[quote=@POOHEAD189] that while I agree with the gist of this, small summaries are very good for NRP's. At least to put at the bottom of a post. Not so that's all they read, but it helps them focus on when they do read a post so they know what army is going where, or what political upheaval has transpired and they don't miss it through a typo or flowery wording. If they don't read the entire post, they will miss subtle hints that my King is either a grim faced hard ass, or he is jolly enough to break bread with your faction, and if they miss that then it is their loss (and they deserve the loss). However, at least the narrative will continue easier and they'll know that my army of 10,000 northmen has crossed the border. (And again, it will be an incentive to read because they'll be wondering why they crossed, and what kind of troops are they, and who leads them, etc.) Thank you for reading thoroughly :) [/quote] I think end post summaries are kind of a different beast than what I was referring to. I mean something like, [I]Poo smiled coyly, and said "hi."[/I] being the entire extent of the post rather than in your NRP example writing out a few paragraphs detailing what your nation or army or Juggalo Posse did in your turn and quickly recapping the important points to act as a quick reference or to ensure nobody missed anything. [@yoshua171] In regards to how far back someone should read if they're joining an established RP, I tend to err towards 3-5 pages as a guideline so you can get a feel for what's going on and the characters so I can put my best foot forward. I don't think I'd ever tell someome to read an entire roleplay they were just joining unless they really wanted to. I think [@Odin] brings up a fair point about massive games and not reading posts that really have nothing to do with characters. I personally haven't been in a game where characters are apart for too long since they're a part of the same group, so that's where I am coming from. But sandboxes like Create a Hero, for instance, seems to run off of different cities and characters doing entirely different arcs. It's a giant playground where you're all playing tag but everyone is at different schools. If there's literally dozens of characters and you've not even in the same region as other groups, then I kind of think it's an insane amount of work to follow with everything.