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Forums » Smalltalk » Annoying Parts of Rping

Oh heck yes, a place to vent! xD

1. Pity-me plot. Roleplayers that barely acknowledge anything taking place in the scene and simply talk internally with the goal of gaining attention/reactions/pity. I'm all for IC drama, but at the same time, if someone isn't here to roleplay back and forth with another person and at least acknowledge them, you may as well leave and go write a short story.

2. Monster-bating. Posts written only to show off their power/strength/ability and like above, it's just for folk to react to.

3. Those who dismiss the rules. Good lord this is a big one. I run two groups, one far more active than the other. To enter, the rules must be agreed to, and read in order to answer the questions correctly to have the application approved of. I encourage people to plot with me if they have something new they'd like to add to the group, but I find it so disrespectful when a select few actually argue with me, and generally become hostile because they cannot do something ridiculously Over Powered.

No offense is taken if they don't agree and enjoy the rules and setting, but at the end of the day, it's a little silly to agree to them, enter a group and expect to change them. C'mon now.
PinkBrat

Here's some of mine, in no particular order.

1. People who want to rp but have NO idea what they want to do. I've had people message me and say they want to rp but I have to choose a character and think of a story. To top it off, I have to do the starter too!

2. People who dont meet my "requirements". I've met so many terrible writers that I list what I expect to have as a minimum. They message and say they've read it but give me the complete opposite. I ignore or block them then since they want to lie and disrespect right off the bat.

3. Blank profiles or profiles with little to no information. I'm not asking for everything but usually a little information can help me determine which character will fit with yours. I've spent a week roleplaying with someone just to part ways because our characters didnt fit. It was a waste of time, neither of us enjoyed trying. That couldve been prevented if it wasnt "find out in rp".

4. Writers that need to discuss every little thing before you start a story. If I know everything that is happening and theres no room for improvising then I'm already bored and dont see a point in rping.

5. Those who make characters on the spot for EVERY rp. I hate that. The only time I want that is when I have a story in mind and need a specific character for it. Other than that, just make a character and find someone to enjoy writing with.

6. People who insist roleplaying "in real time". That gets on my nerves so bad. They refuse to reply unless we are on at the same time. That kills a roleplay so fast. Reply when you can and I will do the same. I'm a slow as hell writer so even in real time you'd be waiting for an hour or more. I dont understand why this is a hard concept for some people to get. Some even want to rp on discord instead because it's "faster". No, it's not.

7. People who flat out ignore things in roleplay. If something is mentioned then it's important. Like the weather. I've said it was raining and the very next post they do they say it's sunny. If you ignore enough I'm just going to drop it without a word.

Recently, I was doing a fight. It's nothing serious. Didnt need dice (I dont use them anyway), or rules. Fighting is common sense. So my character manages to stab this person because he did not dodge. He even said that. Yet the next post he completely ignores it. When it's my turn to post I put something in about how he is bleeding and wounded, etc. So he KNOWS the attack for SURE happened. He ignored every bit of it.
Kruhee wrote:
Anyway, the things I find annoying tend to be:

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.

To be fair, I can see this working credibly, albeit it wouldn't be a case of love at first sight. Like this is their mark, but they can't just go up and stab them. They are too well protected for that. Instead they have to get close, very close to their target, earn their trust and work towards that opportune moment. In doing so, they end up spending time with the mark and in doing so, unknowingly start to grow fond of them. At first this is just a case of wearing the mask, but it gradually becomes a case of becoming the mask. Finally the moment comes and they are in position to make the kill and they just can't do it. They have genuinely fallen for their target and at this moment the thought of killing them sounds far worse than destroying their career.

That being said, one reason I could see the whole first sight working was maybe the mark looks stupidly like a long lost loved one. A parent, a sibling, fiancee, spouse, child etc. Looking at this person brings back all the painful memories and trauma associated with their loss and they find themselves incapable of doing the job as they can't stand the thought of killing their "loved" one. Albeit this one doesn't involve falling in love at first sight.
Somnom wrote:
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.

That’s a thing? Men and women are a little different, yes, but not so different it’s impossible for you play someone outside of your own gender. Saying you can’t write the opposite sex because you aren’t the opposite sex is like saying you can’t write jobs or situations you’ve never personally experienced. Imagine how limited RP would be if everyone went by that rule:

“Hey man, you wanna roleplay as a duo of assassins with me?”

“I’ve never IRL been an assassin before. Don’t think I can write that.”

“Oh...kay. What about we write a pair of thieves?”

“Maybe; I gotta try to remember if I’ve ever stolen anything...Yeah, no. I don’t know how to write a thief.”

-And it goes on.

Anyways, I don’t have a ton of personal pet peeves that are really worth talking about. Here’s three, though, that I think are a bit relatable:

1. People who don’t read.

These are the roleplayers who hop into groups or slide into DMs expressing an interest in your concept or prompt, all eager to get started. And in that eagerness, they skim, or flat-out ignore, your rules, your setting, your objective, everything.

Consider the oneliner player who’s always trying to join groups that clearly expect multi-paragraph posts. THAT’S the kind of person I’m talking about. As someone who’s mostly been GMing RPs lately, this is becoming more and more common of an issue for me. It usually happens in a way that makes it easy for me to assume they simply forgot a detail, so I often correct them and let it slide, but then they start ”forgetting” things all the time. That’s when I realize: they probably didn’t read, and if they did, they don’t care about what I wrote.

2. The story-breaker.

This is kind of related to the first one because the problem often arises from someone who doesn’t read the rules and/or the plot-hook. This is a person who introduces a character, then launches them off on some wacky adventure that isn’t germane to the current plot at all. To clarify, this isn’t the same thing as writing a sub-plot, taking a little detour, or introducing a new major plot with the consent of your partner or the rest of the group. Those are okay.

No, the story-breaker repeatedly shoves everything remotely relevant to the rest of the game aside to do whatever the heck they want to do, often disrupting not only the main plot, but those little subplots and detours in the process. Another thing I call this is, and yes, I just made it up, “spotlight addiction,” because story-breakers seem to most often behave this way to keep their characters at the center of everything.

3. A character-type pet peeve: the “cool guy” who’s really just a jerk.

This one tends to come from inexperienced writers, and keeping that in mind it is not a cardinal sin. For some reason, people assume that badass characters have to be unbearably, pointlessly rude as part of the archetype. I’m not sure why, but I suspect it has something to do with misinterpreting common cool-dude personality traits like bluntness, independence, and aloofness. The end result is NOT a cool character. It’s a character that nobody wants to interact with.

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