Other Roleplay Pet peeves

[Jannah]

when people want to put their characters through difficult situations but don't want to deal with what the reality of what that means. if your character isn't really impacted by something at all, it doesn't mean anything that it happened. at a certain point, you're just making a tragic backstory as though that alone is what makes things interesting.

conversely, when people  refuse to put their characters through difficult situations. it's incredibly boring to me if you never want your character to struggle, be wrong, or be wronged. there should be conflict! every character should face issues and deal with the aftermath of them, that's how they can change and be examined.

I feel this. I love to make my characters suffer. It's more emotionally impactful that way. Plus it allows for some pretty significant development and growth over the course of the story.

 

[gator]

Yes. No hate at all to people who love using Discord for OOC, but it's so disappointing to go through a recruitment thread and love the idea, only to find out the OOC is on Discord. Even worse when they don't state it, and you state your interest, only to find out a week later the OOC will be on Discord.

I don't use discord because I particularly prefer it, but because I usually advertise my games on multiple sites, and it's much more likely that all the players will have discord accounts than it is that they'll just happen to have accounts on a different forum

 

[Kekse]

Looking through my threads and realizing that 3 times in a row I posted an intro which I felt really good about, only for the other person to literally never post theirs. Hard not to feel like my writing must suck when it happens in triplicate...

 

[Len Auphydas]

Its very irksome when I post an RP ad then the responses I get are mostly "Yeah I see you got an RP you want to do here, but what if you just did something completely different instead?" Or sometimes, they try to shoehorn some completely different plot on top of what I wanted, where they clearly didnt have any interest in the themes I was focusing on and instead were just willing to use it as a backdrop for something they wanted to do. Like... No... If you want to do something else just make your own thread, this is my thread for my idea.

 

[Jannah]

Looking through my threads and realizing that 3 times in a row I posted an intro which I felt really good about, only for the other person to literally never post theirs. Hard not to feel like my writing must suck when it happens in triplicate...

So much this. It's especially bad when you go through all that effort to plan a RP and then the other person simply never replies once you post an intro.

 

[Aquanette]

Having what I think are cool crossover ideas with fandoms that likely don't overlap. It's no one's fault but mine, but I can still hold out hope, right?

 

[phnx.]

Group RPs which require Discord for OOC should use some sort of flair/tag to indicate that, before I click on 'em and get my hopes up. Or have their own recruitment forum? At this point I don't even read plots before I check the rules/info in a recruitment thread. What's the point?

as someone who enjoys discord ooc, i agree! i find that rps using discord to chat are usually more well organize/more my style, the ones that stay on-site are a bit too casual for me :p

 

[Steve Jobs]

When you spend hours writing something (e.g. profile, interest check, etc) only to realize you aren't actually that interested in the project in the first place.

 

[GammyWamzee]

Whenever a response is long, let's say 500+ words. Your partner is expecting a reply of equal or more words. But when you read their response majority is flavor text/fluff and the only part you can work off is in the last two paragraphs.. (and it is barely anything driving the plot forward)

Only time I find this acceptable is in introductions, or you're coming back from a break.

Another one..

This one has less ground as people have lives outside of the internet but whenever you rp with someone and their responses are 2 paragraphs that don't forward the plot, you get one reply a day, and barely any input for plotting, or even just input on ooc chatter in general.

I can accept only one reply a day, and really it's something for me to look forward to even. Something I get giddy over. But whenever someone just doesn't put any effort towards the response and only does one a day I cannot handle it.

It wouldn't bother me as much if we're quick back and forth so we can at least get somewhere. But when it's been a week and we're still on scene one I'm done.

--- edit

Adding on a new one. But in 1x1 rps where someone has two oc's that are already dating, you don't plan on separating them and then My character is kinda.. third wheeling or I am expected to make my own pairing? I can understand in a casual sense, yeah our two characters are platonic..then they list they want romance. Like I'm not sure what you want here..

Or similarly

"Oh I ship these two characters"
"I can play b and you can play a"
"No i'd rather play both"
"Oh. What characters should I play"
"Just whoever."

So they're just kinda rping with themselves.. n I'm just like.. ermmm

 

[CrimsonDawn]

Y'know if we're talking about a very recent peeve:

People not actually reading the Interest Check - not even glossing over it, not even visiting that page, not even popping up on it and asking "can I join" or saying "I'm interested" - before posting on the roleplay thread. At that point it doesn't matter how detailed their response is, I never agreed nor got any heads up about them being in the roleplay, nor was their choice of character even accepted.

But hey, I'll just delete any such response. I mean, people should understand the concept of "asking to join a roleplay", it's been around on many sites for as many years as I've been roleplay for, which is around a decade, and even where it isn't really a thing people tend to give a heads up when joining, possibly providing a character profile, or a writing sample or something. Just a normal, decent roleplay thing to do I would think. Plus, it helps figure things out and get things sorted before the actual roleplay - like when you accidentally miss the rules and don't realise not all fandoms are available because the roleplay creator can't know every fandom so can't know every time a canon character is being played too much out of character even for this new situation they find themselves in -, so that the problems don't all jump out at you only once you start the actual roleplay.

It's better to get this all sorted OOC or in the Interest Check -- and I have linked both to both the Sign Up/Interest Check and Roleplay Thread (checking the links too... they all work) -- before it takes up needless space and wastes time and effort on the roleplay thread while completely dismissing and disrespecting the one who hosted that roleplay in the first place.

 

[CrimsonDawn]

Whenever a response is long, let's say 500+ words. Your partner is expecting a reply of equal or more words. But when you read their response majority is flavor text/fluff and the only part you can work off is in the last two paragraphs.. (and it is barely anything driving the plot forward)

Only time I find this acceptable is in introductions, or you're coming back from a break.

Another one..

This one has less ground as people have lives outside of the internet but whenever you rp with someone and their responses are 2 paragraphs that don't forward the plot, you get one reply a day, and barely any input for plotting, or even just input on ooc chatter in general.

I can accept only one reply a day, and really it's something for me to look forward to even. Something I get giddy over. But whenever someone just doesn't put any effort towards the response and only does one a day I cannot handle it.

It wouldn't bother me as much if we're quick back and forth so we can at least get somewhere. But when it's been a week and we're still on scene one I'm done.

--- edit

Adding on a new one. But in 1x1 rps where someone has two oc's that are already dating, you don't plan on separating them and then My character is kinda.. third wheeling or I am expected to make my own pairing? I can understand in a casual sense, yeah our two characters are platonic..then they list they want romance. Like I'm not sure what you want here..

Or similarly

"Oh I ship these two characters"
"I can play b and you can play a"
"No i'd rather play both"
"Oh. What characters should I play"
"Just whoever."

So they're just kinda rping with themselves.. n I'm just like.. ermmm

I would get playing two characters who date each other in a group setting, especially if no one's willing to play that pairing out, but it is fine by the group rp host, but isn't the goal of romantic 1 x 1s, that you guys play out each other's pairings as long as it's possible? It just... seems like the inclusive thing to do...? And like, at that point, if they're not even really including you... would they not be better off writing a story by themselves?

 

[GammyWamzee]

I would get playing two characters who date each other in a group setting, especially if no one's willing to play that pairing out, but it is fine by the group rp host, but isn't the goal of romantic 1 x 1s, that you guys play out each other's pairings as long as it's possible? It just... seems like the inclusive thing to do...? And like, at that point, if they're not even really including you... would they not be better off writing a story by themselves?

This was in a strictly 1x1 setting.

I'm not really certain what my partner was trying to say or imply? They were VERY new to rp, and while their age was never explicitly stated, they spoke and carried their replies in a very immature manner so I have reason to believe that they were on the younger side and just not in general understanding.

But I have encountered people who did carry themselves in a mature manner and still bringing something like this up.

Like you said, at this point just write a short story. What am I supposed to do, just rp with myself or build the world around you and your characters??

 

[WhiskeyMarten]

Whenever a response is long, let's say 500+ words. Your partner is expecting a reply of equal or more words. But when you read their response majority is flavor text/fluff and the only part you can work off is in the last two paragraphs.. (and it is barely anything driving the plot forward)

Only time I find this acceptable is in introductions, or you're coming back from a break.

It's a mentality I still struggle to break out of, but it's great to come to an agreement with people I write with that word counts really aren't important. It can be nice to have more text to set a mood or a scene, but if you're writing action or dialogue it's so refreshing to cut out a description of the movement of each strand of hair. As long as the plot is forwarded, just gimme what you've written - be it long or short, I'll be happy with the sustenance regardless.

 

[Commander Rabbit]

Along the same vein as above:

I don't mind how long the message is. I just want something sufficient to have my character respond to and build something from there. Not really much we can do with introspection unless a character of ours can read minds and read the author-injected introspection within a character's head, but eh. But I can't do anything with a single sentence unless it's a quick conversation. Please don't do that to me.

 

[.quietus]

Me: *has a fxf interest check, marked as such in the title*

*only talks about fxf in it*

*couldn't be clearer that she's ONLY after lesbian romance*

Someone: "Hello, I've seen your interest check! :] Wanna write mxm with me?"

Well golly gee, what do you think, friendo? For a hobby that is all about reading, a surprising number of people who participate in it just can't do it to save their lives.

 

[Jannah]

Me: *has a fxf interest check, marked as such in the title*

*only talks about fxf in it*

*couldn't be clearer that she's ONLY after lesbian romance*

Someone: "Hello, I've seen your interest check! :] Wanna write mxm with me?"

Well golly gee, what do you think, friendo? For a hobby that is all about reading, a surprising number of people who participate in it just can't do it to save their lives.

I'm actually genuinely surprised at how difficult it is to find partners for FxF. MxM and MxF are a dime a dozen, but FxF? Really have to go out of your way a bit to find something.

 

[Solivagante]

I'm actually genuinely surprised at how difficult it is to find partners for FxF. MxM and MxF are a dime a dozen, but FxF? Really have to go out of your way a bit to find something.

You're not kidding. It's to the point where I will add FxF search threads to my 'watched' list even if I'm not actively looking for new partners because otherwise I'll lose track of where the other WLW are. Makes me wish the site supported some sort of 'guild' function so there could be interest-specific subforums.

On that note, one of my pet peeves: people who don't list gender pairing preferences in their search/otherwise address the question of sexuality. At that point I assume you're straight and forgot about the fact that some people aren't.

 

[CrimsonDawn]

You're not kidding. It's to the point where I will add FxF search threads to my 'watched' list even if I'm not actively looking for new partners because otherwise I'll lose track of where the other WLW are. Makes me wish the site supported some sort of 'guild' function so there could be interest-specific subforums.

On that note, one of my pet peeves: people who don't list gender pairing preferences in their search/otherwise address the question of sexuality. At that point I assume you're straight and forgot about the fact that some people aren't.

I tend to make sure of that, and then some people will completely ignore that for my side of things I prefer m x f. Yes, I can absolutely do any gender/pairing for your side of things, and I will give it equal importance to mine. But what I'm looking for is m x f, humanoid x humanoid. Just because I'm offering you an inch, doesn't mean you get to take a mile.

Of course, my recent requests have all been considerate, and have done a much better job of first looking at my interest check and then writing a PM - which I'm glad about -, but I worry I'm going to go back to that, because as I can clearly see, this has not been everyone's experience right now, and I have experienced that issue before. *sigh* I get people are excited and eager to roleplay, and that's nice, but it can really get your hopes up just to dash them when they don't really consider what it is that you're offering/interested in.

But yeah, it does get frustrating when people don't list gender pairing preferences. I think that honestly, for romance roleplays, that should be the obvious thing to list - and one of the first, too! This way we can all easily figure out who we are or aren't compatible with. And, to be honest, I think it is - intentionally or not - slightly manipulative when you withdraw useful/important information from a potential roleplay partner and then expect them to have known this information somehow. We're regular humans. We're not psychic. Info, please.

 

[Commander Rabbit]

I think this is a wattpad thing, so let me explain.

All your comments for Rp is within certain chapters that have locations for interactions. You must first make a rather lame character sheet then make an equally lame post because of the character limit (even worse if its on mobile cuz it cuts the post you are trying to reply to in half if its too long), and if someone is interested, they'll comment on your shenanigans, and then you can RP it out with them. Each comment thread in wattpad has their own little universe so everyone is very separate from each other.

That doesn't mean you won't get shit for it though. Some people on wattpad get into petty drama surrounding this public separate universe comment style shit, and they try and micromanage other people's comment threads, saying how "this shouldn't happen" for some plot, micromanaging characters because "too Mary Sue" even though those characters are written beautifully they just have a few too many powers, etc. It's usually not even the author, it's just the author's friends or people who think they know what's good for the author and the setting.

So, basically micromanaging, especially if you're not the one who made the damn thing.

 

[Jannah]

I tend to make sure of that, and then some people will completely ignore that for my side of things I prefer m x f. Yes, I can absolutely do any gender/pairing for your side of things, and I will give it equal importance to mine. But what I'm looking for is m x f, humanoid x humanoid. Just because I'm offering you an inch, doesn't mean you get to take a mile.

Of course, my recent requests have all been considerate, and have done a much better job of first looking at my interest check and then writing a PM - which I'm glad about -, but I worry I'm going to go back to that, because as I can clearly see, this has not been everyone's experience right now, and I have experienced that issue before. *sigh* I get people are excited and eager to roleplay, and that's nice, but it can really get your hopes up just to dash them when they don't really consider what it is that you're offering/interested in.

But yeah, it does get frustrating when people don't list gender pairing preferences. I think that honestly, for romance roleplays, that should be the obvious thing to list - and one of the first, too! This way we can all easily figure out who we are or aren't compatible with. And, to be honest, I think it is - intentionally or not - slightly manipulative when you withdraw useful/important information from a potential roleplay partner and then expect them to have known this information somehow. We're regular humans. We're not psychic. Info, please.

I do both romantic and platonic so always take care to list my preferences for both. Lately I've had an interest in FxF, but it's an itch I haven't been able to scratch since so few people seem to have an interest in writing it

 

[nerdy tangents]

Edit :: to be a bit more specific

So I think part of the problem with romantic roleplays in general is the projection aspect.

Because I think people forget sometimes that roleplay is a two way street. Where there has to be something for both people to latch onto to keep the story going.

But a lot of the time it’s about “well I have this romantic fantasy that I really want to explore and I need you to write it for me.”

And I’m like “okay but what am I getting out of it though?” Because it’s not like Im writing my romantic fantasy or projecting myself into the characters. I’m just kind of here doing a commission basically.

It’s why I only stick to platonic stories or stories that have a non-romantic plot, because at least that way I get to have an active role in the story.

(( to be clear I don’t mind romantic subplots it’s just when the whole focus is “write this pairing for me” that I dip out. ))

 

[CrimsonDawn]

I think it’s because most of the romantic roleplayers on this site are straight women so they want to write a romantic fantasy they can insert themselves into.

Which is my own personal pet peeve with romantic roleplays in general. It always feels like I’m writing someone else’s fanfic.

Because it’s rarely about two characters having equal narrative weight. It’s “main character” and “main characters love interest.”

Which as the person who is playing “love interest” is honestly kind of boring. My character rarely gets to do anything interesting or have narrative agency it’s just “and they really like main character.”

I feel like I’m writing Ken where my character just exists to be an “and X” after the main character.

For most of the roleplayers being straight women who write their straight fantasies, a pretty noticeable portion is still lgbtq+:
- "I Loved You Like The Sun"
- "May I Have This Dance?"
- "Hogwarts, Mythology, And Titans!"
- "Hogwarts: The New Order"
- "Need you like a heartbeat."
- "His Boyfriend" - but, y'know, roleplay titles get so confusing and cryptic sometimes that it can be really hard to tell what they involve...
- There are also some that I'm pretty sure are platonic and/or have more than just the romance going on, because some of them are mad long and others don't appear to have much of an indication of romance (yet).
... But even just looking at the first page of the 1 x 1 roleplays, I am not getting this "RPN is ruled by oppressive straight girl overlords with their straight girl plots".

Communicate your issue to your partner, perhaps?

 

[GammyWamzee]

Edit :: to be a bit more specific

So I think part of the problem with romantic roleplays in general is the projection aspect.

Because I think people forget sometimes that roleplay is a two way street. Where there has to be something for both people to latch onto to keep the story going.

But a lot of the time it’s about “well I have this romantic fantasy that I really want to explore and I need you to write it for me.”

And I’m like “okay but what am I getting out of it though?” Because it’s not like Im writing my romantic fantasy or projecting myself into the characters. I’m just kind of here doing a commission basically.

It’s why I only stick to platonic stories or stories that have a non-romantic plot, because at least that way I get to have an active role in the story.

(( to be clear I don’t mind romantic subplots it’s just when the whole focus is “write this pairing for me” that I dip out. ))

A lot of the time for me it comes down to communication and or simply doubling. Although some people may not have time time or motivation for doubling.

For romance rps it's truly just communication. I often try to ask my partner
"What direction were you hoping to take this, were there any scenes you'd like to do in the near future" and this question really lets me see what kind of person I am dealing with. How into brainstorming they will be in the future and how easy they are to communicate with.

Before starting an rp I often look at it from an angle of "what am I getting out of this and why am I sticking around".

A pet peeve I come across often is just the unwillingness to plan and that's what tears everything down. And I dunno if it's just bad luck, but it is always strictly mxf (female role) players that don't communicate with me.
(Alternatively, those who play the more 'submissive' role)

 

[CrimsonDawn]

A lot of the time for me it comes down to communication and or simply doubling. Although some people may not have time time or motivation for doubling.

For romance rps it's truly just communication. I often try to ask my partner
"What direction were you hoping to take this, were there any scenes you'd like to do in the near future" and this question really lets me see what kind of person I am dealing with. How into brainstorming they will be in the future and how easy they are to communicate with.

Before starting an rp I often look at it from an angle of "what am I getting out of this and why am I sticking around".

A pet peeve I come across often is just the unwillingness to plan and that's what tears everything down. And I dunno if it's just bad luck, but it is always strictly mxf (female role) players that don't communicate with me.
(Alternatively, those who play the more 'submissive' role)

... I tend to find when it comes to telling people in advance about certain aspects of the roleplay (for instance whether a relationship is established or not) that I've had that particular issue with both female and male roleplayers. Both just jumped into an established relationship that wasn't established before and it gave me whiplash. Another person wanted a mixture of platonic and romantic and controlled the whole thing... again, no communication. And I find - and perhaps this is bad luck - that people who strictly want to do f x f or m x m and will only do that particular dynamic even with doubling... are horrible at reading interest checks. I've only gotten two responses (from people who wanted to do m x m as double up) where they've actually read the check, which I am grateful for, but that's not a good ratio.

 

[nerdy tangents]

For most of the roleplayers being straight women who write their straight fantasies, a pretty noticeable portion is still lgbtq+:
- "I Loved You Like The Sun"
- "May I Have This Dance?"
- "Hogwarts, Mythology, And Titans!"
- "Hogwarts: The New Order"
- "Need you like a heartbeat."
- "His Boyfriend" - but, y'know, roleplay titles get so confusing and cryptic sometimes that it can be really hard to tell what they involve...
- There are also some that I'm pretty sure are platonic and/or have more than just the romance going on, because some of them are mad long and others don't appear to have much of an indication of romance (yet).
... But even just looking at the first page of the 1 x 1 roleplays, I am not getting this "RPN is ruled by oppressive straight girl overlords with their straight girl plots".

Communicate your issue to your partner, perhaps?

So I clearly hit a nerve and I apologize for that. But if you look at my post

1. I edited it to be more clear on the exact issue I was addressing

2. I attempted to specify I was talking about romantic roleplays specifically not 1x1s in general. I did this poorly hence the edit.

3. I did not say they only wrote straight fantasies. I said they wrote romantic fantasies they can project themselves into.

This is a very well known phenomena in romance writing in general. Straight women actually write a lot of gay romance (in fanfic, roleplay, and published romance as well). It’s because they can still project themselves into the story if both characters are male because they just project into whoever is opposite of the object of their own personal attraction.

It’s why you don’t see as many lesbian pairings as you do straight or gay pairings. It really is because the majority of people on this site who write romance are straight women.

I am not saying no straight woman will write a lesbian romance it’s just the ones who will are the minority.

But that’s not really a pet peeve so much as it’s me being really nerdy about romance genre and trends.

Hence why I made the edit. I clarified that my main pet peeve is people who are too focused on their own romantic fantasy and forget that roleplay is about a shared narrative.