Other Roleplay Pet peeves

[chaotic cat cutie]

I'm too awkward and I communicate like a robot.
I just really want to feel confidant and like I did when I was younger but now I just feel very lost and confused

 

[MaruMaru]

I think the thing I disliked the most was people who are impatient and treat others as their personal source of entertainment. This goes hand-in-hand with some unpleasant experiences with people who expect several replies a day, who had the nerve to be like "umm, is hard for me to be invested in a story if its not fast paced, just so you know, yk?". There a myriad of other things, too, but that one stuck out to me the most lol

 

[Coco Adel]

It's more of a Peeve I have with myself more than anyone else and it's that I don't have time to GM group RP's anymore. I have all these ideas I know would make great group RPs but I can't do them because I know I don't have the time to GM them with the attention they deserve, which sucks because I have been touched by the amount of people who have gone out of their way to mention how much they loved my old group RPs and how it inspired them to make better RP or be a better roleplayer which truthfully I didn't know people enjoyed them that much until a thread was made about what people's best RP memories were and I was surprised to see myself mentioned, I thought we were just having fun and didn't realize it meant that much to them. I would love to do that for more people but sadly....I just don't have the time anymore, I'm not sure if I'll ever have the time again, sometimes I wonder if I should make a thread with the ideas and just let whoever pick them up if they want.

 

[Kaiju Cat]

I’m all for silly ideas in RPs, and shouldn’t be taken seriously, they have a time and place and usually don’t make sense as often than not it becomes very out of character.

 

[chaotic cat cutie]

Wasting my time. I think this is a huge one. Role play has dominated a lot of my time. Years. I love it. I adore it. Though, like I dont have time to spend two hours coding something to be relivant just to have people go radio silent. This is time out of my day out of my life and now in my late thirties I realize its a huge center to my anxiety problems. BUT I still love the self torture. Because I always believe it will get better. I guess this is more of a statement. I am no longer wasting my time on this hobby. Im literally sitting on going tech free and alottting me like a half hour of screen time . I still want to invest in this hobby but its not dominating my life anymore!

I will still be runnning role plays or dnd games but im not like wasting time over it anymore. I just dont have the time...literally


No judgment to anyone who ghosts but Im not wasting my time waiting.

This is a pp thats like spanning years I suppose

 

[CHUUYAS_HAT]

Self...roleplaying. Explainable, reasonable.​

 

[Cutiefly]

Not crediting art. The disclaimer at the top should be reason enough to listen to it.

 

[WhiskeyMarten]

 

[Solivagante]

I'm gonna be real with y'all, and this one might kinda be a hot take.

Requiring a specific type of image (or image at all) for a character form.
I do understand wanting a specific ~aesthetic~ to all your character profiles, but I've run into a few situations where I have a character I want to use, and the form requires a specific type of image -- usually a real-life face claim. And then...
I can't find one.
I'm not playing a conventionally, traditionally attractive white character, and I can't find a faceclaim. Playing an indigenous man (who isn't Tlingit? Yes, I'm looking at you, Sensmeier)? Good luck! How about an indian man? You've got two guys to pick from. A nonbinary person of any number of presentations? Good luck! How about literally any fit, plus-sized woman? TV and models would have you believe those don't exist. The same could be said for the myriad of games requiring anime face claims too.
It's especially frustrating to me because I do draw passably. I could draw my characters and do so pretty regularly, but if I'm required to have a specific aesthetic for my picture, I'm pretty out of luck.

First off, I wholeheartedly agree with you on this peeve!

But second, in case you run into this in the future - there are resources you can use. Weirdly enough, IMDB can be really useful to find actors of a particular ethnicity; pick one celebrity you know (eg Booboo Stewart to look for Native American FCs) and then check the 'lists' section. You're gonna have to scroll through a lot that's not relevant, but this got me fairly quickly to 'Native American Celebrities' (plus a second variation).

For Indian men, Bollywood has got you covered, though they're going to generally be very conventionally attractive unless you're looking at older actors.

Tumblr fancasting blogs also have a LOT of resources, though most of the ones I know of are on the older side and may not have been updated in recent years. Face Claims of Color is one with a great search function. Tonl is a stock photo website with a focus on diversity and may also be worth exploring! Tumblr also has you covered for NB faceclaims - ie here and here (see filter at the top left).

I wish I had a specific resource for plus-sized women (or for that matter, plus-sized anyone); that one I'm still coming up empty for. But hopefully these might help you in the future, or other folks when dealing with FC requirements!


Personally, I feel like in the age of Picrew/Meiker/etc, it's a shock that RPs haven't fully transitioned away from using either a) real people's appearances or b) art not created for that character. Even if you can't draw yourself, it's so easy to create an interesting and unique character design using free, fair-use tools which can easily be credited!

 

[sknstories]

I will never understand why people reach out to me to rp just to ghost me the minute we have an rp idea. I’ve been on this site for a while now and it is unreal how often people just ditch the rp with no heads up or warning whatsoever. I’ve also had people get mad at me for only putting a three sentence response. If I don’t have anything to go off of, obviously it’ll be a shorter response. I will be in the middle of the rp, or ready to start it and then never get a response back. It’s so frustrating. After a month of no response, I give up. The. There’s this one guy who didn’t respond for six months before finally replying, and goes sorry I took so long. You took 6 months! I thought you died!

 

[Shawn_Michael]

My biggest peeve is responding to interest checks (less than two weeks old) using PM’s at the request of the writer, and getting zero response.

At least tell me you’re not interested in writing with me, so I can move on. I’m not going to answer more interest checks while I’m waiting for you to respond to yours.

A little courtesy, please?

 

[GrumpySwallow]

Establishing a word number minimum rule, and a player tries to be slick by putting all their character interactions in one post and splitting that word count minimum between them. For example, a player has five PCs in a RP with a word count minimum requirement of 100 words. Each PC is in a different scene and the player makes one post for all of them with each scene having 20 words so the total comes to 100.

I'm not so strict of a GM that I'm going to chide a player who makes, say, a 95-word post if the minimum is 100, but it did boggle my mind that a player in my game thought they could get away with doing the above!

 

[nerdy tangents]

Establishing a word number minimum rule, and a player tries to be slick by putting all their character interactions in one post and splitting that word count minimum between them. For example, a player has five PCs in a RP with a word count minimum requirement of 100 words. Each PC is in a different scene and the player makes one post for all of them with each scene having 20 words so the total comes to 100.

I'm not so strict of a GM that I'm going to chide a player who makes, say, a 95-word post if the minimum is 100, but it did boggle my mind that a player in my game thought they could get away with doing the above!

Oh this reminds me of my group days where this one person would consistently join roleplays where they couldn’t meet the minimum so they would just copy and paste dialogue from other people’s posts.

Then get all indignant when the GM was like “oh hey we are gonna need you to write a bit more in this post.”

Cuz like yeah technically they hit the word count if was just other people’s words mostly.

 

[AnonyMouse]

Possible hot take here, but my current pet peeve is half-baked interest checks. The ones that start like this:

"I just came up with this last night and wanna see if people are interested before I proceed. Once I get five or six folks, I'll work on the lore, setting, char sheets, magic system, yadda, yadda, yadda, but only AFTER I get some interest."

No. Just no. It can work in some instances, but I'm sick of hoping for the best. To me, that translates as the GM wants me on the hook while they get their act together, if they ever get it together at all. I know this is an outdated idea, but (to me) roleplaying is a commitment. You are committing to do a thing with other people. If I say I'm interested in joining YOUR rp, I stop shopping around. Once I state my interest, I'm locked in. I know a lot of people don't see it that way... which might be part of why there's so much ghosting on this site, but that's an entirely different can of worms.

IMO, that's not how interest checks should work. What if you "work on the lore" and then people decide they're not interested because, as the details come rolling in, they begin to see this isn't what they signed up for? What if you take too damn long and their interest fades away? What if you start working on that lore and realize you've bitten off more than you can chew or that you're not interested in this idea either? I know ghosting is a big issue around here, so it can be hard to sit down, hammer out the lore, rules, char sheets, etc, etc before 'going public' with an idea that might flop in five seconds. But, to all future GMs out there, I want you to know your work isn't wasted. Save it and relaunch later, maybe with some tweaks. On the other hand, my time is definitely wasted when I write a character tailor-made to someone else's world/lore/plot only for that GM to vanish like a fart in the wind because they really weren't into their own concept in the first place. It's like we're in a race to bottom, to see who can commit the least. It has to stop somewhere.

/rant

EDIT: To clarify, I am not talking about collaborative worldbuilding exercises. I'm talking about the instances where a GM/DM presents an interesting concept, gives just enough information for ppl to make characters, and promises they'll flesh it out, but then (for whatever reason) they don't deliver. It's like being invited to a dinner party, given the menu and the dress code and then, once you buy/make your outfit and show up on time, they haven't cooked, never will, and won't even let you near the kitchen. A total waste of time and an insult to those who actually gave a damn.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I don’t think it’s lack of commitment so much as a downside of collaboration.

I have the same issue from the other end of the spectrum. People who an idea in their head that is so well defined they don’t know how to add in other people’s input.

Like oh no that’s not actually what I wanted. I wanted to do something completely different but I didn’t realize that until someone else gave me feedback.

Because a lot of people the problem is they can’t really flesh out their idea on their own so they assume that just because they have a particular storyline in mind that’s the only storyline available.

But as a player I can’t read your mind so I’m going to suggest my own ideas in an effort to find a place where my character fits.

So I think it’s two ends of the same problem and it’s just folks don’t know how to flesh out their world without feedback but sometimes that feedback goes in ways they hadn’t accounted for.

I do agree if that happens to you more than once as a writer maybe open a discussion thread first before an interest check.

Just so you can get a feel for how other people are going to interact with your idea before you jump into roleplaying.

 

[malix]

I'm sure other people have said this above, but the biggest pet peeve is plotting partners who have nothing to contribute - whose only responses during the plotting processes are along the lines of "that sounds good to me." If I had a complete idea with all of the characters, plot, dialogue, etc. in my head, then I could just write the fanfiction version, but I want to write collaboratively. If the only contribution a would-be partner has is that the idea is interesting, it feels like they just want to read the fanfiction version.

 

[hollywoods]

hmm i think mine is like if i'm doing a romance-oriented rp, & even if it's slow-burn, the other char just isn't like putting in the reciprocal chemistry lmao
like none of my chars have low enough self esteem to go after someone for like 200 posts who clearly isn't interested yannow?
no matter how much they enjoy ~the chase~

but honestly most of my pet peeves are me-centric (writers' block, having too many ideas for just one rp, etc.) and i get frustrated with myself, not another person

 

[chaotic cat cutie]

copycat roleplays it just gets me so frustrated
sometimes the idea's your swiping were a really personal process
it's why i just don't invest a lot of my personal creativity into roleplay or gaming
unless i know it's safe and not going to become someone else content
because this has happened to me like at least five to six times

rpn and any other site is NOT where I put content I would want to be published one day fueled by this peeve
in fact w will often halted following through with roleplays because of this

 

[BuggaBoo]

Gather a bunch of sword swinging, spell slinging baddssses, undefeated killing machines cuz screw-you-dad! RAWR!!

Now you never met before. But you need to SAVE. THE. WORRRRLLLLD!!!!

K soooo like trust each other, work together, share spoils together and don't be opportunistic and save each other. Now GO! And it's okay to meander with your posts, go on and make use of awkward interactions and forced dialogue. Don't worry after a page or 2 of really cringe worthy intro it'll get better. I mean the serial ghosting RPers don't matter.

Don't worry the core few of us left will carry. Don't worry that the early excitement died and you just got ghosted mid convo. Don't worry morale don't suck right now and the next person that quits just might kill the RP. Don't worry we can wait for the next post. Don't worry someone else can post now. Anyone? Anyone? Wait what's that smell? Oh don't worry the RP Death Rot is curable...

Just start searching the Int CHKs again lol

 

[ofbluehues]

okay this one's new for me- when i have to start the ooc conversatin EVERY!! DAY!!! it seriously gives the impression that you're not interested and grinds on my last nerve. like, if you don't want to write with me anymore just say it.

 

[Edythir]

One that always grinds my gears is people who come into an interest check and comment "I'm interested, send me a PM!". Like... Why not just tell me you are interested in a PM? Why go through the effort of commenting to make the other send you a PM instead of just starting with that?

 

[stardews]

I think my biggest pet peeve is pestering me about post size or reply speed, after one day. I have had this happen to me too many times, where I would communicate that I can't always be the fastest or the longest, and the other will insist its okay but then pm like 8 times to ask why I haven't replied yet the same day of a reply. Like, if that wasn't what you wanted, why not just find a different partner or be upfront with me.

 

[chaotic cat cutie]

I'm generally pretty understanding to people's schedules when it comes to posting. You have something which happens in your life sure I'll postpone. You have a busy week then yeah that is completely fine. Though, when my expectations are so lenient it becomes obvious either someone has lost interest or is just extremely lazy. Like, if you only need to write ten sentences, why are you holding your group of friends up? This is just really weirdly rude? It actually legit upsets me. Especially when the standards are very low......... Just toss me like five sentences I'll take it. It's literally the equivalent of a text my guy.

Stop being rude to your friends

 

[star.ships89]

Likely has been mentioned time and time again but I am putting it out here cause it does bother me. but ONE LINERS, and those that add no detail to their responses. Come on, at least try a little bit. Put a LITTLE bit of effort in there don't leave me with nothing
It also stinks if the starter/responses start off long and then go straight to one-liners within 1-2 responses
like come on gang that's just no

 

[Matty]

Discord can kill your game. I have nothing against making discord channels for games, but it has to be handled with care.

Cliques will form and it seems, in my experience, that people start getting too far into “talking it out” rather than actually writing it. Discord chatting does not equate to game canon.

Often people will start posting way too much personal info and you will find yourself with players just there for a sounding board on their lives. It's good and helpful when people get to know each other, however everything needs to be in moderation. No one likes waking up to 50+ messages about nothing related to the game.