Forums » RP Discussion » Being offered too many choices?

Hey everyone. I've had a bit more time to run around the site looking for roleplay lately, and I started noticing a bit of a trend.

This is something I've been running into a lot, and something that makes it really difficult for me to me to pick up RP with a lot of people. I'm curious why people do it, and if anyone realizes that it creates difficulties for some people. Maybe it's just me?

When I propose characters for games, either through the RP Finder or other means, the most common response I get is "look at my characters to see what you want".

This is a totally common thing to do among roleplayers, and I've done it myself a few times. Nothing wrong with it!

It does create the problem that I'm being asked to read through (sometimes 10+) profiles to make a decision. It's time consuming and frustrating for that reason alone, and often I end up picking a character who I'm told wouldn't work out, or who ends up being entirely unfit for the scenario once we get started.

It also makes the creation process of the roleplay itself feel very one-sided. I already picked out a character of my own and proposed a game concept, and now I also have to decide which character of someone interested would be a good fit. Kind of takes the fun out of to be honest!

The trouble is also that I don't know your characters the way you do, so what looks like a good fit to me might not be good at all.

If this is something that applies to you, what prompts you to just present your entire list instead of choosing a select few? Had you ever considered that it might be an inconvenience for some? Do you think you will get less chances at roleplay if you make your own pick?

People are lazy and don't want to take the time to make a decision for a thread that usually won't make it past the first page

That seems more like a consequence than a reason in cases where that happens for me. People let me pick a character they don't really want to play and then stop responding a couple of posts in because it's not fun for them.

it happens both ways

I think people don't care enough to choose a character because they already know at least one person is going to lose interest after ten posts

Having been on both sides--I think it comes down to neither player wanting to "force" a character on someone else. Also, there comes a point where you need to decide what kind of story/plot you want to follow, and go from there.

Myself, if I know the kind of storyline or character someone wants, I'll offer two or three for them look at. But when I'm given an entire cast to choose from, I'll admit, I lose interest.

If you narrow down the choices and respond regularly to PMs or even the thread you or someone else posted, you can hash out ideas before a problem presents itself in the RP.

...but this is just my two-cents worth.

This is the main reason why I propose games now and keep my character anon now. If I see a plot I like, I propose one character or, if I don't have a character, I suggest one or two to begin with and then make them.

I'm also finding a lot with my anon characters I'm only getting one or two suggestions for characters rather than "look through all of mine." Quite frankly, unless it is someone I know and like playing with - I'll ignore the people who want me to do all the hard work.

Everyone wants to select what they like in a rp, but it takes the interesting bits out of it sometimes. I generally read through all the profiles on someones account if I am gonna rp with them. WHAT IF THESE CHARACTERS ARE GONNA GET INVOLVED? Usually doesn't happen, but it passes the time for me.

Doesn't mean it works as a method of choosing rp. I am very picky about who I rp with. It isn't a matter of others skill or my own, none of that matters. It's that I've been burned many times and I want to make sure my experience is fun for me and others, so I maybe like to choose characters to rp with. Things that look interesting and I can throw ideas off of.

Pen makes a fantastic point, just the same as Ross. Sometimes people are lazy and want others to choose everything, but it also could be that sometimes people really don't want to throw something at someone that they have no clue about, like if X character is going to be fun to play with.

I have Theod, and I think he's awesome, but he isn't for everyone. He comes with a huge negative effect. Maybe it means that Theod never gets rped, but it's better than ruining someones experience.

What stuns me is that this happens to me even when I setup a game proposal in the RP finder. This means I'm asking for people to select one or multiple specific characters they think is a good match for the character + plot I have setup, but about 1 in 5 people just send me a PM with "Please look at my character list and pick one you like".

This makes no sense to me because I feel the RP Finder is specifically asking you to narrow it down to begin with.
Why do you feel that being specific with your wants takes the interesting bits out? For me, knowing what someone wants - what *I* want - gives me a sense of where to take the roleplay to places that everyone will enjoy. It steers my creativity so that I don't waste my time thinking up things that the other player is absolutely not interested in.

I can see why people would hesitate to suggest a specific character if they're unsure if it would work out or not. At the same time, when people do this they're basically putting the other party in the same spot they're trying to get out of: making a decision based on a lack of information.

Personally I like to ask people questions about their character or plot if I don't know who would work out!

Theod sounds like the kind of character you would need to communicate a lot about with your potential RP partner because he's got so many specifics about him that would exclude him from a lot of things. Perhaps that's an intimidating thing to do for people with characters like Theod?

You are not wrong. The design of the RP finder was designed to curb bad habits that slow down RP creation on both sides, creator and joinees. I am sad to hear people are choosing to bypass the process entirely rather than take the time to put a check mark next to 2 - 3 character names.

It sounds like you need a form letter that you keep in a notepad, so every time this happens you can just respond super quick steering them back to the Finder.

"Thanks for writing, so excited you're interested in playing! Since you'll obviously know your characters and what feels interesting to you right now better than I can guess, why don't you suggest 1 - 3 characters to the RP concept so that I don't end up picking something you already know won't work for one reason or another."

Then maybe have. Follow up message ready for if they hit you back with an explanation of how everything works for them and all their characters are perfect for the RP. If nothing else, you might help a few people realize that this is a less helpful habit than most think it is?

I really like this discussion, but I'm more interested in reading it because I don't have much to contribute xD

However, I do want to just nudge in the aspect that I suffer;
When I offer for someone to look over my characters, it's often for this reason: I'm afraid that the character I suggest isn't what they're looking for and they'll deny it.
ESPECIALLY in the RP-Finder category, if someone isn't interested in the character you suggest then that's usually the end of it. As far as I've experienced they just ignore it and you're left kind of hanging. (EDIT: Please don't get me wrong, I love the RP-Finder to death! I'm just making an observation that when people aren't interested in someone who has responded to their proposal, they don't give any 'sorry it won't work' message or anything. Realized this might come off as a bash against the Finder and that's totally not my point)

Because of that fear, I've found myself hesitant to suggest one specific character sometimes. (Naturally there are exceptions. I'll read a story proposal and be like 'omg so-and-so would do perfectly with this', but this is when those situations are not happening)

I'm guilty of doing that! I think it's because when you reply to someone, the message defaults to an acceptance message, which means you have to write your own message every time you want to deny someone. This can be cumbersome, even if you have messages ready in Notepad to send off - you still need to open the file after opening Notepad and then copy and paste the message you need. Often to multiple people too.

I believe Kim mentioned something about adding a rejection feature into the RP Finder to make it easier for people to do this? I'm pretty sure a default rejection along the lines of "Hi, thanks for your interest but X isn't really the character I'm looking for! If you like you can suggest another character for me to consider, thanks!" which you can quickly add on to with a "because..." will take down a big wall for a lot of people.

I think I just might!

I like this idea

I also feel like Kim should be told this right now:
KIM YOU ARE AWESOME AND WONDERFUL AND LOVELY AND AMAZING YOU ARE THE BEST PERSON IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!


Because I feel like we have been asking for so much lately the poor woman is probably so bogged down with work. xD;

I guess I was meaning it takes the randomized selection out of it. I'm all for being specific with what I want. It's how I am now. I don't often rp with others without being sure that I'll be interested. Or I try not to at least.

When I started rping I was thrown in that Randomized selection area. I had no control over who came into the rp or who did what, nor did I have any choosing. I could always move away from that character, but them being in the world and meeting my character was something that always happened. It made it super interesting, because I never would have went those routes if it had not been like that.

It's sort of like.. If you like apples, you're more likely to choose apples out of all the fruits before you. But the grapes may be really good, but you don't know it yet, because you rather like apples a lot. Why fix what isn't broken? But you won't get to experience grapes unless you choose them, but you may not ever choose them because of your like for apples. That's what I mean by taking the interesting bits out of it? I think.. that maybe explains it as best that I can.

At the same time though, not everyone's characters are compatible with one another, so it's definitely amazing to choose something that you and your partner are gonna be interested in. Even if it is only apples.


Theod is one of those characters. I haven't really bothered with finding rp for him. I have one on hold that will use him, but other than that, nothing. He really is one of those characters that is like.. YOU gotta be sure you want to rp with him.

Being relatively new to RP (I started 5-ish months ago), I'm still treading carefully when it comes to... everything, really, so I tend to give someone the upper hand when first meeting them. I can learn from the way they handle things without trying something for myself blindly and completely blowing it. And yes, I'm scared of making mistakes, which is also why I take this approach.

I like detail and specificity. The Finder is too broad for me, so I prefer that the other person is untimately part of the character choice since they know what they're after and what best suits what they've thought up.

I know now that I should ask for more information beforehand, since I like knowing more than the somewhat cursory Finder gives space to say (yay for learning from unavoidable mistakes). But not everyone thinks this way, and I don't want to badger anyone, especially if I'm turned down in the end.

I generally prefer being presented with choice. A quick glance through a character's page is enough to know the basics about them. It's not a waste of time and I can get a glimpse of how someone writes, thinks, etc. I typically know what age/gender/etc I'm looking for, so I focus more on the characters in a list that fit that description and then take a more careful look at those. I'm decisive, but again, not everyone's like this.

Oh, now it makes sense! I can totally understand that. I would also agree, hadn't I been burned by this too often in the past. A lot of my experiences with doing things I normally wouldn't do for the sake of going along with it and discover new things in RP ended up bad. In the long run they just cost me more energy than I got out of it.

So I guess that approach has been ruined for me, but I definitely see that if it works out well for others this is a solid reason.

Being new to RPing and getting the hang of things can be quite intimidating and makes it really hard to take the lead. I think wanting to please the people you want to play with and not make mistakes is a logical step to create a bridge and make the process easier. But what about the phrase 'you learn from your mistakes'?

Messing up or being denied/rejected isn't the end of the things. It doesn't exclude you from that person, the community or the site. I've made more mistakes than I can count in the 13 years I've roleplayed, but every single one has helped me understand roleplaying better and get better at it. Whenever someone rejected me, I saw it as a chance to ask "Why?". Sometimes the answer included a way for me to fix things or offer a more suitable character. Sometimes it didn't, but then I had closure on the issue and could find someone else to play with.

I guess the short reply to this is that you don't have to be scared of making mistakes, they're a way for you to improve. It's much more efficient than trailing behind everyone, because it so easily can make you look like someone who needs to rely on others to fuel the creative fires.

The RP Finder is too broad for you? I'm a little confused, I'm not sure what you mean! The Finder lets players write concise concepts for a specific character, which is about as specific as you can get for proposing a quick game, right?

@Sanne Well, not exactly mistakes, but blunders. It's not so much about giving the other person complete control as it is learning how they think things through and act in a certain postiton- namely, accpeting/rejecting a character. It's a strategy. I don't give them full control of the ultimate decision, and I have chosen characters for others before. Whatever I am, I'm not a pushover. It just takes me time to see how someone thinks, and what they want.
But I can get intimidated if the other person is much older than me, a mod, etc.
I've never the best communicator, and English isn't my first language, but I'm a kid. I can learn.

I just learned that you can suggest more than one character in the Finder. Revelation.


It's broad in the sense that it's a bit too... broad. Often, I don't really know what kind of a character the other person is looking for and so I'm a bit at a loss without elaboration.

I find it difficult to choose a character based on the little information contained within a proposal. I prefer using the forum to the Finder because it allows for more information on the RP to be provided. I've used the Finder to propose a game once, and it was hard for me to contain what I was trying to say inside a small semi-paragraph. So after a while I canceled my constrained attempt at comminucating the idea and made a topic on the Find RP forum.

It's just easier for me to choose a character if I know more about what the other person has in mind. It's their idea, so I expect them to know best. So I give them the choice rather than pester them about it what they're looking for.

Occasionally- most of the time, really- I do know exactly which character to suggest for a game.

Wait, the RP finder only has an accept feature????

wat

Not exactly. What it has is a "respond" button. You can use the exact same button to reject people, too! It just requires approximately 10 seconds more, as you will have to write your own reason why instead of just using the pre-written accept letter.

oh ok. I admit I kinda skimmed the latest replies.

I've been planning to add a pre-written reject letter down the line as well, but it's not super duper high on the list given that it's already possible, just not instant.