How long is "too long" for an initial role entry?

Do any of you (staff) just absolutely hate "story" type roles?

This is my rambling opinion only, since different Imms certainly have their own preferences. See Padwei's role entries for a different take :) Personally, unless you've got a great story that actually creates the character (as opposed to creating the build and then thinking of a story to stick behind it) I think descriptive bullet points possibly fortified with vignettes is perfectly adequate. Story roles are fine, but I think a lot of the time the person puts too much work into them for the reward they get and info they convey.

I have a priority list I work through when I'm reading unrated role entries (certain spheres, cabals, and then the rest of the entries that aren't from people "belonging" to other Imms by order of date last updated). If I see 6+ entries that haven't been read yet, it will often stop me in my role-reading tracks. Clear, ****concise****, coherent!

I'll take this opportunity to share my two biggest role pet peeves:

1> Poor formatting--wall of text with no paragraph breaks or ugly line wraps...we rate based on the value of the content inside the role but it's hard to appreciate a role if it makes your eyes bleed to read it.

2> Starter roles that don't get the character to adventuring time. I'm of the opinion that your initial role entries should describe everything necessary up until the point where your character gets to the Academy/joins a guild/becomes level 1. If you have already thought about your role enough to write 3 entries about this and know what happens in the rest of your story, wait to enter it until you can get your role as current as possible. When I see a role that has already gotten xp and then gets updated with more entries that still don't have the character "live" yet, I generally will give little or no xp.

I try to have stories that actually explain the class, cabal, sphere, etc. choices.

Did you feel like Ageryn's original 6 chapters (which told a story) was too much?

I think it could have been trimmed down a little bit, but I thought it was a compelling story that read quickly, so once I decided to read it the length wasn't that much of an issue.

It's not very helpful to say that if your role is good, it doesn't matter as much how long it is, but that's the truth. I (and most others, I think) really try to reward quality over quantity of role though, to the point of getting frustrated by reading roles that take a lot of time to say nothing you can't learn from typing "whois randomelfwarrior".

Hmm. Dang. Guess I'll cross my fingers and hope the next one is similarly easy to read.

Make sure to check to ensure you've properly copy-pasted all your old character names out of it this time ;)

I prefer bullet point based roles.

But is it possible to win a role contest with that sort of role?

I feel like the big flowery roles with a story are the ones that lead to the massive role contest rewards.

It wouldn't be impossible to win a contest, at least if I were judging it. I think someone has won with a role like that in the past but I have no idea who the character was so it might be the grape crack talking.

Generally story roles are better suited to win a contest because it would take a ton of bullet points to describe a character as well (or make sense of the incongruities that often make up exceptional roles) as a story can. When they're good, they're good. Most of the time though I think people (myself included) would be wise to consider whether the role they're writing might be better served with bullet points.