Forums » RP Discussion » What can kill an rp for you?

I don't know if I really have been rping long enough to join in on this conversation but I would like to answer with:

When a person replies with what looks like a text message.

I don't know why but it gets kinda bothersome, and yes I understand that not many people have enough time to put a long fancy post but I wouldn't mind a small one that looked like it has some effort...

that is called netspeak, that pisses me off too

If I rp with any of you, and you at any point feel like I'm God modding, power playing, etc. PLEASE let me know I try to avoid combat roleplay because I'm afraid that I'll begin unintentionally god modding

Anyways, what would kill an rp for me is really varied. One rp I got into really bugged me. Not naming the rp or the people who were in it(Partially out of courtesy, partly cause I forgot who was in it), but it was generally set in a sort of modern fantasy-esque setting. I was allowed to use my character Saraxx, whose an alien. She comes in and saves one of the other people's characters from a monster and the person was all 'KTHNXBYE!' even though they were just saved by an eight foot tall, four eyed, alien dinosaur, which I believed wasn't a common thing in the universe the rp took place in(Hell, Saraxx's people are Isolationists, so seeing one would be rare). In short, I prefer people to have their characters have realistic reactions to out of the ordinary events.

As mentioned before, God-modding, power-playing, mary sues/gary stus can kill an rp for me aswell. And I don't have much to add here

Okay, okay, I've got a few:

1. God-modding - Yeah, guess you saw that coming
2. Mind control
3. Those 'ATTENTION!! I HAVE ENTERED LE ROOM!! LOOK AT ME!!' Characters
4. Grammar/Spelling
5. Sort of Hand-and-hand with 3, those people that ignore the GMs. Like, take over the RP and yeah. Met a few of people like that >.<

I think this is a good thread to discuss, but I also think we should note how to fix these problems so anyone who reads the thread can gain some understanding and advice from it
Surprisingly enough, one of the most common things that can kill an RP for me is short posts. Thankfully, this can be easily fixed! But if someone gives me just two lines of post, that is very difficult for me to respond to.
For anyone who might have a problem giving longer posts that reads this thread, here's a few ways to help bulk up a post without adding fluff;
Explain something about your character's movements. Is he/she agitated and antsy? Or standing calmly and casually?
Tell about the area around the characters. Is there a shady guy standing in the corner? Are they alone? Are shoppers around?
Explore a bit into your character's inner thoughts. Is he/she worried, anxious, happy, curious, etc?

These are just a couple simple steps for anyone who finds themselves giving short posts. I love RP, and I know we were all at short posts at one time (good heavens I know I was), but with my current writing style, nothing else can kill my muse faster than a one-or-two line post. For everyone posting their RP struggles, be sure to mention a way to avoid it or fix it! Some people might just not know how. ^^

What ruins an rp for me is when the other person is just going along with the rp but isn't really feeling it and doesn't tell you!!!!! Sorry but when your character shuts down every advance at something, then it's kind of easy to tell you aren't into it. In rp it takes two to make it work.

well i hope they would tell you OOCly but dont forget some people like to play hard to get

Well, here we go. lol

My RP Killer moments:

1. God-modding. There's always someone bigger and badder out there. Sometimes a little nudge or ooc discussing can help with this though.

2. Those that ignore cause/effect. If your character comes up and decks mine or something, mine will probably lash out back in some manner.

3. Lack of communication, like Atty said. If you aren't into something, speak up, let me know and maybe it can be fixed. If it can't, don't just be rude and change a whole rp without telling your partner. Or if someone posts at you and you aren't feeling it, let your partner know. Don't just not reply, have some common courtesy if someone took the time to post at you to tell them "Hey, not feeling it."

4. Character types that are overly emotional and attention seeking combined. I just don't have the patience for a lot of these. Sometimes they aren't too bad but most I have run into have drained the fun from my rps.

5. Netspeak, unless it's in a 'text post' itself or something.

6. People that mold their character to fit mine/to get my characters focus. Now don't get me wrong this can create some nice plots, friendships, family members, and enemies from similar creations.
Let me try to think of how to explain this occurrence better.
Character A catches my attention, and it seems my own, we'll label B catches theirs. So, we start rp'ing. Loved their design and everything, the way they rp was awesome.
Moving in 3-4 rp's I start getting an major influx on "Is this right?" Not in the reaction/abilities or similar context. In the manner of "Did they do this right to keep B's attention?" Like, blatant changing of their character mid-rp type things. This sometimes, made things confusing IC. In the end it made me feel uncomfortable and far too much like I had to give the Okay for every one of their posts. I've had this happen 5 times in the past 3 years and in the end, I feel like I might as well be rp'ing with myself.

lol I may not have explained 6 well, but I tried!

Hahahaha. Yeah, sometimes, but have you seen Jaxxi? Juse kidding... No the people I am talking about are the people who tend to just poof in the middle of an rp after shooting you down, leaving you to wonder if you really sick that had at rp. Or the ones who just don't make their character show any type of will to do anything in general, not just adult themed.

true, I have had a few people that bailed mid rp on me here, one not even giving a reason and then posted on the forms then when I offered to help, they basically shot it down so im not to sure what to expect on the rpr anymore

Rude characters who never warm up even slightly thought their players keep asking you for play. If I wanted my chatacter to be berated and ignored..well i wouldn't lol.

I have a few that are assholes 24/7 but are kind to people they know, to some extent though its still rough lol

godmodding and meta gaming is what turns me off of rp

Passive aggressive posts. For instance, someone is annoyed about something oocly and they use their character to be a mouthpiece for that, or a way to attack someone else. The moment I pick that up, I start to get uncomfortable and I don't want to rp any more.

This^^

And rps that end up being the same thing over and over, no matter what characters you use, it always ends up the same way. So I guess.. Cookie cutter rps?. For example; A rper who loves horror rps always throws both of your characters into the same exact scenario that they did the last time you rped on different characters, where the only difference is the place and the people involved. You know how it's going to end because you've already done it, so you're just going through the motions hoping that you can maybe throw a twist in there, but it hardly ever works because the other rper is just so set on the same exact endgame.

That sucks my drive for rp entirely out.

God Modding: The umber one turn off for me. Now, I do tend to take the GM roll in most cases, and understand that a lot of my side characters are of no importance to the story beyond their singular bullet point performance within. I accept that. However, when you upfront post, "Knight decapitates the Brigand".. Bro! What the heck?!

Meta: Knowing that which you know Out of Character, in Character. Example: John walks into a house. Dave welcomes John inside, but has never met John before. "What is your name?" says Dave, "Hi Dave." says John.
John shouldn't have known Dave's name.
Another example: Dave hides behind a wall, ready to attack. John senses a presence, and throws a grenade over the wall.
These are poor examples, I know, but I think I get the point across.

Ignoring the GM: I know it's been stated before, but I feel I must state it again. When someone does their best to thoroughly describe a large environment, and people within.. At least react to it!

Indifferent Characters A lot of people, I've seen, want to be a cold, unstoppable force, who show no emotion. Now I get that sometimes playing a sort of, emotionally blank character, can be fun. But you can't make them completely dry, or it gets boring.
"My mother died."
-"Whatever"
"We're under attack!"
-*Eyeroll*
"Help!"
-"Fine."
Yes?

SMIRK Maybe this has less meaning to you guys, but the word 'smirk', has grown to disgust me. I attribute it to really lame villain characters, who are certain they can't be beaten - And for the most part, sadly, they can't, because they're among the invincible ones. Now, don't get me wrong, in certain context (Flirting, joking around) It's alright. But when every opposition is met with 'Smirking'..
Knight draws his sword upon the tyrant, "Your rein of terror ends!"
Tyrant smirks.

Ugh. Speaking of,

Lame Supervillains Bad guys who are bad guys for the sake of being bad guys. CHARACTER DEPTH IS IMPORTANT.
-"I'm a serial killer"
"Why"
-"Because.."
"Because why?"
-"Because I'm a serial killer."
....
-"I'm going to take over the world."
"Why?"
"For fun."
........

I think that covers it, for me.

(the fact this is titled with "an" when rp doesn't start w a vowel.....jk jk)

I am notorious for random poofs and it is 90% of the time out of my control. I try to warn players ahead of time, but I seem to offend even then.

I'm sick of people who treat this like a dating site and immediately pair characters up and won't rp with others just as friends ICly. I have a character in a relationship but they're both free to have lives and those other friends affect the rp and it's interesting! To me, at least.

I might be new to this new style of rp, but plotting things out before two characters even interact stresses me out. Rp is very fluid for me, and maybe we think our characters will do one thing, but it seems to never turn out that way. If I've been RPing with you for a while and you think a plot event would stir things up, that's different, but I'm not down for a rp timeline I have to follow.

I am mean and my characters are mean, people get so easily offended ICly. Like. Not every rp is a meet cute. I like the idea of people who argue themselves into a friendship, or clash sometimes. I have oddball characters that do and say oddball things, it shouldn't be swept under the rug and quickly accepted! React to weirdness like you would irl.

Since everyone seems to have run over the biggies for me, I have one thing in particular that has only come up once but certainly is a bit of killer of RP.

This was a tabletop (everyone in the same room), only a couple players (myself one of them) and a GM. We had rolled characters, started off pretty stereo-typically (in a tavern), and the GM was throwing us some adventuring hooks... and the other player took none of them. They literally had preset that their character just would not go on adventure for any of (what I recall) the most common reasons and had to be forced to team up with my fighter.

Then we got into one fight which should have been easy except one problem... the other character, some sort of cleric of death and fate decided he would just watch my fighter get beaten to death by the monsters instead of helping out, even by healing him.

Now, I get having clear cut definitions of what a character will and will never do, but when you know what kind of RPing scenario you are going to be in, either don't pick a character who is unwilling to do anything or be completely unwilling to help find a reason for your character to be involved.

A lot of my RPing has been with the same person on the internet and we have used and reused characters in differing scenarios, genres, or tweaks to certain core characters that not only have we created a "canon" between us, we have more "what if" universes than Marvel at this point... so I personally have no qualms about re-tailoring favourite characters who almost fit a genre or scenario if it works out for an interesting turn of events.

Uh.. What brutally kills a roleplay for me?..


-When people do netspeak.. Another thing with writting that bugs me is never ending sentences. It wont kill the roleplay for me, really, just annoy me a tinsy, tinsy bit. I know some people have problems with that and stuff, i'm not going to hate about it or make fun about it, i don't really mind, seriously. And trust me, i am really not the best of the english speakers.

-Posts that mean absolutly nothing. I dont really mind if a post is short, i myself do it sometimes. What i mind is when a post absolutly does nothing in the roleplay. I'm not talking about making big posts with filling text, i'm talking about those posts (2-6 lines) that change nothing in the roleplay. Example:

He puts down his coffee cup on his desk and looks up to him. ''Hi.'' He said, and got back to work.

or

She shrugged and turned around.

That really doesnt really do anything, and i've seen those a couple times, it just really ticks me off.

-God modding. I used to do it, when my english was very limited, when i just joined the site and wasnt experimented as much as i am now.. but i'm still not that amazing in roleplay comparated to some. But now, if i ever do it unconsciously, please do tell me so, i'll stop immediatly, and maybe even edit my previous posts.

-It's not really in a roleplay but.. when someone, anonymous or not, has a character with a name and all, maybe even sometimes a quote, says they're interested in your roleplay idea, but there's nothing on the character page, Not even a template or anything. It saddens me for some reason.. and sometimes fustrates me.

Welp, that's pretty much everything for me.. please do tell me if i'm doing something wrong in a rp..

Perhaps my biggest turn off is when roleplay posts are worded not elaborately, but stupidly. People will forget words, or use the wrong ones, and I'm very big on word choice within not only my roleplays, but my actual freakin' life. Also, grammar mistakes are practically unforgivable. But let me just show you in a game related way:

Another thing is voicing personal frustrations with my character through your character. Your character is a character, not a vessel for your thoughts. My character is in no way how I think or feel or act or even speak; they're probably just a massively egotistical jackstack, knowing the bunch. If you just hate my character for who they are, please tell me and let's move on. But I'm probably not doing anything wrong if it's just the character's actions that are irritating you.