Types of role plays and things role players do that annoy you

[Xyshurondor]

Today I learned there are modern WWII roleplays where the model of tank someone is inside becomes a valid datum. This is fascinating to me.

 

[Hercynia]

Ooooooh boy.


RIGHT!


First off: Cliché (at least where I started, they were EVERYWHERE) roleplays. I want a roleplay to be ORIGINAL, not be done before 500 times.


Second: One-liners. I will freely admit that I don't always put the maximum effort into my posts, but seriously people. If your character is swimming tell us how they FEEL, not just; Bob swims to the top of pool. They kinda kill the rp slightly and Jane you kinda boring to rp with. I can understand it in some settings, say, Simple rp's, or if they're permitted, but I see some of these in casual, and in my opinion of you can't meet requirements set by the GM then you ready shouldn't be there, or you should at least be given a warning.


Grammar, Sentence structuring, capitalisation, etc. : This relates to one-liners a bit, but please, please, use grammar. It really, really irks me when I see passages like this: jeff walks to store and buys chocolate and buys gloves and buys hats john walks out of store after paying. Gaaaah!


Cliché/Mary Sue-ish Characters: Luckily I don't see many of these. But seriously people. Make original, and non-OP characters. Noone wants to roleplay with you if your character is the princess of the kingdom who can turn into a cat, and fire magic lasers from her eyes and secretly has God DNA.


Knowing things you shouldn't: Please note what should be unknown. Recently this happened where someone's character went to the stairs my character was at and struck up a conversation with them. Never mind that my character was in his lab, the only way you could get to it was secret passages and passcodes, add my character disliked his character. Granted, this was just a case of not reading what had happened and being confused, but still. If my character is a secret agent you SHOULDN'T KNOW THIS (unless you have reason to). Okay, rant over. I think those cover most of what annoys me, but if there's any more I've forgotten I may add it later.

 

[Conflux]

I find it considerably annoying when people are overly sticking each other's noses OOC. I am not against that by any means. It's good to have a lively community with members interacting with one another and talking about shenanigans in real life, but if you're going to superfluously discuss about character shipping and how much you wanted your character to be paired with Boy A/Girl B, at least make that happen In-character instead of just endlessly blabbering about it without doing anything. Because let's face it, nothing's going to happen if you're just going to tell and tell and tell about how much you want Maria to be paired with Earl.


You know those times when you're craving for a roleplay, something with a concept that - at the very least - appeals to your taste. Then during your search you find one at the interest check forum. The idea is a swell one and it's definitely your cup of tea, so you go ahead and show your interest and wait until the GM announces that the RP thread is up and ready...and then BAM! he/she produces a poorly constructed, poorly structured pile of nothingness. Now I don't want to sound like an asshole here but if you want people to join your RP, at least put some effort into it. Structure its background premise, set a theme to it so that players will know if your RP is incorporated with real life elements or anime-ish tropes. Establish a starting point so that players who are joining your RP won't be lost and confused as to how things are supposed to work out. Now I don't speak as a veteran GM but it's honestly just a common understanding that if you want something to come out good, best for you to do is to work for it.


Roleplays with character sheets that let you write a hundred things about your character which are honestly not that needed. Coming up with a set of character development questions is a good enough approach, it lets your character feel like a dimensional being. However, when you try put so many unnecessary things that are needed to be filled up, I am more likely to end up getting tired rather than joining your RP. It's like writing a very long resume and then providing a 5 paragraph essay in the end about how much you want to become a Hogwarts student.


I know that for a particular age group, teenage roleplayers are prone to create characters who are fighters, samurais, mages, katana wielding anime girls, etc. It's understandable, so when I spot those types of characters and have no intention of playing with them, I'll just move along. It just annoys me that as a roleplayer whose general interest revolves around realism, I find little non-fighter characters nowadays. Why can't we have lawyers? detectives? policemen? teachers? bakers? candlestick makers? or I don't know...perhaps some realistic characters?


Lastly, what I loathe the most is when plot discussions are non-existent and what players normally do is talk about things that I really don't have any interest on whatsoever. If the RP's OOC section is just going to a place for random discussions that don't have anything to do with the RP and its current state, then it's best for me to leave and find another one rather than stay and wait until the GM finishes his musings about Undertale.

 

[Muffinboi]

Werewolves, and by that I mean the Twilight kind mimicking wolf packs and all. One site I go on there are werewolf RPs everywhere.

 

[Xyshurondor]

You know what I would love to see, character-sheet-wise, that no one apparently does? An RP with two character sheets: the "public" one, that literally tells nothing that cannot be seen by meeting the character for five minutes (name, appearance, more obvious details of job, clothing, weapons), and the "private" one that has their stats where relevant, background, and any secrets that should really be teased out in the RP.


The private sheet would only be seen by the GM for purposes of approving or rejecting characters; the public sheet would be what other RPers see, and you don't get to find out anything else except through roleplaying.


This would really cut down those four-page character sheets that tell you all about the character's history with their evil brother or how they're a quarter demon on their mother's side but you can't tell that until they get mad.

 

[Under the Bridge]

Character sheets.


Discussions about post length.


Bragging about how long you've been playing a particular character.


Bragging about how long you've been role-playing in general.


Treating this all like a profession instead of a hobby.

 

[call me rae]

[QUOTE="Under the Bridge]Character sheets.
Discussions about post length.


Bragging about how long you've been playing a particular character.


Bragging about how long you've been role-playing in general.


Treating this all like a profession instead of a hobby.

[/QUOTE]
What do you mean about discussions about post length? Like when people have some arbitrary word count built into their requirements ?

 

[Under the Bridge]

Like when people have some arbitrary word count built into their requirements ?

Yes. Also any discussion that uses post length as some metric of player quality. It's fairly arbitrary and nonsensical.

 

[call me rae]

[QUOTE="Under the Bridge]Yes. Also any discussion that uses post length as some metric of player quality. It's fairly arbitrary and nonsensical.

[/QUOTE]
In fairness some of this is built into the classifications of the site. Detailed for instance requires you to be able to write a minimum of three paragraphs per post. I believe Casual is around one paragraph per post.


So that's not necessarily just the people being arbitrary but them upholding the requirements of the site.


Now if they are saying - you have to write five paragraphs or your a terrible person and I refuse to speak to you than yes that's stupid and wrong.


But if they're just saying this is a casual roleplay so at least a paragraph per post folks - then that's just enforcing site rules.

 

[Under the Bridge]

In fairness some of this is built into the classifications of the site.

I know. The system's broke.

Now if they are saying - you have to write five paragraphs or your a terrible person and I refuse to speak to you than yes that's stupid and wrong.

Yeah. Those individuals are extra bad.

 

[call me rae]

[QUOTE="Under the Bridge]I know. The system's broke..

[/QUOTE]
Well in all honestly it could be worse. I've been on sites were there is no set standard for literacy and literally everything has some kind of arbitrary post length requirements. We're talking literate could mean anything from being able to write in a readable manner to being able to crank out 1000 + words per post.


At least here you have a set standard you have to uphold.

 

[Under the Bridge]

This became a discussion about post length.

 

[Sesquipedalian]

You know what I would love to see, character-sheet-wise, that no one apparently does? An RP with two character sheets: the "public" one, that literally tells nothing that cannot be seen by meeting the character for five minutes (name, appearance, more obvious details of job, clothing, weapons), and the "private" one that has their stats where relevant, background, and any secrets that should really be teased out in the RP.
The private sheet would only be seen by the GM for purposes of approving or rejecting characters; the public sheet would be what other RPers see, and you don't get to find out anything else except through roleplaying.


This would really cut down those four-page character sheets that tell you all about the character's history with their evil brother or how they're a quarter demon on their mother's side but you can't tell that until they get mad.

This is a great idea. It really irks me when people read about my character's backstory or personality or whatever and then their character knows this secret about mine or does certain things to draw out specific reactions and information.


One of my greatest pet-peeves is one liners. "She smiled at him" gives me nothing to reply to.

 

[KayMegz]

I don't know if this has been said already, I am a very lazy person and don't feel like reading 14 pages of posts lol, but my biggest pet peeve is LIMBO. Purgatory, etc. When an RPer has a character in the middle of doing something with your character and then disappears. This has happened many times and the RPer will sometimes disappear for days, weeks, and I've even had months. I understand that life happens, but I find this very unfair and annoying when your character is in a position where they can't really do anything because the other character has them in a choke hold, about to get down on one knee and pop the question, or any other scenario really where it would be rude to leave and interact with another RPer to keep the RP going, but on the other hand it's also rude to disappear without warning. My rule is if you're about to add some giant plot to the RP, don't disappear without a heads up so the other RPers aren't stuck in eternal limbo.


And don't even get me started on *types* of RPs that annoy me, I could go on for days.

 

[James Koach]

I've only actively participated in a single RP so far, so I don't know how often this happens. One thing I've grown to hate is GMs that, for the sake of getting more people, lower the whole RP's standards and accept idiots with silly ideas. Everything was great until a few guys dropped out, and in order to replace them, a bunch of fools with bad grammar and horrible ideas were allowed in. Well, they ruined it for me.

 

[call me rae]

[QUOTE="James Koach]I've only actively participated in a single RP so far, so I don't know how often this happens. One thing I've grown to hate is GMs that, for the sake of getting more people, lower the whole RP's standards and accept idiots with silly ideas. Everything was great until a few guys dropped out, and in order to replace them, a bunch of fools with bad grammar and horrible ideas were allowed in. Well, they ruined it for me.

[/QUOTE]
I hate that. Or when a GM plays favoritrs. Like their friends can join and do whatever they want -regardless of whether it us against the roleplay rules - but if the rest of us try the same thing than its oh no that's not allowed

 

[Ixacise]

Too much fancy formatting/bbcode and or obnoxious text colors and fonts.


Not going to read it and if it's submitted in something I'm running it's being rejected out of principle.


Also related is people making huge paragraphs and not spacing them out enough. It's annoying to read big meaty paragraphs that have a uniform body to them. Having variety in your text to white space is your friend.


This is a reading and writing intensive site, and the moment it becomes a chore to read something is the moment you did something wrong.

 

[Muffinboi]

RPs that have incredibly limited slots, and the characters must have a specific quirk/age/appearance/personality.


Talking about stuff like this:


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[SpookySableye]

RPs that have incredibly limited slots, and the characters must have a specific quirk/age/appearance/personality.
Talking about stuff like this:


View attachment 231664

Dear god, I know what you're talking about. In my opinion, people should be allowed to play whatever personality they want. If I'm restricted to only playing a very specific/limited personality type... Adios!

 

[i love nick check]

Same!!!!!!!!!

 

[Fallen]

I hate it when people get tenses mixed up, or respond to a roleplay with nothing for me to work off of. First person also really annoys me, for some reason, even though there isn't anything wrong with it. I hate it when people try to roleplay mentally ill characters without doing any research of their own on that type of mental illness. Or if I'm rping in a specific time frame (say, medieval times) and people have no idea what knights are and that grenades don't exist yet (exaggeration, but still).

 

[CoconutLeaves]

These are good notes. I came from the dA rp scene, so there's a learning curve I have to get used to again in forum rp's. Art tended to have more influence than writing so a lot of things were allowed in that site (I don't tag since I rarely did them, I should do them now). Also, a lot of the bad habits in rp here tend to be the norm which I would apply those practices to my posts.


I don't have a lot of personal peeves regarding rp's since I'm guilty of a big chunk of these bad habits and I'm trying to fix them, but I do have personal wishes regarding rp's.


My only peeve so far:


1.) Characters who are highly emotional. I just can't like them. All so angry, or sad, or happy to the point that something is wrong. Yes, melancholy is real, anger is real, glee is real, but making them the main trait of the character does not bode well for everyone. Of course, I know it's fun to play something you're not and perhaps it's the part that makes rp even more fun (I like playing certain kinds of characters as well). But the rp goes both ways.

 

[Killer Queen]

Back when I used to kik random people I met on omegle, I often found myself rping with people who spoke in broken english or made their characters way OP


Even worse some kept trying to serail the RP to ERP. Very uncomfortable

 

[Aiko Kino]

I really dislike when people get in a thread with you and two or three posts in go inactive, but constantly tell you they're getting to it. I've had a thread sitting for almost two months.

 

[Coward]

Gonna add to my personal list:


Canon x OC, or 'I need someone to play a male.'


In theory both are fine, but in practice they are usually code for 'play someone to dote on my Mary Sue OC, while I do nothing to create any sort of interest or plot.'