Experiences What's one RP trope/topic that makes you leave without discussion?

[lndigo]

I personally don’t understand the appeal of toxic romance/relationships in RP. Just something about writing those topics doesn’t sit right with me. Call me ”vanilla”, but I don’t really enjoy writing about abuse or severe power dynamics.

Don’t get me wrong, I think angst and drama are great elements for character developments when used properly. But writing toxic relationships for toxic relationship sake (with no plot or character development) are an absolute no for me.

 

[Inno]

Some people seem to think that verbal abuse, possessiveness, and generally asinine behavior is a great way for characters to fall in love.

 

[AstroBeans]

Omega/Alpha, that stuff turns me off from an roleplay instantly even with an good plot. Inno 's post above me explains half of the reason why I don't like it. The other half is that it don't make sense half of the time especially since the alpha in irl wolf pack isn't an highest rank but the basically the most toughest wolf.

 

[Kaiju Cat]

Some people seem to think that verbal abuse, possessiveness, and generally asinine behavior is a great way for characters to fall in love.

Man I still wonder how tf putting your character in constant danger would be romantic

 

[nerdy tangents]

Omega/Alpha, that stuff turns me off from an roleplay instantly even with an good plot. Inno 's post above me explains half of the reason why I don't like it. The other half is that it don't make sense half of the time especially since the alpha in irl wolf pack isn't an highest rank but the basically the most toughest wolf.

Not to be that person but alphas are just parents. Wolf packs are just big family units with the two parents at the top and beneath them their children or single siblings.

The idea that it has anything to do with toxic masculinity and “toughness” was based on one study (which the person who did the study later debunked and said was wrong).

Basically in captivity wolves act a lot like dogs (no surprise there as we got dogs originally by domesticating wolves).

And the whole alpha/beta/omega nonsense was essentially hyper reactivity which most people interpret as aggression.

You know when dogs bite or bark or growl or whatever? People think it’s aggression but 9/10 it’s actually fear and a lack of socialization.

Which to be fair the idea that the toughest man has to be in charge is a pretty common trope for human family groups (or just groups of humans that include men). And that toughness is often shown in aggression because we teach men to handle all their emotions through aggression.

 

[Inno]

Since this was mentioned in the pet peeves thread, I will mention it here. Doubling.

I also don't like historical roleplays. Anything based on real life events, places, periods, people. I would rather not go there. Sometimes I don't get what the deal is. That if you do roleplays that involve kingdoms and monarchy it must be based on something from real life.

 

[Melpomene]

Since this was mentioned in the pet peeves thread, I will mention it here. Doubling.

I also don't like historical roleplays. Anything based on real life events, places, periods, people. I would rather not go there. Sometimes I don't get what the deal is. That if you do roleplays that involve kingdoms and monarchy it must be based on something from real life.

Yeah, while I like playing multiple characters I found too many people who double as means of "character exchange" and I don't like that. Because I don't want someone to play a character they clearly don't want to play. It just makes things less fun for everyone. I much prefer if everyone is only playing a character they are enthusiastic to play with.

 

[simulationanomaly]

A short list of things that will turn me off of any writing, RP or not:

• Yandere
• "Wolf pack" dynamics (you know what I'm talking about)
• Massively fucked up/serious topics being taken lightly or romanticized (pedophilia, abuse, slavery, kidnapping, substance abuse, mental illness, etc)
• Any relationship dynamics with a massive power imbalance (CEO/intern, master/servant, student/teacher, kidnapper/kidnapped, colonizer/native, things like that)
• OP will only ever do doubles, no exceptions
• Very railroaded plots that make it clear that OP wants to write a book more than a roleplay
• Zero patience for writer's block or error, particularly from those requesting high paragraph counts
• Romance-focused RPs (nothing wrong with these, I just prefer having characters develop relationships naturally rather than being expected to kiss from the first letter)
• Genre/Fandom just isn't to my taste

 

[Echowrites]

I don't like forced romance. I feel like especially with 1x1s it's an almost given at times that your characters have to date, but it's like... some good stories don't necessarily require romance, you know? I feel pressured especially if I feel like my character would likely not be interested in their OC but people keep making advances. That and sometimes I have aro/ace characters and people don't respect that.

 

[Aron the Aron]

This is going to sound extremely odd and petty but... CCxOC and CCxCC centered RPs.

I've always felt strongly against romance involving a canon character for the simple reason that I perceive it as "wish fulfillment." Now I get it: Roleplaying in general can be seen as "wish fulfillment" by many, but I've always made it a policy to respect any pre-established lore and canon and leave it as untouched as I can help it.

There's also the thing that i personally would never dare roleplay a canon character. This is partially out of some weird "leave them alone" mentality, but it's mostly because I could never portray any canon character with 120% accuracy and do them justice.
I don't care how talented a writer I am or am not; i would never completely capture any character the same way said character's original writer can. Maybe some people in RPN can come close to it, but close in my eyes isn't justice enough.

Edit: accepting rebuttals and counterarguments if it helps me not dislike CCxAnything as much as I currently do

 

[BittyBobcat]

This is going to sound extremely odd and petty but... CCxOC and CCxCC centered RPs.

I've always felt strongly against romance involving a canon character for the simple reason that I perceive it as "wish fulfillment." Now I get it: Roleplaying in general can be seen as "wish fulfillment" by many, but I've always made it a policy to respect any pre-established lore and canon and leave it as untouched as I can help it.

There's also the thing that i personally would never dare roleplay a canon character. This is partially out of some weird "leave them alone" mentality, but it's mostly because I could never portray any canon character with 120% accuracy and do them justice.
I don't care how talented a writer I am or am not; i would never completely capture any character the same way said character's original writer can. Maybe some people in RPN can come close to it, but close in my eyes isn't justice enough.

Edit: accepting rebuttals and counterarguments if it helps me not dislike CCxAnything as much as I currently do

I also don't do CC RPs of any kind, though I think for separate reasons than you. Personally, it just doesn't interest me, and if I'm not interested in an RP then it's setting up for disappointment if I join it. For me, a lot of draw to RPing happens because of an interest in my and other people's characters—exploring how they act, why they do, their backstory, etc. CCs are just too restrictive for me. They already have a backstory, personality, and other such things within their setting (and, in RP, if I'm writing for a different setting then I figure I might as well use an OC anyway). On the other hand, I get to create and explore more ideas with OCs. I get to see other people's creativity take shape in a far more personal way than I think a CC can capture.

This isn't to say that I think people who do CC RP are uncreative or anything like that. I just think that it's far easier to be creative when you aren't following a template that was laid in front of you for how the character should be. With OCs, there's far less expectations (or, at the very least, less specific expectations) about what they'll be like.

There's also the frequency of people who do CC who want to do it in a very particular way usually involving romance with a specific dynamic or putting certain CCs down. Again, I know not all people who do CC do this and I have nothing against people who do. If that's your bread and butter and you've got partners that like to do that with you, go for it, but I just don't find that appealing. If I want to trash a character, I'll talk with my friends. If I want to read fluffy content about two characters I like, I'll read fanfiction. RPing simply doesn't factor into the way I enjoy CC characters.

Using fandom settings with OCs, though, is something I enjoy. I like making my own versions of it with expansions and edits. I think there's a lot less expectation to portray fandom settings a specific way since there's usually less information about them than the CCs. Basically, I take a kind of DM's guide approach to it where, "even if you're using an established world ... your campaign takes place in a sort of mirror universe of the official setting ... The world is yours to change as you see fit and modify as you explore."

 

[Inno]

This is going to sound extremely odd and petty but... CCxOC and CCxCC centered RPs.

I've always felt strongly against romance involving a canon character for the simple reason that I perceive it as "wish fulfillment." Now I get it: Roleplaying in general can be seen as "wish fulfillment" by many, but I've always made it a policy to respect any pre-established lore and canon and leave it as untouched as I can help it.

There's also the thing that i personally would never dare roleplay a canon character. This is partially out of some weird "leave them alone" mentality, but it's mostly because I could never portray any canon character with 120% accuracy and do them justice.
I don't care how talented a writer I am or am not; i would never completely capture any character the same way said character's original writer can. Maybe some people in RPN can come close to it, but close in my eyes isn't justice enough.

Edit: accepting rebuttals and counterarguments if it helps me not dislike CCxAnything as much as I currently do

It's not odd nor is petty, it's how you feel. I do agree. I don't think, and sorry if this offends anyone who writes canons, anyone can 100% play a canon exactly how the original creator intended the character to be. No one is going to get it perfect because no one can get into the mind of said creator when it comes to their characters. I've never seen it done. I've seen people want others to play canons down to a tee and get angry if a person can't do it. But yeah, I leave canons alone.

 

[TaperedNightjar]

I instantly nope out when folks try to ship their minor characters with adult characters. Someone tried shipping their 16(?) year old with my 27 year old character. I told them why it made me uncomfortable and they kept trying to defend their decision. Luckily others on my “mod” team told them to stop.

They caused similar issues in other roleplays as well.

 

[simulationanomaly]

I instantly nope out when folks try to ship their minor characters with adult characters. Someone tried shipping their 16(?) year old with my 27 year old character. I told them why it made me uncomfortable and they kept trying to defend their decision. Luckily others on my “mod” team told them to stop.

They caused similar issues in other roleplays as well.

People are nasty as hell. I would think that "I don't want to RP a pedophilic relationship" would be a good enough explanation, but then troglodytes like this come along and remind me why you have to spell out boundaries that shouldn't need to be spelled out.

Honestly I would have ejected them pretty much instantly for that. In what world is making a cutesy ship between a 16 year old and a 27 year old okay? Who just pushes that shit onto people completely unsolicited?

 

[TaperedNightjar]

It was very strange. There were many folks in that rp that I should have kicked out sooner. At the time I was very nervous about any form of confrontation and sorta “stayed back” and asked my team to help me out.

This is something I’m still working on, and I think I have gotten a little better about it. That rp was rough because when I would set boundaries one of the players would call me controlling or whatnot. Now I know just to kick people as soon as they give me any kind of thing to be worried about.

It was certainly a learning experience

 

[Kaiju Cat]

People confusing ic/ooc. I had the misfortune of meeting some one like that when role playing on Facebook was a thing eventually I had to block them because they got abusive.

 

[nerdy tangents]

So BittyBobcat , Aron the Aron I think you might be misunderstanding the point of canon and oc roleplays. As a fandom only roleplayer (I do the odd original plot here and there but mostly fandom roleplays) something to keep in mind is that the creators intent has nothing to do with the audiences perception.

Everyone who follows a fandom will interpret the core story and characters their own specific way based on their individual life experiences. And that is what makes things like fanfic and roleplay fun you get to bring your own individual interpretation to a work.

And any creator worthy of the name encourages this. Some are famous for saying “it doesn’t matter what I intended when I created this what matters is how the audience interpreted my work.”

So when it comes to playing canon characters it’s not about recreating whatever was in the original storyline. It’s about taking your own interpretation of the character and telling a new story.

And that in my opinion is the real downfall of the canon x oc pairing. Because your partner doesn’t want you to recreate the canon as the original creator intended. They want you to recreate their own individual interpretation of the character. Which is infinitely harder. As at least you have the original series as a reference, it’s a lot harder to guess what someone thinks of a character in their own head without asking.

Not saying it can’t be down in a fun way it’s just it’s less about recreating the original work and more about a shared interpretation of the original work.

 

[Aron the Aron]

So BittyBobcat , Aron the Aron I think you might be misunderstanding the point of canon and oc roleplays. As a fandom only roleplayer (I do the odd original plot here and there but mostly fandom roleplays) something to keep in mind is that the creators intent has nothing to do with the audiences perception.

Everyone who follows a fandom will interpret the core story and characters their own specific way based on their individual life experiences. And that is what makes things like fanfic and roleplay fun you get to bring your own individual interpretation to a work.

And any creator worthy of the name encourages this. Some are famous for saying “it doesn’t matter what I intended when I created this what matters is how the audience interpreted my work.”

So when it comes to playing canon characters it’s not about recreating whatever was in the original storyline. It’s about taking your own interpretation of the character and telling a new story.

And that in my opinion is the real downfall of the canon x oc pairing. Because your partner doesn’t want you to recreate the canon as the original creator intended. They want you to recreate their own individual interpretation of the character. Which is infinitely harder. As at least you have the original series as a reference, it’s a lot harder to guess what someone thinks of a character in their own head without asking.

Not saying it can’t be down in a fun way it’s just it’s less about recreating the original work and more about a shared interpretation of the original work.

I still stand by what I said regarding playing Canon characters bringing a flat "No." out of me, and will adamantly refuse any RP that even brings it up. Personal Policy

 

[ReclaimerTy]

First: Forcing someone to ships certain characters together even against your rp partner's will. This dude was hellbent on Frans and even when I didn't want to do a ship rp, they'd always pair my Sans' with either Chara's or Frisk. Forcing them to be a couple despite my best attempts at shrugging the characters off or clearly not being interested. They'd go as far as sleeping with the characters without my permission. It sucked when I wanted to go solo. I get not wanting to roleplay certain ships, I get not being comfortable playing same sex rp, but don't haggle someone into your ship.

Second: Forcing someone to play a character and ignoring their other characters or begging when they refuse. I'm glad they enjoy the way I play this character, but I don't wanna play one character every roleplay, all the time. And just because people are playing an underrated/unpopular/unknown character doesn't mean you shouldn't interact with them.

Third: Roleplaying for you. Make a story at this point, don't control other's actions or tell them to react the way you want, that's not how a rp works.

Fourth: Doing stuff behind other rp partners back. Don't go private chat and rp where I can't see your actions. Couldn't believe it when I was told by the captive that the villain was doing stuff to them in private chat while we were in the middle of a fight.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I still stand by what I said regarding playing Canon characters bringing a flat "No." out of me, and will adamantly refuse any RP that even brings it up. Personal Policy

I know but you said you wanted someone to explain the appeal and that’s what I did.

 

[Damafaud]

NPC-vaganza.

Nothing is wrong with NPCs... unless the number of NPCs exceeds the number of roleplayers from the very start. It just feels like my character will end up sidelined for a preconceived plot. Oh, not through godmodding, but it just so happens that there is that many influential NPCs around the plot can't help but go their way.

Like imagine a Knights of the Round Table RP that only accepts 5-6 players because the other 6 knights are played by the GM. I recently see this in a Discord RP and just go .-.

 

[Murdergurl]

NPC-vaganza.

Nothing is wrong with NPCs... unless the number of NPCs exceeds the number of roleplayers from the very start. It just feels like my character will end up sidelined for a preconceived plot. Oh, not through godmodding, but it just so happens that there is that many influential NPCs around the plot can't help but go their way.

Like imagine a Knights of the Round Table RP that only accepts 5-6 players because the other 6 knights are played by the GM. I recently see this in a Discord RP and just go .-.

Do you think maybe this is a result of not being able to recruit enough players to fill the roles? I know the last couple of times I've pitched group RP ideas, I didn't even meet the minimum requirement of participants to even start up. So the GM filling all the roles with NPCs might be some people's way of putting a band-aid on an otherwise vacant roster.

 

[Merciless Medic]

Do you think maybe this is a result of not being able to recruit enough players to fill the roles? I know the last couple of times I've pitched group RP ideas, I didn't even meet the minimum requirement of participants to even start up. So the GM filling all the roles with NPCs might be some people's way of putting a band-aid on an otherwise vacant roster.

I think they're mostly talking about when the NPCs were made before the characters/players joined. xD Like, saying you'll accept only 5-6 players but then also having 6 knights at the get-go before anybody can make their characters or say they're interested XD

 

[Zepherine]

I think for me it’s things like excessive violence and gore. I’m not shy to dark elements and combat, but the romanticization of psychopaths, serial killers, and murderers are disturbing.

 

[Palu]

When you find out the RP you joined was just a farce and it turns up being a thread for the GM to make his character the main showmen protagonist while everyone else are just meant to be the supporting cast and they don't even try to be subtle about it.