Forums » RP Discussion » Help with an RP Mistake

Hey all. I like combat-based RP, and recently started one I thought would be awesome, but I quickly found myself screwing up, and now my partner doesn't want to continue playing.

You see, their character was far superior in power to mine (easy, I thought, I used to play with this power imbalance all the time). The problem was that, well, a lot of their attacks seemed, well, lethal, and I just wasn't ready for that (not their fault, by the way). And so I found myself granting my characters seemingly plausible tricks for surviving the first couple of exchanges to keep the fight exciting, but what that wound up doing was robbing my partner of their fun.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I could have handled my situation better? I'm attempting to talk them into continuing, but this is clearly a player who's been burned before, and so I'm not optimistic. I just reall want to not make these mistakes again, but I need alternative ideas.

It can be tough to RP with power imbalances, so I feel ya. I think any time you find your character up against a lethal situation, hit the brakes and talk to your partner. Ask them what they intend to do there and how it'll further the RP.

In addition, discuss what you're looking for before the RP even starts. If you and your partner agree "no death" before hand, it's okay to go ahead and trust that they won't end your character flippantly.

Granted, of course, this is something both players are responsible for, yeah? Try not to beat yourself over it. Mistakes happen, RP styles clash--it happens. It's awesome of you to be looking for ways on how to avoid something similar in the future!

Thanks for that. I know it takes two to tango, and they do already mentioned that they were getting irritated, but my initial method for solving the problem was insufficient. Whatever their contribution was, I'm only really responsible for my own mistakes. Things are actually looking much better now!