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

People who play siblings and take up a good chunk of time roleplaying with themselves. It's not even that it stops me from having fun, I still get to roleplay with the siblings, but the logical part of me can't figure out why they would do that. I know that they will talk to each other, but the great amusement of creating separate posts for each one ad having a ten page confrontation between the two confuses me to the point of annoyance. That being said, I love playing siblings and playing with other sets of siblings.

People who join a roleplay that is clearly not up to their standards then complains. WTF? You know that this roleplay caters to people who post a paragraph, so we wont be meeting your 7+ paragraphs with 7+ paragraphs. We will answer with a paragraph and you are wasting your time.

Characters that try to out angst each other. I'll admit I did this once- mostly to just grind the competition to a halt and get back to cleaning up the dead bodies. But really, "Feel sad for me, my goldfish died." "Thats almost as bad as when my dog died." "Oh that reminds me of the time my brother died in a horrific accident." "My brother also died, it was a horrific accident I caused." "Like when I crashed the car and killed both my parents and the family buggy." "Like when my whole village was destoryed because I set a leaf on fire, no one survived but me." "My vilage was destoryed by a nuclear bomb I built that malfunctioned and blew up everyone and mutated me. Thats why my eyes glow a pleasing green." RAWR!

When a character just won't let a "adult" scene end. When writing erotic fiction that has plot i want to spend little time on the adult part. Needs to end after a few posts, dont expect 2 full pages of it when i said i wanted story to. Pretty much now i either fade it, don't do it, or limit how many posts it goes on for.

The character having dead parents is also anoying. Why do people make them dead all the time. Not every 18-25 year old char should have dead parents. My chars are usually late 20's to early 40's and have alive parents. Why do some rpers make disney characters..either the mom or dad is always dead or killed

I think the dead parents thing isn't really for dramatic effect but just for an easy way to write a history. That and parents are often in the way when writing about a character who is too young to live by him/herself. Having alive parents often means having to include them in what you're writing about which (as parents in real life often do) sometimes limits the plot.
Though, I'll admit, it does seem like everyone wants dead parents. 2 out of my 3 are also parent-less characters but again, I don't do it for dramatic effect, just to get them out of the picture so I can focus on the plot. That and it allows some room for someone in the roleplay to say "hey! i found your mom/dad" and look at that; a dramatic plot twist haha
Idk, I can see how its annoying but I can also see why people do it.
Just putting that out there xDD

Because I posted in this forum, I might as well post something that has to do with the Discussion point. That and I haven't read through all the replies so I might be repeating something.

1: I think its irritating when someone makes a character who has absolute power in any situation. If they're trapped; suddenly they have the ability to slip through the bars. If they're in a fight; suddenly they can turn into a T-rex. If there is any kind of conflict at all in the roleplay, they somehow have the ability to fix it. I don't think it leaves room for the other character(s) and having conflict keeps the RP alive. Finding a solution to every problem like magic really doesn't make writing a story much fun.

2: I absolutely hate self-mutilation on a constant basis. I know its fun to beat up on your character for dramatic purposes but doing it to yourself, again, excludes the other characters and pull the focus of the entire roleplay to you. Which is rather selfish, in my opinion. I don't mind violence or injuries but to say that you're walking through the forest and all of a sudden you twist both your ankles, hit your head on a rock, fall on a patch of spikes, and have a skunk start gnawing on your skin all in one post is a bit ridiculous.

As far as character traits, its more a combination of traits that bothers me. I'm alright if they have one abnormal feature, if its really out there and explanation will settle me, but if they have freakishly colored hair, mismatching eyes and tattoos and piercings everywhere I'm getting a little overwhelmed. If characters are overly complicated they're harder to picture, to imagine. If my character has oddly colored hair its because they dye it. Okay, so I have a char with the cliché silvery-white hair, but his natural-colored roots show. You know, just mundane traits to round out the abnormality to make them more believable. Sueishness of coarse is irritating. Also, I am so sick of the stereotypical uke or damsel in distress. Uber submissive characters just grind my gears.

When it comes to roleplays in general, if you character 'sighs' 'blushes' and 'blinks' in response to everything, I'm going to get pretty irritated. If your character responds the same way to everything, every post, its irritating! Get creative.

As far as post length, I'll be the first to admit I'm a little elitist. The most enjoyable roleplays I've ever been in, at least on my part, though my partners have agreed, have all been consistently long in post-length. No, we don't hold each other to a length and yes I'm very much quality over quantity, but there's something about sinking my teeth into a thick, meaty post. If you're going to fill your uber-long post with fluff, forget it. But there are those who can craft 1000 words with elegance and grace, filling it with action as to not bore as well as flowign description. Then again sometimes I'm in the mood of shorter posts. But I really do love crafting posts, it feels like an art, letting the words flow to paint a picture.

Closed mindedness for rp settings. Mostly this applies to Pokémon rps, since that seems to be what I do most of these days. I'll get to my other genre, fantasy, in a moment.

Anyway, when I go into a Pokémon dream in Furc and look up its information, I tend to see one thing that REALLY gets to me:

Your new character has to be a newbie trainer. They have to be. It is a requirement of the dream itself, unless you're allowed to play a canon character. Now, don't get my wrong, I'm sure this is here to avoid godmodders with a team of level 100 legendaries from butting into the place...

But for the love of Arceus, can I please play my 23-year-old's level 68-30 team? Please? I got 'em through legit rp, honest. You can even have an OoC-based rp battle with me to make sure I fight Pokémon battles fairly. That's all I ask. Well, okay, maybe that and that you don't mind that freak of a Haunter I've had since I started Pokemon rps 8 years ago...

But my peeve is mainly the fact that I am apparently forced to rp a 10-year-old newbie getting their starter for the first time if I want to rp in such dreams. I can't go ahead and use my older, more experienced character (who could actually bring something a bit interesting to your continuty, I hope!) who I've been developing and might benefit from checking out a new area/region.


Breaking continuity bugs me too! I seemed to see a lot of this back in Northkeep, unfortunately. Simply put, people will presume the silliest of things about the continuity/the players and start boggling stuff up. Just because our setting was medieval fantasy doesn't mean you can bring in a pathetic lil' wussy wuss who never ever toughens up. We were a (former) trading keep built into the mountains in the smack-dab-middle-of-nowhere; things were tough out there. You had to already be tough or learn to be tough to survive.

... don't get me wrong, we had nice characters. That's not what I mean. I mean you had to be rugged. My dear lil' Lauren Bassnium may not have had manly muscles on her or fur as thick as a bear, but you can damn well bet she learned how to live in a freezing cold wasteland in a building of cold stone-- especially during the year the avalanche overtook and (magically) froze Northkeep over!

But what did I see on occasion? Wussy lil' pathetic bean bags Lauren could probably telekineticly throw over the mountain's edge who never ever toughened up and became, on occasion, even more pathetic. They ruined the rough feel that WAS Northkeep jut by being around and being wussy all over the place. Oi vey...


Okay I'm done. Was that post fat enough for ya? I could give you more~...

X100000000000000000000000000000000 to the power of smex.

Total agreement. Characters who don't fit the setting at all can be really annoying. Lucky, I didn't encounter them all that often while I still ran the group roleplay circuit.

There are a few things that make me go beyond ignoring the character and going straight to mind-blocking the roleplayer.

1. Royalty that doesn't act like royalty. Its been mentioned before me about runaway teens who are princesses etcetc. Or the 'long lost heir', as if you could really show up to your Kingdom and reclaim it like that. But what really gets me is when you see Royals running around in the market. By themselves. For NO GOOD REASON, chatting it up with hobos. Ugh. You'd think they would have read at least one book or listened to one school lecture about how life was for the royalty. Not like that in any way.

2. Myspace-emo-characters. I've nothing against homosexuals, or emos. I've a few gay characters myself. But when I go onto forums (Gaia is horrible for this), and even some Furcadia chars, its all myspace shot self portraits of a boy skinnier than I am with no shirt and skinny jeans. I'm sure some of them are interesting, but I really can't get past the emo-ness and teen angst.

3. God-modelers. They are everywhere you go, I know this. But when you work so hard on a legit fighting scene and they go OMGNO and insta-dodge it makes me log out/quit the roleplay right then and there. Loving your character is one thing but letting them die a few times is healthy! Just because you kill your character doesn't mean you can't roleplay them. Just means you shouldn't keep the RP going with the person who killed you or in the same continuity.

4. Characters who don't change or age. Eternal youth is a taboo, unless you have good reason. I was reading through my five year old notes on my character and she started out as 22, an alcoholic who raged on demons. Now she is in her thirties, has a kid, befriended a demon and won't drink. I find not many people can say that they're characters have changed substantially over the course of their RPs. The only time I find it makes sense to have an orphaned young character is in a med/fan setting where mortality rates were high. But more logically infants died, so you'd have more dead kids than dead parents, but whatever. I'd love to see a character in their fifties who aren't vamps or otherwise immortal characters.

1.)

Historically or Mythologically Incorrect Characters - This really shows that when they created the character, they did not do the research behind the race or species. I can completely understand altering it to fit what they want, but then again, when it's altered so much that it couldn't possibly be what they say it is, I want to rip my hair out. Either that or when the person gets the little yet important details wrong.

TMI - I can applaud anyone who goes through the time and effort of smoothing out every little single detail about their character, but I hate it when they post it all on the websites or profiles. Keep some of it hidden within your mind and leave it for our imaginations!

Fallen Nobility - Once upon a time, there was a princess, prince, king, queen, god, goddess, duke, dutchess, count, or countess and now they no longer are. I've seen numerous of these characters, and only when they are well thought out, unique, and played well will I tolerate them.

Unrealistic Anatomy - I.E.: Tattered wings that fly, Steriod muscular build, Giant Penises (Yes, I did go there), Huge curling demon horns on a skinny little body, ect.


2.)

Low-Effort Posters - I think Helix covered this one well.

Low-Effort Roleplayers - They say they want to roleplay with you and then force you to come up with every scene and plot because they either don't want to or lack the creativity to do so.

Those who Ignore - Ever jump IC and post either including or directed toward another character and have them simply ignore your post and keep going as if your character doesn't exit? Or how about when you post your character does one thing , but the other person posts that your character is doing something else entirely? Which leads me too..

Posting For You - Those Rpers that post what your character is doing! >:

Lack of Solid Personality - They're outgoing and then not. They're sadistic, then not. Really? Character's should have a solid personality and shouldn't differ too greatly from that unless something happens to them that would cause it to alter.

Just some of them.

Ilu. Marry me. Now.

Ok. When and where?

Now. I'll meet you at the gas station on the corner and we'll hop a flight to Vegas.

Ok!

/leaves

/leaves, too

Another thing that comes to mind... when people take RPs too seriously.
I got told off for putting witty remarks in my posts before.
Not too long ago, someone also chewed me out about the way I rped and also for making my character give birth before 9 months due to time constraints my friend had irl.

And people seem to think that just because I hate the "flowing tresses"-like descriptions that I also hate them. It's like... dude... it's just a fictional character. I insult my own character 4395839 times more.

Oh, and when people get mad that you only use a single character a lot. Some people just aren't comfortable using new or other characters as the main for a RP. It's not like I'm asking them to use more than one character.

I reaaaally dislike it when someone thinks a visual character design (which they don't always make themselves) constitutes an entire character. It just pushes my buttons and irritates me to no end. And those buttons are connected to some very important magical lines, so I kind of armflail shooting priceless vases and beams of pie at unfortunate bystanders out of my fingertips. (I apologize, by the way, guys. I had no idea that panda was yours.)

Also, as Copper_Dragon previously stated, I absolutely abhor it when a character or a group of characters enter a setting and ruin it because they don't fit and never change to do so. You can toss a happy go lucky person into a dark and dismal place, of course, but given enough Time the dreariness would, and should, get to them. If they stay chipper despite everything, with only occasional wavers for dramatic effect, it's just really bad roleplaying and an outright denial of logical character development, unless the point of the RP is absurd comedy or something. Playing a character that doesn't change secondary personality characteristics when they logically should is really boring, and ruins the effect of a location or situation for everyone else.

Oh and I am really tired of all the bland female characters. I have seen five million and only a small handful have ever stood out to me, which is a crying shame. There is such a huge variety in male character body types, personalities and ages. Why is every female character some variation of pretty (I said pretty, not thin) and young, with the only three personality options being some degree or combination of either bitchy, seductive or cheerful? Why aren't there more lassies with less flattering body types, or more interesting personalities that aren't designed around being hot somehow (I'm looking at you, 'sexy' nerd chicks)? Can I get some wimz up in here with greasy hair or pimples or big noses or glasses that don't serve the 'subtle' double-purpose of flattering their faces when they're taken off? What about some that actually don't care about how they look and don't "accidentally" pull off sexy in the process? Maybe some that are not the typical damsel in distress or the femme fatale or GIRLS ARE JUST AS GOOD AS BOYS badass? Seriously, more ladies who're not designed around a degree of sex appeal and the very small pool of overused female concepts would be really nice. I like ladies. Please do them some justice by making them more interesting as actual people.

/INHALE
/exhale
/priceless vase

Ugh, yes.
People wonder why I hate female characters.
That pretty much sums it up.

Stell probably fits into one of those stereotype groups
but I mean, at least I have her developed outside of the little -- pardon my language -- skank stereotype group.

I have a female with a gun, but she wouldn't shoot anyone with it. Just animals. Cause that's kinda her hobby.
Do tell me when you see some female characters that stick out, please. I want to see them, too.

Nooooo! Not my vase!

But what's wrong with pretty, cheery lasses, dearies? We make the world go 'round!

...No, no, wait, that's something to do with the principle of conservation of angular momentum, or somesuch thingamabobber. Probably not from womens. Hrm. Although we could always put a spin on that or introduce some conspiracy-sounding-ish thing that...

-ah. Anywhoo!

One could also say that a lot of men-characters are also inflicted with similar, familiar personalities - variations on the dark! and brooding! stranger of darkness!, or the musclebound meathead (which while very interesting in some respects ifyouknowwhatImean are absolute bores in others), or the good and righteous and oh-so-sickening noble fellow of justice or whatever the upstanding concept of the week is. And aren't most of us all just plays on tropes that are older than dirt, anyways? Our stories have been told thousands upon thousands of times before, admittedly with minor variation and even the occasional innovation here and there, which is probably the only thing keeping us lemony-fresh-scented to some respect. I personally would rather my potpourri be kiwifruit-scented, but I do digress.

I'm not sure if it's inherent societal misogyny in some system - whether here behind the fourth wall or beyond it entirely - that leads to the problems you twain have with the lasses, and quite frankly, she behind the great glass sky is too sick of dealing with that particular topic right now to bother trying to stuff my head full of the theory. Perhaps another time you'll get a treatise on the subject.

Truly, I think the problem may lie more with, indeed, the people behind the great glass sky than actual (or would that be fictional?) women.