[@BrokenPromise] Well it is a bit hard for the DM to encourage a direction without knowing how a character works...and that's why I always favor OOC discussion, so you can reveal or not as is needed to help things along.

[@Shoryu Magami] Yeah, but...I mean, rp is about story, and interaction.  It's not about each individual sequin on a dress.  I think some of how people describe things (at least if they're any good) has to do with what they like to read.  So yes, if a character always wears a certain item, I'd describe it on a character sheet.  That's solely for an explanation.  However, since (as I said) I'm not a huge fan of sheets in the first place, when describing a character in a post, it's not necessary to go into the same detail.  The same is true for solo writing.

A character sheet as a /player/ application I might understand.  There's a lot of tests out there to separate the wheat from the chaff.  However, it does sound like that forum was also elitist.  I know a number of people that are absolutely amazing at creating settings and lore and characters and /using/ them, but ask for a char sheet and watch those magic words dry right up.  It's the same as practical ability vs. test-taking ability.  They are often equated, but they are not the same.

There's also the idea that posting pages when paragraphs -- or even /a/ paragraph -- will do is an indication of a less-skilled rper.  Sure, it takes skill to churn out that much.  But it takes more skill to know when to stop.  There's a /lot/ of people that confuse length with skill level and that is a huge peeve of mine.  Additionally, given that rp is multiple people, and thus multiple characters, the longer a post, the more likely something in it will need changing because someone will have a reaction that would then affect the initial character's interaction.  The best example of this is interrupting someone talking, which is not often done in forum rp or even chat rp, because player two can't see player one's char's words until the sentence has already been completed.  But irl, if I interrupt someone, chances are they're going to stop talking -- or raise their voice, or tell me to shut up.  And once that happens instead of finishing the rest of the sentence, then everything else splits off as well, like the tempest caused by the flutter of an insect.  I absolutely adore interpersonal interaction for rps, so the more back-and-forth, the happier I am.  This means cutting down on post size.

The other issue is that in conversations, one item, one response, one connected item is a more natural formula than ten items, and ten responses, some with connected items of their own.  The latter tends to create multiple parallel conversations and drives me absolutely nuts.  The other thing I see happen a lot is the same part of a scene getting covered five, six times because actions taken by chars 2 and 3 then get reactions from char 1, and those are reacted to in turn.  Yeah, on a forum most people don't post multiple times a day, and the more people there are in the group the longer it's going to take to cycle back to you, or else some people might get left behind (though this is a balance issue too).  But once you get to about a page, unless there's something uninterrupted or a whole lot of explanation or exposition, that's enough in many cases.  There is often no reason to keep going.  It's time to let someone reply.

And I"m totally off-topic, rambling -- and covering things I've said to you before.  Man, I get worked up over this stuff way to easily.  -.-  Being half-awake doesn't help either.  *flops off to bed*