Although westfallian thugs also wouldnt use “hostile person” and instead opt for [insert random insult here].
On the other side:
Using “A belligerent individual” might have some people using their second monitor to look up what ‘belligerent’ actually means in that context.
For narrative it may be prefered to use simpler forms, especially during large events. Makes sure everyone is on the same page.
It also means that if you have an NPC that speaks with more of a flair it leads to their speech being easier to pick out from narrative.
Brevity is the soul of wit, but I adhere to the idea that brevity is also the soul of quality roleplay.
Your character speaking in purple prose can be completely fine given their background, race, faction etc., but when that bleeds into emotes and descriptions it’s more often just tiresome.
Role-Playing is interaction and dialogue between players and when you vomit a 3 paragraph-long word salad, either as an emote or IC speech it’s just egotistic, particularly in RP-PvP or other scenarios where there’s several other players using the same chat channel.
To stay on topic there’s also multitudes of players using modern slang In-Character and justifying it as some sort of cultural impact from working with Goblins. They are not a vehicle for your character to sound like they grew up on TikTok and 9Gag. They act and sound like they are from Brooklyn and not even from the 21st century.
I generally expect even Westfall highwaymen RPers to use phrases and speech patterns that are reminiscent of a medieval fantasy setting and not of characters who were inspired by playing GTA San Andreas and Saints Row or watching Peaky Blinders in their formative years.
10 Likes
^ This ^ honestly.
Like, having a character talking in an OTT manner can be ok; either that’s their background, or they may be putting on airs to try and sound smarter or cultured than they really are! That’s fine and dandy.
3 para emotes just to describe them doing a basic action, though? Yeah, ain’t got time for that.
6 Likes
My preference for emote length is as circumstantial as anything else. In a group setting, actions need to be more concise to maintain the pace of the roleplay, but in smaller scenes (one to one) or among people who prefer eloquent prose, I think longer / descriptive emotes are or can be cool and immersive.
As for dialogue, I really enjoy when elves or other long lived races speak in a way that feels anachronistic, like the pattern of their dialogue is outdated.
2 Likes
I will actually kill someone with a hammer if I have to sit through another HMP spending 25 minutes writing an IC speech DURING the speech.
These meetings have been planned for weeks. Pre-type it. Grr.
4 Likes
Depends on the character for me too.
But at large since English is my second language I tend to lean on more basic words with some flavor.
Like an accent or some nonsense words.
Over fancy words… I suppose, I also lean more on the '‘manner’ of speaking, meaning ‘‘the flow’’ of it.
I do have a rule for myself that, if I don’t know what a word really means, or it does not feel right to use, I should not make use of it at random just to seem ‘cool’.
However, if I sit down in peace and quiet, to make a story in my own time, and can edit here and there… then yes, they might show up every once in a while.
That is a personal thing.
Such as ‘preposterous’, perfectly fine to use, but in the heat of RP, it simply does not feel natural at all to use for me as… getting the spelling of it right might take me twice as long, than just going with ‘‘Silly’’ in the first place. For the exact same meaning.
1 Like
Why do you think I stopped attending most of those meetings? 
Purple prose is fine as a flavour but when everything is overly elaborate like every word has been read through a thesaurus I find myself tuning out.
I’ll take a thousand “blue eyes” over a single set of “CERULEAN ORBS” any day of the week, at least when it comes to written emotes or what have you. If a character speaks with a certain amount of pompousness then you can ask in-character what the heck they meant when they said this or that, and that actually creates RP dynamics, whereas excessive prose in emotes can actively discourage or lock people out because they genuinely have no clue what you were trying to say.
7 Likes
Takes honest-to-god Psychic Damage
3 Likes
You can read these kind of descriptions and then observe how the character acts and speaks like they were ripped out from a Gen Z high school drama show, with the characters regularly being Night Elves, Draenei, High Elves or Dracthyr.
Stormwind is very quickly eroding away my enthusiasm for public Role-Play.
1 Like
To put it simply, purple prose is anathema to MMO RP.
1 Like
There’s a simple cure for that;
Don’t go to Stormwind.
There’s a line, Charles as a Professor would no doubt in theory use more interesting choices of the lexicon. However, not everyone should have to google what ‘x’ word means. Nor the verbose usage of terminology when you can say it more efficiently.
For example: Effervescent, Kakorrhaphiophobia, Ailurophile, Clinomania, Defenestration, Lamprophony
So
“Although I did take you for a Ailurophile, you didn’t have to participate in lamprophony to prove your point, speak any further of this and I’ll be forced to look into the act of defenestration” Charles then proceeds to absquatulate the premises
sponge bob time card voice: “12 google searches later”.
That being said I do find less known words quite interesting.
1 Like
Depends on what character I deal with.
If someone plays a wise old Druid, and uses modern language bordering on teen slang, I’m outtie.
3 Likes
Context. It depends on both the character and the situation. Being more complex with your usage of language for the same thing over and over again emote after emote just makes it a slog to read, but using it when necessary and in IC /say speech on appropriate characters is good.
2 Likes
Just read the room. If you’re in a group where everyone wants to spit mad prose, that’s great.
IF you’re in an event with 70+ ppl spitting emotes left and right, it’s probably easier to keep it concise and fast.
3 Likes