Roleplay Pet Peeves

[JujuBee]

First of all, what makes you think that? Secondly, I wouldn't (especially not if it was valid such as in this case.)  


If you didn't care about my opinion, you wouldn't have replied in the first case. 

Are we going to be childish again?


Chill out. End it. Stop trying to go back and forth. This type of talk isn't worthy enough for my notifications lol.

 

[call me rae]

@The Swedish Chef people are allowed to write their pet peeves in any way they see fit. If you disagree that's fine but let's keep our disagreements civil.


@Jinkai pet peeves open to debate among people on the thread, if you feel someone is being derogatory I would prefer you bring the issue to my attention and I will discipline the person as needed.

 

[JKai]

@call me rae


Okay.


I have another peeve, love ten posts in.

 

[IdeaLover]

Along with not reading instructions, I really get annoyed by those that think they're a special case. Normally when I do a group roleplay I try to make things fair between the players themselves and with interactions between them and NPC's. I honestly cannot fathom the person that reads the instructions, or not, and then presents a character that just doesn't fit. I know everyone loves their OC's and other characters but sometimes joining a roleplay calls for making someone new who is suited for the roleplay and not adapted at varying degrees to fit the roleplay.


Following up on the part where people think it's a personal attack when you attempt to correct them, I'm bad at wording sometimes or I forget something important. If I correct someone it's so things will move smoothly from there. Sometimes I think ahead and find problems that may not even be encountered, but I will still address them.


Lastly is when two people start fighting. There are tons of cases, but I'll present mine because it's funny looking back on it. I used the word stagnant to describe a lake. I should have used still, as stagnant water is generally of low quality. Another player questions in OOC why it was stagnant. I, being my assuming self, said it's just describing the stillness. He said something about no outlet to the ocean and running water being fresher. I asked how that was relevant since water can be stagnant independent of its connection to the ocean and same for salt water versus fresh water. An admin then addressed him asking him the point of this, his response was that he was wondering why my character drank from the stagnant water of the lake. It took far longer than necessary to get to the real point. Beating around the bush just presents more chances at confusion and assumption building. Be direct even if it calls for some bluntness.

 

[Borkus Lazorus]

The non-dialogue character.


Thoughts become the only way of communication, they get mad when others do not have the ability to read their mind. 

Well, I had a mute character once. He was a giant, massless body of water who could only communicate by manipulating his body to form letters and sentences. Still, I agree with you about the forced character trait, especially if the character was a person who took a vow of silence. 


I really hate special snowflake characters. I really, really hated it. 


I remember one time, in this RP, that the other person I was roleplaying with, was a fairly good literate Rper, but her character had the character trait of having chinese foot-binding. You know, the practise of applying crushed pressure to her feet due to it being passed down from her grandma who said it was something to be proud of. Points for cultural context but it got out-banned before the 21st century. Combine this with the fact that she somehow managed to escape outside a giant superhero base without anyone noticing for no reason at all.  It got even worse as her character power was literally having the ability to WTFLOLBBQ everything within her vision. That, when combined with her abusive mother, made me sick of her character. Why didn't she kill her abusive mother in a outburst of her powers, I have no idea. 


Also, people who try to engage in sexual RP. That shit's just wrong from the beginning. 

 

[Ratatoskr]

When GMs say "make long posts because they're easier to reply to." This is likely an unpopular opinion, but I think it's the opposite when it's like upwards of 3 paragraphs or a giant wall of text.

 

[Umbrie]

When GMs say "make long posts because they're easier to reply to." This is likely an unpopular opinion, but I think it's the opposite when it's like upwards of 3 paragraphs or a giant wall of text.

Posts longer than a Paragraph or Two, or Walls of Text as well as Posts that contain Lots of Filler tend to be difficult to reply too. if you can get away with less than 10 lines and still have a pretty full post. you are doing something right. and if you can do a very full feeling 3-5 line post, you are amazing.

 

[punkinblackk]

Seek and find rules. 


Especially seen in 1 on 1 partner search threads. These roleplayers present you with a huge wall of text detailing all their rules, sometimes with spoilers, and challenge you to find all the "keys" you have to present to prove you've read the entire wall of text. 


(Post a smiley 


Comment on a picture


Etc) 


These are often filled with redundant rules, or are so nit picky that most players are immediately turned away. 


The few who aren't. And undergo the quest, often find the op dropping and/or disappearing relatively quickly. 

 

[JustNicole]

When GMs say "make long posts because they're easier to reply to." This is likely an unpopular opinion, but I think it's the opposite when it's like upwards of 3 paragraphs or a giant wall of text.

In my experience, this varies. Posts in roleplay should be used as an opportunity for to react to ongoing situations with your character in both interpersonal and intrapersonal manner. They're the chance for you to develop your character's inner dialogue. Simply having a character react inwardly to an ongoing situation can take 3-4 paragraphs by itself, and I would not consider any of that filler by any means. The longer the post is, the more interpersonal things are usually included in the post, whether it is your character doing things in response to things that happened since their last post or introducing new things for other players to respond to. If your character hardly reacts, it can be difficult to respond and interact with such a character. So, while yes, longer is not always better, longer to a certain point I believe in general results in higher quality writing for most writers with more interpersonal things which offers other writers more things to react and do with their characters in turn.


My one of my roleplay pet peeve is when a writer uses a variety of different fonts and sizes as opposed to keeping a standard theme across all roleplay posts. From a reader's perspective, reading through a roleplay thread is like reading a book. When the font and size are changing every post, it's jarring to read. 


Also, always ALIGN LEFT your text. It's not rocket science. You're not a special snowflake for not doing it. It doesn't make your writing any better. It's done for readability. I hate, hate, hate reading center aligned text, particularly entire roleplay posts. 

 

[welian]

Also, always ALIGN LEFT your text. It's not rocket science. You're not a special snowflake for not doing it. It doesn't make your writing any better. It's done for readability. I hate, hate, hate reading center aligned text, particularly entire roleplay posts. 

SWEET BABY JESUS THIS


//typography rant

 

[call me rae]

Also, always ALIGN LEFT your text. It's not rocket science. You're not a special snowflake for not doing it. It doesn't make your writing any better. It's done for readability. I hate, hate, hate reading center aligned text, particularly entire roleplay posts. 

My first reaction to this was..but wait how else am I suppose to align my text? Then I finished the complaint and i was like.....oooh. 


No. 


Just no.


Seriously. People who just make their posts unnecessarily complicated. For why? It's like it doesn't make your stuff more interesting or better. The only thing I do is I might align the whole block center if I'm on my mobile ( like put the margins to align center then justified ) because it's slightly easier for me to read that way. But I'm not married to keeping it that way.


And maybe if I have like five people talking I'll color code the speech ... but I'm hella lazy so probably not.

 

[Shireling]

You ever notice how nobody is married or divorced in RPs? 

 

[Vudukudu]

You ever notice how nobody is married or divorced in RPs? 

But if they're married or divorced how can literally everyone be a hot adolescent or 20-something? 

 

[wonderandawe]

But if they're married or divorced how can literally everyone be a hot adolescent or 20-something? 

This is why I like dice games.  "I only got a few points to spread around and I hate playing stupid characters.  Time to use Appearance as a dump stat."

 

[Shireling]

But if they're married or divorced how can literally everyone be a hot adolescent or 20-something? 

In a medieval setting, they would still all probably be married. But you have a point. 

 

[call me rae]

You ever notice how nobody is married or divorced in RPs? 

I love playing married folk. But sadly the few times I tried before people somehow interpreted married to - our characters are sex fiends and spend all their time trying to make babies.


And I'm like.... the heck kind of married folk you been hanging out with?!!  


I did do a really fun plot where a wife had an abusive dick of a husband and she tried to seduce the handyman into killing him. 


I am kind of sad we never got to finish that. But again see - somehow confused my character blatantly taking advantage of handyman to her being a sex fiend. 

 

[DragonessWithin]

People who don't read rules. Reading rules is something I personally IMMEDIATELY do on almost any site, and then there's some jerkface who thinks "lol, I'm just gonna do whatever and blatantly ignore that rules exist." Like... They're there for a reason, my dude.

 

[snowstormspawn]

-When people don't contribute to the plot. I don't want to write everything myself.That's what I'm roleplaying for.


-Being expected to read a person's mind from a two-sentence post and trying to figure out what they want me to do


-Roleplays that die after a week (RIP) 
-When I create an older, less-attractive character and nobody wants to rp with me... I try 

 

 

[ewolf20]

In my experience, this varies. Posts in roleplay should be used as an opportunity for to react to ongoing situations with your character in both interpersonal and intrapersonal manner. They're the chance for you to develop your character's inner dialogue. Simply having a character react inwardly to an ongoing situation can take 3-4 paragraphs by itself, and I would not consider any of that filler by any means. The longer the post is, the more interpersonal things are usually included in the post, whether it is your character doing things in response to things that happened since their last post or introducing new things for other players to respond to. If your character hardly reacts, it can be difficult to respond and interact with such a character. So, while yes, longer is not always better, longer to a certain point I believe in general results in higher quality writing for most writers with more interpersonal things which offers other writers more things to react and do with their characters in turn.


My one of my roleplay pet peeve is when a writer uses a variety of different fonts and sizes as opposed to keeping a standard theme across all roleplay posts. From a reader's perspective, reading through a roleplay thread is like reading a book. When the font and size are changing every post, it's jarring to read. 


Also, always ALIGN LEFT your text. It's not rocket science. You're not a special snowflake for not doing it. It doesn't make your writing any better. It's done for readability. I hate, hate, hate reading center aligned text, particularly entire roleplay posts. 

Personally, and this might get call out as lazy or someone who doesn't appreciate art, I seen them as unnecessary. but , if you ever writing a book, you might as well use it as other people appreciate that stuff. Maybe it's because I use to screenplays or possibly afaird that my sentences won't flow. I just never considered adding them in. Sometimes they come off as tell instead of show for the most part.

 

[Ratatoskr]

-When people don't contribute to the plot. I don't want to write everything myself.That's what I'm roleplaying for.


-Being expected to read a person's mind from a two-sentence post and trying to figure out what they want me to do


-Roleplays that die after a week (RIP) 
-When I create an older, less-attractive character and nobody wants to rp with me... I try 

 

There's another RP site I go on and on said site almost no one makes their character over the age of 25 unless it's an official character from a fandom.

 

[snowstormspawn]

There's another RP site I go on and on said site almost no one makes their character over the age of 25 unless it's an official character from a fandom.

I've seen that. And I don't understand why (because the official character is obviously appealing to play even though they're older) few give them a chance. On some level I understand it. Younger people find it hard to relate to old characters, and the media they watch (Tv shows, etc.) usually feature teenagers or actors in their 20s, so that's probably a big factor. 
 

 

[Shireling]

I've found there's nothing more entertaining than interjecting a Korean War vet with creaky joints into a plot revolving around the shenaniganry of a few melodramatic teenagers. 


"We used to pile fucks like you five feet high in Korea and use 'em for sandbags." 

 

[call me rae]

I've seen that. And I don't understand why (because the official character is obviously appealing to play even though they're older) few give them a chance. On some level I understand it. Younger people find it hard to relate to old characters, and the media they watch (Tv shows, etc.) usually feature teenagers or actors in their 20s, so that's probably a big factor. 
 

I really just think people stick to their age demographic. Especially since kids don't really understand adult mindsets well. Like I had someone trying to play an adult who was dating a single parent character of mine and my character was like an actual mom. As an adult with several younger siblings I could make her more mature with like a job, a devotion to her child, etc. basically just a standard mom character.


whereas she played what kids think adults are. Someone who can go to parties, drink all the time, and basically do whatever they want. So pretty much the tv portrayal of a twenty something.


so I think a lot of why there are no adults is just because there are a lot of younger kids who don't know how to play them. And the people that are adults just get accustomed to playing lower ages

 

[JKai]

Surprises, plot twists whatever you want to call them which involve my character explicitly without my permission. I'm talking about someone who decides to basically control the history of my character to create their twist.

 

[Ternunda Hunter]

I have, finally, learned to start matching the effort others put into the RP rather than put the same amount I always put in.

My largest pet peeve is people who do not drive plot in their post. Every one of my posts will push the plot forward in one way or another and it gets really exhausting when you have to do all the driving on your own 100% of the time. 


Also, promising to be a multi-para poster and not doing so. Don't swoon me with your words! Let me continue by saying I do not expect every post to be multi-paragraph. What I am talking about is when someone is horribly lacking in any kind of description in their posts to the point it becomes two lines of useless dialogue. Setting scene and properly writing actions is a huge part of role play and writing in general. Quality over Quantity. But, quality is not 1-2 liners where nothing happens and someone says, "Oh. Thanks."


I never used to understand why people got so upset about god modding when I first started RPing... Ages ago. But, I completely understand, now. It's not a hard thing to avoid doing. Taking the power away from the character owner and determining how their character will be affected in any given situation is wildly inappropriate. 

Finally, people who feel personally attacked when you offer feedback. RPing is a 2-way street. I always ask for feedback, especially in more sensitive scenes (I write a lot of dark RP). And one of those tricks is to give 2 positive points for every negative (I learned that from one of my current RP partners ). That's great, softens the blow, I'm sure. But, I'm not saying, "You're a shit writer please let me sparta kick you off a Peruvian mountain now." I'm saying, "This is something I didn't really like, but I enjoy writing with you enough that I'd like to address this." OR "I think you are a capable enough writer and this would make you that much better."