Roleplay Pet Peeves

[Archene]

I've had my tiny list of bad things in the past. If I remember well, not too long ago I've posted in a thread here about what I dislike. But really, after reading this one (and the endless replies to another one), I've noticed how picky I might be.


GMs that aren't quite reactive to problems with their roleplay, either consistency among the players, godmodding or even power playing. GMs that simply accept CSes without not really reading them. I've seen people getting into RP with CSes that contradict some unbreakable truth of the RP or some bit of logic, that when later called on it the GM said he 'missed' the detail. Worst yet is when events related to the broken character can't be really retconned because the RP has gone for long enough.


All in all, bad GMs tend to mess up my roleplays more than bad roleplayers themselves. I know they can't always be there and take attention to every little detail, but the same way they ask players to give some more thought into their characters, their posts and everything else related to their RP, I also hope they pay enough attention to it for it to not simply break apart.


Beyond things that are out of character, the one thing that bothers me on characters is... when they lack depth once in the roleplay. While I hope that CSes in RPs I GM or co-GM have at least some depth, I understand that some players prefer to let their characters breath through the RP, and that is fine. What isn't fine is when a character lacks any amount of consistency and is simply random beyond any amount of sense.


(Strangely, I haven't had these problems around here. So thank you people of RPN for letting me have such enjoyable RP around here.)

 

[welian]

@Archene I hear you on GMs approving bad characters. I GM a lot, and I've done that before. I feel bad when someone points it out because I know I'm frustrating my other players. Usually when I miss critical details, it's because I'm stressed out and overloaded with RP duties, and don't have anyone else to review apps.


In general, my biggest pet peeve is when people aren't active. Like, your time is valuable, yeah, but so is mine. And if I have been asking you a question about your character and I've not gotten a direct response in three weeks, then I'm not going to keep you in the RP. 

 

[Coward]

It's a weird one and not that common, but not fielding replies to your own interest check. This is kind of similar to GMs dropping, but somehow more frustrating to me.


Like this one-sided conversation I had a while ago.


Them: [1x1 Interest check that I liked the sound of, has the usual 'Please PM me!']


Me: [in a PM, 3 hours after they posted] Hey! I think think I fit your criteria blah blah.


Them: [reads PM 5 minutes after I sent it. No response for two days.]


Me: Uh.. should I take this as a no, then? I'm not offended, I'd just like to know, please.


Them: [reads PM, no response ever despite the fact they were online multiple times a day.]


Why would you do this? Maybe I'm not your cup of tea, or you changed your mind. That's totally fine. I don't have that much free time, though, so just bloody tell me you're not interested so I can get on and ask someone else.


I think people who ask for writing samples do this more often, and I find it truly obnoxious. If you're going to be 'picky' you should have the balls to reject people. Don't just wuss out and never respond. RPing with you is not such a rare honour that you're justified in wasting people's time.

 

[Sumiwrecko]

This one probably applies a bit more to chat RPs- it's also not that big of a deal, but I get a headache whenever someone speaks for my character, rather than just letting me do so myself. Something like "X stares as Y does this" just gets on my nerves, honestly.

 

[Chordling]

I feel like my roleplaying experience becomes hindered when someone attempts to force a good relationship between a set of characters.  Of course, if it is in the nature of the character to try to force bonds, I get that.  But when all of the gusto is coming from the creator, it becomes a problem.  It does not matter whether it is with someone else's character or my own.  The act of unnaturally forming a relationship between characters is uncomfortable for everyone in the roleplay.  Relationships of any kind between the characters in a roleplay are vital.  It deteriorates the plot when someone breaks the authenticity of it.

 

[Trust]

*joins what I believed to be a fantasy RP with some level of realistic physics, makes a character with a gun where everyone else uses guns, but gives her no melee combat potential and the gun is single-fire*


them: oh, it would be pretty interesting if our characters fight, huh?


me: yeah it would.


(we go into a hypothetical battle between eachothers characters in OOC)


them: ... My character will be able to block your bullets with their swords!


me: uhh... No, he wouldn't 


creator of RP: yeah he would.


me: fuck this, this shit ain't realistic.


them: OMG BUT YOU CAN TOTALLY HIT BULLETS WITH SWORDS IRL, I SAW IT ON A VIDEO.


me: yes, they were most likely ridiculously experienced people with precisely set statistics on everything.


Your character has about a month of swordplay experience.


them: I know but he is stronger than your character


me: wtf does that have to do with anything...


them: and he would be able to hit the bullets.


me: what's the point, if he can hit bullets, I literally can't win


creator: oh, but you would still be able to hit them


me: bruh, getting hit by a bullets would be good enough to incapacitate them


creator & them: but he would be able to hit the bullets


me: FUCK THIS SHIT, SICK OF IDIOTS, LEAVIN' THE RP.


I really wish people would stick to their genres rather than suddenly going from one to another, it's either realistic, or it isn't, not both.

 

[fluticasone]

@Sumiwrecko


Ooh, I never realized this could be a pet peeve. I occasionally take liberties with characters I'm rping with (such as assuming they answered to something my character said and similar sequences where I expect some form of reply from the other party), but this is so that the flow of the roleplay isn't interrupted and we don't have 17398713 posts of back and forth interaction, especially if it's a minor action. I'd rather they didn't write for my character's speech, but roleplaying to me is collaborative. if someone feels the need to slightly control my character to keep their flow, I honestly don't mind.


edit: wait, just saw chat roleplays. If it's chat rps, then it makes more sense for that to be irksome.

 

[eclipsa]

Idk if any of this has been said... but here we go. All from personal experiences, whether I was the GM or not.

• Protagonist Syndrome - In some roleplays, there have been clear protagonists. That's fine. That is 100% fine. But what bothers me is when there's not supposed to be a protagonist and all the person is concerned with is making sure their character develops, even at the cost of others' lives.
  
• Arguing with the GM - This is self explanatory. I've been in multiple rps where someone would argue with the GM about what should happen. It's annoying, rude, and downright disheartening.
  
• Cultural Insensitivity - Self explanatory. Pls stop this.
  
• Illogical Things - Literally read the other day about twins born days apart. Or people surviving impossible situations with no supernatural help. It's just. Goodbye.
  
• Complaining About Reqs - I only do detailed roleplays, and therefore all my CS reqs are relatively detailed. If you want to join a detailed roleplay, please expect detailed reqs and don't complain about it.
  
• Skill Level - This is not meant to be elitist I promise. What I'm saying is when it's a super detailed rp and you can barely push out two paragraphs (with 3 sentences each) don't join.
  
• Finishing Things - When people don't finish their CS, or their bios have a ending that isn't an ending. It wastes a GM's time to read that.
  
• Disappearing - I'm guilty of disappearing because of health issues and trust me, I'm annoyed with myself. I just hate when people show interest and then never follow through??? I hate it. Too many of my roleplays have died because people never came through.
  
• Gross Representation Issues - This is something very important to me. I'm tired of seeing people using mental illnesses to make their characters ~~quirky!!!~~ because they're not quirks. They're illnesses. I'm tired of seeing Schizophrenia as inherently violent. I'm so tired of all of this. Anorexia isn't a body type, Depression isn't a personality trait, Schizophrenia isn't a quirk. Mental illnesses are serious and deadly. They should be treated as such.
  
  
  People Who Get Mad at This - I hate it when people defend their choices // defend doing it // tell me to ""get over it"" because it's ""not that bad"" [COLOR= rgb(84, 84, 84)](╯°□°)╯︵ ┻[/COLOR][COLOR= rgb(84, 84, 84)]━┻[/COLOR]
  
  

There's probably more, but these are on the top of my head.

 

[Sumiwrecko]

Idk if any of this has been said... but here we go. All from personal experiences, whether I was the GM or not.

• Protagonist Syndrome - In some roleplays, there have been clear protagonists. That's fine. That is 100% fine. But what bothers me is when there's not supposed to be a protagonist and all the person is concerned with is making sure their character develops, even at the cost of others' lives.
  
• Arguing with the GM - This is self explanatory. I've been in multiple rps where someone would argue with the GM about what should happen. It's annoying, rude, and downright disheartening.
  
• Cultural Insensitivity - Self explanatory. Pls stop this.
  
• Illogical Things - Literally read the other day about twins born days apart. Or people surviving impossible situations with no supernatural help. It's just. Goodbye.
  
• Complaining About Reqs - I only do detailed roleplays, and therefore all my CS reqs are relatively detailed. If you want to join a detailed roleplay, please expect detailed reqs and don't complain about it.
  
• Skill Level - This is not meant to be elitist I promise. What I'm saying is when it's a super detailed rp and you can barely push out two paragraphs (with 3 sentences each) don't join.
  
• Finishing Things - When people don't finish their CS, or their bios have a ending that isn't an ending. It wastes a GM's time to read that.
  
• Disappearing - I'm guilty of disappearing because of health issues and trust me, I'm annoyed with myself. I just hate when people show interest and then never follow through??? I hate it. Too many of my roleplays have died because people never came through.
  
• Gross Representation Issues - This is something very important to me. I'm tired of seeing people using mental illnesses to make their characters ~~quirky!!!~~ because they're not quirks. They're illnesses. I'm tired of seeing Schizophrenia as inherently violent. I'm so tired of all of this. Anorexia isn't a body type, Depression isn't a personality trait, Schizophrenia isn't a quirk. Mental illnesses are serious and deadly. They should be treated as such.
  
  People Who Get Mad at This - I hate it when people defend their choices // defend doing it // tell me to ""get over it"" because it's ""not that bad"" (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
  

There's probably more, but these are on the top of my head.

If anything, it's the Skill Level one that bothers me too, on a lesser scale.. I don't blame people for not writing out paragraphs, but it feels like I'm doing more work than I bargained for, especially if I'm writing paragraphs and junk.

 

[eclipsa]

If anything, it's the Skill Level one that bothers me too, on a lesser scale.. I don't blame people for not writing out paragraphs, but it feels like I'm doing more work than I bargained for, especially if I'm writing paragraphs and junk.

I don't blame them for that. I didn't used to write much either. That's fine. Do what you wanna do, there's nothing wrong with it. I'm talking exclusively about signing up for detailed group roleplays and being unable to follow the requirements. That's a waste of a GM's time.

 

[Sumiwrecko]

I don't blame them for that. I didn't used to write much either. That's fine. Do what you wanna do, there's nothing wrong with it. I'm talking exclusively about signing up for detailed group roleplays and being unable to follow the requirements. That's a waste of a GM's time.

Ooh, yeah, almost forgot about the simple/casual/detailed stuff on this site. In that case, it is a really big nuisance, then.

 

[jinkx]

• Cultural Insensitivity - Self explanatory. Pls stop this.
  
• Complaining About Reqs - I only do detailed roleplays, and therefore all my CS reqs are relatively detailed. If you want to join a detailed roleplay, please expect detailed reqs and don't complain about it.
  
• Skill Level - This is not meant to be elitist I promise. What I'm saying is when it's a super detailed rp and you can barely push out two paragraphs (with 3 sentences each) don't join.
  
• Gross Representation Issues - This is something very important to me. I'm tired of seeing people using mental illnesses to make their characters ~~quirky!!!~~ because they're not quirks. They're illnesses. I'm tired of seeing Schizophrenia as inherently violent. I'm so tired of all of this. Anorexia isn't a body type, Depression isn't a personality trait, Schizophrenia isn't a quirk. Mental illnesses are serious and deadly. They should be treated as such.
  

^^ the ones i agree with the most, though all other ones were great too


off the top of my head:

• over-powered characters 
  
• "quirky characters"
  
• characters having a weird eye/hair colour (outside of the right universe)
  
• characters having a weirdly long and hard to spell name that the author clearly made-up
  
• "crazy/psychopathic" characters
  
• people that don't do any research into "psychopaths" before writing one
  
• characters with no motivation 
  
• characters that are "anti-social" and never interact with other players
  
• people that use their username as a character name
  
• poorly written trans/gender-conforming characters
  
• people that join roleplays for a fandom they don't know about (??)
  
• gay characters who's personality and entire character is "they're gay"
  
• fandom roleplayers not knowing how to write canon characters
  
• self-inserts
  
• one-liners
  
• "sighs" x 100
  
• everybody having a shy character 
  
• people that say "no gay characters please, it doesn't work with the roleplay" in their soulmate-based roleplay
  
• people using youtubers as faceclaims
  
• people that sign-up and never post
  

that's just the few things that have annoyed me recently

 

[sakigamis]

• people that join roleplays for a fandom they don't know about (??)
  

A lot of my preferred fandoms to write are sorta niche and it's damn near impossible to find RPers for them, so I usually try to explain the worldbuilding and such so that people can join in even if they're not familiar with the work. The real issue is when people either don't read or disregard said worldbuilding. It hasn't happened lately but the last time I tried to make a Deadman Wonderland group RP I got a bunch of OCs with multiple Branches of Sin (you can have slight variations on a theme but ultimately everyone gets one), Branches that would kill the person if they tried to use it (because BoS is blood), the same stage name as a canon character when I had every unavailable stage name listed, stage names that weren't the names of birds... It was a disaster and they started ignoring me anyways so I just abandoned it to let the other players do as they pleased.

 

[eclipsa]

• "crazy/psychopathic" characters
  
• people that don't do any research into "psychopaths" before writing one
  

!!!!! THIS

characters that are "anti-social" and never interact with other players

ALSO THIS. I literally made it a requirement that the characters all know each other (at least somewhat because it wasn't a huge town) and a girl was like "okay but like he doesn't know anyone so idk"

 

[Eterniti]

people using youtubers as faceclaims

Sorry for being stupid, but what does "faceclaim" mean?


Kind of scared I'm guilty of it now...

 

[eclipsa]

Sorry for being stupid, but what does "faceclaim" mean?


Kind of scared I'm guilty of it now...

The face image you use as your character's appearance

 

[Eterniti]

The face image you use as your character's appearance

Oh, thank goodness!


I'm in the clear, then.

 

[dva]

@Syzygy you mentioned cultural insensitivity, and i have noticed that... a lot ...on this website. like if you choose a face claim that is a different race than you, that's 100% okay, but you have to know how to write that race. you can't expect that someone's race doesn't somehow play into their life... i also see a lot of fetishization on this site. it's so abundant that i'm afraid to speak up because i feel as if i'd have a 100-man army after me, lol.

 

[Trust]

@Syzygy you mentioned cultural insensitivity, and i have noticed that... a lot ...on this website. like if you choose a face claim that is a different race than you, that's 100% okay, but you have to know how to write that race. you can't expect that someone's race doesn't somehow play into their life... i also see a lot of fetishization on this site. it's so abundant that i'm afraid to speak up because i feel as if i'd have a 100-man army after me, lol.

​

 

[call me rae]

@Syzygy you mentioned cultural insensitivity, and i have noticed that... a lot ...on this website. like if you choose a face claim that is a different race than you, that's 100% okay, but you have to know how to write that race. you can't expect that someone's race doesn't somehow play into their life... i also see a lot of fetishization on this site. it's so abundant that i'm afraid to speak up because i feel as if i'd have a 100-man army after me, lol.

Do you mean ethnicity? Like someone who is American playing as someone who is from Australia or whatever? Cuz if it's just skin tone then I wouldn't think it would be that different in most of the places that roleplays take place in around here.


I.e. - America, Japan ( well maybe because they can be kind of zenophobic ) , or random Urban Fantasy / Fantasy / Sci - Fi / Made Up World number 15679813498.

 

[jinkx]

@Syzygy you mentioned cultural insensitivity, and i have noticed that... a lot ...on this website. like if you choose a face claim that is a different race than you, that's 100% okay, but you have to know how to write that race. you can't expect that someone's race doesn't somehow play into their life... i also see a lot of fetishization on this site. it's so abundant that i'm afraid to speak up because i feel as if i'd have a 100-man army after me, lol.

i've never seen any fetishisation. any examples? i'm just curious ^.^

 

[eclipsa]

Do you mean ethnicity? Like someone who is American playing as someone who is from Australia or whatever? Cuz if it's just skin tone then I wouldn't think it would be that different in most of the places that roleplays take place in around here.


I.e. - America, Japan ( well maybe because they can be kind of zenophobic ) , or random Urban Fantasy / Fantasy / Sci - Fi / Made Up World number 15679813498.

Skin tone actually makes a big difference in America. Racism is abundant here and will without-a-doubt affect most if not all POC. Most places in the world still have a lot of racism very prominent in their cultures.

 

[Raven Linwood]

• When you and an user are both hyped for the plot/idea/characters you've made and they are so excited for the RP, but suddenly stop replying after the first four or five posts and never messages you again. Has happened more times than I'd liked to.
  
• People getting mad because of the lenght reply. Yeah, I get it, I wouldn't want a one liner if I sent a lot of paragraphs, but isn't it a little bit exaggerated when you write a hundred-words paragraph and your partner tells you it isn't enough? Well.
  
• Every character having an angsty life.
  
• People who only want to play one type of character (generally female/sub/uke)
  
• I don't mind one liners when it's a chat RP, but... please.
  
• Not doing enough research for the characters. I mean, if you're going to play a canon, then please know how to play it.
  
• Lack of action in RPs. Sometimes it seems it can't get slower.
  

At the moment those are the only ones I can think about.

 

[dva]

i've never seen any fetishisation. any examples? i'm just curious ^.^

ahh i'm gonna get pitchforks and mobs sent after me after this;;


a lot ... and i mean ... a lot ... of korean rp's. that's fine if like you have an idea inspired by korea, or it just happens to be in korea, but to call it a korean rp and not once touch upon the korean aspect on the rp, just have all the characters be korean is kinda weird. that's fetishization. also i've seen so many sexualized latinas and the only black women i've seen being the "tough, done with everyone's shit, don't touch me" type of person and it makes me sad

 

[call me rae]

Skin tone actually makes a big difference in America. Racism is abundant here and will without-a-doubt affect most if not all POC. Most places in the world still have a lot of racism very prominent in their cultures.

Well yeah but if you think about it what are most roleplays about here? Romance or adventure. I.e. Character A falls in love with Character B and they live happily and dramatically ever after. Or we're a people doing a thing to stop a guy from destroying the world or whatever.


Most of the roleplays on this site aren't doing anything in which race is going to be a factor. And those that do have race be a factor are made up prejudices anyway. Like how vampires think werewolves are the scum of the earth or whatever.


I mean I can see how you might be offended but for me a character who is black, a character who is white, a character who is purple with fusia spots. They're all gonna be played exactly the same. It doesn't matter what they look like because appearance isn't really that important to the roleplay.


Hell even in romance roleplays it's just one aspect ( of hopefully many ) Character A finds attractive about Character B.


For the same reason that I would say the same thing about playing a character with a non mainstream gender or sexuality. 


Unless the purpose of your roleplay is to bring attention to a specific societal issue than I wouldn't let being gay / straight / a-sexual / a sentient toaster who speaks in lyrics effect how you portray your character.


Now I'm not saying your opinion is invalid I am just saying that most people roleplay to write a story. It's all make believe. And even if they are portraying people in a way you find distasteful there is often a reason for that.


Whether it's ignorance, a plot point to the story itself, or even their own personal beliefs. As long as they are not attacking people OOC I wouldn't take it too much to heart.