What are your roleplay gripes?

I wanted to add that this gets really uncomfortable in the inflation/stuffing/wg community, because I'll see people using face/body claims in public rps on tumblr and I'm pretty fucking sure not all of those people got permission to use those seflies

it's not fat positive to steal someone's pictures for your fetish, it's not a compliment, and it's not going to make them feel good about themselves, so can you n ot

 

Please tell me he did in fact specifically say he was looking for marco/micro, because that would be great. I'm just going to assume Marco is the name of his character. His character who is very, very small compared to yours.

 

You know exactly what Marco I am picturing.

 

Rubio?

 

diaz?

 

... god damn it, no, my animorphs fandom autopilot is on again.

 

Talk to the Grand Old Academy writers if you want that one.

 

oh, back on the passive aggressively trying to get you to reply to an rp thing

how many times should I believe "just making sure ___ website didn't eat my message" before it starts getting ridiculous?

it's like. I get it. I used to be that person when I was a teenager and the only thing that made me happy was rping. but at some point you have to learn to CHILL and realize that one of the easiest ways to kill someone's interest in an rp is to make it seem like a chore.

like, as someone who has a hard time transitioning between tasks because ADHD, I can respect someone wanting to know if they should anticipate a reply in the next day/week/month

but

once you know the answer you have to be ok with that and chill

 

Depends on the website. If it's tumblr, a couple times. If it's soemthing more reliable, once.

 

Yep, it's all interconnected to the Bad RPer Hell that is "can't grok that their character is not them."

 

I don't even roleplay anymore because I seriously don't have the mental energy for that kind of commitment and haven't in a long time, but I used to roleplay on Neopets a lot (c. 2006-2009 or so) as well as some forum roleplaying, and. Fucking faceclaims. Those and roleplay forums that expect you to have your posts formatted with fancy CSS or customized whatever just... annoyed me. All I want to do is write, not finagle with this bullshit.

Neopets roleplaying was uh, something. Preeeetty sure I got my Neo main account suspended two or three times for roleplaying infractions that I didn't think were that big a deal. Like, I'm fairly sure that my 10 year old self's roleplaying was pretty damn tame, and yet...

 

See also: mashing your face against the keyboard as you tried to figure out what the profanity filter is crying about this time.

"Crack", "suck[ed]", and "as bad as" were always the ones that got me.

 

The board I was on had a running joke among the users about "siphoning" because of the number of times people would try to talk about, say, a black hole sucking something in and ending up with "****ing." So assorted synonyms had to be found.

 

"as bad as"????

 

Picture, if you will, edgy 9 year old PR throwing an absolute fit at the computer because he couldn't figure out why his post about his PURE BLACK WOLF WITH RED EYES SUCKING THE LIGHT OUT OF THE WORLD just. Wouldn't post.

Neopets roleplay was hell. (ALSO GOD THE PIRATE DAY ROLEPLAY, you could never get anything done on Pirate Day.)

Because "bad as" was one letter off from "bad ass", you see.

 

so your wolf was basically vantablack?

 

omfg

I do remember wanting to talk about shiita from castle in the sky one time and getting very frustrated

 

Yes. And also very sad because he was an orphan who had to kill his own family because ??????

 

This very thing has ruined at least two friendships of mine and broke up an online friendship group. All on Gaia, too, hilariously enough. It goes hand in hand with probably my BIGGEST pet peeve which is people who cannot separate themselves from their characters which is probably the source of every single bit of RP drama I've ever seen. Jealousy that your character hooks up with someone else's and not theirs, getting upset if your character dislikes theirs, thinking what your character says and does is how you think, taking things that happen in RP super personally...

I saw this a lot with tumblr Homestuck RP tbh >>; one of the reasons I stopped.

 

...alright, so. *cracks fingers* Those of you who have roleplayed on TVTropes may recognize some names, but: Picture this, ye gentle readers:

Spoiler

it is the late summer of 2015. I have signed up for a play-by-post roleplay. It's fairly standard superpower high school stuff - three options for character types (Hero types, who have a superpower, Mages, who have elemental control (somehow different from a superpower...), and Monsters, who are monsters.) The first warning sign may have been that, for some ungodly reason, the GM saw fit to make SIXTY distinct magical elements. Here they are:

Spoiler: i'm not joking, at all.

1. Lava
2. Fire
3. Disease
4. Ash
5. Heat
6. Smoke
7. Oil
8. Diamond
9. Iron
10. Copper
11. Lead
12. Gold
13. Neon
14. Mud
15. Stone
16. Salt
17. Sand
18. Glass
19. Slime
20. Water
21. Ice
22. Quicksilver
23. Snow
24. Fog
25. Birds
26. Cold
27. Plasma
28. Electricity
29. Wind
30. Mammals
31. Air
32. Plants
33. Wood
34. Mold
35. Bugs
36. Reptiles
37. Poison
38. Blood
39. Bone
40. Plastic
41. Rubber
42. Lye
43. Fish
44. Acid
45. Paper
46. Magnetism
47. Force
48. Gravity
49. Darkness
50. Void
51. Sleep
52. Light
53. Reflection
54. Life
55. Death
56. Space
57. Time
58. Sound
59. Mind

Reading that, I'm sure you'd have questions, like 'why is there an element of Fish' and 'is there a functional difference between fire and heat elements.' Rest assured, these questions and more are never answered!

But anyways, I do not spot this sign. So I sign up as a light Mage girl named Adrienne, and some people I know to be pretty fun do as well. There's a succubus who does magic via rap, there's a cat-loving necromancer, there's a big buff hyena girl, there's a kid who has literally no magic but is really good at slight of hand... And then. Then I notice one guy on the list.

If you're on TVTropes RP, you might recognize the name 'Nick the Swing.' For those who have wisely remained away, he's a complete edgelord convinced of his own smarts and edginess who has a fetish for 'guy everyone thinks is nice and dumb but is secretly a MASTER STRATEGIST.' In an entirely different RP he had a character with that description whose first move was to jumpkick someone else in the spine. Yeah.

This guy ends up having a whopping FOUR characters. But it's ok, because none of them have distinct personalities anyways. There's Shirou Emiya Knockoff #7684327 (you can spot which ones are knockoffs because they lack the character faults and mental issues that made Shirou interesting) and Super MegaGenius With An Abuse Backstory (who can ALSO do an Unlimited Blade Works ripoff,) those are the first two.

The game begins. We have some kind of school festival going on, basically an excuse to have everyone run into each other without classes. Nick decides to introduce a terrorism subplot all on his lonesome, and gives the organization a trademark symbol... that was already taken as the symbol for the element of Light. Don't you love it when people actually read the damn profiles of the other players? He also entirely refuses to tell anyone else about what these clowns actually DO, even though logically we'd all be hearing similar plot-convenient news reports. But no, that would let us figure out what's going on and offer comments, and we can't have that, because this plan is as thin and solid as soggy paper.

Also, the Shirou Emiya knockoff gets internal monologue talking about how he's totally kissed girls, definitely, he's very attractive. Meanwhile, in the discussion thread, the GM asks if anyone would like to be the Keybearer. What this means is not explained, and he does not mention it ever again in the discussion thread. I, and a few other people, say 'sure why not.'

Blah blah, time passes, not much relevant stuff happens aside from the GM not knowing the word 'fuckboy.' And then... Then Nick introduces his third character, Arlen Westlau, smoke mage, who has a personality of just generally being a bullying dick who might be involved with 'unsavory folks.' Meanwhile, the GM triggers a bizarre scene in the auditorium where a bunch of statues attack and a guy referred to as 'The Custodian' appears from the ceiling and starts talking to Arlen about wanting him to come somewhere, destiny, blahblahblah. So me and the guy playing the hyena girl (who is friends and former roommates with my character) arrange to get our characters to their location. Custodian splits and drops a key as he leaves, my girl manages to snag it because like hell am I leaving a plot coupon in the hands of THIS moron.

Arlen decides that the best reaction to this is to, while in direct ear and eyeshot of the principal of the school, yell that she is a 'harlot' who stole his destiny and his key, and begins prepping to actually attack my girl. I play dumb, of course, asking what the hell he's on about. More stuff happens, Adrienne and Hela maintain cover (while playing off the asshole as being completely not worth listening to) and he then decides to blow smoke - actual carcinogens - into Hela, the hyena girl,'s mouth. This leads to a brawl, which leads to Hela getting his hand in her mouth and going 'ok, calm down, or I bite your fingers off with my hyena teeth.' He then releases a blast of "industrial waste smoke full of toxic chemicals and by products" into her mouth, and while Hela is immune she decides to chomp off his fingers. Can you tell how annoyed we were getting with this guy?

....this is the cue for Nick's OTHER character, the tech genius, to immediately teleport in, pull out his mecha-bird minion, have it shoot at Hela, and then abscond with Arlen before making the bird explode. Yeah. The immediate next post from that guy is a cringy anime-style 'ohohohoh you thought they were fucking but it's just this guy giving the other guy MAGITECH FINGERS because fuck consequences and not having all your problems immediately solved, amiright, LAUGH AT THIS.' He also shares the information about the key, which is immediately believed, of course.

Incidentally, when I point out in the skypechat that, hey, this guy is a teenager improv-ing the new fingers who has never tried to make prosthetics before/ these should be pretty much pieces of shit attached to a hand, guess how he responds! if you think 'he accepts that this makes sense and edits' then you are reading the wrong thread. We also point out how his industrial waste trick constitutes attempted murder not just of Hela but also of any bystanders.

Then it turns out he's a Neo-Nazi. This is revealed to the rest of the players when his room is described as being plastered with 'numerous fascist and far-right wing posters' his internal dialogue contains the immortal line

DIRECT QUOTE. I WENT BACK TO THE LOGS TO CHECK THIS. YOU'RE WELCOME.

Then... then. In the skype chat, the guy playing him starts complaining that his actions have CONSEQUENCES and WHY is everyone being so mean to his Literal Nazi character?? Also, THIS happens:

He then says that he intended this guy to be an Actual Serious Antagonist. Never mind that, in fact, insulting and beating up a Neo-Nazi is pretty damn fun as far as roleplay goes, this guy has no actual COMPREHENSION of what made the Nazis menacing or scary. He further complains about how no one has given him a ~chance~ never mind that it's only a few days into the RP, there is his chance right there, no one forced him to be a terrible Nazi, and that I had never even played with him before. We offer crit (such as 'your characters are ridiculously edgy' 'master manipulator is hard to pull off in general and especially in a format like this' and 'none of your characters have solid personalities.') Specifically I bring up how the only reason I can remember who Matthew is is because he's the Shirou Emiya knockoff. Nick seems to think that this is entirely because he has a dead dad, and believes this will be solved by making his dad Secretly Not Dead.

A few pages later, this guy introduces his FOURTH character. This time, a blood mage, who is one of those Expert Manipulator Sociopath So Edge types. The fact that we can see his internal monologue contains such lines as

somewhat hinders this. Oh, and it turns out that he looks very androgynous, which is Creepy and Bad.


Meanwhile! Myself and the player behind the hyena girl decide, hey, we've got this plot coupon key, let's use it. We start roleplaying our characters gathering up people we have reason to trust and formulate a plan to find an entry spot to begin a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl.

Then, classses begin! And so, too, does the traditional Gym Class Of Superpower Fights.
Arlen makes a wonderful impression on the gym teacher by fighting someone other than his assigned opponent and gets malleted for his trouble. More fight scenes, during which we all take gleeful advantage of the fact that this guy can't fightwrite for shit (who uses a RAPIER in their offhand?)

...then, as soon as the other character starts getting an upper hand, the guy starts showing off how actually broken his power is. See, his thing isn't JUST 'summoning any bladed weapon.' It's 'summoning anything that has a blade on.' A shield? add some spikes and it counts.' I point out that that's fucking broken, there's nothing stopping him from summoning the Plymouth Rock car or a gun with an attached bayonet, since both of those have blades attached. The guy tries to get me to budge by saying it's a real weapon, completely ignoring that guns with bayonets are as well. Then the person he's fighting points out, hey, they've been letting THEIR character get hit, while this guy always has a trick up his sleeve, what gives. In the end, he edits it out, but it stuck in my head because this is around the time he gets to complaining about a GM making decisions about what's 'fair' or 'balanced' or 'fun for other players.'

That scene ends, more time passes. We finalize preparation for our dungeon crawl - Hela has gone and done research in-character explaining how we'd find our entrance point, we've spoken to our group in-character, everything is set. We decide to meet at the gym, and while my character is en route, the Super Genius tries to intercept her. Naturally, because she has somewhere to be, and the only interaction she's had with this guy is when he exploded a bird in her face, she's not wild about this, and tries to extricate herself from the conversation. He then immediately starts asking her about the key. The one she has told no one else about. And in the process, his post starts comparing her behavior (ie, clearly not wanting to be in this conversation but attempting courtesy) to his poorly-written abuse backstory!


Adrienne stonewalls, and Justin begins to storm off before responding with what he clearly thinks is witty repartee insulting her for... having friends who are more attractive than he is? Adrienne facepalms at this idiocy, calls him out on being a self-centered ass, and walks off. This is rewarded with more poorly-written abuse inner monologue. I point out (internal-monologuing) that Adrienne has no idea she's just been made the latest 'woman in this narcissist's life' on the internal list, and continue on my way. It's at this point that he tries to send his OTHER character, the neo-nazi, to crash our party. We point out that he hasn't set this up at all, and that nobody was buying the Sheer Coincidence that he happened to be in our meetup spot, and furthermore none of our characters had reason to like or trust him. It's also at this time that we learn the heavily plot-relevant NPCs' appearances are dictated by random number generator. Nick edits his bit out, we get our group together, and prepare to head into the unknown. There is some further drama where some guy in conversation somehow gets elitist about earbuds when someone points out, hey, you just had your character grab my character's phone, that's not cool IC, maybe edit.

GOD DAMN that got long. If anyone wants to read my preserved logs from that time, I have them saved here, here, and here.

fake edit: ...so this is too long to fit in one post. One moment.