What do you think is the hardest part about RPing?

[ClocktowerEchos]

Personally I find making Bios/History for a CS/NS to be it and also finding the time is especially annoying. Even more so when there's a bunch of RPs or Int checks that are going and you want to join ;-;

[Vilageidiotx]

finding the time is especially annoying.

@ClocktowerEchos

Pretty much this.

[Fillet]

Translating what I can see and feel in my mind into words. It's frustrating how words can be tediously inefficient or there are a thousand ways to describe an image (I'm a visual and feelings person).

[Mixtape Ghost N]

Fucking writing. lol

I mean, I love roleplaying, but I find it hard to focus on writing a post unless it's a collab - in which case I just breeze through it. The other thing is writing a backstory. Seriously. I love stories, and characters, but sometimes it's hard to come up with the muse.

[NanoFreakV2]

Yeah I totally agree. There are so many RPs I didn't join simply because of not having any inspiration or time to figure out a backstory for a character. I personally like to develop that as the RP progresses.

The second thing I think is hard, especially in the case of forum based RPs like RPGuild, is PC interaction. Unless you're doing a collab post it is really hard to, for example, converse with another PC without reducing yourself to many short one paragraph posts.

[Frettzo]

@NanoFreakV2, I agree with what you say about PC interaction. Lately I've been refraining from joining RPs because I no longer have an idea of how to deal with interaction. Sure, I love collabs, but they usually end up as long pieces of writing and nobody ever reads them, so what's really the point?

Instead of participating in RPs this month, I've decided it's simply better to try my hand at solo writing in NaNoWriMo. So far, it's far more satisfying that RPing.

[vancexentan]

In roleplaying general it's probably keeping interest in a roleplay

from a player's perspective it's either consistently writing good content or figuring out how to interact with other characters.

[DudeTheRabbit]

One thing that I find to be the hardest for me when RPing is my language barrier. I'm not talking about the basics because I get the basics of the English language.

In my own language I know how to make a sentence sound kind or condescending or indifferent without having to add how it's said, whereas in English I'm often stuck looking for the right words to make it sound like something said by an actual human being. Often I also just don't know how to phrase something to my liking. I can make the sentences, I can get across what happens, but it just doesn't have the feeling I want it to have.

It's really goddamn frustrating sometimes.

[Ellri]

GMing. Without a doubt.

In particular, dealing with fools who think their character concept is nice and balanced and should be approved, when it is blatantly obvious it is overpowered and unbalanced and violates half the lore.

Keeping the plot moving along is also difficult, especially when you've got many players with disparate schedules and the IC plot is chaotic in layout.

[Engel]

What Ellri said, while anyone could technically be a GM. There's not all that many good GMs. Personally, the hardest part with RPing for me has almost always been dealing with people. Those that aren't interested in RPing with me, but claim to be. Those that seem a lot more interested in arguing and starting drama than doing anything else. Lately it's been particularly hard to remain motivated to RP at all, and I've asked myself more than once why I still do it. All thanks to having to deal too much with certain kinds of people or behaviour. I still got that one good fun RP I've been doing for almost a year now, and that seems to be the only reason I didn't quit at some point.

[AlteredTundra]

For myself, I find the hardest part of roleplaying is, as @Fillet and @Mr Allen J have pointed out, is writing. It's hard for me sometimes to find the inspiration to write a long-ass post and even harder to be able to put it to words. Like Fillet, I, too, am a visual person. I like to envision what I'm writing - sometimes by physically doing it myself - and try to put it to words, but I also can find myself in the difficult position of not being able to get it out the way I had hoped. Sometimes it comes out longer than I envisioned. Oppositely, it can come out shorter than I had envisioned. There are varying factors that apply, but sometimes I just can't get it out. I often blame that on writer's block. XD

For rps themselves, I think the hardest part is definitely keeping interest both as a GM and as a player. If the rp is going slow - and I mean really slow. Like, think only one post per week. If that's the case, my inner-morale that keeps me into/out of a certain roleplay goes to a severely low level. If it gets too low, I tend to just drop the rp like a hot potato. As a GM, I really try to keep people interested, but one can't really do anything if people won't make the effort to post, right? Sometimes one simply has to abandon the sinking ship.

[NuttsnBolts]

GMing. Without a doubt.

In particular, dealing with fools who think their character concept is nice and balanced and should be approved, when it is blatantly obvious it is overpowered and unbalanced and violates half the lore.

Keeping the plot moving along is also difficult, especially when you've got many players with disparate schedules and the IC plot is chaotic in layout.

@Ellri

What Ellri said, while anyone could technically be a GM. There's not all that many good GMs. Personally, the hardest part with RPing for me has almost always been dealing with people. Those that aren't interested in RPing with me, but claim to be. Those that seem a lot more interested in arguing and starting drama than doing anything else. Lately it's been particularly hard to remain motivated to RP at all, and I've asked myself more than once why I still do it. All thanks to having to deal too much with certain kinds of people or behaviour. I still got that one good fun RP I've been doing for almost a year now, and that seems to be the only reason I didn't quit at some point.

@Engel

I've been turned off GMing group RPs solely because of the difficulties I've had with running them (MIGHT think about it again if I was co-GMing). Creating motives for people, trying to prevent powerplayers and dealing with people in general. I remember one time where a player got accepted into a roleplay, but when it came to writing a scene, they converted one of the GM's races from a peaceful race into a group of warlords simply because he did not read the damn OOC!

When things go wrong as a GM, they can sometimes go seriously wrong and you're left there trying to clean up the mess while hoping others won't ditch the RP.

The second difficulty has to be with creating a decent post with good ideas. Generally for the first few pages it's easy, but sometimes after the first Act, so to speak, it becomes harder to think of what your character might do. I'll occasionally get a writers block and it really screws me over because I don't have any ideas that sound decent.

[Combo move]

Coming up with stories, easy and fun.

Collaboration with others, exciting!

Backstories and other stuff, love it.

Adjusting constantly to changing social norms and various mannerisms? Frustrating. Very frustrating. Its like joining a new click, very difficult to find your place, especially when that group has been close for a time.

Sadly, those are the rp's that last are the ones where folks are dedicated to each others ideals and reactions.

Something that's amazing to be a part of but horrendously difficult to not come across as a bitch or silently back out when you're on the outside of it.

/endrant :)

[AbysmalDemon]

I also have to agree with PC interaction. It's hard to get a long post out of it, and even when doing collabs, you have to worry about shit like different time zones, or people's work or school schedules. I was doing a collab with someone once, and I had to wait a week before they added on their part, and by that time, the group was about two days ahead of us.

[Thaddeus Dron]

Message board Rping?

The hardest thing for me is to get involved. I get really excited with a good concept or something and I want to try it out. I want to RP it out right then. Normally, it quite a wait to get others to post- and waiting drives me insane. Then by the time other people get around to posting, I've forgotten what I was excited about in the first place. :(

[PandaBrady]

As a GM, trying to keep things interesting and new, as well as making realistic dialogue.

As a player, trying to stick to a personality. Other than that, trying to not push the GM too hard. I hate when people try to hijack the game.