Forums » RP Discussion » Bad Experiences in RP

Reminds me of that "kid" in that one server. Mainly when they will god mod their way to victory. That was a disaster. Then they reply to you IC when you aren't even RPing. The whole "Solve this with RP!" reminds me of that Rp site I use to go on that shut down due to the admin staff dissolved.

The same thing applied to some kid who thought he was hot stuff RP wise and any slight insult or criticism would make him go bully mode to challenge people.

I do have a problem with people who claim they are good Rpers and say they been RPing for an X amount of years or say they wrote a book. I met someone who said they Rped for 8 years and gave poor RP samples, replies, etc.

I try to be polite with people, but I can't RP certain things to cater to someone's needs. I RP what I like and feel easy with. Like the issue I had with someone who refused to RP with my muse, because they did not like his hair. I get some where I RP many antagonists from Gunvolt and I get the whole "I don't wanna RP with you because what they do."

Which boils down to people who refuse to RP with someone's muse based off their personality. A character who has a grumpy, aloof or cold personality is going to be like that. I shouldn't have to soften my muse's attitude to fit one's needs. It takes a while for allot of my characters who are kind of the way they are to warm up to someone.

Asroc as an example warmed up to Lexi. It took him a while due to his past and issues with humans.

General Issues:

• People who don't do anything other then react. Like, they want to follow along with whatever you're doing and never contributing a plot point/twist/whatever on their own.
• People who barely contribute. By this, I mean, if you do NPCs and you're doing a lot and they only do 0-1.
• People who try to force romance. I've actually had people try to create characters out of the blue to be "ideal mates" for my characters, or completely change something about their current ones to match with mine. (Ex. one of my characters is an alcoholic. He was originally meant to be RPed against a character that didn't drink. Suddenly, their character is trying to bond with mine over whiskey.)
• People who essentially want you to write along with their story/will make you change posts if they don't like them or don't go "how they see it."
• I've had many people refuse to RP with me because I don't write out sexual scenes. Several of them decided to insult me about it, as well.
• I also had people who got butthurt over the fact that I wasn't going to suddenly change my characters' orientations for them.

Disclaimer: These specific incidents all happened on deviantART through their RP-related chat rooms. Nothing mentioned in this post happened on RPR.

Weird list of weirdos in 3...2...1...

• There was this person who wanted to RP with my character Gina. This character, after being attacked by a Golden Retriever as a child, is afraid of dogs. So this person on deviantART wanted to do a romance between Gina and their dog anthro character because "It'll be cute and she'll get over her fear of dogs." or however they worded it, and was actually upset with me for saying 'no,' and tried to get me banned from the chat by claiming I was rude. Sorry for not being into something that's way too close to bestiality for my comfort?
• Waaay back when I first made Rhys, I wanted to try him out in settings that weren't specific to the group he was originally created for. Rhys is a man in his 30's. A person wanted to do a romance with him with their 16 year old character whose "hook" was that they were actually a girl but dressed as a boy to hide from someone. Am I the only one who thinks that it's super creepy to want a mid-30's character romantically interested in a teenager?
• I have a vampire character who I've deleted all information on to allow me to rewrite him. I've put a lot of work into him, making science and fantasy blend and blah blah blah, and I wanna be able to better write it out. This particular character happens to be an aromantic heterosexual (physically attracted to women, romantically attracted to no one,
  in case anyone doesn't know the definitions or labels or what have you.). I wanted to use him to kind of help me better rationalize some things with him. This guy tabs me, we start discussing the RP, and he asks "So is Korbin a top or bottom?" and I just kind of... What? I told him that Korbin is not interested in men and is not romantically into anyone.
  This guy kept trying to pressure me into having Korbin fall in love with and want to sleep with his male demon (who was totally not one of those anime trope ones, nope.) and proceeded to actually get offended by me and then tried lecturing me on how aromanticism is fake and "how does he know he's only straight if he's never tried it with a guy?"
  and just. Yeah. Needless to say I reported him to a chat moderator with logs because he started getting really aggressive and he ended up being banned from the chat.
• I had someone complain that an RP post shouldn't be more than a sentence and I needed to stop writing "novels"
  for posts. My post was two paragraphs.
• Once, I had someone trying to diagnose one of my characters with a mental illness.

I can't think of any more offhand. But people on deviantART were ridiculous. I stopped bothering with the RP groups / hubs / etc. there because it was either nothing but people posting fetish requests, people wanting forced romances, or the groups required drawn character sheets (I'm garbage at art and have no art software) and you had to be there for events and earn XP and currency and ew.

It seems much more chill here, though!

~People who scrutinize your character simply because you don't have a drawn, original picture of them, and the polar opposite of those who do the same to character's that are using a face claim, whether the person be a celebrity or not. These kind of people really do get on my nerves, because not everyone has the time, skill, or money to acquire artsy pictures of their characters. I myself am a full time college student with a part time, third shift job that keeps me very busy, and I still try to fit in time to interact on this site because it offers a brief, fun way to unwind from a day.

~Won't say names for this one, but people that are so damned picky about their giant list of rules and preferences regarding a character that if you miss a tiny bit of information or ask questions to clarify things, they fly off the handle bars at you, insult your intelligence (have had this happen three times), or straight up as if I have a mental deficiency. I have ADHD. For those that don't fully understand it, ADHD doesn't just end at a difficulty in focus or higher than average amounts of energy. For one, ADHD can make taking stimulants (legal ones mind you), quite difficult. Caffeine and sugar both have almost no effect energy wise on me. I can drink espresso and go to sleep minutes later. Another thing it can do, as in my case where I'm on the rather strong end of the condition, is hardwire your brain in a similar way to how autism does. For example, I had a college level reading skill when I was in middle school, and I've always had an excellent grasp on history. Just because I have these skills though, does not mean I remember everything I read. People who get honest to God offended and insulting over these sorts of things are utterly ridiculous.

~One lines. I get it, the occasional one may happen if the RP slows a ton. But when I start getting one after the other of one to two sentences in reply, I quickly lose interest in an RP. There is nothing more boring than an RP partner that isn't willing to help contribute to the story.

~Someone who goes out of their way to try and overpower you. One look at my profile will show that, yes, I have powerful OC's. What you don't see are the weaknesses every character has. I don't post these on their pages because I have had so many godmodders that will take that OOC information and apply it in a heartbeat, without ever having had a way for their character to know the weakness. For an example, the most easy one I have, is the ARC Trooper on my page. While he is very skilled against even Jedi figures in terms of physical combat, obviously the man has no defense against the Force other than his brain. He also doesn't have the same precognition skills that so many characters seem to receive. At the end of the day, he's just a very experienced soldier who's learned some lessons in life. Now I do have one character, Koroduss, who was purposefully made overpowered. This isn't the kind of annoying I'm referring to. I'm referring to characters that have their strengths and weaknesses clearly displayed even in the RP itself, and yet somehow can counter anything you try against them without any harm to their character. I've had one of my characters, Sir Calum, on his deathbed after being assaulted by a group of bandits. Did he kick the crap out of a bunch first? Duh, he's a trained knight. Did I make him a good? No! Don't do that. You tick others off when you make yourself all powerful out of nowhere.

~Random flakers that just seem to disappear from a role-play you are in with them, but they are actively asking for RP on the forums. They give you no explanation, and most the time, I don't even get a response back from them, so I'm never even aware of what I did to alienate them so that I can try and improve.

~Those who get annoyed by my flirtatious characters and their advances. First off, one look at the characters I'm speaking of (with the honest exception of Stragen; he's in a state of rebuilding) will show you that, if they are going to have that attitude, it will be at least alluded to in their profile. It may not be cut and dry, but neither are such interactions. Getting angry with me OOC doesn't really mean anything to me. Boo hoo, my adult film star, criminal organization leader is making a sexual advance on you. We're you expecting a teddy bear? Come on now.

Alright, rant over. Back to my normal cheery self!

Here comes the derail train, just to say... I'm still sad over this!

People who have a HUGE list of rules often come off as pompous to me. I love reading and writing, but if I have to read through multiple paragraphs to discern your rp preferences and what you are and are not willing to do, I'm gonna get bored. I made my rp preferences in a list, and made them as concise as I possibly could. Because if I don't want to read through a huge amount of other people's OOC stuff and rp guidelines, what makes me think other people should do the same for me?

I also feel a bit of salt toward people that abandoned the rp, yet are still active in the forums and refuse to at least TELL me as to why the rp did not meet their expectations.

Do I consider myself to be a good writer and a literate, advanced rper? Yes.

Do I think there is no room for improvement in regard to my rp? Hell no.

If the rp isn't meeting a person's expectations, or if I did something to piss them off, they can TELL me. I'm a grown up and I can handle some constructive criticism.

I mean, what the hell, it even says in my player profile, which is fairly concise, that I'm a nurse. I work with sick, sometimes dying people who have a myriad of mental illnesses, behavioral issues, wounds, diseases and I also deal with overbearing doctors, idiotic administrators and condescending family members who think their google search is equal to my education. They also seem to think that my facility is a castle and the patients are princesses.

If I can deal with all that shit, then I can deal with someone being unhappy with me and trying to hash things out with me on RPR.

So trust me when I say: I can handle it if someone just tells me, "Yeah, I'm not interested anymore," or, "It really bothered me when you did this." It's much better than just leaving someone hanging. If you want to engage in rp with people, you have to have some OOC communication. I can't read your damn mind.

I'm quite the people-pleaser and I usually RP with anyone who wants to. Especially those who actually went out of their way to seek me out and request one with me. But while my pretty lax rules have netted me an amazing range of partners and writers, not being strict enough got me paired up with some undesirables:

• Right off the bat, they would send a message wanting to do an RP, but when I ask which of my characters they're interested, what kind of story they want, or at least any idea/expectation what we would even do, they'll just go "I have no idea. Whatever you like." And that same answer would echo for every single question I'd ask.
• These ones do have an idea what they want, but that's it. Like they'd go "I have a character, do you want to rp?" I assume it's a romantic RP and proceed to do so. But their character would just drown in a pool of mixed self-adoration and self-pity. I would try to help progress the story but every step forward we do, they take a couple backwards. They keep on doing the same squirming "What should I do? Oh no?" reaction to everything every time. Nothing ever happens as my character usually just stands there confused.
• Then there are those who are amazing out of character; friendly and constructive, with ideas and interesting characters. But once in the story, they'd only focus on themselves and act like they're the only character in the RP. This was the hardest ones to take because I would feel inadequate and try to step up, but it's like I'm not even there. Not because they're character's a snob to begin with (they were not), but because the writer has a story in mind and my character is not in it.
• Next is not really a bad experience per se, but more of something I don't feel good about. TMI. Too much information. Everything would go smoothly planning the RP and starting the story thread, but during their posts they would bombard the thread with so many other character's names, affiliations, various backstories that predates our own, everything that has happened with everyone their character has been with. I did not sign up to be a minor extra on a humongous autobiography. I remember one sentence had like five different characters in it, none of which were mine. I had no idea who all of them were.

May have mentioned this. May have not.

People who pretty much will take root and sit on their arse and do nothing. The ones who will constantly moan for certain people to RP with them and not make an effort to interact. I can understand being shy or have social issues, but just to whine and whine?

I am selective, due to an issue. I mentioned this before. I just don't care for stuff like school RPs or military stuff. I just don't like forceful people who feel the need to use OOC drama or pity to get you to interact with them. With some things, I don't know certain fandoms, so I won't RP those.

THIS I have seen a couple times...

People who steal people's posting style or posts and use them as their own starters or replies. I had some snake in the grass steal my post style and promptly denied it when he was called out. I have seen people take Wikipedia entries, fanfiction, etc to use RP posts.

Gang up/Bully/Harass IC and OOC.

I have seen this rarely, but it was a common thing on Facebook. Dislike someone's character? Fine. Don't harass them, mock them or bully them IC and OOC. Unless they are doing something stupid such as being disruptive or rude maybe. I seen call out posts on FB to where the person would allow dog piling, gaslighting and harassment on the person.

YES. THIS. I'm garbage at art. I'm horrible at faceclaims. I'm also not perfect at describing characters, though I do my best. Oh, sorry I can't draw people. But what does my ability to draw have to do with my ability to roleplay, again?
I try to buy or trade for art when I can. I found a few commission specials that friends were having and was able to pay for those, at least. But still, just because I can't draw my characters or find faceclaims, doesn't mean I can't write. |D

I'm personally iffy on the rule list thing. I do have an FAQ that I link to through the full character list on my page, but it's entirely optional for people to actually read. I don't require people to read it beforehand because I feel that it's a waste of time to make people read something before, as not all of the questions apply to everyone. I mainly have it because back in the deviantART days I would get sick of people asking the same questions over and over and over again so I really made it for myself. That way if someone would, say, ask if I do romance or RP with anthros/furries, I could just hop over to the list myself and paste my generic response in chat, rather than link them to the list.

I totally get you about the people who have a several page long required reading sheet, though. That's a huge turnoff if I have to read a giant list of things before I'm even allowed to discuss an RP. I actually saw a few people on deviantART who would make sure you read their thing by hiding "to prove that you read the whole thing, message me with [phrase/word]."

Thing is, I do this. I would much prefer saying 'yes' or 'no' to a set of questions than coming up with ideas, because if I came up with an idea I liked and they didn't, I'd look rude for trying to push it on them.
Basically, it's not for lack of creativity, but because they actually do want you to do 'whatever you'd like'.

Sorry if I seem annoyed, it's just that whenever I say 'we can do whatever you want' I tend to get the same back in reply. If someone wants you to decide, then decide. I inevitably do whenever the other person can't.

Long lists of rules don't really bother me so much, and it's not necessarily a 'pompous' thing to do. People have their preferences, and though I wouldn't personally engage in RP with someone who has a lot of restrictions (I RP for fun, as a way to unwind from my work week, not to be policed about how I should write, how often, how long, etc.), that's their choice, and it's nobody's business, really, how they go about it, especially on their own profile or their characters' profile. If you don't like it? Leave! Don't bother with them! You have that choice!

And speaking in defense of people who remain active, though not on a particular thread, sometimes people have a muse for one character or thread, but not another, and don't want to have to explain themselves over and over again every time it happens. Sometimes it's not always because you failed any expectations so much as...this is just what happens, and it's nobody's fault!

I'm one of these people. I have a large (and growing) number of characters and scenarios I want to play with, and sometimes I need to...take a break from what I have going on currently in order to flesh others out or satiate a nagging bout of inspiration. Another character or scenario hogs the spotlight for a bit, and I'll be writing for that for a while before returning to the prior. If I try to write for the prior when I'm not motivated to do so, the writing quality suffers. I want to be motivated and excited about writing in the thread when I do, so that the quality is the best it can be.

I already cover this on my profile, but this--along with my job--is a major hurdle for threads sometimes, and there's not really much to be done about it except letting it run its course.

I do try to keep my partners updated when threads are slowing down, but life gets in the way sometimes.

If it's been weeks upon weeks, like well over a month, and they haven't gotten back to me, I essentially consider the rp to be abandoned. If they haven't been online, I figure something has happened and will happily pick the rp back up whenever they get back online. Some of my rp partners respond once a day, others once a week, others once a month or so. I stay adaptable and patient for my rp partners, because I know that muses can vary and people only have so much time to answer posts. Getting caught up on your inbox and forum posts can be slow going. But I will only bend over backwards so much.

I do move on whenever I see someone who has a super long-winded list of rules and restrictions, because I know that they probably aren't going to be my cup of tea. My prejudice could be because of former experiences I've had from players with such profiles, or it could be because I like cutting things back to the essentials when it comes to OOC things and RP preferences, so it can be easily summed up, at a glance. Keep the long-winded stuff for IC. Similarly, I move on if someone doesn't like fantasy, or if they just like smut, or if their grammar is too bad. I don't personally have anything against them, we just don't share interests and it's best to simply avoid interaction at all.

^This. All of it. Sometimes a muse is choosy, and doesn't want to work with you. I'm a perfectionist at heart, and I expect myself to dole out a decent sized post filled with some emotion or response. If my muses don't want to work with me, then I kinda panic. I don't want to give my partners subpar replies, so I have to wait until my inspiration comes back. Until then, I still want to be social, so I talk to others on the forum in hopes that maybe I'll be inspired enough to continue.

Of course, this is no excuse for not letting a person know, but sometimes life happens: phones break, computers get stolen, and losing contact is a possibility. Sometimes, people are just afraid to speak up because they're fearful of disappointing others, or witnessing their reactions. I can't speak for everyone, but I know I am. While it may be simple to tell a person, "I'm not interested anymore," it's not so simple to read a response that you're a cold-hearted person or rude for having to move on from a RP. It happens, and it's a scary thought. So in some people's eyes, it's better not to say anything at all.

I personally give myself a time frame: if I can't respond by this period of time passing, then I try to let my partners know that there's gonna be some delay.

It's really interesting how people have different assumptions and expectations, isn't it?

I've actually been avoiding this thread for the most part because I get really frustrated when other players I might be interested in hitting up to chat make a point blank sweeping statement that can be read in a way that they might not have meant. My previous community was rife with this sort of behaviour, only worse because it was usually done anonymously. It's hard not to keep coming back to see what other negative thing someone's putting up and then gauging yourself by it--or worse, finding reasons to push other players away before you even get to know them because they've said something you don't agree with.

I guess that makes me a bit silly for posting here, too, but since this thread seems to get so much TLC, I wanted to note that it can be a real b-sting to read what started off as 'man, this sucky thing happened to me' turn into a thread based around 'I hate all players who do THIS!' It gets worse from there, dudes, you don't want to encourage that kind of line of debate and chaffed britches if you want to be known as the most friendly group of peeps on the RP track.

Personally, I've had more bad experiences with players who ghost me after tepid responses than with those who drop a note to let me know that they're done with a thread, whether or not they want to move on to something else sooner or later. Hearing that something you're stoked on is not going to be continuing can suck, but managing expectations is a part of becoming a good roleplayer, at least to me. Blaming a lacking muse or anything else short of literal lack of internet and saying 'but maybe later' when I check in on interest is one of the those things that I quietly become the most affronted by, and I don't really care about tracking how active the other player is with their other characters. I'm more forgiving of friends, but it's really hard with strangers to build trust when I sense a lot of hedging going on.

I like to think that I'm a chill player. I can wait weeks or months for a reply, and I am also happy to wrap a thread that seems to be stagnating. I'm even alright with going weeks without a peep before hearing that something needs to be wrapped due to faded interest, even if I don't think that's an ideal timeframe. I've been the person who hasn't asserted boundaries and who pretended to be excited and it's caused more harm than good, so I'm more sensitive to it now. Good etiquette, to me, is checking in with yourself and calling a scene closed if you're agonizing more on nice paragraph structure than you are excited by continuing the scene. Then, it's letting the other player know where you're at, letting them say their bit if they need to, and moving on. The alternative is to check in with yourself, decide that you enjoy the OOC chatter and the general concept of the characters enough to bull through the parts that aren't working, and to communicate about what will make things fun again. Both are really valuable, and you won't get any better without honing those skills. Learning avoidance in RP gets to be such a bad thing if you're really into the hobby, or at least it's been one of the biggest pain-points I've had to deal with.

Apologies for stepping up. I kind of like you guys as acquaintances! Just... you know, taking a turn on the soap box since my side of the shouting match doesn't seem to be repped yet.

Someone that leaves people they rp with.. without saying a thing and not replying to many questions what had happened shouldn't really rant. Sorry mate but you're my bad experience. End of story.

Hi!

I think the worst thing ever in rping would be being left hanging.. without explanation.. nothing. They just go and disappear on you. My life isn't easy, never was, so I understand many things.. but almost always you can inform your partner what's going on. It's only fair.. not to mention something called 'good manners'. I think that through all the years of my rping experience this is the worst, making me angry and disappointed in people generally. Because - is it so incredibly hard to write 'Sorry, I don't feel it.'? 'Sorry, my life is a mess.' etc? Some even disappear just after discussing everything about the rp. So much time wasted! It makes me want to scream ;<

The second most irritating thing from my bad experience - people that just give up on rp because they didn't think their character through or the characters are clashing in a way they didn't think they would. Most of the things connected with rping can be solved by (Warning! A really hard word ahead of us!) talking! Yes. That's sooooo hard, don't you think? Tell your partner you think it would be better to maybe make them go there and there, or that you aren't sure what to do next. Noooo! That's too hard, right? Better just give up. Of. Course.

[takes deep breath]

Okay... I think I'm feeling a bit better.. :] Happy I saw this topic was on... needed that a lot ^/////^

A lot of my former bad experiences tie in with my pet peeves. I also feel guarded about listing specific bad experiences, since some of the players involved are still on these forums. Others could be. Even if I didn't make it obvious I was talking about them, they could still pick up on it.

I think that OOC drama and clinginess have caused my worst experiences in rp. I have had to derail my characters entire quest, adventure, event, whatever was supposed to advance their character development and then come up with something else.

It's not something that has happened recently, but it's something that happened before my hiatus, I've only been role playing again since around March. Having to think up why my character would have abandoned her situation and then making a new start for her in a way that made sense robbed some of the fun out of rp for me. Kind of a buzzkill.

There have been some rps I would liked to have finished or at least resolved with the other players involved, instead of being left to wonder how and if I should incorporate the rp into my characters history. I let it go and move on, and manage to figure something out.

OOC drama in general is nettlesome.

Mainly when you have a twink in an rp and you ask them to behave or fix their character.

That and ones who push for replies and people have lives.

This is a nitpick.

People who push their weird obsessions on others or ones who wish to rp certain characters for their needs or that they have a crush on the character.

I agree, drama is irritating :]

There's minor, small things that just annoy me, but I won't say they're good experiences

Such as controlling if my character is standing up, if I wrote that they're sitting down - that doesn't bother me, since it's such a small detail and it really doesn't play a big role. It's literally a tiny thing and that's fine with me.
A while ago I had created a character whose mother left when she was a little girl, so she's not very fond of talking about her mother. In one of the few roleplays I used her in, one of the players kept mentioning my characters mother, as if she still was a part of my characters life - which I several times in my replies made very clear that she wasn't. I never said that it annoyed me, but the roleplay didn't last very long anyway.
It just sucks when it feels like your partner hasn't read about your character, but luckily it has only happended that once, so I do kinda consider myself a bit lucky

This isn't really in a roleplay, but when asking others if they wanted to do a roleplay and not getting a reply. Ouch. It's completely okay to say that you have enough going on at the moment or that you're not just up for it, because leaving others hanging doesn't feel so great. It's understandable if the player isn't active anymore and most likely won't have read your message. It just makes me feel like an idiot, when I've asked somebody if they're interested in doing a roleplay and they're active like replying in forums and such, but they won't reply to my message, ever

The worst and the thing that has happended to me most often, is doing a roleplay (or sometimes have only created a great plot or just started the roleplay) and whoever I've roleplayed with has just disappeared. Then sometime later, I've contacted them to know if they have lost interest. I really try to avoid that, since on both my profile and every forum post about looking for others to roleplay with, it clearly says that if whoever I'm roleplaying with looses interest, to let me know so we can figure something out.

It really makes me sad and makes me feel like I'm not good enough, when people just leave and then later come up with the excuse that they've been busy and then the roleplay died. I'm fully aware that real life comes before any roleplay, which I completely agree with. But if they're aware that they will be busy, they can at least let others know beforehand. Or ask if we can put the roleplay on a break and continue later on, because I will happily do that. And they can't be too busy to write one or two sentences, that they may not reply in this time period or just let me know. It really doesn't take that much, I don't bite ^^

These are the things that stuck out to me the most.

Enjoying this roleplay that had been going on for a few days then I get TOLD to change things about MY character because they didn't like it.

The only ooc drama I had in my many years of rp is from the site I just left. Guess I was lucky.

This part I don't really consider ooc drama. I had been roleplaying with this person's character for a year when he decides to make his character go in a different direction thus ended a very delicate rp relationship. At the same time another good rp buddy decided to stop playing with me altogether and left the story. It ended up being very good story development and viola.. now you know why my Tsunami is such an ice queen LOL But it did almost destroy my character so that was really freaking annoying.

The other thing that I absolutely cannot stand is horrendous writers. Yesterday I had someone tell me that they met my rp requirements. One being two para minimum. Then proceeds to send me a FOUR WORD starter. No punctuation. The writing is everything to me. If one thing gets on my nerves then I can't focus on the story and enjoy it at all. It's my biggest fault I guess you could say.