Roleplay Pet Peeves

[VitricHearts]

That drives me nuts. Like I will continuously ask people throughout the planning process - so is this okay? do you have a different idea?


And their response is usually pretty much just - whatevs -.


Only to have them come back at me with oh I don't like this. I don't like that. Your being too controlling.


It's like *incoherent scream* then why the hell didn't you actually contribute if you want something different? I can't freaking read you mind. Ugh that is an automatic - fuck this I'm done bye.

Holy hell I was going to mention something like this. Except when someone asks you to contribute, and on one small occasion you happen to, and then they CHANGE what you've contributed (which is perfectly suitable as is) to make it better suited to their preferences.


My last rp was a 1v1 that wasn't on this site, I let the other bloke lead the rp and create the setting since I didn't have any distinct idea. I'm not a picky person so whatever he had composed I went along with..... He would tell me however, that I was free to contribute whatever I like whenever I'd like, because it was a joint narrative after all. However, when I was given the opportunity to insert something interesting into the story, just some small element I would've liked to be in control of, considering I introduced it (in this case it was an injured fox kit our characters had happened upon), he literally took every element I described (even after confirming with me OOC what those elements were, including the fact that the fox was hostile, a completely normal fox, and the fact that it was injured) to make the thing totally okay with being petted, that it could talk (it was a medieval/fantasy rp but a randomly talking fox pissed me off since the other beasts our characters encountered were most certainly mute) and that the injury was unimportant to fox's function. It ticked me off so much I kept delaying responding to the rp (even though I wanted to out of respect for him, unfortunately his contribution killed my muse) until he eventually stopped asking me to reply, lol.


Seriously though, if we're to contribute evenly to a piece of work, then I expect mutual respect towards the ideas presented; discussion followed by a bit of tinkering is okay, but don't trod on my unique sense of creativity because someone else thinks what they can propose is better. I ain't an idea-bank here to deliver ideas for others to masticate and spit out as they see fit; I, like so many, like to see my ideas come to fruition too. Writers ignorant of this are better off sticking to fanfiction.

 

[JujuBee]

That drives me nuts. Like I will continuously ask people throughout the planning process - so is this okay? do you have a different idea?


And their response is usually pretty much just - whatevs -.


Only to have them come back at me with oh I don't like this. I don't like that. Your being too controlling.


It's like *incoherent scream* then why the hell didn't you actually contribute if you want something different? I can't freaking read you mind. Ugh that is an automatic - fuck this I'm done bye.

I completely get this one and it's frustrating af. But what's even more frustrating is when you actually have someone you're planning with and then once the rp starts they go and do something completely different and no matter how much planning you do they keep switching it up. Then that's the point where I either just drop it or let them do what they want but not give them the satisfaction of having my character react in a certain way.

 

[JujuBee]

Holy hell I was going to mention something like this. Except when someone asks you to contribute, and on one small occasion you happen to, and then they CHANGE what you've contributed (which is perfectly suitable as is) to make it better suited to their preferences.


My last rp was a 1v1 that wasn't on this site, I let the other bloke lead the rp and create the setting since I didn't have any distinct idea. I'm not a picky person so whatever he had composed I went along with..... He would tell me however, that I was free to contribute whatever I like whenever I'd like, because it was a joint narrative after all. However, when I was given the opportunity to insert something interesting into the story, just some small element I would've liked to be in control of, considering I introduced it (in this case it was an injured fox kit our characters had happened upon), he literally took every element I described (even after confirming with me OOC what those elements were, including the fact that the fox was hostile, a completely normal fox, and the fact that it was injured) to make the thing totally okay with being petted, that it could talk (it was a medieval/fantasy rp but a randomly talking fox pissed me off since the other beasts our characters encountered were most certainly mute) and that the injury was unimportant to fox's function. It ticked me off so much I kept delaying responding to the rp (even though I wanted to out of respect for him, unfortunately his contribution killed my muse) until he eventually stopped asking me to reply, lol.


Seriously though, if we're to contribute evenly to a piece of work, then I expect mutual respect towards the ideas presented; discussion followed by a bit of tinkering is okay, but don't trod on my unique sense of creativity because someone else thinks what they can propose is better. I ain't an idea-bank here to deliver ideas for others to masticate and spit out as they see fit; I, like so many, like to see my ideas come to fruition too. Writers ignorant of this are better off sticking to fanfiction.

You literally just said everything I posted. I just never read yours xD


But I feel you so much on this.

 

[VitricHearts]

@JujuBee I'm glad you can relate. c':


Also, I absolutely love this thread. xD  It brings to light aaaaaaaall those awful things I have seen and experienced in my 6 or so years of roleplay. Although I have participated in hardly anything over two roleplays on this site, I have witnessed enough here and  elsewhere to know what exactly drives myself and others to the point of wanting to abandon the roleplay (and generally subsequently doing so).


But I thought I might comment on the talk regarding complaints about characters, especially in the case of Mary Sues and powerplaying, since this really always interests me. When I first started rping, at age 12, it was all about being the best, having a cool or likeable character who was powerful and, usually, unassailable. My first human OC was a HUGE Mary Sue, and while it's something I'm certainly ashamed of, I do think it's helped me understand individual motivations to roleplay and how that translates into characters and the way they are played. Roleplay is generally a means of entertainment or escape, and more often than not, an amalgamation of the two. It's purpose, in that case, is to enjoy oneself, and to have fun.


The extent to which people take this, however, is what counts. I believe that when your idea of "fun" begins to impinge on someone else's idea of fun, that's when you're doing something wrong. It's for this reason I take the view that preferences aren't a big deal when it comes to making characters; you should be able to create a character that you do find entertaining and can love. Personally, I LOVE playing male characters, and although I can play both genders, I have an unquestionable bias towards designing and playing male characters that I honestly can't explain very well, lol. Alongside this, my characters tend to be young and attractive, which I will easily admit is a bias that could use some revision.


But at the end of the day, these are simply character preferences, and they don't effect the quality of the rp necessarily, unless you're seeing the same thing over and over again (I understand bland characters and how frustrating they can be, undoubtedly). What matters, in my opinion, is how you're playing your character, and with what motivational preferences. If you only derive pleasure from seeing your characters succeed, your character is most likely going to be an awful combination of wonderful traits that result in an unfair experience from which other rpers will derive no fun at all. I feel that, eventually this gets boring for the powerplayer anyway. Powerful characters are boring characters. It may just be me, but seeing my characters suffer to get what they want, or to be weak and come to terms with their weakness, or to pretend to be powerful but know, deep down, that they are far lesser than what they assert, is what interests me. Also seeing other people laugh/cry at my characters, coming to love them deeply or despise them for who they are and what they've done, THAT'S what's fun. (Although it's always a concern to ensure your character doesn't flip over to become the most angsty, most edgy, most antisocial, most tragic thing that ever existed.... while I enjoy some forms of extremism in certain character traits, its important to maintain SOME sense of normality and realism overall. That only really comes with experience.)


Anyway, to sum up this tirelessly long reflection, it all comes down to your motivation to roleplay at the end of the day, is what I think. It changes over time, given experience; amateur roleplayers are generally the ones with the sweet characters who are ALSO smart and ALSO assertive and ALSO fall in love really easily and ALSO are very beautiful and ALSO are very unique and ALSO have huge boobs and ALSO have some issue that may require attention at the drop of a hat and so on and so forth. This sort of self-centered and repetitive powerplaying gets boring quickly, you start to look to detriment and character dynamics to truly entertain. Regardless, I think when you join with roleplayers who share similar motivations, that's when you get the best roleplaying experience.

 

[jinkx]

people leaving the roleplay with no explanation


come back we need you, you're already too involved in the plot to leave


and then they come online but don't come back to the roleplay??


did i upset you or something?

 

[Trust]

people leaving the roleplay with no explanation


come back we need you, you're already too involved in the plot to leave


and then they come online but don't come back to the roleplay??


did i upset you or something?

They may have lost interest... 

 

[jinkx]

then they should say they lost interest??

 

[call me rae]

people leaving the roleplay with no explanation


come back we need you, you're already too involved in the plot to leave


and then they come online but don't come back to the roleplay??


did i upset you or something?

Yeah a lot of people don't like conflict so when they loose interest or whatever they just ghost instead of potentially getting caught up in drama with leaving.

 

[Inner Power]

Yeah a lot of people don't like conflict so when they loose interest or whatever they just ghost instead of potentially getting caught up in drama with leaving.

Me personally, I'll be straightforward. I will communicate with my partners to see what can be done to bring back my interest and the same if my partners lose interest themselves. First talk about it. If nothing can be done, nothing can be done.


On a side note,


I don't like taking the time to brainstorm with a partner about a solid plot, write a long opener, only for it never to get a response.

 

[call me rae]

Me personally, I'll be straightforward. I will communicate with my partners to see what can be done to bring back my interest and the same if my partners lose interest themselves. First talk about it. If nothing can be done, nothing can be done.


On a side note,


I don't like taking the time to brainstorm with a partner about a solid plot, write a long opener, only for it never to get a response.

Lol I think it's an experience thing. I'll be honest and straightforward myself, but that is because I'm okay with offending someone and not roleplay with them anymore.


i mean I'm not rude or anything but the reason people ghost is cuz they're afraid of offending them

 

[JujuBee]

Lol I think it's an experience thing. I'll be honest and straightforward myself, but that is because I'm okay with offending someone and not roleplay with them anymore.


i mean I'm not rude or anything but the reason people ghost is cuz they're afraid of offending them

I'd rather tell someone than bring the roleplay to a halt. When I'm a GM myself I make it KNOWN that if you DO NOT want to be a part of the roleplay- TELL ME. It pisses me off to no end when people in a roleplay are on and post on other things but never in the roleplay.


If they choose not to then I'm the type that will send a message either asking or telling them that they're out.

 

[lebensmude]

Okay if I'm being honest a lot of things don't bother me. I'd like to think I'm pretty chill but I despise when all I can find are sex roleplays. It seems that all I can find on Any other website that isn't a roleplay forum or tumblr is sex. Sexual roleplays are cool but come on, all the time? It's annoying, that and when specific partners try to hear things towards sex when there's no need for it. 








Sex roleplays are cool! But they shouldn't have to be the main thing all the time.

 

[jinkx]

Okay if I'm being honest a lot of things don't bother me. I'd like to think I'm pretty chill but I despise when all I can find are sex roleplays. It seems that all I can find on Any other website that isn't a roleplay forum or tumblr is sex. Sexual roleplays are cool but come on, all the time? It's annoying, that and when specific partners try to hear things towards sex when there's no need for it. 








Sex roleplays are cool! But they shouldn't have to be the main thing all the time.

luckily for you, they completely are banned on here. 

 

[lebensmude]

luckily for you, they completely are banned on here. 

I saw that and I was really glad about that honestly. 

 

[Storytale]

In the case of ship. The only difference is the characters are in a relationship already and i put alot of working planning shit now suddenly the ship gets brken off and i'm a bit annoying cause if i knew the ship would end without a justified ending i'm going to upset. Because that is weeks of planning , waiting for replies and working out how to make the rp flow.

I get that, I really do. I will only break a ship if I feel that: My characters and myself  are uncomfortable; it just feels forced; or when it only goes the way the other person wants to. My first and third reasons are why I broke off one of my current ships. Sadly, it caused the person I was RPing with quite toxic (hence the insulting  of my characters)  and needless to say we are blocked and removed from each other. 

This is roleplay. It is a collaborative exercise. Which means I don't gotta do sheet I don't wanna do. I'm not obligated to bow to your childish grabs for attention and honestly I'm unlikely to do so.

EXACTLY. Why even roleplay if you're going to turn everything one-sided? Also to act childish when it doesn't go your way, GOODBYE. Like what you said previously, that's what fanfiction is for. 

 

[Trust]

People who write using really difficult to read colours or use a really annoying font that is hard to read like comic sans

I swear, I jinxed myself...


The moment I went back to one of my RPs, there was a guy that was typing like this, and he used it for everything his character says too ;-;

 

[Windsock]

The thing I hate the most is when people don't respect my or other's authority in an RP. Maybe it doesn't work like that here, but I see it that I made the RP, I'm the boss, what I say goes and that's final. Challenging or suggesting things is fine, but only when it's done with taste and they don't talk back when I say 'no, non negotiable'. Like, if I say 'hey, why's your squishy wizard got a pistol?' and they say 'oh, can I upgrade it to a plasma cannon?', I'm really tempted to kick their ass and tell them to go away. 


Of course, I'm just a massive authoritarian and control freak. Still, when people don't respect the authority of the GM or 'boss' or whatever you want to call it, it pisses me off. Doesn't even have to be me. sometimes


Oh, and engineering fails and katana worship. What I mean is, people in sci-fi seem to just look up 'what's the strongest/hardest metal' or something, and not the most practically useful metal, or they just totally pull shit out of their ass. Additionally, it seriously pisses me off when people associate raw 'hardness' with 'cuttiness' or 'strengthiness'. Like, y'know the trope of 'diamond super swords' and other somesuch, also diamond armor? Sure, it's hard as hell and that IS useful as a cutting or defensive instrument, could make it particularly sharp too, but it's also really brittle. It's like a pillow versus glass: If you punch both really hard, which breaks first? Of course, not saying it's wise to armor yourself up with pillows in a gunfight or use it to cut people in half, but shit, put some thought into the actual practicalities of your weapons and armor in an RP. It's a good blend of hardness, practicality (or ease of working with), bendyness (would you rather a brittle blade that you have to totally reforge when it breaks, or a bent one?), and a ton of other factors. 


Oh, and when they make out diamonds to be inherently rare and expensive. They're only rare and expensive because of monopoly bullshit and whatnot, De Beers?

 

[call me rae]

@Windsock actually on this site it's stated specifically in the rules that the GM is the ultimate authority of any roleplay. I mean of course you have to follow the site rules and not be like a harassing dick to people. But yeah you make whatever rules you want ( within reason ) and are good to reinforce them as you want.

 

[Windsock]

Oh, that's great. Time to turn into a total dictator again! yaaay!

 

[The Swedish Chef]

People who "forget" that the rp is a group rp and not a 1x1. 

 

[CalamariDaddy]

Ok so this was a couple of years ago on a whole other site.


So I had a post-apocalypse RP that was going pretty well, we're all having a good time. And this dude puts up his character sheet. And for context, this site didn't allow you to post pictures you didn't own, so character appearances were written out. Now. This guy, his description is literally: dark hair crutch.


No more.


No less.


Just. Dark hair crutch.


I'm haunted by the sheer amount of laziness to this day like what even am I supposed to get from that?

 

[Melpomene]

Ok so this was a couple of years ago on a whole other site.


So I had a post-apocalypse RP that was going pretty well, we're all having a good time. And this dude puts up his character sheet. And for context, this site didn't allow you to post pictures you didn't own, so character appearances were written out. Now. This guy, his description is literally: dark hair crutch.


No more.


No less.


Just. Dark hair crutch.


I'm haunted by the sheer amount of laziness to this day like what even am I supposed to get from that?

That- That is actually an impressive amount of laziness.


Dark hair crutch. 


What does that even mean? Is he on a crutch that has dark hair? Does he have dark hair? Is the hair simply dark in personality? Is the hair on a crutch? 


I didn't think it was possible to not care that much.

 

[Umbrie]

But to be fair, doesn't a lot of those weaknesses depend on the setting?

Demons are Specifically a Creature from Christian Lore. if you honestly expect to play a full blooded demon, i honestly expect you to be responsible for having all the weaknesses that come with it, not merely the strengths. the other demons from Say Anime, are little better than Demihumans by another name. a Demihuman is a humanoid who can almost qualify as a human, but has a different distribution of traits. if you honestly wanted the full power of a christian style demon, expect to have the full compliment of weaknesses. otherwise, you are a demihuman who trades a small bonus to one attribute for the equivalent sum of penalties elsewhere to a net zero sum. now, i won't charge you points for eternal youth, but if you can stay young for a long ass time, i expect you to function as a reasonable member of your effective age bracket. meaning, if your 5,000 year old vampire has the physiology of a 10 year old human child, i expect her to function as a 10 year old human child not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too. if her body is effectively 10 years old, so is her friggin brain, she might have a few excess skills, but they would have to be skills a 10 year old girl could feasibly pick up in the setting.

 

[jinkx]

People who "forget" that the rp is a group rp and not a 1x1. 

this is the bane of my life. two people go back and forth so much that it's like they're in an entirely different universe. and then they're too deep in their own plot to come back to the regular one and it's like you're running two parallel roleplays.

 

[ApfelSeine]

Demons are Specifically a Creature from Christian Lore. if you honestly expect to play a full blooded demon, i honestly expect you to be responsible for having all the weaknesses that come with it, not merely the strengths. the other demons from Say Anime, are little better than Demihumans by another name. a Demihuman is a humanoid who can almost qualify as a human, but has a different distribution of traits. if you honestly wanted the full power of a christian style demon, expect to have the full compliment of weaknesses. otherwise, you are a demihuman who trades a small bonus to one attribute for the equivalent sum of penalties elsewhere to a net zero sum. now, i won't charge you points for eternal youth, but if you can stay young for a long ass time, i expect you to function as a reasonable member of your effective age bracket. meaning, if your 5,000 year old vampire has the physiology of a 10 year old human child, i expect her to function as a 10 year old human child not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too. if her body is effectively 10 years old, so is her friggin brain, she might have a few excess skills, but they would have to be skills a 10 year old girl could feasibly pick up in the setting.

Well technically speaking that is where the term itself originates, but there are beings which are classified as demons from other cultures. Judaism and Islam both include similar concepts, as well as Hinduism. And a common lexical interpretation includes many types of evil spirits or creatures, so conceivably a demon could be anything with a similar concept to Christian mythology. Oni, for instance, are also commonly referred to as demons. More than just original meaning, the word has evolved in the current lexicon to be an umbrella term from everything from the classic demon to the anime inspired one. That's why context and setting does matter, and why it's necessary to stipulate in a roleplay that you're looking for people to play the more classic creature from the original myths.


I do agree with the statement that vampires, and the other long lived creatures which age slowly, should develop mentally at the same rate as they would physically. I'd say that they likely know more and may be somewhat more mature than a typical human of the same age, since they have experienced more things within their equivalent age bracket. But you're right that the development of the brain is connected to physical development. Emotional development in particular should be age appropriate.


That reminds me of a particular pet peeve of mine, in both literature and roleplaying; vampires attending human schools. Just... why? Even in the more modernized versions of vampires, they're hundreds of years old. Regardless of maturity level, what vampire in their right mind would sit through high school? It's boring and frustrating, so why not just be home schooled? Or go to their own school? Do they have to re do highschool in a different place every four years? It makes no sense! I bet they could get away with looking like young adults. Heck even some of the particularly young ones could pass for adults, since many college students are fairly young looking. A college setting would be more logical, though still somewhat bizarre. At least with college one has a chance to study whatever one wants to. Why don't people do that instead? Highschool really isn't so wonderful that vampires would want to sit through it for centuries until the arbitrary equivalent age of being an adult. Though I imagine this bothers most people less than it bothers me.