Where has the love gone?

This is mainly used as a test post for blogging, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to post a quick rant.

I really have no words to express the massive proliferation of various roleplaying games these days, especially with those that Riss and I have "fansheep RPGs." Those that focus on garish and unnecessary aesthetics and unbelievably long post lengths. Whatever happened to good writing, quality literary sense, and a moving story?

I've even heard some "reputable" roleplayers in the genre claim that roleplaying is not writing. I guess they're telepathically communicating in some foreign language, one that we just so happen to read in English text. Maybe the text is read exactly how the brain chooses to render it—how's that for philosophical cannon fodder?

As absurd as this sounded to me, it seemed that the idea has caught on with some. Roleplaying is somehow fundamentally different from writing. Somehow the act of responding to a post means that we should not strive for the writing axioms of thoughtfulness, clarity, grace, and concision. Perhaps the rules of the game have changed.

Gone are the days where it's enough to post just enough for the purpose of composing the best story. Gone are the days where you attempt to shoot for a few paragraphs that answer all the critical issues presented to the your characters. Gone too are the days where it was enough to simply post your character's reactions, actions, emotions, and thoughts. Now, as if concisely and entertainingly creating the best possible story, as elegant as it was subtle, wasn't difficult enough, the fansheep apparently demand huge vomitous masses of text that really serve very little purpose than to didactically talk to the reader. No doubt, it's another attempt to show off the size of your e-... well let's not go there.

Is this the future of RPing? Is it no longer enough that we write for the sake of telling a good story? Where quality roleplaying obeys the same conventions as good narration and storytelling? Will roleplaying one day be an off shoot of writing and become a massive orgy of stream of consciousness?

Let's hope not. I personally can not imagine if this would become the case. And neither can phi, really.

I still maintain that good writing needs no aesthetic adornment. That we don't need monstrous paragraphs written in all lowercase letters, or titles that have more symbols and spaces than they actually have text. I don't see the appeal of double ampersands, brackets, or semicolons. The roleplaying should be a venue for expressing through writing. The entire environment should be nothing more than perks that keep attention long enough for one to craft the next literary device and plot hook.

Call me old school, a relic of the past—I simply don't see the appeal in focusing on the same avatars and the same hypertexturized banners on dark backgrounds; I don't enjoy viewing über ornate titles and text—they just distract me from the writing. Perhaps I'm a bit insensitive to the winds of change, but I still believing that play-by-post roleplaying obeys the convention of good writing, and I don't think those have changed. I still maintain that the definitions of a good read, a good book, or a classic adventure have remained. What the critics perceive as quality writing conventions, good storytelling, and riveting plots may have evolved somewhat with the times, but they too still linger. I want to hear good stories, discover fascinating characters, and read good writing.

And the overly adorned, gigantic pontifical masses of text certainly do not qualify. Not in my book. Maybe we, too, as roleplayers, can endure. Let us try on Inspired Opulence.