There are distinct phases of gameplay. Some are obvious: combat, for example. Slightly less obvious are planning phases ("So, X casts Invisibility on Y, who sneaks around the enemy camp. After Y's in position, Z will summon..." "No, wait, how big is the camp again? Is the ogre still...?") and conversation phases.
Perhaps the most awkward moments of the game are at transitions between phases, but I think that might be a necessary tension in the game. Players always want more time to prepare before the fight starts, and DMs always have to keep the game moving to the next phase.
But the blog format impacts the conversation phase a lot, I think. (By conversation here, I mean specifically back-and-forth between PCs and NPCs.) The blog format necessarily encourages serial expositions, both from the players and from the DM (who has to do lots of expositions anyway.) I find my characters talking in soliloquys -- even when I want them to be taciturn. (Which admittedly, is playing hard against type.)
This post is driven by me not knowing what to have Mouth say, of course. But I think it's a recurrent theme. Well, yes, it's _also_ a recurrent theme that I don't know what to have my character say. But I MEANT the theme of an extensive description by an NPC, followed by a "Talk, talky people!" moment. It just _feels_ so much like the DM said everything they meant to say...what are we supposed to add?
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