Experiences What was your worst roleplay experience?

[nerdy tangents]

Cealen so a few things.

1. any adult that pressures a kid to write sexual themes is garbage. No ifs ands or buts about it.

2. anyone who tries to pressure you to write abusive sexual themes is garbage. No ifs ands or buts about it

3. Any partner that tells you your writing is shit is garbage. No ifs ands or buts about it

like look man I get into situations where my partner and I have different views on what a relationship should be OR maybe they just kinda suck at a certain aspect of roleplaying.

I don’t pressure them to change. I ask questions or I bow out because I have a little thing called chill (no I don’t that’s a filthy lie)

Also legit I would have cried for a few hours then also left the site. Well fourteen year old me would have, me of now would strap in and be like “Not today Satan. I got time today and I will put you on blast. I am leaving anyway so might as well go out with a bang.”

 

[Gish_Sky]

I was once roleplaying with a person who messaged me every 20 minutes I didn't replay. It got really annoying really fast.

Imagine a person DMing you every 5 minutes. I RPed with someone and their grammar was awful. Their posts were generally unreadable. Eventually, I tried ending it with them and they were confused as to why I no longed wanted to RP with them...

 

[Cealen]

Cealen so a few things.

1. any adult that pressures a kid to write sexual themes is garbage. No ifs ands or buts about it.

2. anyone who tries to pressure you to write abusive sexual themes is garbage. No ifs ands or buts about it

3. Any partner that tells you your writing is shit is garbage. No ifs ands or buts about it

like look man I get into situations where my partner and I have different views on what a relationship should be OR maybe they just kinda suck at a certain aspect of roleplaying.

I don’t pressure them to change. I ask questions or I bow out because I have a little thing called chill (no I don’t that’s a filthy lie)

Also legit I would have cried for a few hours then also left the site. Well fourteen year old me would have, me of now would strap in and be like “Not today Satan. I got time today and I will put you on blast. I am leaving anyway so might as well go out with a bang.”

yep, i am very well aware of those sorts of things now, being as this happened...roughly 6 years ago now. but when i was 14 i really didn’t know how to handle situations like this at all, i just wished i went and reported that person instead of just deleting my account right away. so that’s what i mean by “overreaction”. and i really did attempt to work something out, but they refused to budge, because this is what “they wanted”. my opinion matters too! i had been pressured into writing stuff so many times on that site. especially adults were putting on the pressure on me, probably for some weird power trip they had >_>. thankfully i still had plently of fun rp partners too who didn’t pressure me into writing things on that site, but it was still so bad the entire experience on that site, :’). i remember the site was really badly moderated (hence the need for users to “take things into their own hands” a lot of the time.)

 

[Many Weapons Guy]

Among the things that really bug me in RPs, trying to do fancy vocabulary to the point I need a dictionary for every single word in a post is more than enough for me to give up.
And if that's not enough, it's a wall of text too.
And by "fancy vocabulary", I mean words that I never knew would exist.
Lemme just directly quote that one... words can't describe it otherwise.

I promise you sir, these monsters will be defeated.....I will traverse to profound lengths in order to vanquish my foes, even if it means the costly expense of my own life energy. I give you my dedicated word that they shall perish. These tormenting nightmares that stand on the ruins as the poses of gods shall reign supreme no longer. Their might may be vast, their power incredulous, but they shall fall when we attack. The collective assault shall be their very end, and their world as they know it shall perish in it's wake. With the catalyst rising to transcend it's peak of the very notion of power itself, chaos is only the obligatory menopause in it's ever so pursuing quest to vanquish all that remains. In the end, when the final showdown commences, the doomsday clock strikes to midnight, the hand befalls twelve, and it's our hand on the clock. We will avert this crisis, and I swear my life on it. They may be gangling beasts with obscene power, and their strength is horrific beyond measure, but I shall hold nothing back for such a tenacious foe. They shall face the smite hand of execution, and I shall show no mercy. I'll crush the life out of each and every single one, and I'll stand there and watch as their life fades from their cursed pupils. I'll wrench the beating heart of our adversaries into utmost oblivion, and cast their souls deep within the depths of my weapon. I swear, I'll send them to Hell, by all means. My life may be forfeit in this attempt, but I'll be subservient to death in my own wake, as long as their heads decorate my wall...

I'd have needed like an hour trying to get through this, but I took a quick glance and just outright told that person (still in-character) to explain themselves.
I was trying not to sound upset or annoyed, even though I really was, but that person was still like "haha, sorry ! won't happen again !".
I just flat out told them I didn't want to continue the RP, didn't even want to talk to them for a while. And when they tried to apologize like their entire life depends on it, I still told them off.

 

[Daisie]

3. Any partner that tells you your writing is shit is garbage. No ifs ands or buts about it

Can't emphasize this enough. I've had a friend or two mentally torn down because of verbal abuse in this way. There's helpful criticism and then there's this. This is not helpful, it's bullying.

I find that people who pride themselves on being brutally honest are usually far more interested in being brutal than honest. It's not much to ask of someone to be a decent human being, and if they're not even meeting that bare minimum, then it's time to get out.

 

[forestferns]

Okay so... I have a bunch of bad experiences but there are two that stand out the most:

When I was around 11, I was on this MMO site and that’s basically where I would RP. And, I met this person who wanted to RP with me and I was like “ok, sure.” And the Roleplay was going smoothly until I noticed something pretty odd about him. His demeanor changed and his little rp chat posts were getting inappropriate. I was confused since I was young at the time and I wondered why he was typing that kind of stuff out. And then, he had his character force himself onto my character and basically sexually assaulted my character in a graphic manner. I was extremely confused and it disturbed me. It had come out of nowhere and it took me a little bit to process what I had just read. Needless to say, I left that site and I haven’t touched it in years.

Second experience was when I was around 14 or so and I was doing a FNAF type roleplay with someone. They were playing the security guard and I was playing some animatronics. Well, I had decided that I would have an animatronic jumpscare their character. When I did, this person’s response to it was weird. I can’t remember what their post said exactly but it was something along the lines of the security guard wanting some hanky panky with the animatronic. I was like “huh? what? how?” Because I was playing animatronics and my partner was playing a human security guard. So uh... I noped out of that roleplay.

 

[Crayons]

My feeling is that if you need a thesaurus to write your posts the poor partner is gonna need one to read it. Therefore please people please do not abuse the thesaurus.

Among the things that really bug me in RPs, trying to do fancy vocabulary to the point I need a dictionary for every single word in a post is more than enough for me to give up.
And if that's not enough, it's a wall of text too.
And by "fancy vocabulary", I mean words that I never knew would exist.
Lemme just directly quote that one... words can't describe it otherwise.



I'd have needed like an hour trying to get through this, but I took a quick glance and just outright told that person (still in-character) to explain themselves.
I was trying not to sound upset or annoyed, even though I really was, but that person was still like "haha, sorry ! won't happen again !".
I just flat out told them I didn't want to continue the RP, didn't even want to talk to them for a while. And when they tried to apologize like their entire life depends on it, I still told them off.

 

[Many Weapons Guy]

My feeling is that if you need a thesaurus to write your posts the poor partner is gonna need one to read it. Therefore please people please do not abuse the thesaurus.

So. Much. This.

 

[Syntra]

My feeling is that if you need a thesaurus to write your posts the poor partner is gonna need one to read it. Therefore please people please do not abuse the thesaurus.

Yeah, and like... the words aren't even 100% synonyms most of the time? That's why they exist-- to cover the entire spectrum of meanings. It irks me so much when a person obviously doesn't know what a word means AND STILL USES IT.

 

[Merciless Medic]

Many Weapons Guy

..... I understand that like it's fluent and damn is that some pep talk. XD if that happened in a medieval RP, then I can see why their character talked like that. That's basically the way Old English is said (or I guess when you are making a story or a pep talk, which that is a pep talk).

Cealen and forestferns , I'm so sorry that happened glad you two noped the hell out of those as best you could, regardless of what could have happened or what could have been done.

Another bad RP experience was when I was having an RP with some friends on Discord and when I told them OOC I had gotten pregnant when I wasn't in the best position to be pregnant, one of them told me to have an abortion. I told her no, that I was going to go through with it and then she began insulting me and telling me I'll be a bad mother. I noped out of that RP so hard and I only got like... 3 posts in :/ kinda sucked but I kind of figured she didn't have a high opinion of me anyway :/ and yet she stayed as a "friend" because we were both friends with the same people.

 

[Many Weapons Guy]

..... I understand that like it's fluent and damn is that some pep talk. XD if that happened in a medieval RP, then I can see why their character talked like that. That's basically the way Old English is said (or I guess when you are making a story or a pep talk, which that is a pep talk).

It takes place in the modern time though. 2020, I might add.
While I do understand that, imagine listening to someone talk like that... I'd be lost before I even know what's being said.

 

[Merciless Medic]

It takes place in the modern time though. 2020, I might add.
While I do understand that, imagine listening to someone talk like that... I'd be lost before I even know what's being said.

Oh.... well then... never mind. If its 2020, then someone is kind of... I dunno. XD Much?

 

[Crayons]

Yeah, and like... the words aren't even 100% synonyms most of the time? That's why they exist-- to cover the entire spectrum of meanings. It irks me so much when a person obviously doesn't know what a word means AND STILL USES IT.

One hundred percent this ^^^

Honestly using big words to make yourself look clever then choosing words that don't actually mean what you think they mean is the quickest way to look the opposite of clever.

I have literally read whole posts where none of it makes any sense because they have just gone through all the words and picked something from a thesaurus and it's just gibberish. (Almost as bad the other players in this group were praising this person for their posts and I was like lol what this is some kind of Emperors New Clothes shiz.)

I've mentioned this before but one of the best exercises we did in English class at school was to take the text of a magazine ad, then use a thesaurus to choose synonyms for all the words and see how much you can deviate from the original meaning.

I think everyone should be forced to do that before they are let near a thesaurus. XD

 

[DisneyGirl]

How about thinking you were roleplaying with someone in their 20s—because that’s the age they put in their ad—when you find out from another source (with social media proof and everything) that they’re really in their 40s?

I really feel for older roleplayers who have a hard time finding people to write with because of their age. I really do. It sucks that the age groups in roleplaying are not really balanced enough that there’s people for everyone and I’m so sorry to those who face that.

That being said, what this person did really ruined our roleplay. (I feel this is the part that I have to say that this happened outside of RPN. Maybe it’s a sign I should just stick to RPN, idk.)

Ok. So. I totally understand why this person may have felt like they had to lie, and it’s not the worse thing anyone can do, but DUDE. COME ON. It takes so much time and work and patience to find someone you get along with and a story you are excited about and they seemed so nice and I was so freaking adoring this RP. Like to the point of making the Pinterest moodboards. Some of y’all know what I’m talking about. You know you found what dreams are made of when you start making Spotify playlists for that one RP you’re all giddy about.

But then I find out they’re lying about something very important to most people (and TO ME) and as much as I want to so freaking badly ignore it and say “it’s not that big of a deal” and just have fun with a story I looooove, I can’t enjoy it anymore because it just makes me feel a little sick to my stomach.

I’m gonna be completely honest here. Like a lot of us in this hobby, I don’t feel that comfortable writing with anyone too much older than me (like early 30s is my limit now since I’m in my 20s) but you know what? This person seemed really cool and we had very similar interests and if they had just been honest and put their real age out there just to make sure their potential partners felt comfortable/safe with that, I would have really appreciated their honesty and most likely said, “Why the heck not?” and then we would have probably had a really fun time writing together without the age thing being an issue. Because it’s not their age that disturbed me; it was the fact that they lied. And because they lied about something that important (!!!!!), not only did they most likely just lose a roleplay partner but they also put a dent in something I’ve loved for a decade and a half and that freaking hurts.

*screams into pillow*

 

[Scaramouche Stan]

I had a lot of bad experiences, but one was when I wrote a long reply for both the persons love interest and my oc and they wrote about 5 lines for their oc and one line for my love interest. I don’t usually have a problem with lines, but if I am being fair by giving their love interest a lot of lines, I expect the same from them as well.

 

[Many Weapons Guy]

Not exactly a RP, but there was this guy that liked to poke fun at me about how my character is not as strong as his, in terms of physical strength, magic, etc. But he was like, if I'm weaker than him, that's fine by him ; if I'm stronger, he starts saying things like I'm too overpowered or just disregards it altogether.

One time, he listed out the magic elements his char could do : fire, ice, wind, thunder, bless and curse (light/dark ? life/death ?), and things that affect the mind like "psycho".
I said those last ones, especially "psycho", didn't sound like element, but he disagreed. I told him that natural-based like fire, ice, earth, wind, water, lightning sound more element, and...

He said "earth isn't an element".
And insisted that "Psycho is better and more unique".

He made me ask myself if humanity had gone THAT low, and made me feel like I wanted to give up on hopes for any sort of remotely decent RPs, after that.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I mean I would have started with Thunder and really pissed him off. Because I would be like.. "So your saying his powers cancel each other out, does that mean he affectively has no power? Also what is thunder? Does he just make really loud noises? That's an interesting counter to wind. Or is that he actually only has wind and really loud noise powers and the rest is just kind of null and void?"

I wouldn't have even acknowledged "psycho". I would be like "I think you meant to put that in the personality section. Please elaborate on his mental disorder."

But then I legit love taking these super shallow characters and asking the player "But what if we like made them legitimately unique. Not just my character has all the powers because I want to win all the fights." Makes the ones who are just inexperienced really jazzed and makes the ones who are just out to power play lose their minds. It's a win win honestly.

 

[Many Weapons Guy]

I wouldn't have even acknowledged "psycho". I would be like "I think you meant to put that in the personality section. Please elaborate on his mental disorder."

His exact words were :

"[Psycho] is an element that has to do with the mind but deals direct damage" (how ?)
"It's extremely powerful against targets with fragile minds or are affected by a status effect that alters their mental wellbeing such as Fear" (you don't say...)
"Sling boring rocks at a dude or oblierate someone's mind and body after having instilled them with a heavy dose of Fear" (for real ?)

I mean I would have started with Thunder and really pissed him off. Because I would be like.. "So your saying his powers cancel each other out, does that mean he affectively has no power? Also what is thunder? Does he just make really loud noises? That's an interesting counter to wind. Or is that he actually only has wind and really loud noise powers and the rest is just kind of null and void?"

His char is literally just a monster species from the monster hunter series ! And yet capable of 8+ elements. But nope, that's the standard. If you're weaker, then you need to be cooler like him. If you're stronger, it's "far-fetched".

But then I legit love taking these super shallow characters and asking the player "But what if we like made them legitimately unique. Not just my character has all the powers because I want to win all the fights." Makes the ones who are just inexperienced really jazzed and makes the ones who are just out to power play lose their minds. It's a win win honestly.

I don't think I've ever even seen him doing much in any RPs anyway. I do admit, back then I was cringy as fuck too, but still, at least I tried.
But seriously, what do you expect from someone that asks you "[their char name] is too busty to fit in the plot" ?

 

[nerdy tangents]

Oh yeah he screams insecure attention seeker. I mean realistically if he’s that obnoxious it wouldn’t even get to the CS stage I would just block and move on. Those types need to be ignored until they learn to not be obnoxious.

 

[Many Weapons Guy]

Oh yeah he screams insecure attention seeker. I mean realistically if he’s that obnoxious it wouldn’t even get to the CS stage I would just block and move on. Those types need to be ignored until they learn to not be obnoxious.

Oh but he did get to the CS stage, in a RP (which never started) long ago with me and some others. In fact...

Not really a rp experience, but dammit does it make my blood boil every time I recall it.
So there were me, the DM, and 2 players, discussing the rules and our chars and all that.

• I said I wanted to be a blacksmith, and showed them my own weapon designs as "proof". They simply ignored all that and changed the topic, like I wasn't even there.
• They showed pics of their chars and seemed to be really interested in the arts. The DM only had commissions, I think... and one other player only showed pics of a wyvern in the game Monster Hunter. Not even original art. I showed mine and they just said nothing. Literally.
• We talked about how players could handle themselves in a fight in the rp. That Monster Hunter guy had electric claws, the other player could control... bees ? I don't remember, to be exact. Point is, the DM really liked their ideas. But, when I talked about mine (just some weapon conjuration, nothing OP or game-breaking), they simply said nothing. Like, literally. Not a single word in response to what I said.
• I pm'd the DM and talked with her about my previous rp experience with godmod people, then learned about her char being some sort of godlike being whose power and duty is to move the sun and moon to keep the cycle of day and night going. She's also worshipped by the locals, too. I asked for her feedbacks about my char's power, and she snapped at me as "too overpowered". She even tried to correct me something like "blood magic is not necromancy, look it up". Whatever.
  • I told her those powers were all my original ideas, and she got really pissed, saying that I blatantly copied the shouts from Skyrim. I said it's still my original idea to use the infrasound and ultrasound to make something similar to the shouts (because I don't think anyone has ever thought of that yet, at all), and she acted like she was gonna drag me to the court.
  • I said sorry, she said ok, so I thought we were done with that topic, and decided to talk about something else. I told her sometimes I had lots of troubles with rp's because english isn't my native language, so there'd be times I couldn't get the idea... she said I was being manipulative, because apparently she was still pissed, and thought I was trying to avoid her.
• I left the rp, and the Monster Hunter wyvern player pm'd me something like, "you know what's great ? being good looking", which was referring to the comments he got for his char in the server earlier. I replied, "better if you can draw your own arts". He said, "no, better if you're not a salty cracker, because I can get commissions"... at this point, I was 1 millimeter away from insulting him about his disability, but I just blocked him instead.

He was this "monster hunter wyvern" jerk.

 

[usagiichxn]

not necessarily a single experience but i’ve had so many people who literally cannot stand to write their character lose some fights/arguments basically any confrontations, which sucks because like, isn’t that the baby rules of roleplaying? Idk, I just think more people should be open to having their characters be explicitly flawed, it’s so much more interesting imo, especially for younger characters. I at least believe everyone should be open to a dice roll for a conclusion, but maybe i’m on my own for that one,

 

[Joyeful]

Personally I haven't had many terrible experiences (thankfully), and I'm half afraid I'll find myself alluded to in this thread- I started RPing awhile back and that was a trip, oh boy- and they'd likely be completely justified in doing that but I did have one experience that wasn't the most pleasant.

I can't remember exactly who started off the conversation but basically I started talking to this super nice girl and since she seemed to meet my standards I figured "why not?". Character sheets and everything done, the roleplay starts off great.
Now, I don't like being nitpicky about post length. I know that sometimes, a one-liner is necessary and makes sense for the plot, along with maybe a shorter response than usual. And we started off alright, but after awhile her post length dropped to a few lines. I tried to get to more than that, but eventually it irritated me so much I just ended the roleplay. I don't like the way I did it, it was really abrupt and if this happened in recent times I'd probably do it differently, but at this point I was tired. It had been a plotline I loved and her responding with a few lines felt like she wasn't as interested anymore. And I was fine with that, and guessed we'd just drop any potentials in the future, but after we ended that she asked if I wanted to do another roleplay.
I had to pause and think about it, and came to the conclusion that I didn't want to. If her responses at that length were her norm, I could respect that, but I couldn't work with it anymore.

It was a valuable learning experience (I learned how to better write nuanced characters, and to always look or ask about how long people are willing to write), overall, I just wish that I had gone a better way about it. In the end, I wish her the best (if she sees this), and thankful it happened- I had to learn, and judging by this entire thread, it could have been so much worse.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Oh but he did get to the CS stage, in a RP (which never started) long ago with me and some others. In fact...


He was this "monster hunter wyvern" jerk.

lol I meant specifically if I was the one looking through CS I would have tossed the character in the beginning, long before the person could become disruptive to the wider roleplay.

As a player there isn’t much you can do to handle the situation other than ignore the person.

 

[Zelena]

Mostly people being selfish and ruining long-term plots and creating bumps, me and nine other players have to iron out to keep our setting consistent and internally logical. I learned quickly that most don't care for the long term and are into the revolving door approach, as I have dubbed it. Sadly, not my cup of tea.

 

[Emotional Enigma]

I once had someone who just always went too far during fight scenes. My character would give him a punch and he'd retaliate by stabbing her, pushing her down the stairs and strangling her all in one response. Like??? He just always went too far and never gave my character a chance to react. When I asked him to maybe tone it back so our character had equal chances for combat on the RP he got mad and told me I was just shooting down all of his ideas. But like all of his ideas were extreme ways to attack my character... he got mad and said he didn't like me and left. Which is okay, no one is obligated to like me or my style but I was really shook