Viewpoint Unpopular Roleplay Opinions

[MizuHi]

There's a dead thread with this topic and I'm in a necromancer mood, so let's start:

If your characters hold hands romantically before the 100th post then it's not a slow burn romance, sorry

 

[Jannah]

As long as all players agree and are comfortable with it (and no site rules are being broken) then there's no problems with exploring more sensitive real world issues within RP. I mean things like politics, religion, mental illness, bigotry, etc.

 

[nerdy tangents]

No one is going to care as much about your OC as you do. It might hurt your feelings at first but the sooner you learn to accept it the quicker you can make realistic roleplay goals.

 

[Inno]

lollol let's see how far this goes before it explodes.

One liners suck even more so just a line or word of dialogue. There's no type of description, character thought, or anything worth replying back to.

First person is weird in the context of a roleplay.

 

[A Sparkling Zombie]

It's okay to play unhealthy relationships. Seeking grit is as valid as seeking romance. Wanting to explore or cope with the ugly aspects of the human condition is as valid as wanting fantasy fulfillment.

While maybe not 100% true within the rules of RPN, power imbalances are also okay. Someone with a fantasy for such a dynamic is as valid as someone who desires a romantic pairing that is egalitarian. People are capable of understanding the differences between fantasy and reality. Sometimes people like the fantasy because it's different from reality and can exist within their boundaries of what they consider safe and happy - because they still have control within and over the fantasy.

When you drop from a group, the GM should still have a right to NPC your character, or, dare I say, even allow someone to adopt the character, as is needed to maintain continuity. The needs of the group should outweigh the desires of the individual as long as proper credit toward the creator is established and as long as the GM is upfront about this philosophy when recruiting.

 

[Insanitation]

There is no such thing as overpowered. As long as the villains and other characters are able to keep up it's fine. Depends on the general scale of power in the setting.

 

[Cresion Breezes]

Oh boy let's see how many people would start avoiding me like the plague after this. I am the person who said self inserts and breaking the fourth wall are okay after all and I have plenty more hot takes

1. There's no bad ideas just bad executions.
2. GMs should try to modify the lore/plot of the world to accommodate player character ideas unless it's absolutely not possible.
3. Treating characters like tools helps create more dynamic storytelling, let them go, don't hog screentime, make them look bad, kill if needed, etc.
4. Making the player characters special/have many achievements/"chosen ones" is perfectly okay and makes story more engaging.
5. One liners are okay if they are rare and the single line drops an extreme bombshell straight up and then leaves it out to ferment without any explanation or monologues or description to distract from the content itself, like the "I am your father" type stuff. I've done this before with positive reception, albeit it's accompanied by an animated illustration.
6. A bit of metagaming is okay in slow RPs when it comes to sharing information that everyone would reasonably know, or else one insubstantial conversation can go on for 5 weeks and kill the RP.
7. Allow your partner to kill their main character in 1x1s if it's planned and set up.
8. There's no point in trying or overthinking for a "good outcome" in RPs, especially if it compromises the way your character is portrayed, bad and bittersweet endings can be every bit as interesting and engaging.
9. Sometimes people do not actually read your posts, or at least not carefully. Highlight, colour, bold, italics, underline, etc to get their attention because we live in a society now and accessibility is everything.
10. RPing involves a far broader set of skills than just literacy and storytelling, crafting a character as a player, crafting a role for players to take on as a GM, improvisation, communication, genre awareness, the ability to extrapolate and make assumptions etc, are all important skills that are not addressed as much.
11. Ghosting happens and complaining about it all the time won't do anything to make it stop.

 

[A Sparkling Zombie]

3. Treating characters like tools helps create more dynamic storytelling, let them go, don't hog screentime, make them look bad, kill if needed, etc.
5. One liners are okay if they are rare and the single line drops an extreme bombshell straight up and then leaves it out to ferment without any explanation or monologues or description to distract from the content itself, like the "I am your father" type stuff. I've done this before with positive reception, albeit it's accompanied by an animated illustration.
8. There's no point in trying or overthinking for a "good outcome" in RPs, especially if it compromises the way your character is portrayed, bad and bittersweet endings can be every bit as interesting and engaging.

Love these!

 

[Cresion Breezes]

Adding what's probably a super mega unpopular opinion because this requires its own post to explain, if you reply to this wanting to argue I'm not replying.

I think crediting artists for face claims is overrated, at least on this site/maybe for forum RPs in general.

I'm saying this as an artist who draws all my own characters, does commissions on the side, and had to cease and desist some Chinese site for printing something I made on phone cases without permission.

Why? Because even though I'm not a huge commissions artist or anything, in my experience engaging with various communities, forum RPers seems by far the least profitable creative group. I've done commissions of people's TTRPG/DnD characters, their MMO characters, fandom OCs/self inserts, straight up fanart, fanfiction covers, adoptable from DeviantArt/tumblr, pixiv fantasia, whatever that toyhouse site does, someone's pet, even someone's Neopet (yes this actually happened). The only times I ever gotten forum RP commissions is when I specifically advertised on sites like RPN, they were all in the fandom OCs category, and that is a fraction of a fraction of all commissions I've ever done.

Personal experience but I feel like forum RPers are just way more in tune with the writing part of their creations than visuals, faceclaims in general are just placeholders for people to get the idea of the character's visuals. Proven by the whole "no FC needed just description" crowd. They're about as likely to pay the artist in money/exposure as someone randomly browsing google images. Sure I've seen people agonize over not being able to find a good picture but it doesn't hold a candle to the amount of artistic roundabouts in more visuals driven communities. I've seen people redesign a character's earring 6 times or those that write a 4 page dissertation on why they chose a specific colour pallet for their OC, or have this giant sheet of like 12 outfits for them. Even I have pages of annotated character art full of visual details no RPers would care about because that's just not what this medium does. Credit people if you would feel better about it or feel like the artist deserve it, I can respect that, but don't go around thinking you're realistically helping that artist in a substantial/tangible way by doing it.

And oh yeah RPN bans NSFW so that's a huge chunk of the commission economy dead on this site lol.

 

[Jannah]

Adding what's probably a super mega unpopular opinion because this requires its own post to explain, if you reply to this wanting to argue I'm not replying.

I think crediting artists for face claims is overrated, at least on this site/maybe for forum RPs in general.

I'm saying this as an artist who draws all my own characters, does commissions on the side, and had to cease and desist some Chinese site print for something I made on phone cases without permission.

Why? Because even though I'm not a huge commissions artist or anything, in my experience engaging with various communities, forum RPers seems by far the least profitable creative group. I've done commissions of people's TTRPG/DnD characters, their MMO characters, fandom OCs/self inserts, straight up fanart, fanfiction covers, adoptable from DeviantArt/tumblr, pixiv fantasia, whatever that toyhouse site does, someone's pet, even someone's Neopet (yes this actually happened). The only times I ever gotten forum RP commissions is when I specifically advertised on sites like RPN, they were all in the fandom OCs category, and that is a fraction of a fraction of all commissions I've ever done.

Personal experience but I feel like forum RPers are just way more in tune with the writing part of their creations than visuals, faceclaims in general are just placeholders for people to get the idea of the character's visuals. Proven by the whole "no FC needed just description" crowd. They're about as likely to pay the artist in money/exposure as someone randomly browsing google images. Sure I've seen people agonize over not being able to find a good picture but it doesn't hold a candle to the amount of artistic roundabouts in more visuals driven communities. I've seen people redesign a character's earring 6 times or those that write a 4 page dissertation on why they chose a specific colour pallet for their OC, or have this giant sheet of like 12 outfits for them. Even I have pages of annotated character art full of visual details no RPers would care about because that's just not what this medium does. Credit people if you would feel better about it or feel like the artist deserve it, I can respect that, but don't go around thinking you're realistically helping that artist in a substantial/tangible way by doing it.

And oh yeah RPN bans NSFW so that's a huge chunk of the commission economy dead on this site lol.

I don't get the big deal with face claims either. I rarely use them myself unless a RP I join explicitly requires them. We're all writers, I think we can just as easily describe our characters' appearances through words. If not, I'd question what we're doing in a hobby that is so writing extensive.

 

[Syntra]

Wish fulfilment is fine and realism is overrated. Just write out that embarrassing fantasy of yours, friend! The sky is the limit!

Well, that, and the site rules. Lol.

 

[Edric Blight]

People who choose to BBCode and do fancy formats with their posts are not “superior” to those who don’t do that stuff.

No problem with people who like making the fancy coded posts, but I know this might get a few scoffs at as you people read this.

You’re not “a better writer” or role player for doing these fancy posts. People who don’t code should also be given dignity and treated with respect as well.

To each their own tho, if you want to code, fine by me. Just don’t think it makes you above everyone else lol.

 

[Eviexe]

Sometimes, the characters we create aren’t always best for the setting we imagined or envisioned. Not every character is going to be granted success in interaction or story. Sometimes, we create duds and are perfectly fine to retire/start over to get something more fitting for your muse or the story muse. Not that we aren’t capable of being wonderful writers, pitching and building intricate stories with so much imagination, but it’s okay to admit that sometimes a character doesn’t work. I am comparing this against characters who have had a successful engagement with others and my own characters who have sunk to the bottom with no activity. I have realised that my own creational properties aren’t tailored to the world as they should be or lack something fundamental in story progression. I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get characters right the first time — that we must represent a perfect product. We are human; we are bound to have some variables in strengths and weaknesses. Realising this made me a better writer and when things don’t pan out, it’s always okay to try the next time with something different. Or maybe even step down.

 

[MizuHi]

Aight this has been reopened so let's start again!

I am the person who said self inserts and breaking the fourth wall are okay after all

W-wait, breaking the fourth wall is an unpopular opinion? >->;;

Slightly related, self insert get looked down upon too much, but at the same time I understand where it comes from. At its core the concept of self insert is fine: You write yourself as a character? Cool, write what you know and all.

The problem often lays in not taking it personally when conflict happens. If we write a character with its own set of flaws, when others have problem with said character we could think 'yes, it's their flaw, I made them that way for fun/the plot'. But in the case of self insert, the character's flaws are often also the writer's flaws and so we will get a case like this:

Writer: I like pouring milk before cereal, so I'll make my self-insert do it as well​

Character: *does the thing*​

Other character: People who pour milk before cereal are really gross actually​

Writer: YOU TAKE THAT BACK-​

Yeah, it becomes easier to take in-character conflict personally when the criticism also apply to the writer's real life, and when the IC conflict carry over to OOC it kills the RP and left a bitter taste to everyone. But if this aspect can be prevented, then self insert is just as valid as any other character.

 

[Luscinioide]

most people take rp far too seriously.

it's a hobby. hobbies are supposed to be fun, not cause stress, resentment, and anger. if rp gets you so worked up that you feel the need to write scathing rants, complain 24/7 about every single little thing people do, and overall be bitter/hostile towards 99% of the community for perceived slights or disagreements on the best way to rp...sis, you either need to take a break or find a new hobby. like, can you imagine if granny at the knitting club talked about her fellow knitters in the same way rpers do? or even claimed that knitting caused her constant anxiety and insecurity. idk why it's accepted in rp communities for everyone to be so nihilistic. that's not having fun bro

i don't even take novel writing as seriously as some people do their self-insert sonic the hedgehog romance fandom rp, goodness. loosen up. have fun. don't spend your entire rp career being mad at everything and everyone. don't make it a competition. don't treat internet randoms' opinions like they're your thesis advisor. don't force yourself to rp if it makes you miserable. you'll ruin it for yourself and all those around you.

 

[Uxie]

People who choose to BBCode and do fancy formats with their posts are not “superior” to those who don’t do that stuff.

No problem with people who like making the fancy coded posts, but I know this might get a few scoffs at as you people read this.

You’re not “a better writer” or role player for doing these fancy posts. People who don’t code should also be given dignity and treated with respect as well.

To each their own tho, if you want to code, fine by me. Just don’t think it makes you above everyone else lol.

as someone who codes, i'm just curious to know where this sentiment that coders or code users feel superior to non-coders comes from;; i feel like i've seen it mentioned in the past too, but i don't think in my years on rpn i've had the misfortune to meet anyone who genuinely feels this way (superiority over non-coders!!)-- did it arise because you had an experience of or have seen someone else being looked down upon by someone who coded or something of the like?

 

[Steve Jobs]

Expy characters are fine as long as you can retool them to fit the setting.

 

[That Weird girl]

high school rps should not be popular.

 

[Jet]

Cresion Breezes

Hot takes for sure.

1. There's no bad ideas just bad executions.

Gotta say this one is wrong in my experience. Certain decisions are horrible for RPs because they're impossible to execute properly, or very, very difficult. I understand your point that you can make things work with the right people and mindset, but do a 10 character post circle and see how quick your RP stalls. There are also certain story types that flop hard. Sandboxes never survive because people like discovery. When you're left to create a story on your own, you lose any and all elements of discovery. It turns a RP into book writing, two wildly different things.

I will say that many "bad" choices can be powered through with the right people, but there are some choices that are objectively bad.

2. GMs should try to modify the lore/plot of the world to accommodate player character ideas unless it's absolutely not possible.

Absolutely agree 100%, and any GM who disagrees will never, ever see success. I'm convinced of that. Your vision as a GM will never align with all your players, and forcing them into boxes creates a power imbalance and stifles creativity. GMs who don't do this are often the power-tripping types, who think they're more important than the players, which is wrong on every level. The GM is equal to the players and should include their ideas whenever possible. If that requires minor adjustments than so be it.

3. Treating characters like tools helps create more dynamic storytelling, let them go, don't hog screentime, make them look bad, kill if needed, etc.

Agreed, but killing player characters must be something you announce in your interest check. It's completely unfair to kill characters without making that statement early, well before characters are created.

Reason being, everyone views their characters as the protag. Everyone has their own personal "quest" to complete, and ending someone's narrative is cruel beyond words, unless they signed up for it in advance.


4. Making the player characters special/have many achievements/"chosen ones" is perfectly okay and makes story more engaging.

This is highly subjective, and in my experience the opposite is true. Most people hate when certain PCs are given canonical "protag status" via special bloodlines, prophecies, special snowflake powers etc. Once again, everyone's character is a protag, and when others are put on a pedestal above you, your character feels like a background one.

Achievements are fine, that's all background stuff, but chosen ones are never allowed or created in my RPs. I'll never elevate one character above others as the GM. If you want to be the protag, earn it by writing a damn good one. I'm not gonna make you the fated savior of humanity, with others serving as your side cast.

Parting thoughts

Your points are a mixed bag imo, but props for actually posting hot takes.

That Weird girl

Agreed 100%. Academy RPs are just... it's a strange phenomenon. I'll never understand why grown adults, often 25+, hunger for HS age academy RPs. It's not harmful or anything, they're entitled to have fun however they want, but it does confuse me.

I suppose they want an alternate version of their own formative years, and Shonen exacerbates this, but shouldn't it get old after a while?

 

[Jet]

as someone who codes, i'm just curious to know where this sentiment that coders or code users feel superior to non-coders comes from;; i feel like i've seen it mentioned in the past too, but i don't think in my years on rpn i've had the misfortune to meet anyone who genuinely feels this way (superiority over non-coders!!)-- did it arise because you had an experience of or have seen someone else being looked down upon by someone who coded or something of the like?

RPN used to be much more elitist. Coders were lauded as good RPers, while regular posters were considered "low effort."

Mediocre posts with bad prose got more love than professional grade, uncoded ones. This bled into interest checks as well. If you weren't coding, you weren't getting nearly as much interest, even if your RP was 10X better than a coded one.

Character sheets often required obnoxiously complex codes, often unfriendly to mobile, because "effort bruv" but the thing is, we are writing. Content is what actually matters. Coding is cool, but coding doesn't describe scenery, write dialogue, push the plot or form character relationships. It's like cover art on a book. How many books with basic covers are all time classics? How many with amazing covers are bargain bin pulp?

You seem to agree with me and Edric Blight , but I wanted to give some context. This website was once filled with clowns who'd reject Tolkien if he didn't intricately code his posts, while accepting a 12 year old with a kick ass template.

Thankfully the community has changed, probably because everyone matured. Shiny colors stopped mattering more than writing skill and character depth and/or entertainment value.

That said, I think coding is cool, but I prefer Centerblocking and a simple font change. I'm kind of a purist and I like my writing to speak for itself. I don't enjoy the frills and take no satisfaction in framing posts in code. I do think codes can be awesome, especially the very complex ones, but they're separate from posts for me. I usually look at coded posts, note the awesome aesthetics, and then read without paying any attention to them.

 

[nerdy tangents]

For context, there is a difference between shy and anti-social.

A shy character needs coaxing to engage with the plot and an anti-social character might as well be a rock for all the engagement they give other players.

But my actual unpopular opinion, making anti-social characters requires a high level of skill that most roleplayers do not have.

 

[Cresion Breezes]

Cresion Breezes

Hot takes for sure.

1. There's no bad ideas just bad executions.

Gotta say this one is wrong in my experience. Certain decisions are horrible for RPs because they're impossible to execute properly, or very, very difficult. I understand your point that you can make things work with the right people and mindset, but do a 10 character post circle and see how quick your RP stalls. There are also certain story types that flop hard. Sandboxes never survive because people like discovery. When you're left to create a story on your own, you lose any and all elements of discovery. It turns a RP into book writing, two wildly different things.

I will say that many "bad" choices can be powered through with the right people, but there are some choices that are objectively bad.

2. GMs should try to modify the lore/plot of the world to accommodate player character ideas unless it's absolutely not possible.

Absolutely agree 100%, and any GM who disagrees will never, ever see success. I'm convinced of that. Your vision as a GM will never align with all your players, and forcing them into boxes creates a power imbalance and stifles creativity. GMs who don't do this are often the power-tripping types, who think they're more important than the players, which is wrong on every level. The GM is equal to the players and should include their ideas whenever possible. If that requires minor adjustments than so be it.

3. Treating characters like tools helps create more dynamic storytelling, let them go, don't hog screentime, make them look bad, kill if needed, etc.

Agreed, but killing player characters must be something you announce in your interest check. It's completely unfair to kill characters without making that statement early, well before characters are created.

Reason being, everyone views their characters as the protag. Everyone has their own personal "quest" to complete, and ending someone's narrative is cruel beyond words, unless they signed up for it in advance.


4. Making the player characters special/have many achievements/"chosen ones" is perfectly okay and makes story more engaging.

This is highly subjective, and in my experience the opposite is true. Most people hate when certain PCs are given canonical "protag status" via special bloodlines, prophecies, special snowflake powers etc. Once again, everyone's character is a protag, and when others are put on a pedestal above you, your character feels like a background one.

Achievements are fine, that's all background stuff, but chosen ones are never allowed or created in my RPs. I'll never elevate one character above others as the GM. If you want to be the protag, earn it by writing a damn good one. I'm not gonna make you the fated savior of humanity, with others serving as your side cast.

Parting thoughts

Your points are a mixed bag imo, but props for actually posting hot takes.

Some clarifications I guess.


3. I don't mean GMs should go around killing player characters casually, this is more directed at people's own characters. Your characters aren't your children no matter how much effort you've put into them, they are your tools, killing them is okay.

4. I don't mean one player character should be inherently more special than other player characters, but that all player characters are special in the context of the setting, more specifically the in-universe role the player characters would take on. For example a super secret task force, a god blessed party, group that obtained some classified information, etc. Rather than a normal group of students, random adventurers, etc.

 

[Jet]

Some clarifications I guess.


3. I don't mean GMs should go around killing player characters casually, this is more directed at people's own characters. Your characters aren't your children no matter how much effort you've put into them, they are your tools, killing them is okay.

4. I don't mean one player character should be inherently more special than other player characters, but that all player characters are special in the context of the setting, more specifically the in-universe role the player characters would take on. For example a super secret task force, a god blessed party, group that obtained some classified information, etc. Rather than a normal group of students, random adventurers, etc.

With those clarifications I am much more aligned with your position. I enjoy RPs where the cast is extremely proficient or special. There's a subset of people who like making weak, normal characters, and they hate that stuff, but I don't mind that at all.

And yeah killing your own characters should be more common imo. With you there.

 

[Grosso Nerdo]

Get 3-4 good and active players, not 7+ players.
That's a much better way to tell a story.

 

[GrumpySwallow]

Number 1 is a copy paste of a post I made from another thread, but I think it applies here too.

1. Canon Characters are always going to be a little off as people will naturally want to put their own personal touch to a character. Some folks want to do a different interpretation of a character, and some canon characters have different personalities depending on what game/book/anime/etc. in the series they show up in. A character's personality and beliefs can be also be different depending on which version of said media one is using as a guide. For example, a character that is goofy and stupid in the American English dub of a game or anime can be serious and level-headed in the Japanese version.

2. Write long posts because you want to and you enjoy it. Many RPers will either skim through a post or not read it if it doesn't involve them directly. Don't let it get to you.

3. You can't force people to believe your character is super cool or badass, that is up to the other RPers. Just make a character that's fun for you to play, play it genuinely, and usually people will grow to like your PC.