Forums » RP Discussion » RP Burnout Issues

So I tend to do a lot of RPs, but I keep running into issues with RP Burnout. It only happens with a few RPs usually, but lately I've been needing to put several RPs on hold, at the current moment 9-11 I believe because I haven't the energy to do them. What I think is happening is that I tend to not be quite as literate as many people on here, I can usually get out maybe a paragraph and a half for most RPs. I think I've been stretching myself too far from boredom, and trying to make posts beyond my skill level is difficult for me, draining my motivation to RP on that specific one. Thing is, I like the RP, and I hate leaving the other person hanging, waiting on a response. So I just simply want a few tips to help mitigate RP Burnout as much as I can.

The best thing I can tell you is going on a hiatus. Do other things and maybe watch some movies/cartoons/animes/tv shows to help get an idea of what you would want to happen in an rp.

And if you'd like,we can stop our rp to lift the load off your shoulders, I really wouldn't mind.

It happens more than one thinks. After a roaring start of this year that carried through to the end of February, almost all my active RPs dried up. It sort of burned me out on RP, so in March I took a bit of a hiatus from actively RP'ng and sort of got my head back straight with fleshing out characters and writing some stories. It didn’t seem to get me back into RP though.

I've been there in a similar situation you describe. I once had a most elegant writing partner here who could write out paragragh upon paragraph of good dialogue and descriptive narrative so easily and quickly that it overwheilmed me. It would take me days to come up with a decent 500+/- word-post that I admit was hampered due to my overthinking it. I finally would post and it would be replied to in an hour with another 1000+/- word post. The story was great and I wanted to keep it going, but it consumed me and I fell into a burnout trying to keep up and it caused my other RPs to suffer. I had to finally politely message them that I wasn't able to match their creative writing and they told me to reply when I could. I ended up never replying and after a few months they lined their characters and account out.

Edit August 2021 - I didn’t want to start a new thread or bump this thread so I’m adding an edit to my post here. I did start a couple RPs with a couple people in May/June but I seem to have dropped the ball on them both. Been spending my time writing stories and updating characters as I’m thinking this roleplaying may have run it’s course with me. I just can’t seem to get motivated by it anymore. I think I am done.

Rogue Scribe

Sometimes I just loose interest completely. I also have a lot of trouble coming up with ideas.

I was really struggling with this toward the beginning of this year. I still am, to a degree. My desire and motivation to write long posts, something I used to enjoy quite a lot, has dwindled dramatically. It started to feel like a chore rather than something I enjoyed.

Strangely, I rekindled my enjoyment of the hobby through a discord group RP - something I've actively shunned in the past. The posts are shorter, replies are faster, and I find that I actually end up writing a TON over the course of just a couple days and the stories MOVE. I don't spend hours agonizing over the quality of my post and just get right to the heart of the matter - what does the character DO? (There's still some fluff and flavor, of course, but that is secondary.)

Get bored with a character? Just hop over to a different one! Get bored with a scene? Wrap it up and start another. Feel stuck for ideas? Ask the group!

I guess my point is that getting bored with stories is natural. Having the freedom to jump to new ones without feeling guilty is one of the keys to enjoying this hobby.