What are your roleplay gripes?

Gah I get that the whole point of anonymous roleplaying sites is to let people rp what they want with no accountability, but it's really lame that there's such a consistent problem with people randomly disconnecting. Plotting something up for an hour and then making the first post before getting d/c'd on is really a mood killer

 

honestly i haven't been in the rp scene much for a long time, and i think part of it is just that Extensive Fiddling With and Negotiating a Story Before You Can Get Started is hell on my attention span. ADHD! /jazzhands

basically the only kind of rp i can get into much these days is more or less outlining-dipping-in-and-out-of-actual-scenes, with extensive mutual godmodding between me and another rper who have a good sense of each other's writing styles. i have a lot more fun with normal rp as a GM than a coplayer, tbh, and i think part of that is because the main rp community i was in for years consisted of people essentially GMing subplots for other characters to discover.

tl;dr coming up with stories with other people is fun, but having to rehash stuff in prose that was just discussed is hellish and sadly it's necessary when it comes to prose RPs unless you're GMing and keeping surprises in store on purpose.

 

does anyone want to hear the story of Nazi Joe the Completely Serious Villain, and the thrilling sequel 'The GM Who Didn't Realize We Wanted To Progress The Plot.' (same RP. I saved chatlogs.)

 

I'm listening...

 

KICKS DOWN THE DOOR

FACE CLAIMS

And more to the point: roleplay groups where there is an insistence on using faceclaims, because "a bunch of unrelated anime art is ugly." Okay, can I use my own art? "No, we have to enforce quality standards." Okay, are you going to fucking source the actors and models whose livelihood you are directly profiting off of? "No, looking for credit is too hard. :)"

screams

 

I HATE FACECLAIMS TOO OMFG I FEEL YOU


I also really hate when people are using unsourced artwork that ISN'T THEIRS as their character. That bothers me to no end. Or when people use anime characters as their character. Just. AAAAAAAAAAAA.

(EDIT: THIS IS IN REFERENCE TO OC RPS AND NOT LIKE FANDOM RPS WHERE YOU RP A CANON CHARACTER)

 

LIKE THE THING IS on neopets back in the day, if you wanted to roleplay in "modern" or "highschool" roleplays, you had to have a face claim. Full stop. And fine, I wanted to roleplay highschool despite.... being in highschool........ so I went!!! And looked for models who were allowing their image to be used for noncommercial purposes!!!! And I sourced them!!!!! I fucking linked their modeling profiles, named them, made it abundantly clear that this was a real person whose photo I was using and I was! The only! One!

(One of my friends actually had her selfies stolen off of myspace for that, and when she confronted the roleplayer, got told, "No, that can't be you. You're too ugly to look like that." Holy fucking shit.)

Also, WTNV specific, but: uguu uke twink Cecils. And uguu uke twink Kevins. At least you could sort of swing the chipper attitude that way, but oh my god it was so tiresome seeing a bunch of Cecils whose only link to the show was that their blogs were in purple.

 

Okay, bear in mind: A lot of these are forgivable because many people start on Gaia to RP. But I have seen literally everything in this thread on Gaia multiple times, often within the same RP. (psuedo-edit: except what turtledove just posted. While I'm sure that happens, I don't see it often because of format; most people are not playing more than two characters in a single RP.)

A few other Gaia pet peeves of mine include (PSUEDO EDIT ROUND 2: this got REALLY long, so this section is just group RP shit):
-> Fandom RPs that are just reposts of the creator's RP from a year ago, which died because no one could move the story along because it was entirely full of passive fucks
-> Fandom RPs that give extremely minor characters listings as ~available~ on the RP page (KH fandom is particularly bad about this)
-> Group RPs that are basically the creator's original fiction played by other people; they do things like decide the pairings, or a basic outline of your character traits, etc rather than letting things happen organically
-> as a follow-up, the creators taking all the interesting roles for themselves/their friends
-> SMALL, COLORED TEXT. This was mentioned before but it bears infinite amounts of mentioning again.
-> Same token, images that take up an entire screen. I don't mind a bit of fancy formatting but ugh.
-> on a related note, half those images for 'OC' in anime themed RPs (at LEAST half) are often fanart. I have a drinking game about this where you take a drink every time you see a character you recognize. I usually have to piss desperately after like three RPs, which is why I don't use alcohol for it.
-> On that note, "real pictures only" as a reference rule
-> Because group RPs are all in the same thread, people will just randomly walk into your scene with someone else with their character and demand attention ICly.
-> ...Or randomly walk out if they get bored with a scene and want to thread with someone else -
-> Because nonlinear RP time does not exist, so you have to be held up by the one person you're currently threading with.
-> People who enter the RP with the blandest intros of all time. This is so common that it deserves distinction from general bland posts that give you nothing to react to.
-> Especially in "walk-in" (ie no profile) RPs because the intro is all you get before deciding to play with someone
-> As someone who used to run these RPs, people who refuse to fill in their backstory profile section; I understand concerns about infomodding, but I require this to avoid surprises like
-> "HAHA I WAS ACTUALLY DATING [canon character] ALL ALONG"
-> it is exclusively [dating canon character], [canon character's lost little sister], or [both], too, there are no substitutes
-> Dude OCs in fandom RP are exclusively edgy tryhard Bad Fandom Cloud Imitators
-> Or uke catboys, occasionally
-> incidentally, there are no catboys in the canonical Kingdom Hearts series. There definitely aren't any in the world Mickey Mouse hails from, which has no humanoids at all.
-> (many of these gripes are KH fandom related I am sorry. Later I will tell you about Empress Dee.)
-> On that note, people who assume that characters have to be shipped
-> Thread titles that you can't even read because there are so many special characters in them
-> People who avatar cosplay their characters and thus talk ICly at all times
-> RP profiles that try to be witty about the questions they're asking (eg people who put "I have ___ many candles on my cake" instead of just "age")
-> Overly detailed character profiles (usually goes with the above)
-> "likes" and "dislikes" sections in profiles
-> People who require profiles for canon characters (yes, this is irony given that I RP on Dreamwidth, but DWRPs are not 'you, the creator of this RP, are already familiar with all canon characters who might be apped')
-> People who randomly PM you "I see you like [x fandom], join my RP!"
-> Walk-in RPs that say every fantasy race is welcome but then have a specific list of standard races they allow
-> People who have a no-worldbuilding walk-in RP but expect you to play a certain kind of creature a certain way
-> People who come into worldbuilding heavy walk-in RPs with something that clearly doesn't fit the setting, proving that they read exactly jack shit
-> Emotes in RP rules, including "put this emote in your PM to prove you've read the rules"

1x1 peeves (note that I basically never 1x1 RP on Gaia, these are mostly just peeves from browsing search threads):
-> People who make new search threads when they think their current thread is too long, that are exactly the same thing as their first thread
-> yaoi and yuri still being commonly used terms
-> the idea that "yaoi" ships still need defined top and bottom roles
-> People who exclusively list canon/OC things in their want to play section
-> People who refuse to play anything fandom and have a really elitist attitude about it
-> People who refuse to play anything OC and have a really elitist attitude about it
-> Extremely transparent requests for fetish RP that are totally looking for sfw RP, nothing to see here, mods (actually these are kind of entertaining)
-> Giantess RP Dude
-> People who won't play [male/female] characters, usually whichever doesn't apply to them, because they're ~hard~
-> People who won't play gay ships because they're ~hard~ (but they're not homophobic!)
-> People who are straight up homophobic about ships
-> "I only play with people who match the gender of their character" esp common in people looking for straight ships
-> Like just admit you want a datefriend to RP with already people
-> Basically it's the proto-form warning sign version of "people who start acting like you're together because your characters got together"
-> As someone else noted, people who bold ~the role they want to play~ and it's always either the sub role or the OC in an OC/Canon ship
-> People who bitch about RPs being dropped, and then drop you
-> People who require you to meet a certain word count in order to be ~Good Enough~ to RP with them
-> Picture Prompts that aren't even two characters to prompt an interaction
-> Song prompts
-> "The RP doesn't have to be about romance" and then only lists [x/y] format romance pairings
-> Again with the "people who post plots that are clearly 'write half of my original novel idea for me'" level of controlling who your character is and what they do
-> "I only RP in threads" "I only RP in PMs"
-> "I only RP on [offsite service] gets a special mention for being frequently paired with the "there is definitely no fetish RP here, mods" people

that's all for now but I'm sure I'll think of more. Also, while I don't object to it, slave/master is such a massive niche on Gaia that the mods have had a "slave/master RPs go here, no nsfw" specific sticky for as long as I can remember. Also shit like "Boys spank naughty girls walk-in RP" is really common. Like, there's actually a thriving, if shittily written, fetish RP community on Gaia if you know where to look and have a fetish that isn't inherently sexual.

 

oh my god that would piss me off so much. tbh, if an rp forces me to use a faceclaim, i literally just fuckin leave. i do not like it just cuz it.... takes away from the fantasy of it for me i guess? lmao. i'm weird that way. but like. auGH THE NOT SOURCING THE MODEL AND EVERYTHING REALLY REALLY PISSES ME OFF HOLY SHIT

(HOLY SHIT THAT IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE)

 

OKAY THIS IS A THING THAT HAPPENS TO ME A LOT IN RPS AND AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

this has happened to me several times and i've seen it happen to others and it is the worst

literally the fucking worst

 

AHAHAHAHAHAHA I REMEMBER THAT GUY HOLY SHIT

ok I'll continue reading now

 

I'M GLAD I'M NOT ALONE

 

tell me the tale of giantess rp dude

 

God, that was so common on Neopets too. "Here are the characters, here are their relationships, here's the setting, here is how the plot goes. Now dance, puppets, dance!"

This is really common on MMO roleplaying too, history sections which are just "roleplay with me to find out ;)" and it's like, I understand. I do! This is why I don't, for instance, put in things of a highly personal nature to my OCs which might be used in a compromising way by unscrupulous roleplayers. But on the flipside, I've seen one too many OCs whose backstory evens out to "oh, your family died and you got kidnapped? well all FIVE of my families died AND i got superkidnapped AND i was an orphan AND i've had three children but all of them are dead AND--" because it's just a pissing contest over Who Has More Right To Be Sad.

Personality profiles that are "roleplay to find out ;)" are annoying too, because invariably that means "my character is going to desperately try to get into your character's pants and I will get oocly mad when you don't let it happen."

(MG/WRA warcraft specific one: anyone else run into "lf draenai female herm to roleplay stepping on me, will pay" dude? Apparently he paid really well. If my guild at the time hadn't forbidden it, I would have been tempted to do it.)

 

he was just this guy with an avatar with like blond spiky hair I think? who reposted the same thread over and over searching for a giantess rp

and would pay gaia currency to people who would play with him

who knows maybe he still posts threads but I was an rper on gaia from like 2005 to 2009 and he was posting threads for it pretty much the entire time I was there

at least I hope that's the same guy starcrossedsky was talking about because that would be hilarious

 

yep that's the dude! He would also pay for bumping services, you almost never saw him bump his own threads. FTR his thread titles were always something like "searching for an open-minded female" or some shit like that. I remember they were always so similar that when he changed the thread title structure I was actually seriously weirded out.

He finally seems to have dropped off the map? Last time I saw him was in like 2014.

 

I kind of admire the hustle of the people desperately trying to find fetish rp on gaia tbh, so long as they were keeping to their own search threads and not sending mass pms

probably mostly because I was too scared to the whole time I was there but otherwise definitely would've been interested in some of them

 

god, he was like a landmark

 

Who here likes Connie Maheswaran and vore??

 

A true pillar of the community.

For a while in like 2012 there was a similar dude looking for "marco/micro" RP, dunno what happened to him either but I remember he was distinct from the first guy who didn't use those terms, he always specifically used "giantess."