Pose Composition (What makes a good pose?)

[Solstice]

I’ll shift my style to match what’s going with the scene in most cases, or what I know about the style of the writer I’m working with. If someone prefers second-person perspective, I’ll dive in. The instant a third party enters the scene, that gets bumped up to third person. If the pose length starts creeping up, I’ll match pace. If people start trending the pose length down, I match.

So yeah, a lot of this can be boiled down to “Know your audience.”

I do think that the guidelines mentioned by @IoleRae are foundational. You need to acknowledge that something happened, react accordingly, and then do something yourself.

Nothing feels crappier than no one acknowledging your contributions to the scene! The least fun scenes I’ve been in are the ones where I’ve posed every round, provided hooks, and mostly been posed around.

Writing into the void feels terrible.

Acknowledge your fellow roleplayers today!

[Jennkryst]

@Solstice said in Pose Composition (What makes a good pose?):

Nothing feels crappier than no one acknowledging your contributions to the scene! The least fun scenes I’ve been in are the ones where I’ve posed every round, provided hooks, and mostly been posed around.

This is also important, like sometimes a question is asked that I’ll miss, or like. Saw but didn’t answer right away, because SO MANY POSES so I try to streamline and hit the important things. If it’s important I can circle back to it, or maybe they will bring it up again. If I am intentionally ignoring it, I will point that fact out in the emit so the other player has the chance to recognize I’m intentionally ignoring it, or they can play dumb on their own.

[Third Eye]

I also try to chameleon my style somewhat to the room/my RP partner, though there’s a certain level of long that’ll never feel right for me. What I mostly try to do is read the room and, if there’s not much for my PC to bounce off of (because actually responding is the easy nub of it), at least do something that plays with a piece of characterization (like playing with what their favorite song on the jukebox is or what kind of beer they order or what have you). So even if it’s a random bar scene that doesn’t go anywhere in the moment, maybe I can build something off it for later.

I find my writing warps quite a bit depending on what I’m reading at the moment so idk that I’m particularly consistent so far as that goes.

[tsar]

@IoleRae said in Pose Composition (What makes a good pose?):

For me, I try for three things with any given pose: Response, Action, Prompt. So I respond to what others pose, have my character take their action, and then a prompt to give them something to pose back, if my action doesn’t include that

This sums up my own go-to pretty well, I think. Sometimes there’s the very delicate art of knowing when to drop some parts of the conversation so your poses aren’t 90 longs long.

…but then again sometimes everything is a lot of fun to reply to @crawfish has done this to me!!!

[Pavel]

Third-person, present tense. Almost everything else is negotiable.

I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m not accidentally switching tenses every other line, so I’m happy. I am, however, finding myself responding to poses in reverse order and I don’t know why - that is to say things said last, are responded to first. It’s weird. I need to stop.

[crawfish]

@tsar wait what what did I do are we talking about verbal chess or when your character makes mine want to break his nose??? What tell me so I can do it again!

[tsar]

@Pavel said in Pose Composition (What makes a good pose?):

. I am, however, finding myself responding to poses in reverse order and I don’t know why - that is to say things said last, are responded to first. It’s weird. I need to stop.

I do that, sometimes on purpose. Like if it makes the pose more impactful to do respond to something at the end, I slap it there instead. I figure this is creative writing, I’m going to be creative.

[KarmaBum]

@Pavel said in Pose Composition (What makes a good pose?):

I am, however, finding myself responding to poses in reverse order and I don’t know why - that is to say things said last, are responded to first. It’s weird. I need to stop.

I do this all the time. What’s really bad is that I then often don’t “read” the rest of someone’s pose 'cause I’m paying too much attention to the part I’m relpying to. I’ve missed so much important shit because it wasn’t the part of someone’s pose I zeroed in on as relevant at the time.

[Ashkuri]

A good pose responds to what was given and gives something new to react to. Response-action-prompt seems like a good way to put it.

Making sure to acknowledge/include people is also important as folks don’t like to be left out or feel their content wasn’t read or that they aren’t welcome.

I think the rest is just details in reading the room and using that to determine long or short, serious, funny, whatever. I typically do find that other people enjoy talking about their characters and will appreciate it if given a chance to do so, rather than talking about my character or being prompted for game/plot information.

[Pavel]

@KarmaBum said in Pose Composition (What makes a good pose?):

@Pavel said in Pose Composition (What makes a good pose?):

I am, however, finding myself responding to poses in reverse order and I don’t know why - that is to say things said last, are responded to first. It’s weird. I need to stop.

I do this all the time. What’s really bad is that I then often don’t “read” the rest of someone’s pose 'cause I’m paying too much attention to the part I’m relpying to. I’ve missed so much important shit because it wasn’t the part of someone’s pose I zeroed in on as relevant at the time.

I used to get in trouble for this but with text messages. If you’re sending me a really long message, I’m going to assume the important bit is at the end, and focus on that. I’m working on it, promise.

[Pavel]

@imstillhere said in Pose Composition (What makes a good pose?):

Making sure to acknowledge/include people is also important as folks don’t like to be left out or feel their content wasn’t read or that they aren’t welcome.

This, with the big ol’ proviso: within reason. If there’s ten people in a scene (heaven forbid) then I’m not going to include every single person. One, I just can’t keep track of that many poses, and two I don’t think it’s realistic. If you’re in a group of ten people, you’re very likely to break up into smaller groups for conversations.

[Ashkuri]

Well, yeah, all things RP are “where possible within reason.”

[Testament]

And here I am thinking my poses are good enough if I just get all the words in the right order.

[crawfish]

@Testament

Like … Alphabetical?

[Ashkuri]

@Testament please write your poses with all the words in alphabetical order, respect my playstyle accommodation, I am not taking constructive criticism at this time

[Testament]

@crawfish More like my brain has a tendency or running faster than my hands type. So I tend to just, skip words, I guess. In my head I’m pretty sure I typed them, when I actually didn’t.

That’s what I mean when I say that I just want to make sure all the words are in the right order.

[tsar]

@Testament said in Pose Composition (What makes a good pose?):

More like my brain has a tendency or running faster than my hands type. So I tend to just, skip words, I guess. In my head I’m pretty sure I typed them, when I actually didn’t.

I do this! Or I’ll replace a word entirely for one of similar letters/length. I read back over and I’m like wtf is this

[Pyrephox]

Response, Action, Prompt gets across my general aims. The other part that I try to include (but don’t always manage) is a general sense of grounded place and forward motion in the scene.

I feel like at least once a ‘round’, something should ADVANCE in the scene through people’s poses. Characters might ignore it, or only interact at the lowest level, but it’s still important. If you’re at a dinner, then courses come out, server asks if you want a refill, stuff like that. On a train, people come on, get off, etc. Things that aren’t necessarily going to take up PCs’ attentions, but still help give the scene a sense that it isn’t happening in a white room.

[crawfish]

@tsar I’ll type phonetic siblings. I hate it when I do that. Or forget word tenses? Like why? This is the only language I know fluently, how did I mess that up?

[farfalla]

I can’t respond to more than one or two people in a pose, even in a group. It starts to feel way too unnatural. I’ll mix up who the 1-2 people are in each pose in the scene, but yeah I’m not responding to 5 people in each round.