Now, this may not be what the actual style of dialog is called, but it does happen to be what my drama teacher called it. Also, this may not be my place in this guild, but it is something that I have wanted to discuss for quite a while.

Ping-pong dialog is when characters bandy words back and forth. This happens to be very boring to a live audience. All you're doing is watching several people talk to each other. However, when used in a roleplay, this can be quite productive. It is what people do in real life. They aren't always moving and fiddling with things. Sometimes they just stand and talk.

There are times when this is a good thing to use, and times when it is a bad thing to use. If you're running from a fire-breathing dragon bent on evil and destruction, you should not be using ping-pong dialog. If you are sitting around a camp fire before bed... well, what else are you going to do? Play with your hair and pitch your already pitched tent? Perhaps stare into the flames? You could just talk.

Another part of ping-pong dialog is that your dialog doesn't have to be paragraphs. If you were talking in paragraphs to your best friend about some little thing that both of you already know about, your friend is going to get bored!

I might add that several of the sample roleplays in the stickies followed the ping-pong dialog format. Specifically the last two examples.

Just try to keep in mind that sometimes your character is just sitting back, waiting for something to happen. Just make sure the talking doesn't last forever.