Thanks for the response, Ana, and the compliments too.  :)  I'm enjoying your posts and everyone else's also.<br/><br/>Your point about J.D. and his nicknames kind of lost me, I'm afraid.  That wasn't an important part of the post, just a bit of character detail.  But, are you saying that the characters' internal observations and thoughts are best left out? meaning, posts should focus only on observable action and dialog?<br/><br/>If that's your gist, there are two things that confuse me about it:  1) it seems to me that many posts from you and everyone else includes information that presumably comes from their character's thoughts, knowledge, or personal observations; and 2) leaving out the characters' thoughts seems undesirable to me because it further restricts the content of our posts.  For me, the whole point of PbP roleplaying is to craft entertaining posts, fun things to read (and write); that goal becomes much more difficult (even impossible for some people, I think) because players are usually forbidden to determine the actions of anyone or anything outside of their own character.  On top of that restriction, leaving out characters' thoughts would just add further difficulty to an already-challenging undertaking.<br/><br/>Not to quibble about the rules of the game -- I accept the restrictions of the format because I assume most others on the site like things done that way, or else they wouldn't go along with it.  At the same time, however, I suspect few PbP roleplayers have given much thought to the limitations of the format and how difficult it is to come up with posts that are fun for others to read.  I think a lot of games turn into a bunch of characters standing around doing a lot of nothing until the GM decides something interesting will happen ... heck, I worry that most games are that way, including the ones I've tried to run myself.  Even when the players are gifted writers and fully capable of creating interesting posts, they're sometimes so committed to being passive and responsive in their posts that they're uncomfortable introducing interesting developments.<br/><br/>Sorry if that's way more discussion than you might be interested in.  :)  It's a topic of great interest to me, because it's been relevant to every PbP game I've been in so far, and I don't believe many players have thought much about these issues when it comes to roleplaying.  I'd be interested in any thoughts you, Ana, or the others have on this stuff.  Thanks for reading!