Forums » RP Discussion » The art of saying yes & no to RP

I read and hear a lot about roleplays fizzling out. It is way more common then you think. Sometimes those initial posts are rusty and its hard to get a roleplay off the ground. Not everyone’s styles mesh well and we often don’t know this until things get started. So many roleplay failures often lead to aggressive attitudes, and abundances of announce “roleplay rules” and “roleplay standards” that can hinder new experiences. While these are attempts to filter out role-players its still not as effective as we may like and can persuade fantastic role players to avoid you if they don’t feel as confident in their talents of writing.
The counter to this is to say yes to everything. But this isn’t always a good strategy, some storyboards just end up not as interesting as we hoped – or the time it takes to get or make replies slows the entire story down because we cant remember what we were doing. AKA our muse wears off.

I think in this contemporary time its important to tell people that its ok to say *No*. Its easy to get talked into things we don’t want to do because we don’t want to be hated, let people down or offend people.. but whats worse? Doing something you don’t want to do that lacks luster and eventually fizzles out and one of you starts ghosting? Or just being upfront that your not crazy about the idea or character selections tactfully?
One leads a bad taste in the mouth. But the other one offers a different avenue of conversation such as.. “what if I build a new character?” or “well here is another storyboard idea” that can spark something new we can say yes to with enthusiasm.

Avoiding confrontation, ghosting or not being honest in conversations limits opportunities for fun and thrilling scenarios.
For example, I had a roleplay not too long ago with a long term partner begin to fizzle. I leveled with him that I didn’t feel my character was in a situation to be themselves without too much negative consequences happening in the roleplay (such as fighting/arguing). After a while it was just weighing on me and it didn’t seem fun anymore to the point that post replies were getting shorter, my writing was dulling out and it was taking me longer and longer to reply. This reaction inevitably effects our partners too.. they can sense the lack of desire. Because of our long term relations of roleplay we were able to have a real OOC conversation about the story and figured out a way to get it back on track so that it was fun for both of us and that our characters could still be themselves.

Sometimes its not always the roleplay itself, sometimes its that single post your partner gives you that makes you cringe when normally everything is fun and fine. This cring could be because you had a different idea in mind that this post prevents, maybe its super cheezed or maybe your partner accidently spouted something their character shouldn’t have known because it wasn’t revealed yet. Sometimes we need to learn how to go with the flow away from the paths we designed and see what our partners have in mind. If we want to pre-plan everything then its writing a novel and not roleplay! But in other cases it can be extremely helpful to send your partner a message and say “hey, that post was a little weird, here is why.” and then maybe discuss their point of views to see why they took that direction. It can either help you better understand why they chose that path or perhaps lead to them agreeing to a re-write.
Sometimes enough is enough. Sometimes you just need to say “Hey, our styles are very different and I am not longer interested in this roleplay.” Sometimes you need to say it right out the gate with the first post or before a post is even made.

Either way I think its very important to be honest about when you want to say yes to a story and when you want to say no. because at the end of the day? Ghosting just hurts more then a no and leaves us itching to know what we did or said wrong. No one can better themselves unless they are armed with the knowledge of their flaws. Be open to giving feedback. Sometimes its them, not you. Sometimes real world things happen and its hard to get back to the site to say anything.

These of course are just my thoughts. I have been roleplaying for a long long time and I have experienced it all! So, I know how it goes and I know the pains.

I have seen a lot of posts about frustrations of being ghosted.
Are you worried about your style/posts? If you *want* you can send me private messages, give me samples or posts from roleplays you were ghosted on and I will give you constructive criticism/advice/feedback. Equally so if your unsure if your character has the pa-zaazzz you want, I can advise on that too.
**Just note my opinions don’t speak for everyone and it wont prevent people from not wanting to engage with you. We all have those people who said no because we just didn’t match. I also want to note that I don’t think of myself as an elite roleplayer or that I am better than anyone. I have had some newbies, first roleplays blow my socks off.. after 20 years of roleplay I didn’t feel worthy.