Forums » Smalltalk » Annoying Parts of Rping

What do you find annoying about finding rps or ones that are already active?

Personally these are my big five.

1. Hate it when people delete their accounts in the middle of active rp. Where did they go? Who knows...
2. I find it to be annoying when someone asks for a sample of one's writing, then they never respond back. Don't be like that, at least mention the style isn't your taste.
3. When people post in the forums not having a clue what they want to even rp. Just give us something to work with.
4. Over done profiles and character slots. I like details but save some of it for the rps. We all like a little mystery.
5. Group rps. Fun concept until people start drama.

This is my biggest one.

It's sad because group rps have so much potential.

Don't give up on groups! There's some really epic ones out there. Not tooting my own horn, but Kruhee's RC group seems super duper stupendous and if DnD is more your thing, Aine seems to be running a fab one that caters to that and more. There's also one brewing that's not officially open yet but by Queen_of_Hell for World of Darkness. Not to mention Cosmos is huge and amazing for Sci-fi lovers.

It all depends on how groups are run and if the admins & staff have the proper mindset, I find. It's a lot of pressure and leading isn't for everyone. Not to mention the amount of time and devotion it takes. But please don't give up hope. Perhaps you just haven't found the right one. The same thing goes for partners, right?

I can tell you are being sincere and helpful. I appreciate the suggestion. With the right group it would be different, possibly. Right now though, I personally would have to politely decline the offer for the D&D group.

1. Yeah, it is, but it’s a fact of life in rp. I don’t hold it against anyone who lines out. I’ve actually came to embrace that ability. You know they aren’t coming back as opposed to letting the account going dormant.

2. Nah. A lack of response when someone puts out an LFRP Req on the forums saying ”PM me” and you do and get zilch is more, if only mildly, annoying. I usually offer up a writing example based on their prompt just because I can, but only if they respond to my initial pm. I find one has to sift through the chaff to find the gems, and it’s always worth it when the gems are found!

3. That doesn’t annoy me. I just ignore those and don’t waste my time thinking about it.

4. Nah, in fact I’m the opposite. I find a well developed character profile indicates the writer cares. I find ‘shell characters’ with little information and question mark avatars that contact me to be more annoying.

5. Though I find some group RPs fun, I haven’t been too successful in them since moving to Australia. If you aren’t in or near the time zones of the majority of the group writers, you either hold up the group or more usual, get left behind by a flurry of posts, Then When I’m on, I play catch up reading all the posts, write a post, and there is no activity because the majority are asleep. So I tend to stay away from groups these days.

Oh man that sucks. I can it imagine it would be hard to rp in groups over seas. Few friends of mine are very frustrated with the same situation as you. Maybe you could try the D&D Group suggested by Demilicious. Perhaps there are some people near the same time zone as you? Idk, Good Luck man.

I think a lot of people would say I 'overdo' my character profiles, but I enjoy writing them. I don't expect people to read the whole thing- in fact, I set up the profile so that they can see what's important first and then the rest is for them to read only if they are really interested. A lot of it is for my own enjoyment and reference. Personally, I'm the opposite and am turned off by more sparse profiles, especially when they say 'find out in the RP' and things like that for very important matters such as personality or backstory. Sometimes I feel like people leave those things blank just so that they can make up whatever is convenient or most interesting later on for the RP.
That is its own style, of course, but not really my thing! I like to know that there's thought behind the character prior to engaging in RP with them and that everything is connected, rather than having a quick list as if the character is no more than a simple form.

As for my own annoyances, besides that:
1. Uncredited/stolen artwork
2. Personalities that are just lists of a few traits like "shy, polite, sweet" or something
3. People who constantly want to RP with you whenever you log on and take refusal as an insult/lack of interest, and become clingy almost immediately after making your acquaintance. This has happened to me a LOT and really drives me away. I love developing friendships with people I RP with, but they have to be organic, and are certainly not bolstered by aggressively messaging me every five minutes!

I get behind his 100%, Sometimes I don't have the energy to RP and sometimes I just can't get into the mindset of one character over the other. It's not a personal insult that I'm human. That any of us are. People really shouldn't take a slow response as an insult or pester about your activity. Saying 'I'm worried nobody wants to RP with me' isn't an excuse to try to force others into situations where they are made to be the badguy IRL.

Anyway, the things I find annoying tend to be:

1) People use excuses to behave badly OOC. "I prefer to play with male characters, I get alone better with them." Or "Nobody wants to RP with me.... *Fill in a thing that they did because of it*" I understand we all have insecurities, but I don't abide by manipulation.

2) Not taking no for an answer. When I say no, I mean no. If I refuse to RP with someone for some reason, be it the plot, or the idea or that we really don't match style wise and they keep pushing for it, that's a NOPE moment if I ever have one. It's not okay on the bus, in the office, at home so why would it be okay online when it comes to RP? No means no.

3) The expectation to be the heavy lifter. While I understand many are new to RP, I don't appreciate being put in situations where I am forced to be the GM. Where the other player writes in an NPC and then leaves it up to me to pick them up. I'm not a parent, I don't pick up your toys. It's not the same as NPC sharing, and for those who understand what I'm talking about please ignore your instincts and just don't pick up that toy. It enforces bad habits. This also goes for GMing. I come up with may plots and twists in my stories, I am not going to pick up and finish another players. (This isn't taking over without asking, this is a player expecting you to pick up where they stopped.) Why can't we just make something together.

4) This is sort of silly at first, but it's really irritating. LFRP's where someone is asking for assassins who fall in love with their mark. Why? Because OOC it is asking another player character to suck at their job. You don't fall in love with a person at first sight, and even if you did this person kills for a living. It has placed this assassin character in a no win situation. Either they kill the character and in so doing kill the RP, or they don't, get marked as the worlds worst assassin, and lose a whole bunch of professional credit. This goes for any LFRP where someone is being asked to sacrifice their characters professional or personal integrity. A player creates a character as a thing to play as that thing, asking them to change it for your character by the first post feels like a very selfish thing to ask IMO.

5) Drama OOC. I just can't. I have my own life and my own things to do, if someone is having a hard moment and needs an ear to listen that's one thing. I'm happy to be there for them, but if someone is starting drama for no reason, acting childish, or otherwise making life harder for those around them OOC? I'm out. I'm sorry, but I'm here to have fun and make friends, high school was a long time ago for me and I really don't miss it. I keep it out of my PM's and I keep it out of my group! RPR should be a space where we come to unwind and have fun, not brush the coat of drama llamas.

I agree with a lot of points made by everyone thus far...except:

There is a way to put a lot of details about a character and describe a character without giving everything away. I like to read a lot of details because it gives me an idea what the character is like, what they're about, what character of mine that I can offer and what plot to suggest that might work out between them.

Here are a few of my peeves that haven't been mentioned yet:

1) The ever changing great at everything character. This character doesn't have many details to them, but as you start writing and playing with them, they're really great at nearly everything and has zero issues doing anything. Yes, characters can be multi-talented and be great at a lot of thing, but when they can solve every problem that arises by themselves without help from others, then what's the point?

2) The character that refuses to interact - no matter what you do, what you say, what you try, they just don't engage IC even if they're the ones who asked for the game. Characters can be quiet or stand-offish and still interact with others. It happens often! But it's sooo frustrating when you just write post after post and there's no progress or reaction or interaction.

3) People who blur IC and OOC....Just a few examples:
- They flip out when something semi-negative happens IC and they think you're mad at them OOC and are using the character/game to take it out on them.
- They think OOC jokes about characters or situations has or will happen. Even if it doesn't make logical sense, they push for it to happen endlessly. Sometimes jokes can lead to actual RPs that are great, but what I'm talking about is different.
-They think that just because you have characters coupled together in a relationship, you owe them things as if it were a real relationship...Such as RPs everyday, or having to inform them when you RP that character with someone else.
-They think they're entitled to RL information about you. Just because you write together a few times doesn't mean I'm obligated to spill all the details about my life if I don't feel comfortable with it.

That's all this potato brain can think of at the moment.

1. Characters who literally have a spell for everything.
2. People who stalk you waiting for replies.
3. People who refuse to rp with you based on gender?
4. People who answer RP ads on the forums - but shove random plots down your throat and don't meet any of your preferences.

Example: Y/C is a princess and my elf guy saves her. Also I do one-liner rps.

The ad: My rogue character needs a traveling companion and I only do multi-paragraphs.

5. People who pretend to read your character sheets.
6. People who seem to try and turn every roleplay into a romance no matter what and refuse to let IC relationships naturally form.
7. OWO MY CHARACTER GLOMPS YOURS TEEHEE THEIR TITS ARE IN HIS FACE!!! GASP!!
8. Demanding to only rp with my male characters and then getting upset when they don't get the smut they were looking for...
9. Demanding I change character traits for them.
10. The whole "seducing" a straight character.

Oh! Thought of one more...The super gender judgmental RPer. The one who thinks that just because they're female it's impossible for them to write a male character. And thus if you're a female writing a male character, it's somehow less of a 'masculine' character than a male character written by a male. Just...ugh. People write what they want to write! Nothing is so black and white.

Oh I'm good with my RP's and don't need to try anything. I find 1x1 more satisfying than groups. My heyday of group RP was around 12-19 years ago, with one notable story in 2014-2015. I was just commenting on what you found annoying.

Witch and Kruhee and Somnom and Eniko, I get exactly what you are saying in your lists.

Thank you for the honest input. I appreciate the personalized pet peeve list to read. You even added more than expected. It's fascinating to see others prospective regarding rp. Also ~ thank you for adding me as a friend!

I have a couple things I’d like to add to this. These do get under my skin, but I have learned not to take it too hard.

One is when in an RP, certain details in a scene are described, for example, it is raining, or a character is dressed this way, etc. and these details have been mentioned several times through the previous posts. Yet they can’t either seem to be remembered, nor a quick review of the rp for a refresher can’t be done to keep continuity. I don’t expect every detail to be remembered, and I myself have missed many in many RPs, but at least I put an effort into trying. When this happens, It leaves me thinking that the rp doesn’t mean too much to the other person and I then lose interest in putting effort into it.

Another is when I offer some friendly OOC critique to a co-writer about something they wrote in the rp that doesn’t really work for me, and they get all terribly offended by it and starts drama. That ends an rp for me no matter how good it was.

So yeah just a couple annoyances. It’s all part of finding good RP writing partners who you mesh with.

My biggest irritation is people not understanding that I’m an adult adult. Not a college student with no responsibility beyond class work but an adult with work, children, a husband, pets and a house I’m expected to manage and juggle like some sort of domestic goddess that I most certainly am not- and still scavenge some free time for myself so I don’t go completely crazy.

I will respond as soon as I have the energy to do so. If I’m not feeling a story I will put my big girl britches on and say so. It honestly gets stressful, and that complicates things.

1. When you join an open up and a new player comes in, but their reply is totally irrelevant to what is currently going on. For example, your character's are in a bar trying to figure out how to defeat the evil dragon while another player is talking about which cereal brand is better.

2. When people ask to join a private RP when it clearly says "1x1" or "closed". It's totally fine when someone is new to roleplaying and they don't quite understand everything. However, if you know it's a private RP then why bother asking?

3. When people don't credit, disclose or at least leave a source to where they find their images.

1. when people ghost you / ignore you. personally, i prefer getting rejected rather than ignored. it always makes me feel weird and confused when i see players around on the site, knowing that they’ve ghosted me

2. cases where i’m supposed to have all of the ideas and plot; no matter if i reach our or not, i still want my partner to show some interest by presenting their ideas and such. it’s not fun when i have to put in all of the effort

3. sending off a discussed starter and never receiving anything back??

4. when people write traits like “quiet, sweet, shy” about their characters. that’s cool but i want to know why they’re that way and what has formed them into being the character they are!

5. when players refuse to tell me about their characters background or personality. it’s not ic information but it’s nice for me as a player, to judge whether or not i think the characters could get along ^^

I looked at this and it instantly bothered me, I decided not to say anything because I thought eh it's probably just my instinct emotion or something , yeah I'm upset by it but I'll let it settle a few days; so I did let it settle a few days, could not get it out of my head, started feeling insecure because of it, and decided I need to say something about it. You're free to completely ignore me.