Okay, word of warning, this turned out rambly and random.

Disclaimer: THIS IS PERSONAL OPINION ONLY.

I feel as though "good RPs" are a very subjective thing. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all.

As far as me? I myself prefer more subtle plots, with more of a focus on the intricacies of politics and the complex nature of social interactions than on the hard nitty-gritty action/warfare plots. I don't mind a slower-paced story. I find a good RP is often more slowly paced, with the character relationships built up slowly and believably over time and a continuous story arc.

What I see as the difference between an RP and a play is that, well, I guess a theatrical play (correct me if I'm wrong but I'm assuming this is the kind of play you're talking about) has lots of people wearing different costumes but the whole plot and all the interactions are contrived by the playwriter. There is no spontaneity. In an RP it's different. Sure it's still a public showcase but it's collaborative and can be random and almost never turns out as planned (I've at least never been under the direction of a GM who tried to control every aspect of the plot, buuut that's just me.)

I feel that critiquing an RP, when it's done right, can be beneficial. But too often people take it too personally and get butthurt about it. I've noticed, mostly on other sites when I've asked for constructive criticism, that people often were too personal in their discussion, criticizing me instead of my plot. "What are you, ten? grow up and write a good story already." etc. I think it's a combination of fears of these (the ones critiquing fear they might offend the roleplaying party, while the roleplay group fears that potential critiquers might be too offensive.) Just a general lack of communication makes this somewhat of a taboo thing as far as I can tell.

That said, when it's a participant in an RP who talks to a GM and says, "hey I'm not sure about this plot point or this character interaction could we maybe take a group poll of it?" or posts a group poll themselves, it's generally accepted and even taken as a part of active, good roleplaying. It's only when it's someone outside of an RP that does the critique that gets a little bit sketchy.

Generally I feel like it's kind of a "keep it to yourself" thing. You can privately judge and rank RPs all you want and privately come up with ways to make them better, but unless you're an active contributing member of the group or have been asked by the GM/participants for advice, probably not a good idea to share them.

[hr]

I would say that in my mind RPing, and RPing well, is an artistic skill. It takes work to write artfully and expressively, while still being considerate to the people around you. I almost feel like collaborative writing cannot be considered even remotely the same art form as classical literature; classical literature is about YOU, about the ideas YOU create and conjure and the characters YOU hold in your head, whereas RPing is all about US. The group as a whole. It's spontaneous and uncertain and can be random and can take a sudden 180 but the art form is all about learning to roll with it, and to take ownership of your part of the story, but also to back off and let others take ownership of their parts of it too.

Personally, I "judge" games all the time. Generally the more involved I am/feel I could be in the plot, the better the RP is. The criteria I use is simply, "will I enjoy exploring this world and these characters?" If I do, I'll read more. If not, I walk away there. I judge interest checks. "Is the premise interesting? Is the writing on the level I expect to see?" I judge RPs as they're beginning. "Are these people and characters people I want to interact with, both as myself and as my character?" I judge them as they're in progress. "Am I still enjoying myself? Am I engaged and thinking and processing and learning?" and I judge them when they're done. "Did this live to its full extent? If yes, what would you have changed about the story/characters/gming style/etc. If no, what went wrong and how would you fix it?"

Now I don't share these observations, most of the time, but that judgement is always going in my head. I do it to a lot of RPs, even ones I'm not considering joining. "Is this a world and a set of characters that I would enjoy spectating?"

Yes, I read along with other peoples' RPs. Call me weird.

I don't really think that the theme of each section matters in calling the roleplays "artistic" or "good" or "bad". I feel like each section needs to be judged as it's own entity. It takes a very different set of skills to RP Free level well, to fit character development and continuity into short, often furiously-paced posts, than it does to RP Advanced well, to fill out posts with details and make the language beautiful to read. Each section is its own entity and, at least in my mind, is judged entirely independently of the other sections.

Aaaand that got to be waaaay long. I'm sorry to everyone who tried to read through me babbling incoherently.