Deal Breakers. What makes you "walk" away?

[Sunbather]

And, on that note, I've honestly started to become dissuaded towards 'Personality' sections to the extent of the two examples I gave. There's a mainstay of a lot of roleplays, but what precise purpose do they serve other than defying the literary golden rule of showing instead of telling? I don't remember the last novel I read beginning with three paragraphs on how the main protagonist carried himself, how he reacted in all situations, how he responded to leadership, and what first impressions he inevitably gives off to every person, under the guise that varying perspectives are nonexistent; we all would see the 'charismatic, charming bard who lends a helping hand to all' in the same manner, wouldn't we? The added issue is that this so-described flawlessly-genial bard cannot proceed to be helping and nice in every single circumstance because the events of his story are, for the majority, beyond the player's control within a roleplay. An independent writer would map out events to play towards or call into question a character's character while a roleplayer does not have this luxury; their protagonist is part of a cast of differently-minded writers whose scenarios are ultimately determined by a game master. With that in mind, then, elucidating paragraphs worth of 'personality' betrays both the fundamentals of a well-woven tale and of long-form group roleplaying, though of course maybe games fitting those descriptors may be structured differently. If a game master truly wants to understand what makes a character tick, they should require that character actually be written, as in the player portrays through prose how he or she has been envisioned. This idea can then be fit into the overarching narrative presented by the roleplay.

I feel so conflicted about this, really. On one hand, I don't want to ask for personalities, because I'm afraid my players will feel confined to their application, and never branch out or develop. The last thing I want is a stale cast of random-anime protagonists that stay the way they are forever. On the other hand, I am not quite sure how to judge whether someone will become yet another uninspired edge-baby that ruins the dynamic. It feels really difficult to weed out poor writers, lazy writers, and edgelords from the rest without asking for something I feel otherwise isn't productive.

 

[Elephantom]

MANDATORY
ROMANCE​

 

[rae2nerdy]

MANDATORY
ROMANCE​

But surely we are all only put upon this earth to crawl into our one true love's pants OR spend substantial amounts of time gazing adoringly at our heart's desire. Has tween fiction taught you nothing my good man?!

Also that bold and centered is inspired. Mostly because people have pretty much put that exact sentiment in any number of searches and i'm like... Well thank you for making my deal breaker so easy to spot. Best of luck to you and good bye.

 

[Elephantom]

But surely we are all only put upon this earth to crawl into our one true love's pants OR spend substantial amounts of time gazing adoringly at our heart's desire. Has tween fiction taught you nothing my good man?!

Also that bold and centered is inspired. Mostly because people have pretty much put that exact sentiment in any number of searches and i'm like... Well thank you for making my deal breaker so easy to spot. Best of luck to you and good bye.

Easy there, love, I tend not to get involved with literary dregs.

 

[xDarkMoonx]

Two words: bad grammar. I get it, not everyone has a superb grasp on the English language, but when you use the wrong forms of there/their/they're... byeeeeee!

 

[StrixDesmodus]

Vampire and werewolf binary. This aint Twilight, honey.

 

[Giant Rubber Ducky]

When the OP uses "could of" and "should of".

I'm generally not a Grammar Nazi, but that particular error pisses me off to no end, even more so than mixing up "their" and "there" or "your" and "you're".

 

[Shteald]

One would be the people who make it a recurring theme that they have 'bad luck' or are 'accident prone'.
I've met a few people like this who will fall off a bridge into a lake while playing a character who can't swim.
Or they trip and hit their head on the corner of a table and require medical attention.

They are derailing the story for one specific reason. They need attention and care focused on them, its an RP version of Munchausen syndrome.
I want to RP and run dnd games, not be someone's therapist or emotional teat to get manipulated attention out of to fill the void.

-
That and people who just want to troll and destroy the story for fun.
I'll throw Cthulhu in power armor at them if they do it.

 

[afamiliarnemesis]

I had the same rp partner for roughly seven years, so I'm actually scared to write with new people. She got me, you know? And I think to write comfortably, I'd have to know a bit about my partner. Like, can we get along, do we have the same plot interests, etc.

God-modding. I'm not interested in anyone trying to control my character unless I've given them permission to do so.

If I feel I'm putting in much better effort than my partner. Basically if I feel like I'm writing alone.

Excessive drama. Of course there's drama in every story, that's what makes it fun, but I mean just constant, straining dramatics.

Word counts. Just because I can write ten paragraphs doesn't mean that it's necessary.

Super long reply times. We're all busy irl, I totally understand. I'm talking about when my partner just disappears without saying anything for long periods of time repeatedly.

 

[davian]

I match what my partner writes, always. No matter how long the post is.

But I refuse to write less than one paragraph, and if I end up with someone who writes barely anything, I give it up. I care about developing my characters, and I won't spend time in an rp where that isn't happening.

Also inactive characters. When my character storms out of the room or says something dramatic and the other OC just sits there and acts like they don't know what's going on.

 

[James_Sinclair]

Open world plots with no purpose given to my intended character. It appears constantly with plots designed for large number of players. There is no real story building, and it depends too much on the roleplayers to do whatever, which is often pairing off.

Also; war roleplays that have "no killing player characters without permission." Makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Zixochi]

Overpowered characters that have no trouble with any problem I throw at them.

Another is really bland posts and robotic responses (like there was no though about what went into their post)

 

[Lotte]

Untidy threads/not enough info to go with. No ooc chatting. No world-building. No contributing your own ideas. Like, come on, work with me...

 

[Umbrie]

Overpowered characters that have no trouble with any problem I throw at them.

i totally agree that this is annoying. i can understand a character who is really good in one area being challenged by being really bad in another area. for example, a special forces soldier who is extremely skilled at combat and surviving the wilderness, might be bad at leading a non military unit or might have challenges with being a parental figurehead that could cause them problems. i can also understand a character who is really good at persuasing others being extremely fragile when combat is forced on them.

i honestly beleive every character should have something they need help with. the Diplomat needs a skilled bodyguard, the Warrior needs a medic, demolitions guy is needed to clear pathways, a medic needs a sniper to keep the enemy off their backs and the sniper needs the diplomat to make trade deals for weapons.

circular chain of needs. everybody should work together,

 

[Lappi]

(when I see a 5 paragraph response to simple dialogue)

 

[Bealocwealm]

A few of my recurring NOPE scenarios:

1. "Coding/celeb ref/gifs required." If they supply the required coding and allow non-celeb images I'll CONSIDER it. But I'm not here for your celeb-on-celeb fantasies, and as a Gaia refugee... fuck coding requirements. Never got the point.

2. Characters get injured. Their char insta-heals mine. Immediately removes stakes in a dangerous situation; you can get hurt badly and often, np, can insta-heal at any time.

3. Mandatory romance.

4. People who decide to 'help' my chars by violating their basic character concepts. Deformed char? POOF MAGIC AM PRETTYNOW I FIXED IT! Char has PTSD? HAVE A TONIC WHICH MAKES THEM NOT! Please don't RP with chars to 'fix' em. :/ If I have a nonmagical, criminal peasant, it isn't because I REALLY wanted to be playing a magical, law-abiding noble all along.

 

[JulesX]

So as someone who has done a lot of FandomXOC in her time, I have a few things that would make me nope out.

1. During the plotting/brainstorming phase, I get REALLY tilted when people clearly aren't putting much effort into it/focus ONLY on their side.


2. Once the RP starts, it bothers me if someone doesn't give me much to work with/replies with a one-liner after me busting out several paragraphs.

3. If the actual person turns out to be a prick, I'll end it there.

4. There's a few others but I can't even think of them LOL.

 

[Feyre]

Like JulesX 's first point, boy do I hate it when people so obviously only care about what happens to their character/their part of the plot.

I feel like I experience that more in table top RPGs than play-by-post but honestly, my character deserves some attention too. Beyond some attention, I thought this was a joint effort to write a story about us. Ensemble cast. No one main character. 50-50.

Oh and when people do OC/Canon where the OC is very obviously (or sometimes explicitly stated to be) a self-insert and I am very obviously being used as a form of wish-fulfillment for them. That may make me sound a bit mean but yikes.

 

[Luka_Megurine]

As someone who often does mature romance roleplays, I hate it when people get into romance too fast. If it's post number 3 of a roleplay and our characters have done little to actually become acquainted with each other, they're not going to be romantically involved just yet. We're not doing anything past handshakes, and maybe a hug on the first few posts. I also find it frustrating if people drop me when they decide the plot is going nowhere but don't even TRY to remedy the situation.

Additionally, similar to Feyre , I hate people who only care about their characters but in a different way. Mostly, my experience is when people create characters that don't match a set tone or do actions that have 0 to do with the tone or plot. Like, don't have this hunky-dory sunshine-and-rainbows character in my horror or gothic plot. No.

I hate people who only do one-liners in a clearly literate setting and I hate people who just mischaracterize in OC/Canon roleplays or just have terrible character development

 

[B l a z e]

If my style doesn't match with their style or if my partner doesn't give me anything to work with.
I recently dropped a partner because they ignored everything in my post and threw in an op canon character that we hadn't agreed on should be part of the thread.
I stared at that reply for a whole day and wondered how this person could ignore all the things I wrote and decide on something we hadn't discussed. Eventually, I had to realise that this wasn't going to work because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't work with that. I'm usually someone who responds to everything no matter how much it may bother me but ignoring what I wrote and going down your own road without me just isn't going to fly with me. This person might have been better off writing fanfiction.

 

[Divine_Stalker]

Fandom RPs, Canon characters only, no OPs.

Sorry but I don't like playing as someone elses character... it's wierd to me.

 

[Umbrie]

Fandom RPs, Canon characters only, no OPs.

Sorry but I don't like playing as someone elses character... it's wierd to me.

i don't like playing somebody elses character either, unless i truly like that pregenerated character enough to play them, and i prefer to play OCs. OP means overpowered, OC means original content.

but people complain about OP OCs when OP canons are just as bad. take a FF7 RP and 95% of the people will want to play the overpowered characters, like Sephiroth. and in an Avatar RP, everybody is going to to fight over who gets to be the Avatar

 

[Divine_Stalker]

i don't like playing somebody elses character either, unless i truly like that pregenerated character enough to play them, and i prefer to play OCs. OP means overpowered, OC means original content.

but people complain about OP OCs when OP canons are just as bad. take a FF7 RP and 95% of the people will want to play the overpowered characters, like Sephiroth. and in an Avatar RP, everybody is going to to fight over who gets to be the Avatar

Ah i ment OC not OP.

Yea canon characters are cool and all but i cant play as them... Ill temporary take over someone else's character if absolutely needed, still don't like it though as I'm always thinking. "Im gonna derail the character."

 

[Umbrie]

Ah i ment OC not OP.

Yea canon characters are cool and all but i cant play as them... Ill temporary take over someone else's character if absolutely needed, still don't like it though as I'm always thinking. "Im gonna derail the character."

same here. can't stand playing Canons and can't stand playing Pregenerated characters, unless they were exactly what i was going to play anyway. if there just happened to be a small and cute faerie assassin who posed as a 13 year old otaku girl in the list of pregens, you know which one i'm taking. otherwise, pregens aren't my thing, unless they are perfect christmas pregens, meaning made specifically for me, by somebody who knows me.

 

[YarnDrawcia]

Same here. Outside of a very select few (like Luigi from the Super Mario Bros series), I cannot play canon characters for fear of derailment. I do better with forming my own personality with an OC than working with a pre-existing personality that already has its own motivations and the like.