Viewpoint The Roleplay Killer

[PinkIsTheBravestColor]

For anyone who chooses to listen, what is one thing that you think that could instantly kill a roleplay?

 

[rae2nerdy]

Well that depends on what your individual dealbreakers are.

In my case I see and adult x child relationship, real world mental illness, abusive relationship, or a double pairing I’m walking away immediately.

Or if I see someone asking for a requirement I can’t fill. Like they want a male partner, someone under 21, or a post a day.

Also if I get the feeling me and the other person aren’t going to have compatible personalities.

 

[Spoiled Bread]

For me its railroader. People who have a set of fixed scenario outcome in their mind and won't let their partner change the outcome in any way. If I can't contribute, what's the point of me in the roleplay then?

 

[nuas]

If someone can hardly take two seconds to provide paragraph breaks, then I start losing interest. I should be able to tell what are thoughts, actions, and actual lines of dialogue through your post.

 

[The Pattern]

I can't tell you an immediate killer but a slow one's the lack of activity. One person stops or loses interest and it starts a Mexican wave of inactivity and lethargy.

 

[Queen_of_the_Fairies]

An instant killer for me is when someone God modes my character.

 

[Zipper Man]

No diversety character-wise. If everyone are playing what's essentionally the same character type, the rp is gonna die fast.

 

[Queen_of_the_Fairies]

One liners. It gets so freakin boring.

 

[JadeGreen17]

Literally... everything I can think of has been covered by you guys already with an almost comical economy of words.

 

[Epiphany]

Discovering that everyone including the game host likes the idea of the setting of the game, but no one has any ideas on what kind of plot they want to see. These days, I'm just glad that some hosts put sandbox somewhere in the interest check so I know to skip it.

 

[PhoenixMire]

Discovering that everyone including the game host likes the idea of the setting of the game, but no one has any ideas on what kind of plot they want to see. These days, I'm just glad that some hosts put sandbox somewhere in the interest check so I know to skip it.

I feel this on a personal level... but for 1x1s, not groups. And I feel it mostly for myself. :')
Often I come up with a cool setting I'd really love to RP in, aaaaand then I have no idea where to go from there. Or I come up with a plot that somehow doesn't seem nearly as interesting as the setting itself, so then I get bored of the plot despite still liking the setting. Idk. It's a mess.

 

[dazzling]

People who will randomly decide to play god with my characters. I mean, I'm fine with you controlling them a bit if you ask or if it's a mistake, but seriously. In an RP I once had my character left her purse in the bathroom, and another character decides to go through it. That's all good, right?
Then they post saying that there was a shotgun in my character's bag. A shotgun in the purse of a volleyball playing, passive, high-school aged girl. Nope. Not cool.

Anyways, if you're out there, hi partner!

 

[zippy]

People who will randomly decide to play god with my characters. I mean, I'm fine with you controlling them a bit if you ask or if it's a mistake, but seriously. In an RP I once had my character left her purse in the bathroom, and another character decides to go through it. That's all good, right?
Then they post saying that there was a shotgun in my character's bag. A shotgun in the purse of a volleyball playing, passive, high-school aged girl. Nope. Not cool.

Anyways, if you're out there, hi partner!

You don’t carry shotguns in your purse? What if you get attacked by a masked assailant? Smh...

 

[dazzling]

You don’t carry shotguns in your purse? What if you get attacked by a masked assailant? Smh...

Oh, I know. Volleyball these days is just so dangerous... You never know when somebody could just, you know, attack 0:

 

[RelicFire]

When the other person clearly hasn't read what you posted. My character has introduced himself and two posts later their character is like "What even is your name, you've never said?" If you can't keep any kind of consistency in your replies... I just completely lose interest if the other person/s don't even bother to read or keep up with what's happened. What's the point of trying to go on with the story, when your partner isn't showing enough interest to keep it going?

 

[horrorshow]

What you said RelicFire , SO hard.

I have run into this time and time again. It's either something like that, where they haven't been paying attention and missed a detail that you've already included. Or, what I really hate, is when someone randomly just changes what is happening in the scene. I had a roleplay partner once who would jump around the scene so much in their post that I couldn't even keep up with what their character was doing at a certain point. And then they'd act like my character was still involved and I would have to juggle to catch up, that is if I could even decipher what they had turned the scene into. Like I understand moving quickly through some things so you don't get stuck in slow, boring parts, but it would be relevant scenes having to do strongly with the plot and they would just... go crazy on me. Lack of attention I guess is the thing I hate the most, and I'm ashamed to say it but I've ghosted partners like that in the past, and I'm not a ghoster lol.

Oh and when they force romance to happen or either happen quickly after I have said multiple times to let it be natural if it goes down. They'll agree, and then the first time their character sees mine there's some description about how breathtakingly handsome they find him, or their heart skips a beat, they're in love at first sight. I'm like dude no you're not, shut up.

 

[moonlit]

No diversety character-wise. If everyone are playing what's essentionally the same character type, the rp is gonna die fast.

Yess! I cannot stress this enough. This has happened countless times with roleplays I join. There can be no character development, and quite frankly I'd rather have the weirdest non-sensical roleplay than a copy paste one.

 

[PaulHaynek]

What doesn't kill a roleplay?

 

[Joyeful]

What doesn't kill a roleplay?

Well, according to roleplay killers in this thread, someone who cares enough to pay attention, stay consistent, not god-mod the other's character, diverse characters, liking a romance but not forcing it disney-style, does more than constant one-liners, provides paragraph breaks, is consistently active, and let's the roleplay form more organically rather than stiffly.

 

[Dutch]

My limited attention span!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Sludge]

What doesn't kill a roleplay?

Proactive roleplayers. People who create ic conflict and make things happen. And if you are lucky to get more than two of them the game will gm itself : D

I feel like the true reason why most rps fall flat so quickly is because they run out of momentum. When there is nobody around to make the wolves attack, all that's left is just a bunch of characters who have no reason to interact with each other.

 

[Dutch]

Proactive roleplayers. People who create ic conflict and make things happen. And if you are lucky to get more than two of them the game will gm itself : D

Basically, honestly this is the one thing you need to have any long lasting RP one on one or group. If you have this then it'll live long and prosper!! I very rarely get this but once and a while it happens.

 

[Sludge]

I am glad at least one person understands the struggle.

edit. *the hunt.

 

[Joyeful]

I am glad at least one person understands the struggle.

edit. *the hunt.

Honestly it gets so frustrating looking for those who are proactive. I mean, I understand it's difficult to come up with well thought-through conflict, but if your character is just flat all the way through...

 

[rae2nerdy]

I would say proactive in itself isn't going to be helpful. Especially if you get OOC fights between players on who gets to decide how the roleplay gets moved forward. I have had that happen in 1x1 and groups, where many different people have ideas for where the roleplay needs to go but they can never agree on whose idea is used and so it just becomes this toxic resentful mess.

Thus I think the first thing you need to have is people who get along. If you can't work with the other people in the thread it isn't going to matter how good the story is. So you need a group that is all on the same page and keeps one another on task or motivated.

Then you need some kind of plan for how to keep the story moving forward.