Biggest Insecurity While RP-ing?

[Jules8008]

That my character won't have any, well, character development (Which is more than often NOT the case).
I also fear that my responses are either too dull or too short.
And - this is the worst - that no one actually wants to play with me and that I am just a nuisance (I swear, this fear has resulted in me pretty much developing own character arcs and sometimes even playing with no one in a group roleplay, when everyone's already busy.)

 

[Nova Squid]

That my character won't have any, well, character development (Which is more than often NOT the case).
I also fear that my responses are either too dull or too short.
And - this is the worst - that no one actually wants to play with me and that I am just a nuisance (I swear, this fear has resulted in me pretty much developing own character arcs and sometimes even playing with no one in a group roleplay, when everyone's already busy.)

I share these exactly. That, and the (probably irrational) fear that anything I join is gonna inevitably wither and die ten posts in.

 

[Genkai]

Will this person ghost?

The feeling lingers, whether you've been RPing together a week or a year.

I think that's the worst aspect of roleplaying but it's not going to change. It's a sad trait of humans to leave, avoid conflict and such. That said the wait between posts can be agonizing at times even more so if your isn't much for conversation or discussion, which I think is pretty important when it comes to a RP's longevity and overall enjoyment/success.

 

[Sibelle Grey]

1- I'm terrified of making Mary Sues. I want to strike that balance between compelling and realistic. All my characters are the special sort, so how do you write a character exceptional by circumstances without making them a perfect human? This turns into me worrying that they aren't flawed enough, that they aren't reacting realistically, that I'm subconsciously trying to make them likable by my standards instead of playing them the way I wrote them. Also, we complain so much about useless female characters that I'm anxious about my female characters not furthering the plot or doing much of anything. And then, when I give them the ability to do things, I'm like . . . is this character overpowered/a Sue?

2- Post quality. "Does this post serve a purpose?" "Is it well-written?" "Do I have a clear enough sense of this character rn to write a post about how they would react in this situation?" I've been known to revise a post over a couple of weeks because it just doesn't feel like the character, rl stuff is taking up too much headspace, or I'm generally not happy with it. And if I'm not happy, I'll never post just to post. So basically I'm a perfectionist and it's ruining my life, but it also makes posts a treat to re-read weeks later. That satisfaction of coherent characterization throughout, with just enough deviance from like four major traits to be human, a dash of humor, a sentence that ties it together, and suddenly I'm glad to have spent a couple of hours on a post. And then I worry, irrationally, that my partners are getting impatient hahahahaHAhahahahelpha.

4- Narrative voice and the switching thereof by RP and genre. Every now and then I'm writing a post and I'm like . . . "This flippant twenty-something from modern-day New York's thoughts sound the slightest formal and dramatic, what is it? What is it?????" And then I realize he's more likely to say "kind of/ sort of/ a little" instead of "rather/ a bit/ a tad/ the slightest" and I fix it and I'm good.

 

[Necessity4Fun]

That I'm writing too much but not saying enough in it. I have a very specific, slow method of doing things that consists in acknowledging what has changed, ponder and react and only then, finally add something to it.

Not the most practical method in the book and it tends to make the pace slower, but I feel like it gives me leasure to engage in my favorite part of RP which is character development and dwelling at what the character is thinking and feeling about the situations they're living.

But then, I also have this nagging fear that I'm saying too much that's not relevant to the post itself, thus, writing too much and not saying enough.

This gets specially iffy with what I call intro posts, which is the first post of a thread or episode in the RP. It always feels like either I don't have enough to say (if it's the first post of the RP) or am obliged to pickup from where we left last episode (because a time skip happened and I wanna say what my character was up to in that time, specially if something groundbreaking happened by the end of the last one). Then I really feel like I'm pulling things out of my rear and the fear of typing too much, not saying enough only intensifies ^^'

I am aware that I'm bad with brevity and put a lot of details on things but I'm always worried whether this or that is too much detail or not. I think I write too much, but it's a hard habit to quit because I'm just that passionate... Rather a silly concern I think.

 

[cosowarrior]

That I'm writing too much but not saying enough in it. I have a very specific, slow method of doing things that consists in acknowledging what has changed, ponder and react and only then, finally add something to it.

Not the most practical method in the book and it tends to make the pace slower, but I feel like it gives me leasure to engage in my favorite part of RP which is character development and dwelling at what the character is thinking and feeling about the situations they're living.

But then, I also have this nagging fear that I'm saying too much that's not relevant to the post itself, thus, writing too much and not saying enough.

This gets specially iffy with what I call intro posts, which is the first post of a thread or episode in the RP. It always feels like either I don't have enough to say (if it's the first post of the RP) or am obliged to pickup from where we left last episode (because a time skip happened and I wanna say what my character was up to in that time, specially if something groundbreaking happened by the end of the last one). Then I really feel like I'm pulling things out of my rear and the fear of typing too much, not saying enough only intensifies ^^'

I am aware that I'm bad with brevity and put a lot of details on things but I'm always worried whether this or that is too much detail or not. I think I write too much, but it's a hard habit to quit because I'm just that passionate... Rather a silly concern I think.

I have the same fear and 'flaws,' but at the same time, I enjoy when I receive those kind of posts from my partners. So, I guess it's a matter of finding the right partners.
Although, the ability to write concisely is an important one. One I have not yet mastered... ^-^"

 

[Necessity4Fun]

2- Post quality. "Does this post serve a purpose?" "Is it well-written?" "Do I have a clear enough sense of this character rn to write a post about how they would react in this situation?" I've been known to revise a post over a couple of weeks because it just doesn't feel like the character, rl stuff is taking up too much headspace, or I'm generally not happy with it. And if I'm not happy, I'll never post just to post. So basically I'm a perfectionist and it's ruining my life, but it also makes posts a treat to re-read weeks later. That satisfaction of coherent characterization throughout, with just enough deviance from like four major traits to be human, a dash of humor, a sentence that ties it together, and suddenly I'm glad to have spent a couple of hours on a post. And then I worry, irrationally, that my partners are getting impatient hahahahaHAhahahahelpha.

THIS, this is also me. I guess I'm just never actually satisfied with anything I do and it bugs me at times. If I'm in a better mood I may just call it enough after fussing with a same post for 3 to 5 hours, or I just post once I'm done before the dreadful sensation of 'not good enough' can catch up with me, but the longer I look at the post, the longer it takes me to write it, the more I see flaws on it. And that's when it starts getting in the way.

I write a paragraph, come back, start hating it, give up and try again a couple days later. Normally, that's how it goes, one, three, five times. Add depression to the mix and the nagging feeling of 'I must because people are waiting' and it might just kill the fun of it.
One week, two weeks, a month. I try to engage into it but it just won't work! I hate every single line I wrote, force to keep going but something still feels amiss, it just doesn't feel right. I can't convince myself to post it, eventually I might, but not before spending 1-2 more days revising it, trying to make me feel better about it, but I never do. Defeated, I post it. Relieved to finally get it done yet with that nagging feeling that I could have done better. I even apologize and say exactly what's on my mind in the OOC.

They don't seem to care, they love it. I'm still feeling like it is subpar but everything seems fine so I leave it be. I come back later and re-read the post... it really wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be, maybe some typos but the idea of it seems clear. At this point I like it too and can't understand what I've been fussing so much about... ^^'

 

[Draco]

I sometimes worry that I write with my character centrally located and not involve the other characters or give them an opening to post. I feel like I am doing better with that

 

[Nova Squid]

GM related irrational insecurities:

"Oh god I'm railroading them aren't I"

"Nobody responded in 15 minutes to the interest check, so clearly it's gonna slide off the front page and vanish"

"Wait wait wait let me go back and edit that 200 something times so it's juuuust right"

That sort of thing.

 

[NotinthisUniverse]

1.) Hmm for me it would be conveying personality in characters. I've always struggled with this, either I personally find them too bland or dull or just one of the traits I've listed off for them take over the character as a whole. I either put in all negatives and not think about the positives or vice versa. Its either I get it right the first couple attempts or its just me over analyzing the fuck out of each post I make.

2.) Being descriptive enough in a paragraph or paragraphs. I'm either in a mood where I can easily write 3 hella descriptive ones in an hour or I'm struggling with just one and going back to fix and editing it over and over again. It gets exhausting really.

 

[L0ck0n]

My insecurity is what if people think that I don't write good enough, and I'm not able to get my character to interact with other characters well. I'm still learning, but omg it's really nerve-wrecking to think that I could be alone when RPing because maybe I'm not seen as a decent RPer heh.

 

[chainsmokes]

Probably post quality. I mean, english isn’t my native language, and it bothers me that my vocabulary isn’t as good as theirs who speak english on a daily basis. Even if I write long posts, I always wonder if it’s well-written enough, or clear enough. If that makes sense at all.

Also, making Mary Sues. I always try to make my characters interesting, and give them weaknesses and flaws, but I’m always paranoid that my RP partners find my characters too dull or perfect.

 

[Mitheral]

Will this person ghost?

The feeling lingers, whether you've been RPing together a week or a year.

I think that's the worst aspect of roleplaying but it's not going to change. It's a sad trait of humans to leave, avoid conflict and such. That said the wait between posts can be agonizing at times even more so if your isn't much for conversation or discussion, which I think is pretty important when it comes to a RP's longevity and overall enjoyment/success.

Ditto.

 

[Sea Jay]

Posting characters.

Im always worried about everyone's reactions to my characters

Another thing is when no one in a group rp will include me so I kinda just fall away

 

[Felis]

I'm a generally insecure person, so I don't think there's any aspect to RPing that I feel truly confident about. (I still enjoy it, though.)
But my top issues are probably:

• That my characters may be one or more of the following: bland, clichéd, over-/underpowered, boring, or just annoying to interact with in general.
• That I may be playing my characters inconsistently, or that I'm overdoing aspects of their personality.
• Related to the previous points, that my characters may be too similar to each other in RP, despite supposedly having different personalities. My biggest flaw (in my opinion) while RPing is probably that my own insecurity and apologetic tendencies are prone to making their way into my writing, so having a character who can be upfront, confident or put their foot down is a real challenge for me. That's why I keep trying to have characters with such traits to some extent, but at the same time, it makes me very insecure about whether I'm constantly falling out of character.
• Whether my posts are too long, too short, too detailed with unnecessary information or boring to read, and whether I have an odd word choice, word order or grammatical mistakes. The last three come from English being my second language, mostly, but since people haven't really called me out on those yet, I suppose it's a problem more present in my head than in my posts (luckily).
• Last but not least, paragraphing. I have always been bad at it, so much that I even kept writing my essays at school without any paragraphs until my second year of high school or so, driving my teachers half mad. When I first started RPing on a different site, a more experienced user tried to help me improve my writing and suggested I try splitting my text into paragraphs to make it more readable. I did, and their reaction was like "Yeah, I can read it better now, but every single of the line breaks/paragraphs is in an odd place". I feel like I haven't improved much in that regard since then, so... sorry to everyone who has to put up with that flaw, haha.

Another thing that keeps bugging me when I write in general is that I can't properly adjust my characters' style of speaking. Like giving them an accent, or a high-class/low-class vocabulary. They end up talking in a similar way, no matter what their background is. I used to think it was because of English being my second language, but I discovered I can't do it in any language I speak, and I also can't speak with any other accent than my own in those languages. It's actually quite funny from an outside perspective, I think, but it does give me some insecurity when I'm in a group of people who are able to write/speak accents and the like at will.

 

[DownSkayleThreezie]

That I won't make grammatically sufficient posts or that I'll offend someone by accident.

 

[Zer0]

Intimidating or being controlling too much that I discourage people from joining my rps.

Also, worried that despite having rules laid out I accidentally accept a player into my rp who doesn't want to follow my rules in the first place even though I'd state that my rp is going to be like this. And then feeling anxious about possible drama when I pm this person to ask them to change something in their CS or leave the rp.

 

[Green Pen]

I'm usually worried about if I'm moving the plot along, if people like my posts, if my posts are actually showing the characters personality but also trying to balance between moving the plot along and actually showing the characters thoughts and feelings. All in all I'm a pretty paranoid writer.

 

[Dicey]

Things I fear the most!

-Making my roleplay partner bored! Mostly from going into too much detail about something I worry doesn't concern them!
-Losing my partner! I've honestly sobbed so hard when this happens, especially when I get invested! It breaks my heart a little to put so much work into something and then have the other half of it leave!
-Being forced into situations I don't like! It's happened a couple times and it's really hurtful. I usually drop contact during or after this sort of thing. Sometimes I worry I won't find another partner and just go with whatever it is until I can't take it anymore hh.
-Not being good enough for my partner!
-Possibly upsetting my partner? I get worried when I do sad roleplays! I don't like making people sad!

 

[Nobelia]

My main and constant concern is not growing as a writer. Not everyone is willing to give critique, and some may like what you don't like in your writing -- simply due to differing tastes in writing styles. And, I can never seem to pinpoint what I don't like -- just that I get frustrated with how I write often, lol.

 

[BasiliskVeranda]

Time to get really deep here, fam:

My insecurity is that I write too much and nobody legit reads it because it's so beefy (and often not even great lmao). I'm well aware I write too much. I like doing it so...it's hard to taper down.

I'm also worried in general, because I'm so "into" stuff, that I turn people off. Like the token extrovert fear that I'll no longer be amusing, and just grating, then everyone will hate me. So I try to make people laugh...because if they're laughing, they can't hate me, right? Haha, nope.

I've had rp buddies in the past who brought up that I was too into something, because I made art or stupid trailer videos for our games. I just really like roleplaying and writing, you guys/gals. I don't mean to be "extra".

That's a personal thing, but as we are interacting with other writers when we roleplay, I'm pretty conscious of it. OOC and stuff.

It all boils down to ADHD & extroversion, basically. I'm hyper-focused when I RP, and I'm always "mad hype" so this is what happens. I just want to make frands.

 

[smallnscrappy]

Eesh! I thought I was pretty confident but everyone's responses got me thinking!

*I think my greatest insecurity would be losing my players interest. I tend to GM/DM a lot and I constantly fear that the story is not engaging or that they are rolling their eyes at their screen.

*Second, I am afraid of hogging the spotlight. When I write, I write a LOT and I write frequently. I make a lot of characters and NPCs to drive the story. I don't want to be a story hog or a glutton for the stage. Its never my intention to dominate the story, but when you DM it's kind of difficult not to, after all you are directing the story.

*Not fulfilling another player's story arch. This kind of goes hand in hand with the second one. I want to make sure each player resolves their character's story or crisis within the overall plot. This is an easy example. If a character is looking for love, I don't want to overlook that and leave their story with loose ends.

*Its a wide world out there! I am terrified offending people with character choices. So often I see people requiring LGBT+ characters as a requirement for their partner's writing 'resume'. While that certainly makes for an interesting character choice, its not always easy to get into that head space because I dont want to DO IT WRONG and insult someone. I sit on the sidelines for a lot of interesting RPs simply because I am afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing and looking like an uninformed ass.

 

[WeissLover]

I feel like we all have something that we want to work on or change about our RP style or characters.

I'm personally always afraid I'm not moving the story along enough, or adding enough spice into the curry mix.
There's always a fine balance between dramatic scenes and unrealistic ones, but I never feel like I'm getting it right, even if the story is progressing along fine.

What are some of yours?

I believe I’m good at most things, although coming up with fun ideas, or the fear that my posts might not Be good enough!

 

[CorporalMarshmallow]

Sometimes I'm paranoid that I'll make the character say or do the wrong thing, and I will get bashed for it. I remember one time I was roleplaying, and this user kept pointing out my mistakes while at the same time roleplaying as their own characters. In other words, the characters themselves would point out what my characters have done wrong. I understood that they were trying to make the roleplay as realistic as possible, but they were constantly doing that, and it made the roleplay less fun, in my opinion. :/

 

[deer]

ooof, the first thing that comes to mind is my grammar and typo mistakes.
i'm always diligently re-reading my post over and over again before sending it off into the abyss. whenever i catch one mistake, i swear i get over-dramatic because i'm that much of a perfectionist.
nevertheless, my biggest insecurity is when "enough is enough" since i tend to over-explain , over-analyse, etc. with every post i make to make sure its to the T. it's terribly, really.