Forums » RP Discussion » A bad experience in RP, I just lost my enthusiasm?

Hi. Sorry for the wall of text... When I start to write, I can't stop.

I have a question, I REALLY hope that this can be helped.
I always loved to RP, though a few times all I got from RP was a disappointment. This didn't really make me lose my muse for a longer time. And I finally started doing it after a hiatus, (been in a bad mental state) and started replying, feeling all delighted. But lately, I've had a totally amazing roleplay with one of the people I know in real life, and I really love RPing with. Everything was fine, we had one of our best RPs in my opinion. To be honest, this was definitely my favorite one! But suddenly, they added a trait to their character out of nowhere that annoyed me to the bone, and ruined a scene that was making me EXTREMELY EXCITED, seriously, never felt so many emotions during writing...? Plus, this person never wants to delete posts and rewrite a scene or change his characters. So the most exciting scene I've ever had, the best story we've come up with got just abandoned. We talked about that, they won't add things like that without discussing it first again, we are trying to rewrite it with plot changes, but, well... I lost my enthusiasm after that. Not only with them. With everyone. I still enjoy RPing, I must say. But it's been a while, and before that, I was always like "TIME TO RP! YAAAS!!!", "OH MY GOD! SOMEBODY REPLIED! YAY!", "WOOOW! THE CHARACTERS ARE GETTING ALONG! I wonder what will happen next?" and such things. Now its more like "Oh, they kissed, that's really cute", "Oh, a reply. Nice, I've waited for this", "I'll go and RP a bit, I guess I have some time...", and I am not sure why this one event "cooled down" my joy of RP so much??

Can somebody tell me if this can be "cured" somehow? Will it just go away one day, but it'll take more time than usual...? It was usually 1-2 days. Now it's been a week, I think, and it's SO annoying, I feel I want to write, but can't really feel the emotions of my characters, or any depth of the scenes? Has any of you dealt with such a weird problem?? I really want to write again with so much passion and happiness again... Last thing I want to say is that I get easily upset or angry when something or someone ruins my plans. But this never happened during a RP before, and that's why I'm surprised so much.
I will be VERY glad for any advice. RP is my passion since childhood, I want to enjoy it fully as I did before.

Hi,

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like your trust was broken on an OOC level and not just an IC one with this person. It sounds like it might have led to RP burn out.

Out of the nearly six years I've RPed online, break of trust OOC has happened to me five times with 1x1 RP. I'm very cautious when it comes to doing 1x1 RP and one of the reasons I prefer to do group RP and semi-public RP is so that people who try to pull stuff are made more accountable when you're not the only one to witness it.

That said, I've always had friends in the groups I've been with who have helped me out in getting back into RP in those moments. Though you might want to focus on other things and interest that help relax you and take your mind off of this. There is nothing wrong with taking a hiatus or partial hiatus from RP. You could still do some lighter RP through things like forum games IC or write an IC journal to have your character work through what happened and their feelings or write poetry, etc. It will still let you write and provide an outlet.

I feel for you sir. It sounds like you have a classic case of RP Blues. I myself reached a point like that on a group site a few years back and I took a complete break for a period of time. With your situation, it sounds like this particular trait that was revealed by your rp partner was a rather drastic one. I did have someone ‘bait & switch’ me and my characters in a couple RPs a couple years ago, and in the end I had to let the stories, and them go. Like Falyn referred to, it sounds like there may be some deeper change on the OOC level that has manifested itself on the IC level in the RP?

Falyn wrote:

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like your trust was broken on an OOC level and not just an IC one with this person. It sounds like it might have led to RP burn out.

It was something like that. Not sure why they did it so suddenly, usually they just asked or something, and it shocked me, especially that I love feeling strong emotions during writing, and after that, I was just sitting, thinking how to fix my favorite story with this person, and the fact this time I didn't find any way out of my RP problem as I usually do, made me feel really upset, especially because of my adoration for the entire story. The overall idea, comedy scenes, romantic scenes, the characters themselves, they were just amazing? This person is also extremely important for me IRL, but I think the details are not necessary right now. I feel really bad for telling this and blaming them, maybe it was caused by the hiatus, maybe it was going to be a plot twist to trigger actions? I think if I'll find out how to break this "writing block", not only my writing partners here will feel my dedication to the story more, but also this person and I will be finally able to fully enjoy RP again, both feeling excited, not only them.

Rogue-Scribe wrote:

It sounds like you have a classic case of RP Blues. (...)
Like Falyn referred to, it sounds like there may be some deeper change on the OOC level that has manifested itself on the IC level in the RP?

RP Blues? Is that an "official" term for roleplayers or your personal name for it? Because it fits, I must say.
And yes, it had a huge IC impact, not only for this one character, like I lost the emotions, no matter what OC. It was like, the character himself was extremely chill, all friendly, and IRL he would probably somehow deal with sudden information. Because my characters don't usually plan things with such details as emotions they would feel, because some people are aware that something might be different than expected. And well, the RP action planning is a totally different case, at least for me.

Thank you for taking your time to read the wall of text & vent, explaining and giving advice, Falyn and Rogue. I'll try to take a break, (though I still need to reply to some RPs, some people already wait over a month, and it stresses me so much that they need to wait eternities for one reply!) and maybe try to do some non-RP stories. Hope that will help me, thanks.

What I'm hearing here is that you struggle with adapting to change/surprises. What is this trait and why does it annoy you? You haven't mentioned this.
Why would they? Your character is yours. What you have done is what you done. I wouldn't delete my actions either. If mistakes are made then communication is needed though. Feedback after/during RP helps as well. Take note of what went wrong, sure, but also take note of what went well. And improve on what's been done. Consistency logic comes into play there.
Maybe. And I should point out it's your response to a situation that determines if such events go well or not. Regardless of how you feel just try to make the best of the situation and be as playful as you can about it. Before posting anything at all make the choice to be positive. That's what I do anyway. Provided my wants/needs are met then I go with the flow of the other person. Got into some things I thought I wouldn't doing that. Never used to do NPCs. But apparently they can be fun. I just never considered/thought about it. BUT I had to overcome my "Worrying" and actually make the attempt even when surprised in order to find that out. So it's quite possible you could be letting your worrying get the better of you.
Just remember. If you post crap, it's still something to improve on. Write anyway. If you post nothing, you'll always have nothing. it's all in the feedback/corrections. Sometimes it's better to do that right away/the moment something happens. Other times it's better to agree to see things through and then provide feedback. That seems to help a lot.

You're also going about how excited you are. But don't say why. Positive feelings towards the person in general perhaps. But focus on the interactions themselves. When I feel something I know where it's directed exactly. Specifically. If there's concerns in an area then focus on that. The context of whatever is in the RP.

Until that communication happens with agreements formed and the attempt made with consistency that burn might not go away until you're doing more fun things. Work in some other conversation between RP talks. Helps to keep things more casual and take the edge off. Just don't put things off either. Get into the balance of things. If you had RP talks and feel drained, talk about other interests for a bit. If you been talking about other interests, talk about RP and address concerns and talk about how to have fun. Shift between the two. Back and forth. Which can be done quickly on a day to day bases. It's when things get put off or you're doing nothing but figuring things out that you can feel drained. Even then the ends can justify the means if you keep at it. But try to enjoy the journey if you can. If not then talk and talk and talk even if stressful until you form agreements, try more and do enough to get into the relaxing phase. Depends on the situation.

Ah, mate, I'm sorry to hear that.

I have had instances where I have lost enthusiasm and excitement over something because of something supposedly small. Sometimes, it only lasted a couple days, sometimes weeks, months, or even years. At some points, it sent me spiraling into a deep state of depression because I almost felt like I had lost everything that once brought me joy and there was no way to fix it.

So, I don't think this is something super rare, but can happen on different levels to different people. And maybe that one situation gave you a bad influence on not only RP, but also other RPers in general. Did this experience make you think people wouldn't listen to your concerns, or maybe not take your feelings into consideration?

Possibly, also, this could be a sign of boredom. There are times where a person can just get tired of something in a blink of an eye. Maybe they subconsciously had a realization that it wasn't as fun as they thought or they didn't want to do it anymore. Maybe they would even think it proves fruitless to do what they love, because what did they get out of it anyway? Hell, only a couple months ago, I seriously contemplated quitting playing guitar, which is literally my passion. I found, later on, that it wasn't even all because of something bad happening with me playing guitar (as I was losing self confidence in my abilities at that time), but other situations played into it. I was already upset about losing a few friends, discovering all my scopophobia madness, and other things. Now, I'm not saying this is definitely is depression, but it could point towards it. At that time, were you upset about other things? Because that could have made this all go down also, because maybe you tried to find a safe place in RPing, but soon found that it didn't help like you thought you would. Idk, not trying to assume anything, but it's just a thought.

Keep in mind that that thought can me an assumption. Let's say you got something fun in mind. But is kind of impossible to just word. Reverse logic can also apply.

It's often a sticking point. It's a relief when someone admits they can't predict the future one way or another. From here it's more a matter of ones own confidence in their own abilities and convincing the other person of that.

Got my own RP concerns with someone. And past history to dig through. Who knows, maybe this topic even subconsciously gave me a nudge to start addressing that.

It does fit well doesn't it? I had a bit of a deja-vu the other day when someone I used to RP with who clearly could not distinguish between IC and OOC email my old yahoo address. They wanted to catch up on life since 2007 when we last communicated and asked where I was roleplaying these days. It went straight to the bin and the bin was emptied, then I deleted that email account.

Hoping you have moved on from your blues BleedingPascal.

This is a tough nut to crack, for sure.

I'm not a psychologist, so I can't say why it is that this is happening to you from a mental or emotional standpoint. I can only speculate. And I suspect that it's not really that singular event so much as it is you hitting a personal ceiling with just how much frustration you can take regarding something you love from so many sources (meaning your friend and everyone else as well). Even the most passionate of role-players has a limit to how much disappointment and frustration they're willing to endure before they have to walk away for at least a little while to cool off and get back into a better mindset to continue. So that might simply be where you're at now.

If it is where you're at right now, then the best cure is most likely going to be simply taking time to relax, reflect, think about your characters and your favorite RP worlds, settings, and fandoms, and when you're ready to hop back into the world of role-playing with as much enthusiasm and renewed vigor as before, you'll know.

But as for your point about getting upset when your plans get ruined, well... I advise that you don't make plans.

Sorry if that sounds a bit crass. But speaking from personal experience I believe that it's far more hazardous and potentially detrimental to both your characters and you as their role-player to try and plan things out for them.

It might sound a bit counter-intuitive at first, but even though you're the one on the keyboard you're not the one in control. And the more you try and take control and make plans for the character(s) to stick to, the more you're actually going against the character's natural and honest thoughts, feelings, desires, and needs.

Remember: You aren't your character.

What you want for them isn't the same as what they want. What you think they need isn't always what they actually need. And what you think is the right path ahead might not be the right path for them to realize their full potential or best tell their story.

So yeah. Don't make plans. Try instead to live in the moment of each post and let your character(s) set the pace, the tone, and tell their story their way. You're not "in control" so much as you are simply acting as the medium for your character through which they tell their story through your keyboard. That's why some posts seem to write themselves. And those are always your best work, aren't they? That's because you let the character guide you rather than the other way around. And when you let go of control and any expectation for a pre-planned event, you'll never frustrated or disappointed by the results anywhere near to the same extent as you would be if you had tried to pre-plan everything.

Good luck!