Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

[TwelveOf8]

@Obscene Symphony Nope, not petty. Happens all the time. Some people are very talented at ruining things for everyone-- don't blame yourself.

@Baklava

I think I may very well have this talent of which you speak. Talent is a funny way to describe it though. Curse would've been the word I'd have used. Perhaps I should go on a holy pilgrimage of some kind to purge myself of this unholy affliction. I just need a warrior, a black Mage, a thief, and a white Mage to join my party.

[pugbutter]

>quits RPs without telling her partners
>whines in the status feed about how little RP she gets

To any theologians out there: is this what "karma" looks like?

[ML]

this is often described here, but it does irritate me when people message me specifically mentioning interest, and then never reply ever

like okay people i get it you get distracted and shit but its a little disheartening to feel like the RP you work so hard on isn't even worth a polite decline

[YesImEvil]

I'd say my biggest pet peeve is when you apply to an IntChk with a cruel white mercenary woman in her 40's and then the GM tells you "Well, I like it, except for..." And by the time they're done changing it you've got a genderbent My Little Pony that likes kittens and cupcakes.

[Drache]

When you want to join an RP so you spend hours reading into the lore and asking questions and mentally designing your character, only to click over to the Char tab to find that someone has already submitted a character that is pretty much exactly what you were about to do. It's no one's "fault" or anything but it always sucks when you have to toss a solid character idea, especially when tweaking a little to make your char similar but different isn't allowed by the GM.

[Foster]

Being mistaken for the GM... by the GM.

I'd say my biggest pet peeve is when you apply to an IntChk with a cruel white mercenary woman in her 40's and then the GM tells you "Well, I like it, except for..." And by the time they're done changing it you've got a genderbent My Little Pony that likes kittens and cupcakes.

@YesImEvil

You do realize these two things aren't mutually exclusive, right?

So she's got a bit of a sweet tooth, and stops for kittens... and is a cruel little old mare that kills people in their spare time... kinda like 4chan... well, not sure about the killing part.

<Snipped quote by Baklava>

I think I may very well have this talent of which you speak. Talent is a funny way to describe it though. Curse would've been the word I'd have used. Perhaps I should go on a holy pilgrimage of some kind to purge myself of this unholy affliction. I just need a warrior, a black Mage, a thief, and a white Mage to join my party.

@TwelveOf8

Dibbs on thief!

[Drache]

- When you join an RP that is listed in the Advanced section but then it turns out that almost everyone else, including the GM, seems incapable of posting more than a paragraph at a time.

- How about when people passive-aggressively start picking apart another person's character in the OOC tab even after it's been approved by the GM. Bonus points for opinion-based attacks rather than actual legitimate concerns over that character's lore/mechanics. Suggestion: Take it to PM you asshats!

- The sheer number of RPers who can't play anything other than a human their own gender. I can't be the only person who has noticed the overwhelming number of "Female looking for male" interest checks. Ladies, why? You can't play a dude once in a while? What about someone with no gender? What about an alien? What about an intersex/hermaphrodite character? Branch out! I want to play with you but boy do I get sick of always having to play a guy (especially some young hunk that you have basically already designed before I got there) because you just won't. I can't tell if this is just a case of lack of confidence or just poor RP skill but if I see anyone with "I only play (insert gender)" then I don't think very highly of you. Sorry, not sorry.

[Arawak]

Sometimes I want to cry when I place worldbuilding guidelines that state no humanoid/furry aliens (and god no to space elves), no pop culture and no space-whatevernation I like.

And than someone does all the above anyways.

I am not trying to be completely obstructive with guidelines either, my belief is that with a list of NOs and a good set of environments with a decent set-up scenario you open creative thinking more than just giving someone a box you can do anything you want in.

Maybe I just have bad luck with who gets interest in my stuff.

[Genkai]

I hate when you can tell your partner didn't read your post.

If I have a character approach their character, holding a tray of food asking to sit down and join them. It seems soooo obvious that they would put in their reply that my character sat down and their character mentions they should eat. Like fuck man, my character has food. Get your character food but don't backtrack because you can't read a simple sentence.

Or even if you're brainstorming with a potential partner and you ask a simple question and they don't answer it so you have another back-and-forth with trying to figure out a certain concern. I can understand it happening once, like maybe they accidentally forgot to answer it in a PM but if I have to ask the same question three times then I get the feeling this person doesn't know how to read or only picks out information they care about.

All in all, I just dislike absentminded folks who don't read, whether it's when discussing a RP or making an actual post. It's like some people are so self-centered or oblivious that they only care about their own character. I mean you can usually tell when someone has glossed over your post and just spit out whatever they felt like. I'm just asking for consideration. But seeing inconsistencies in posts because people aren't more aware, just breaks my heart.

[RedHat]

I can't stand the ones who either yell, or else to the other, just because of 'the lenght', and then expect the other to match the other, while treating them like trash, yes, i understand the envy to not be bored, no, there is a better attitude than this one, no one is a machine programmed for that.

The whole 'i hate one-liners', for what? for wich reasons? maybe some can't write a lot, why not asking? i came accross a lot of profiles communities who were like that, acting like they are 'the kings/queens' of the RPs, i despise that.

this is all i have for the moment.

[NuttsnBolts]

@RedHat Probably find that it depends on what section the post is in and what the expectations are. There is nothing worse than starting an advanced RP where there is an emphasis on length and depth, and yet some people only post up a paragraph that barely makes 500 characters.

Personally, I hate free and short posts. I view them as creatively limiting, a lack of effort and limited in how someone can respond. Like I said above, there is nothing worse in my opinion than spending hours writing up a long detailed post for the person your trying to interact with to just reply with, "I am well, how are you?"—a post that could have been typed in a chat server message.

[pugbutter]

I can't stand the ones who either yell, or else to the other, just because of 'the lenght', and then expect the other to match the other, while treating them like trash, yes, i understand the envy to not be bored, no, there is a better attitude than this one, no one is a machine programmed for that.

The whole 'i hate one-liners', for what? for wich reasons? maybe some can't write a lot, why not asking? i came accross a lot of profiles communities who were like that, acting like they are 'the kings/queens' of the RPs, i despise that.

this is all i have for the moment.

@RedHat

Yeah, I haven't ended up writing a one-liner in a 1x1 (yet), but I make it clear to all my partners from the get-go that IDGAF about post length, so it certainly "can" happen. If I only have one sentence's worth of contribution to add to the scene, I'm not going to puff that sentence out into two or three paragraphs through redundancy, tautology, and fluff.

I haven't had anything to bitch about in a while thanks to a batch of lovely RP partners, but this is definitely the sort of language which turns me off to someone when I'm reading his/her Interest Check.

@NuttsnBolts But you're describing a length ceiling, a maximum post length, and I'm 99% sure this doesn't exist anywhere in the Guild. No one is forcing you to write short posts if you RP in Casual or Free, so that logic doesn't fly.

[RedHat]

@NuttsnBolts this is why the forum is separated in free to advanced i suppose..

i am myself free, i do it mainly as an escapism from stress, not to be forced to match someone else lenght (wich can be stressfull as well), i came accross a lot who were like that, but again, if someone write less than the other, why not simply asking the reason?

[Lalliman]

@NuttsnBolts But you're describing a length ceiling, a maximum post length, and I'm 99% sure this doesn't exist anywhere in the Guild. No one is forcing you to write short posts if you RP in Casual or Free, so that logic doesn't fly.

@pugbutter

No, but you're still likely to get a short post in return, which he just established he doesn't want. The Advanced section isn't defined by posting length (at least it shouldn't be), but it is statistically much more likely for long posts to occur. Ergo, if you like posts of great length and depth, why gamble by going to the casual section? The logic seems solid to me.

Anyways, putting "no one-liners" on your profile or interest check seems fine to me. You're just communicating what you're looking for. It's a way for the poster to attract the partners they want, and for the people browsing to determine whether this poster is a good partner for them. It only becomes a problem if you act snobby about it, or you enforce it with a zero-tolerance policy.

[HeySeuss]

The criteria for advanced is theoretically two paragraphs, which honestly has never really been enforced and RP management is up to the GM. I think the suggestion of putting the post criteria in the interest check is a good way to communicate up front.

In an effort to keep player engagement up, I told people in an RP that a three paragraph post was the target to keep the plot moving, because I'm tired of people thinking they need to shit out a novel or something when the plot just needs a few paragraphs to describe reactions. I'm also tired of dropouts from the RP's.

Sometimes a much shorter post is totally fine in an advanced RP, and maybe that's where communication comes in. Some people look at it as an effort thing, but I look at post length as a matter of not jumping too far ahead on the interaction if you are in an interaction situation. That first post is often going to be long, but it isn't necessarily the yardstick for the rest of the RP.

Anyway, I feel @Drache's pain; I look at the 1x1 interest checks with a million rules/restrictions and a list of pairs and go, "So I gotta put a dog collar on and do all the plot development? Gee, thanks, pass." 😀

[BrokenPromise]

when I want a bunch of small reactions to happen in an advanced RP (off site, haven't been in any on here) I just collab. You could be in different time zones, but if you each write a single 100 word response a day, that's 1400 words by the end of the week.

This is less desirable if you want to involve a bunch of people in a single event, as the difficulty of summoning everyone increases. At which point I do exactly what @HeySeuss recommends and encourage shorter responses. I'm actually doing a court rp and told everyone that responses were going to be a lot shorter during court sessions because that fluff isn't necessary.

[Drache]

@HeySeuss Not sure why you mentioned me? My own interest check is a list of plot options and pairs with rules...

I enforce a zero-tolerance policy of "no one liners" in my 1x1's. Unless I am literally RPing in a chat room where there is no expectation for anything resembling "good" RP, there is no way that one line posts can give me the character depth and world-building that I expect in my RPs. This is why I only hunt for games to join in the Advanced section and I make my expectations very clear in my 1x1 Interest Checks. Even if the characters are engaged in dialogue or blow-by-blow combat it doesn't take much effort to describe how a character says what they are saying or what their body language is doing, the sound their sword makes when it hits flesh or the feeling of horror they experience when they miss.

I find that when I am forced to "fill in the blanks" of all the things my RP partner doesn't make an effort to describe about their own character, this leads to a type of miscommunication that ends up requiring a lot of OOC discussion and back-tracking. This spoils RP for me. Especially in my 1x1's I don't mind it at all if my partner takes a couple of days to put a decently-sized post together. My own posts average 4-6 paragraphs but I have been known to throw down 15k words for something especially epic.

When I have spent a majority of the RP being descriptive and basically building the world for my partner and I get a two line response, that's a slap in the face. It tells me that my partner is either not interested enough or just lazy, or some combination of both. If my partner has such a lack of imagination that they "don't have anything to contribute" then they aren't the kind of person I want to RP with.

Everyone gets something different out of RP. Putting your preferences in your rules or interest check is not being rude or exclusive. If anything it's doing everyone else a favour by helping them save time. If you like one-liners and you're reading an interest check that says "no one-liners", pass to the next one. It's not that difficult is it?

When it comes to group RPs I take the opposite approach to you @HeySeuss. If people are going to only post once per week I'd rather their posts be longer and cover more material. Speeding up a particular scene with shorter posts (for example, dialogue) only works out well if people post more frequently.

[HeySeuss]

@HeySeuss Not sure why you mentioned me? My own interest check is a list of plot options and pairs with rules...

@Drache

The point about having the plot overly pre-arranged with the beefcake hunk character pre-written. No real ability to adapt plot or role, that's what I referred to. I had not looked at your interest check prior to writing that, and I was just giving my feelings on the rules thing.

As to post speed, most of the players I am working with have tough schedules, so we try to keep the posts down to something manageable so we aren't writing a huge piece all the time. Collabs are hard, again due to schedules. It's a pace thing as much as a 'stay in the RP' thing.

[tsukune]

Regarding post length, I'd say I'm flexible with it as long as it's not a one-liner without any proper context for the next person to respond to. (Not everyone is Hemingway, yeah.)

I'm still trying out different styles and ways to see which one works best for me or for the specific genres I'm writing for, but the general gist is: as much as I'm capable of vomiting out paragraphs after paragraphs of purple prose, personally I'd want to keep that as minimal as possible (or none at all). This is a writing and storytelling forum, not a thesis forum.

Especially in an action scene, get to the point to keep the plot moving. Nobody cares for pages worth of internal monologue that none of the other characters can see or react to. Like, it's an action scene, not some self-absorbed flashback shenanigans.

[Drache]

@HeySeuss

Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up. :)
It's annoying when people won't break out of their comfort zones and end up falling victim to the same tropes over and over. But then again, that may be the only thing they like about RP, it's just frustrating when you're here for story-telling rather than having the plot so rigidly pre-defined.

I get the feeling that a lot of people are mistaking "length" for "quality". It's not hard to write a long-ass post that contributes nothing to the RP. Length isn't the only factor when classifying an RP as Advanced, but it's definitely contributory and it's very hard to put something Advanced together without your post length growing to reflect that. So much so that when someone is looking for an Advanced level partner they can weed out a lot of the people they wouldn't want to RP with by saying "no one-liners". I mean how often are you going to get someone who is genuinely contributing to world-building, character development, plot development, etc and still only replying to you with one line? I've been RPing for 18 years and I've never seen that happen so if someone sees my Interest Check and is a great RPer but is turned off by my "no one-liners" clause well then...that's a risk I'm willing to take.