Forums » RP Discussion » Pet Peves in characters and/or RP

Ooh, pet peeves? Surprisingly I don't have that many.. Hm.
Character's that don't react: This is actually one that my main rp partner brought up the other day. No matter how ballsy someone is, a freaky mechanical golem spider animated by someone's soul or a doll that was once a corrupt banker is bound to at least give someone the heebie jeebies.
That's the only one that comes to mind, for now. Most of my other pet peeves have already been repeated in this thread by various people, so I won't write them down again!

I agree strongly, Senny. It saps all the fun away when you're trying to play something unique. On the one hand, sometimes it can be kind of corny to try too hard to get people to react, but on the other hand, you're doing people a favor by trying to keep things lively.

That was actually the reason why I decided to move on to non-consent roleplay. I still do consent roleplay outside of Skuldhellir, but when I heard it was going to be non-consent I was very suspicious. But I realized something- consent-only roleplay allows characters a safety bubble in which they can develop unrealistic reactions to things. Think about it- every dangerous bad guy they've ever come across, no matter how impressive she or he seemed, was never able to seriously harm your character. So your character has developed a "Been there, done that," attitude that they don't really deserve because they were never in real danger.

While I still stick to consent outside of Skuldhellir, I'm trying harder to have my character react to things. That's easier if I'm playing her mortal self, because even though her mortal self has seen a lot, she's still rather vulnerable and has cause to react strongly to things that might be dangerous. It's a bit more difficult to react with surprise or fear when you're playing a lich, but I try to do it at least occasionally.

I generally stick to a consent rule not because I don't want things not to happen to my chars - trust me, they take blows, get stabbed or go through some real bad stuff.

But the no-consent rule is a free pass for most players to do ridiculous things that are unrealistic and to powerplay. My friends know that consent isn't required for most things but for really major things, and most often that's just to discuss how the turn of events would be most interesting. My rule isn't so much to protect my character from realistic happenings. It's to protect my character from powerplaying, unrealistic characters who can do everything without any regards for laws and realism.

I used to play no-consent all the time, but it was just a license for other people to destroy any chance I had of having fun. I can't tell you how many times I've had a character just sitting there minding their own business be suddenly brutally attacked because someone else's character was "bored". It's like they were trying to treat RP like a loot game, where you just walk from room to room killing monsters and collecting their belongings.

After an absurd number of brutalized (or killed) characters who were never supposed to see combat anyway (so many of my characters are just family-folk who want to raise their kids and die of old age without ever picking up a sword), I realized that consent rules exist in freeform as the only rule to prevent a single individual from completely ruining a plot, a character, or an entire world. Yes, it can be abused by people who want to powergame, but so can no-consent. At that point I switched to an implied consent rule, for myself and the dream I was running at the time. What that meant was that if your character picks a fight or does something else that could result in injury, like entering a deep dark cave or agreeing to go on a quest, you've just given consent to injury and possibly death because you took an action which could realistically result in harm. Implied consent would also be given for not responding, by the by. For example if you were sitting in a bar and one seat over, an armed fight starts and your character is such a bad dude that they aren't worried enough to get up and move, then you're on the hook for taking damage if a flying shiv just happens to get you in the kidney.

On the other hand if your character is having tea and scones with their best bud, then you get to pull consent and say you didn't want to play that way when someone suddenly detonates your own house out from under you because they were "bored." Maybe you're bored because you've chased away or killed every character that might otherwise have interacted with you, jerk. xD

I don't know about dreams, but I've always operated under a sort of implied consent rule, where if the character might realistically be unable to reach/get out of the way, realistic damages and such are acceptable. And I always have rules for the roleplays I make, one of which is something to the tune of "only I'm allowed to sign death certificates around here- they don't croak until I say they do," which acts as a buffer, because anyone who autokills is now a rulebreaker and can summarily be dropkicked out the window.

The single greatest most epic group roleplay I've ever been in was built like that. ^^

This can be HEAPS of fun, but as Kim said, some people take it too far. Of course my character is realistically unable to get out of the way if a 9 foot tall 6 foot wide 800 pounds dragon comes storming down the halway with no escape in sight. CRUSH goes the char! >

Oh my god I cannot stand it when people's overpowered characters start attacking others because they're 'bored'. Though then again I cant stand it when people injure their characters because the PLAYER is bored and cant think of anything to do so they stab them in the butt and shove them around for sympathy or something.

Or those characters (especially in military settings) that are TOO BAD ASS for their own good and refuse help from medics. For...some reason. Idk, maybe this wouldn't bother me if I saw it done once or twice, but it is like every other 'bad ass' character in some groups and it just seems really stupid. Your chest hair is not going to stitch together your gaping chest wound buddy.

Ha... Hahahaha.. HHAHAHAHA

I have to remember that one. xD

HELIX!!! You are my hero.

Helix. I think you should make a character with self-stitching chest hair.

What really gets me is the characters that are beautiful, thin, but as powerful as some super butch person. I mean WOW, your character is... 90 pounds and 5,9 and stronger then my warrior who is 6,4 and 230 pounds. Like wtf people? Where does LOGIC tie into this?
Its also annoying when people yell at you for not making your character sympathetic for their own when someone they love dies, or they broke an arm, etc, etc. I mean, its like they don't read my character sheets, or they just don't care and want to warp my characters, since almost all are heartless dickheads.
I don't know how many over powered characters I have ran across. There was one that was across between 3 gods and mine was a simple archer with a pet dog called Mich who was gone like the wind if it saw a squirrel. I mean they where sitting together one day in a Town when this guy got bored and started TURNING PEOPLE INTO ASH. I was like wtf? Rage-Kill much? Who finds that entertain besides some evil-demon thing.
About the monster/wolf thing now... The wolf thing is gay. I don't know how many people I have come across with that. I like the 'human in day, monster at night' and I don't like how they turn into WOLF wolves, not human-wolf monsters. If you like wolves so much, just make an anthro, not a werewolf. And the monster thing is...Ugh. I have two monster character, one is tall, 8ft, black spines coming out its black, a face with no eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth and bony figures and hides under a cloak, and a transform one that turns at the sight of blood to this evil-ugly monster thing with 3 stages- not that stupid Bishie cute, huggable monster crap that seems EVERYWHERE these days. Fick its so nasty...
I don't know where people get this Rp Character ideas, but fuck ,I would like to know so I can light it to flames!

On the topic of sparkling vampires...

I once took my fae character into an irc channel where I hadn't played before, described her as being slightly shimmery, and had someone assume I was a vampire. Gosh darn it-- faeries had the sparkly dust first, I promise.

Sara, that reminds me of how stupid anti-Twilight people have gotten. I still think anti-Twilightism is legitimate, but there are people who simply jump on the hate wagon because it's "cool" and "intellectual" to hate Twilight. Then they go and troll vampire roleplays because they assume all vampires= Twilight. It's stupid as @#%&. Hello, vampires existed in lore for CENTURIES before Twilight came along, dipwad.

I don't have anything against Twilight, really. Every generation has their thing that tween girls obsess over. When I was in that age bracket, we all watched 90210 and "serious debates" erupted between the girls who wanted to date Dylan and the girls who wanted to date Brandon. Twilight's filling the same niche for today's thirteen year olds, and that's okay-- something had to do it, and it really could be worse (like 90210.)

Well, the thing I don't like about Twilight is that it promotes abusive relationships and low expectations for what a girl can accomplish with her life. If it was just another corny romance book I wouldn't mind so much. Then again, most romance novels have bad messages about gender roles and etc.

I'm a little more tolerant of people liking it, though, ever since I found out my dad's girlfriend is a fan. I'm very fond of her and don't have the heart to be all cynical and snarky when she likes it.

I just remembered one that bothers me:

Tattoos.
On fur.
What is that I don't even

Exceptions, of course, being for fur stains/dye jobs (logical!) and magically applied markings in fantasy settings (shiny!).

I've seen people do shaved fur patterns in place of tattoos, which I approve of as more logical and then sort of cringe because I think it would make them look like they had the mange. But who knows! xD

Post length : I keep all my posts to the absolute minimum necessary to convey whatever idea I'm trying to get across. Not stylistic; just don't want to waste other people's time. I also avoid descriptive language as much as possible (gateway to fluff), because, let's be honest, nobody gives a shit how long my or anyone else's character's hair is.

"would" : "She would X" "He would appear to be Y" etc : In posts, this is sometimes justifiable, though it still bugs the shit out of me. There's usually a better way to word stuff. In descriptions, there's no reason for it. Your clothing "would" not do anything. Either your shirt's pink or it isn't. Your eyes (sorry, "oculorbs") pierce souls, or they don't. I can't really back this one up satisfactorily though, I just have an automatic negative reaction to it for some reason.

I was also gonna post something about the aloof/jaded/introverted vs. friendly/optimistic/extroverted continuum, but I kinda just kept rambling on without really saying anything. Basically, it'd be nice if there were more characters who haven't lived for ten thousand years and have already seen everything and are infinitely bored by everything and everyone all of the time, is what I was trying to say; but it's a wholly subjective thing and those are still valid character types regardless of proportions and blah blah jesus christ who cares.

Other than that, yeah, mary sues, godmoding, etc but those are genuinely disruptive / destructive things (equivalent of griefing / trolling), so that's not as much of an opinion as just a matter of courtesy. /agree though.

One of my extreme pet peeves is characters who always paint themselves as the victim. I don't mean, they don't know how to fight or they're weak, but they're always making themselves dramatically dying, and expecting everyone to protect them. I was in one RP and their paper cut gushed out half of her blood, and everyone rushes to her side and takes her to the hospital and gives her flowers and everything, and then the next day she went out and purposefully got herself beaten up by some monster. She was like, HELP ME, for the sixth time, and I had to rush over, crying and fearing for her life, for the sixth time. She was all huddled in a corner trembling. Ugh. I hate when people do that.

As someone already mentioned weight! Especially men that are about 6'4" , muscular and weigh 175. > You'd be at least 200. Maybe that isn't that big of a deal, but it gets under me skin.
People who do a full post, small font, on Furcadia and add at the end of their posts [oops, sorry, short post.] I rarely (unless its a large RP group) no more than one post.
Also:
-unbreakable slaves
-godmoding
-And characters who do things that honestly would get their character killed as punishment - mass vandalism, murder, etc. But we can't do that because of course, almost no one would consent to that OOCly.
/rant