In regards to dropping roleplays and user attractiveness

[Dion]

No, not physical attractiveness, although in my case that ties into this all, of course.

I see a lot of messages that say 'oh, my partners always drop me, I reply once and then never get a reply back' and this got me to thinking because it also seems to be the case that most of the times it's the same few people who are complaining that the entire world and their mother drops them in RP's whether it be 1x1 or group RP.

Alright, I can understand that sentiment, and I can see why it'd be annoying (although I am more of the opinion that if someone drops the RP, that means less work for you and less wasted effort, because they would've otherwise dropped it later rather than sooner which would be even more of a loss of roleplay potential). But something I can't understand is that, if you get dropped by everyone you try to RP with (as the claims go) then perhaps the problem is not with everyone else, maybe it's you?

Why do people seem to lack the most basic form of introspection? If everyone you RP with ends up dropping you there must be a reason for this, no? Perhaps, and bear with me here, it's because you're bloody insufferable, and annoying to boot? I'm not really going after someone specific here but we've all met these people so I'm sure most of you can relate.

What is it about roleplaying that seems to attract the most braindead of people who can't connect the dots at times?

[Lady Absinthia]

I see someone posting that and my first reaction is "Well if you are gonna moan like that I wouldn't want to RP with you either." Way I see it is that if they are willing to post that out in the open, I don't even want to know what they are posting behind the scenes once they ~get comfortable~ for you. I just really don't have time for all that whining and self pity.

[Leaves]

Honestly, I think people are exaggerating. "Everybody drops out of my roleplay" or something around the lines might just be a hyperbole.

[Woundwort]

People tend to avoid even considering the idea of something being their fault or something being due to their flaws at all costs.

[Dion]

People tend to avoid even considering the idea of something being their fault or something being due to their flaws at all costs.

@Ophidian

Look, I know I'M never wrong, but that's because I am a God. As for others, you are absolutely correct.

I just want to reiterate, I'm never wrong.

[Dervish]

Honestly, I think most of those people are probably the younger crowd who are just venting frustrations in a really unproductive manner, maybe hoping to catch the eye of someone who's gone through similar situations. Understanding what works and what doesn't for roleplays is kind of a skill that you build up with experience; nobody starts off with a firm grasp on how things work.

[pugbutter]

There are multiple reasons people could be leaving RPs with you, though; do you move the plot too slowly and bore them? Move it too quickly and disorient them, giving them no room to invest in characters, events, and places? Do you chatter too much in OOC, or too little, making them think you're cold and detached? Do you have a foul attitude, or give off an arrogant air?

I've met with other, more selfish reasons, too: someone didn't like my character, but couldn't just man up and tell me that, so they joined the RP with me for about a week and then "subtly" ghosted me hoping it wouldn't make me mad. Two more liked the concept of the characters I'd designed, but not the portraits I'd selected. Another didn't realize that 1x1 is an equal partnership, not a voluntary master-slave relationship, and therefore decided I'm a selfish asshole for wanting to play a character who doesn't immediately, unequivocally fall in love with hers in our first meeting.

But let's assume it's my fault. What am I supposed to do about it? If it was as easy as "introspecting" then I'd have figured it out already, and worked to rectify the problem (because while I'm arrogant, I'm not arrogant enough to assume innocence by default). But these players, while abandoning your project, give you no inkling as to why, leaving you to merely guess, if the answer isn't so obvious. It could be something as subtle and irreconcilable as a misunderstanding of intentions; I wanted the post-apocalypse RP to look like Metro, but she expected Fallout while writing her CS, and she quit the RP when she realized she wouldn't get what she wants out of it.

Blaming the people who whine in the B!tch thread for failed RP projects, while certainly convenient, is not really helpful unless we're willing to communicate our specific grievances with our fellow writers. Simply saying "maybe it's you" helps no one. So until one of my past partners steps the fuck up and finds the balls to tell me otherwise, I'm gonna keep assuming my old 1x1 threads failed because the majority of RPers are fickle, easily distracted, and unable to commit. 'Cuz there's no use in me worrying over problems which could have been fixed in five minutes if they were just willing to communicate their displeasure.

[71452K]

I've come to the conclusion that everyone eventually drops a roleplay if it takes too long, though I have completed numerous roleplays myself, this is still a motto I have - everyone else drops, eventually.

The reason being that roleplays that take a long time to reach a finale, usually will be interupted by real life circumstances. Be it truth or not, I know for myself that even I will be interupted by either IRL or OOC obstacles.

The way that I solve this though is to make 1 x 1 roleplays last for a good but short period of time, they last for a month usually and I've completed plenty and made alot of friends this way. It is short enough that most will stick it through and of course, I have to be skillful at pacing the plot quickly so that things are never stagnant. This, in my opinion, is a recipe for success.

Of course, in group roleplays, there are more factors. It is mostly 'Don'ts' than 'Dos'. Like my most recent roleplay that I left 3 days ago, there was so much background politics that any bystander not involved in the asskissing that goes on behind the scenes would be like 'WTF is this shit? How did that even go through?'. So hidden groups are a surefire way to get the good roleplayers to leave and drop roleplays like a hot potato (because skilled writers rely on their writing, not pandering and are seeking good stories, not minions).

So I think most who have this problem of being left in the dust could be lousy roleplayers OR they just need to pace their stories a little bit more, I prefer to think the latter since I don't really judge till I actually see.

[Dion]

@pugbutter but then the point I was making arrives: do you bitch about it in the bitch thread or the status bar for days on end, and is the only thing that ever seems to come out of your mouth 'whe whe nobody wants rp with me'?

Perhaps the problem is with you - in that you tend to accept requests from fickle roleplayers?

@71452K the underlines aren't really helping you, it makes your post a bitch to read. But I got the gist of it. I don't think you are right - my best RP is currently ongoing for close to a year (like 9 months) and thrives purely on the promise that we will each get a post out at some point in the future whether that be in 2 weeks or 2 months. We have had intervals of a month, even 2 at some point, because of life and IRL occupations.

Doesn't mean either of us are going to drop it because we are both invested in it and want to see where the story takes us. It helps that we have a clear cut idea of where we want to move the story - but the pacing is important. And not necessarily to up the pacing, but to take your time.

[71452K]

His quote

@pugbutter but then the point I was making arrives: do you bitch about it in the bitch thread or the status bar for days on end, and is the only thing that ever seems to come out of your mouth 'whe whe nobody wants rp with me'?

Perhaps the problem is with you - in that you tend to accept requests from fickle roleplayers?

@71452K the underlines aren't really helping you, it makes your post a bitch to read. But I got the gist of it. I don't think you are right - my best RP is currently ongoing for close to a year (like 9 months) and thrives purely on the promise that we will each get a post out at some point in the future whether that be in 2 weeks or 2 months. We have had intervals of a month, even 2 at some point, because of life and IRL occupations.

Doesn't mean either of us are going to drop it because we are both invested in it and want to see where the story takes us. It helps that we have a clear cut idea of where we want to move the story - but the pacing is important. And not necessarily to up the pacing, but to take your time.

@Odin

Woah, get your panties out of a twist asap. Seriously. Wtf was that?

I'm just trying to help here, you know, because your question is one with more than a singular answer. We're not the enemy. The underlines are to highlight important points, I mean here's someone trying to answer your topic in a civillized helpful manner and you're complaining about it in such a rude, hateful manner? What's the point?

I wrote down facts that I've discovered through years of writing, in order to maybe provide an insight into your ...question(?). If you don't agree with it, I'm alright with it, we all have different experiences, but don't go bitching about answers we give you because they weren't what you wanted to hear or that there were some underlines (that were meant to help you btw). I'm just saying that these people you're so hateful towards, may just require some learning and maybe cut them some slack because they don't realize it? Why the heck are you attacking us?

Are you seeking answers? Or just for someone to agree with you? ...What a waste of my effort. 😥.

@Odin

[Dion]

@71452K ... bruh I'm just telling you the underlines are making it hard to read...

[pugbutter]

Perhaps the problem is with you - in that you tend to accept requests from fickle roleplayers?

@Odin

This is a ridiculous sophism because if you stop and think about what you just said for about 20 seconds, you're basically telling me to read minds to solve my own problems.

1. You realize a lot of 1x1 roleplayers don't actually use the public forums, and pretty much exclusively stick to PMs on this site, right? 11 posts in 3 years isn't a lot to go by while judging their loyalty to their past projects, especially when those 11 posts are in an OOC forum like OT Discussion.

2. Even when they have an extensive posting history, you know as well as I do that public RPs fail and die as often as 1x1s, if not more so. And very often the evidence, if not outright irrelevant to them, is at least too ambiguous, too inconclusive to use as a measuring stick against this particular individual. You really have to scrutinize whether they can singlehandedly kill all the RPs they're in, or at least whether their involvement played a role in these RPs' deaths.

3. And whereas I thought it's more or less impossible to psychoanalyze text posts, where there's no body posture, facial expressions, or other forms of visual context to glean during a conversation...I guess you've figured it all out: picking up on tone and sincerity of their gestures through their text, learning how to detect sarcasm or even outright lying over the internet. Why haven't you shared this knowledge with the rest of us? I'd love to be able to take one look at a player and know from a single post whether they'll truly stick with it, or whether they're overestimating their own enthusiasm.

[+]

a few recent ones whose usernames i managed to remember

[Dion]

@pugbutter I would write a reply to all of that but the solution there is simple; remember what type of people dropped you and stop RPing with those people. I wasn't suggesting a fix to your problems - I was saying what I think the problem is. You tend to RP with people who are weak roleplayers or have shitty personalities. I mean, we've spoken about this before, and the fact that you just pulled random accounts out of your ass to show me evidence just further proves to me that either you have really shitty taste, or perhaps, maybe you are part of the problem, as in, you can be a bit of a twat at times.

And I know we've spoken before, and I also know you're not the most social of all personalities on this website. Not that there is anything wrong with that, because neither am I, but let us be fair here and say that a majority of people on this website most likely do not match you in personality too well.

If a low post count is a sign of a weak roleplayer or someone that is going to ditch you, then I'd possibly avoid RPing with them and/or ask them for a sample post. People who can't supply that at the very least probably aren't gonna be suitable for you anyway.

Likewise, if they have an extensive roleplaying career that you can take a look at, the duty falls on you to analyze this if you wish. Nobody is forcing you to have a 100% certainty rate of success before you engage in a roleplay, so if you want to do that, that's on you. If the person ends up ditching you, perhaps you should've analyzed better. I don't know. I've never run into problems with this. Perhaps because I prefer not to get upset over when I get ditched, or perhaps because I'm good at selecting my partners.

As for 'psychoanalysis,' that'd be rather hard. You're fooling yourself if you think you can't tell anything about how people act from a text post, though. If someone is a raging cunt at me right from the get go then I'm not gonna go

welp psychoanalysis is impossible so i better give em the benefit of doubt

I'm gonna stop RPing with them right then because that's not worth my time.

And even then, I still think there's a difference between constantly 24/7 bitching about it in a thread/status bar as opposed to just accepting it and moving on and/or being angry on your own. Why you'd get so upset over something so small is a wonder to me but I suppose it's possible. My one question is why do people feel a need to throw it out there all the time? Maybe you don't see it in the same way as I do, but if someone is constantly going

whe whe my hundredth partner just dropped on me JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHERS

I'm gonna probably assume that they're not really pleasant to RP with and ignore them even harder.

[pugbutter]

>"I would write a reply to all of that but..."
>494 words
:P

IDK where to even begin with that tbh. Besides all your points being disjointed and irrelevant to each other, some are outright fallacious, like linking a direct correlation/causality between post count and thread loyalty. As a matter of fact, one of the four players who I included in that screenshot (the one who hasn't been seen in three months) was my most loyal by far, and I'm pretty sure from her status feeds that she only left because her kid is in the hospital and she has more important shit to worry about.

I guess the biggest flaw with your reasoning is that you think people act like dipshits from the get-go, and we're choosing to enter RP with them anyway. Whereas out here in the real world, with the exception of a few narcissist spergs (who I definitely avoided, so again I don't see your point), all my partners have presented themselves with more professionalism than they really possess. It's basically a hobbyist's version of lying on a résumé, so I ask again: why are you keeping all your mind-reading powers to yourself instead of sharing with the rest of us?

[ArenaSnow]

There's a point to the OP. Going on about people dropping you all the time is not going to help you keep any more partners. It means you should have plans in place before, during or after the roleplay for when it happens. Beforehand, vet some more, and consider the kind of people you want to approach/want to approach you (which many folks do not consider). I have a bit of a vetting issue at times. A few recent ones I was simply caught off guard, and yet I've learned from those circumstances so they won't happen the same way again and so I can approach people differently to try and stop basic incompatibilities from showing that would result in being dropped. During the roleplay, to touch on what 71452K wrote - it depends. It depends on who you're with and what the circumstances are, and nobody has identical roleplay circumstances. Afterwards, what are you going to do? Learn and try to improve your mechanics, even if it's the tiniest of changes to how you approach people, or go on about being ditched so often? The latter is what I read to be the source of Odin's post - those who simply go on about how they're constantly dropped yet don't fix their circumstances, or just try again. Maybe even a new hobby where you're writing your own book, who knows.

It's not easy to tell when someone is going to drop you or if they're going to drop you. Sometimes it can be pretty bloody random and stupid. All you can do is adapt and move on. Dwelling on it won't work.

I personally approach poofed roleplays by taking the meat of the contents and sticking them into my own lore after a timeframe passes when I can't wait anymore. Anything of worth that was made is salvaged and put into my own stuff. It makes an eventual drop a much easier pill to handle.

I love to bitch, so of course I bitch about poofers sometimes, but there is a limit >.>

Edit: I can't grammar.

[Dion]

>"I would write a reply to all of that but..."
>494 words
:P

@pugbutter

I meant to write a reply to each of your points individually, decided not to, and then did it anyway halfway through my post. It's what happens when you're godlike like me. Sue me.

IDK where to even begin with that tbh. Besides all your points being disjointed and irrelevant to each other, some are outright fallacious, like linking a direct correlation/causality between post count and thread loyalty. As a matter of fact, one of the four players who I included in that screenshot (the one who hasn't been seen in three months) was my most loyal by far, and I'm pretty sure from her status feeds that she only left because her kid is in the hospital and she has more important shit to worry about.

@pugbutter

I mean, homie, you're the one that brought up post count where as I hadn't mentioned it before. You're using it as a measurement to prove that you can't smell someones activity rate beforehand, which is true, but if you consistently find people that end up flaking on you then I have to ask why that is the case if I never really had a problem with that at all. It either has something to do with the fact that the flaky roleplayers seem to flock to you, shitty partner choice, or your own personality. Maybe it's the first, maybe it's one of the latter two? I can't tell you which one it is, but then you also don't seem like the type of person I was talking about to begin with. Unless you self-associated with someone who consistently and constantly bitches about how all their 99 partners dropped out on them AND their mom?

As for the causality between posts and loyalty, there is none. I dropped on people and I have thousands of posts. But you brought it up so I addressed it - perhaps my intent in the argument was unclear. If you find that people with a certain traits (i.e. low post counts) drop on you a lot then it's up to you to not RP with those people again. In my eyes it really is that simple. Any other criteria are fair game to me too, since ultimately it's you who decides who you RP with. Now, no, you can't smell thread loyalty, but there's some pretty fucking good indicators that have helped me personally.

I guess the biggest flaw with your reasoning is that you think people act like dipshits from the get-go, and we're choosing to enter RP with them anyway. Whereas out here in the real world, with the exception of a few narcissist spergs (who I definitely avoided, so again I don't see your point), all my partners have presented themselves with more professionalism than they really possess. It's basically a hobbyist's version of lying on a résumé, so I ask again: why are you keeping all your mind-reading powers to yourself instead of sharing with the rest of us?

@pugbutter

In general in my experience people do act like dipshits from the get go, so maybe that's my own experiences providing me with unique mind reading power, but I like to think I've got a pretty good idea of when roleplays just aren't going to work out and it usually comes down to my personality just being an extreme mismatch with theirs (or, in less nice terms, them being absolute fucking tossers).

So, I'll say it again - I wasn't giving you a fix. There are no mind reading powers involved. It's just a judgement call you need to make and from how it sounds (apparently people ghost you a lot?) you make the bad calls? Or maybe you don't make calls and say OK to everyone who offers to RP with you? Honestly I don't know. But like I said, you don't seem like someone that complains constantly about everyone ditching them, so perhaps you misunderstood that I'm talking about a specific set of spergs who constantly whine about being ditched, and not the person that goes oh, one of my partners ghosted me once.

Unless you whine a lot. Then I don't know. Grow a pair, I guess?

@ArenaSnow seems to get it right in my eyes.

Afterwards, what are you going to do? Learn and try to improve your mechanics, even if it's the tiniest of changes to how you approach people, or go on about being ditched so often> The latter is what I read to be the source of Odin's post - those who simply go on about how they're constantly dropped yet don't fix their circumstances, or just try again. Maybe even a new hobby where you're writing your own book, who knows.

Eh, yes, more or less. Though I'd take it a step further. It's not just circumstances, sometimes people just don't understand and cannot comprehend why people don't like to RP with them - either they're absolutely shit at roleplaying (for instance their post just rehashes the partners' posts without adding anything new, just regurgitating the words in their own words) or they have really really nasty OOC habits and personalities ("ARE YOU GONNA POST TODAY? I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR AN HOUR. WOW. CAN YOU POST TODAY? LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT MY PERSONAL LIFE. I AM SO MISERABLE AND I HAVE NO FRIENDS AND MY COLLEAGUES BULLY ME. WOW. HEY DO YOU WANNA TALK? LOL!!!") or we just don't click (which is far more innocent but becomes a problem when they get really offended that I drop them because of it).

So, what I'm really saying is, if people drop you a lot, the first step should be not to cry wolf and whine on the internet about how everyone else is a bad boy, but maybe you should look at yourself and wonder what the fuck is wrong with you that causes people not to want to write with you.

If you genuinely can't find a reason then yeah, by all means, whine about it.

[GeekFactor]

No, not physical attractiveness, although in my case that ties into this all, of course.

I see a lot of messages that say 'oh, my partners always drop me, I reply once and then never get a reply back' and this got me to thinking because it also seems to be the case that most of the times it's the same few people who are complaining that the entire world and their mother drops them in RP's whether it be 1x1 or group RP.

Alright, I can understand that sentiment, and I can see why it'd be annoying (although I am more of the opinion that if someone drops the RP, that means less work for you and less wasted effort, because they would've otherwise dropped it later rather than sooner which would be even more of a loss of roleplay potential). But something I can't understand is that, if you get dropped by everyone you try to RP with (as the claims go) then perhaps the problem is not with everyone else, maybe it's you?

Why do people seem to lack the most basic form of introspection? If everyone you RP with ends up dropping you there must be a reason for this, no? Perhaps, and bear with me here, it's because you're bloody insufferable, and annoying to boot? I'm not really going after someone specific here but we've all met these people so I'm sure most of you can relate.

What is it about roleplaying that seems to attract the most braindead of people who can't connect the dots at times?

@Odin

There's certainly a lot of truth here. Anyone who RP's on a steady basis knows that that pesky thing called "life" is going to interfere, at some point, for everyone. That's just the nature of what we do as RPers. Nobody is going to be available and 100% committed for 50 years without fail.

But the bigger point you make, Odin, is something that everyone would do well to take to heart. Whether it's something you see in other players, or something you're experiencing for yourself. If another player is constantly being dropped from RP (or constantly abandoning/leaving/jumping from one RP to another), that's someone I'm going to examine pretty darn carefully before I'd consider dipping my toe into RP with them myself. And likewise, if I find that people won't stick around to RP with *me* on a consistent basis, then it's time to ask myself if I'm the common denominator.

I don't think many people have the ability or self-awareness to do that well. That's not meant to be an insult to anyone. It's in our nature to protect and promote our own well being and defend ourselves from perceived threats and attacks. But it would be nice if people could hone that skill a bit more :)

[HeartStrings]

People rarely, if ever, consider themselves the villain in their own story.

[SleepingSilence]

That honestly kind of sounds like an excuse to dropping RP's. You shouldn't drop out of group rp's because one person bugs you. It's beyond petty. Especially if it's long going. And if you drop a 1x1, because that person bugs you. Maybe you lack judgement and shouldn't have started or joined it in the first place? We can play the game of, you should blame yourself. But that just goes right back to "what if it isn't their fault?"

I know I made the same mistake back in school, when people treated me like shit and spread a rumor about me. I always thought, "what did I do?" and I had counselors tell me "oh, you must of done something to them!" Only to believe that shit, because I was a gullible kid. And last day had some of my bullies come up to me and straight up admit, they we're treating me like shit for no reason whatsoever...

Maybe the answer isn't that it takes two, or that the person is blameless. Maybe it's because a whole lot of people are generally self-centered and lazy assholes. Now, if those people keep having people drop RP's, while also happening to tell them. "You're too demanding" "You take things too seriously" "You don't write well enough." or something to that effect over and over again. Maybe there's some needed self reflection that the person needs to do. So I get the intended point, or what it should be anyway. But people dropping without word, there's usually not a super complex reason. The person is irresponsible with time management. Simple as that. I mean it seems like people don't have actual filters nowadays. So you'd figure if it wasn't the dropping person's fault. They'd be able to explain themselves. :D I've literally never dropped a roleplay without stating an explanation and it was never because of a single person that clashed with me. Because I'm not that childish. *Shrugs*

Occam's razor applies to most situations. A principle that states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. So let's go with someone dense who started a 1x1 with someone and that person hasn't replied in a while and hasn't answered them back when asking what's up? What option makes the most sense with the fewest, 'but why's'?

>A. Person is busy with super serious real life stuff.
>B. Person is super angry at something you did. So they don't wuv you no more. (misspelled on purpose mind you.)
>C. Person is lazy and doesn't take your time seriously.

Route A:
Person is busy with life. Okay, why not say that? I'd understand. All people have a life. Some brag/make excuses about it more than others. But everyone has a life outside the internet. So why nothing said?

Route B:
Person is mad and doesn't wuv you. Okay, why? What did I do? What did I say? I probably would be smart enough to remember a fight...so I shouldn't be confused.

Route C:
Yeah, makes sense. It's often a fickle hobby. On to the next one.

That's all there really is to it...

TL:DR Yeah, I learned a long ass time ago. People don't need reasons to do what they do...negative or positive. Most people don't think before they do what they do. So, I'm going to go with some people are poor with time management.

[POOHEAD189]

I think it also has to do with the fact some people can be too nice for their own good. I use to say yes to most people if they wanted to do a 1x1 unless it was smut related. It's why I've gotten very picky with who I do 1x1's with now, because I've been through some shit with that and had to politely drop them. Sometimes it's not them being jerks or weird, just not the style of RP the other person wants.