Topics don't have to start with 5 sentences

Five sentences really isn't a lot for a topic starter. I personally feel as if it should be raised, because it prevents the forums from being spammed with loads of two-word topic responses and ensures that there's actually detail there instead of just "Bob said hi".

Also, the limit is only for the first reply. So, five sentences when you create the topic, and any responses after that can be whatever length you like. It's really not that inconvenient! Oh, and look, my response to this is over five sentences long ;)

If the limit was lower, or it wasn't there at all, how would that work? At that point, it would basically just be dialogue, or saying that so-and-so walked into a room, which isn't much detail for willing participants to go off. You need detail so your fellow topickers have a base on which to build their reply :3 not a way for them to make 500 topics a day and clutter the whole site.

As has already been said, the sentence limit is to give the piece at least some depth and structure for the rest of the topic to spring from and to help those joining to understand the scene. If you're keen to work in really short replies, there's always the IG chat option or topics via private messages on site.