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

[Rilla]

At the rate original RPs die, they probably have no reason to reach out, or leave their comfort zone.

I don't leave mine venture into sci-fi. I'm not comfortable with it, so I see no reason to do it.

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Casual probably has the most offenders because it's a larger part of the site, more people go there, and primarily stay there.

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Another issue is when people, who start off weak, want to strike out alone despite it being completely bad for them to do so.

Like I was doing a Bleach RP, where ALL the player shinigami were new graduates, just now getting into their squads, and doing their first.missions.

Guy joins, no stronger than the rest, which is to say, anything with any real power comes and they are toast.

First mission he wants? Go to the Earth World. Like what? No. And he wanted it to be a solo mission.

[Pachamac]

Rilla said
Another issue is when people, who start off weak, want to strike out alone despite it being completely bad for them to do so. Like I was doing a Bleach RP, where ALL the player shinigami were new graduates, just now getting into their squads, and doing their first.missions. Guy joins, no stronger than the rest, which is to say, anything with any real power comes and they are toast. First mission he wants? Go to the Earth World. Like what? No. And he wanted it to be a solo mission.

Did you have his character die/get incredibly hurt and maimed? I often find that's the best way to teach players about things like that. ;)

[Gowi]

Can we complain about ourselves and our terrible habits? I think I’m going to do that.

I’m really sick and tired of being in this sort of role-playing purgatory where my creative passion lingers in a dead zone. I’ve never been a better writer than I am now and here I am not actively feeling the same bite I did back a few years ago (let’s say 2007 to like 2010). I mean I’ve tried all the tricks in the book to be inspired consistently and Pach full well knows my inspiration has been flaky in recent years. But every single time it disappears it is for this short ass time. I mean I think 2013 was the most active I’ve been in years for role-playing prose.

I’m also sick and tired of me subconsciously sabotaging and destroying my own role-plays by either activity, arguing, or what-have-you. I love GMing, and as much as I prefer to be a player sometimes it’s not viable. Why can’t I keep anything afloat after I finished the one role-play (saga) I finished a few years ago? It’s like I finally completed a role-play without excessive time-skips and what happens after? Everything fails. Speaking of, I have an apologetic PM to send to two people.

I’m also not sick of “anime” (could you guys find a more trite thing to generalize and complain about, really?) role-plays, I’m sick of one’s that are inconsistent or ridden with plotholes as well as quality drops.

As for less self-focused points: I don’t like the way drama always rears its head and ends up killing a role-play through reputation or just squeezing the OOC to an awkward point. But yeah, most of this was in casual role-plays. I had once a guy argue with me that my race restrictions were not appreciated by the “furry community” because I wouldn’t let him write a gary stuish fire-bending dragon in a post-apocalyptic low magic universe! The nerve of me!

I’d also like people to stick to role-plays for longer than a month on end, I know this is a very minority issue as there are months/years old projects in all three of the main role-playing sections. But some of the nice casual role-plays I liked vanished too fast for my own taste.

I’m sick of writing CS’s, but I understand why I need to.

[Innue]

Gowi said
Can we complain about ourselves and our terrible habits? I think I’m going to do that.I’m really sick and tired of being in this sort of role-playing purgatory where my creative passion lingers in a dead zone. I’ve never been a better writer than I am now and here I am not actively feeling the same bite I did back a few years ago (let’s say 2007 to like 2010). I mean I’ve tried all the tricks in the book to be inspired consistently and Pach full well knows my inspiration has been flaky in recent years. But every single time it disappears it is for this short ass time. I mean I think 2013 was the most active I’ve been in years for role-playing prose.I’m also sick and tired of me subconsciously sabotaging and destroying my own role-plays by either activity, arguing, or what-have-you. I love GMing, and as much as I prefer to be a player sometimes it’s not viable. Why can’t I keep anything afloat after I finished the one role-play (saga) I finished a few years ago? It’s like I finally completed a role-play without excessive time-skips and what happens after? Everything fails. Speaking of, I have an apologetic PM to send to two people.I’m also not sick of “anime” (could you guys find a more trite thing to generalize and complain about, really?) role-plays, I’m sick of one’s that are inconsistent or ridden with plotholes as well as quality drops. As for less self-focused points: I’m don’t like the way drama always rears its head and ends up killing a role-play through reputation or just squeezing the OOC to an awkward point. But yeah, most of this was in casual role-plays. I had once a guy argue with me that my race restrictions were not appreciated by the “furry community” because I wouldn’t let him write a gary stuish fire-bending dragon in a post-apocalyptic low magic universe! The nerve of me!I’d also like people to stick to role-plays for longer than a month on end, I know this is a very minority issue as there are months/years old projects in all three of the main role-playing sections. But some of the nice casual role-plays I liked vanished too fast for my own taste.I’m sick of writing CS’s, but I understand why I need to.

I shared the CS frustration which is why I started not requiring CS's in a strict sense. I let people start roleplaying without completing their CS under the rule that the section had to be completed and approved before it influences the roleplay. For example, combat requires you to have your powers/abilities done. So on so forth.

[Geoffrey Silt]

I find rps about, for example,\a family of sea turtles/, that live in dah sea and whatnot, normal average whatever, they don't speak English and communicate through ... Clicks? Turtles was a bad example. Anywho, they go about their daily lives then BOOM ADD SUPERPOWERS, THE TURTLES ARE NOW TECHNO DUBSTEP WARRIORS FROM THE DEPTHS OF XEFRUN. I am using turtles as an example, as I've stated. This honestly goes for most animals. Now it's cool, whatever, when you have some for of set up to make it this way, but just RANDOMLY saying *this is the norm* without much explanation. Any who, that's my go about.

Note: Just going *this is the norm* with little explanation, is bad when the case is random and ridiculous. *James the Bobcat walked across the street, and was suddenly drafted to fight in world war I where he single handedly defeated the aliens with nuclear weaponry he made from a pack of gum and a toothpick.*

Notable Note: I highly agree with Paladin. I like anime, but joyzous croist. Also, I personally think 1x1 is just private messaging smut that you want to show to the rest of the world.

[Pachamac]

Gowi said
Can we complain about ourselves and our terrible habits? I think I’m going to do that.I’m really sick and tired of being in this sort of role-playing purgatory where my creative passion lingers in a dead zone. I’ve never been a better writer than I am now and here I am not actively feeling the same bite I did back a few years ago (let’s say 2007 to like 2010). I mean I’ve tried all the tricks in the book to be inspired consistently and Pach full well knows my inspiration has been flaky in recent years. But every single time it disappears it is for this short ass time. I mean I think 2013 was the most active I’ve been in years for role-playing prose.

I’m also sick and tired of me subconsciously sabotaging and destroying my own role-plays by either activity, arguing, or what-have-you. I love GMing, and as much as I prefer to be a player sometimes it’s not viable. Why can’t I keep anything afloat after I finished the one role-play (saga) I finished a few years ago? It’s like I finally completed a role-play without excessive time-skips and what happens after? Everything fails. Speaking of, I have an apologetic PM to send to two people.

Heyas Mike!

I think it's commendable that you've taken a self examination of yourself and where you think you've gone wrong as a player and can improve. I think it's something we could all do at some point as a way to learn from our mistakes and help improve ourselves. Just so long as we don't get too self depricating about it ;)

My advice to you: Give yourself goals. One of your primary problems was staying regularly inspired and completing posts on time. The simplest way to solve that is by regularly giving yourself goals to aspire for and then make sure you achieve them. You're certainly right that you're a good writer and GM, but you tend to flake a lot. The best way of combatting this is by setting yourself a consistent date/time to write a post and then doing it. Don't put it off, just write. Even if the post isn't exactly stellar and great writing, just post it. It's incredibly hard at first but once you get into the swing and rythym of it and find your mojo, it becomes a lot, lot easier.

I think the best thing you can do is to slowly ease yourself back into this: Start off by creating a rp that's relatively simple and easygoing, not one with a lot of lore and mechanics involved, at least not yet, but something small and simple to start with. It's better to ease yourself back in first then it is to jump at the deep end and aspire for too much. Establish a posting frequency for it that is relatively frequent, be it once every two or three days, and then strive to always achieve it, no matter what. If the rp's relatively simple, then writing posts should be a lot simpler and easier to respond to as well. And not just for you, but any applying players as well. The aim of this is to help keep you consistently posting and becoming involved with your rp, and with the (hopeful) consistent posting from your players as well, it should hopefully help to motivate you and maintain the momentum of the rp as well. Later on it can always begin to grow and flourish and become more wonderfully detailed from there. Honestly, I want you to discover that spark of fun that comes with rping be rekindled inside yourself again, and I think easing back into it with a simple rp and set personal goals can really help with that, I think.

I'm on FB if you wanna/need a chat.

[vancexentan]

Since I had a massive comment already to respond to Paladin only for it not to get posted her because site issues I'll sum it what I said in a couple sentences...

Originality isn't always what's best. If the person doesn't know how to make the roleplay work or the roleplayers expect something different than it goes down the drain. Also the problem with original roleplays being LACK OF PRECEDENT. I tried an advanced rp before guild fall and it failed miserably partly because of my lack of experience as a gm at that point but mostly due to the fact that there was no map, no really deep lore behind it, and things were overly complicated. Likewise rp's revolving around super heroes I've noticed, like superman, batman, and the like have relatively short life spans while when I look at anime roleplays while most have likewise the same problem I know of at least one bleach roleplay that has done extremely well for itself.

If I make a custom rp I can't point to something and say this person did this unless there's lore behind it and then if the person on the other side doesn't understand it then you out of luck as opposed to say mobile suit gundam where I can say, "Hey Char did this and that and Amuro did this and that and beat him by doing super move A." Also there's the fact that anime roleplays are easier to roleplay since the person who goes into it knows what to expect as opposed to say a mafia rp (which I went into detail on in the previous post but since you know I won't go into it again) where it should be about the crimes and gang fights and the loyalty of brothers and sisters in the mafia in other words the made men. It's not supposed to be drama heavy unless that's the intent. The reason I enjoyed Mafia 2's start is because it's a simple. You're doing these things because that's what made men do and or that's how a person reacts to that. If I made a Mafia roleplay I'd place it around the lower ranking guys and have them running around doin' their jobs and getting into fights then relax at a bar or have a time to take in what just happened. Rinse, repeat, have fun and don't take it to seriously unless that's what the scenario calls for. Not have some heavy intrigue based roleplay where its a game of thrones with gangsters.

[Dervish]

Expanding on what Vance said, the biggest hurdle original roleplays have is it requires players to learn a new set of lore and all the details of a setting, like races, locations, important events, and all sorts of other stuff including rules about technology, magic, factions and relationships. It's kind of an uphill battle, and the best original RPs keep things accessible, which can often mean using beat to death tropes, like a fantasy RP that uses elves, dwarves and humans verses orcs and dragons kind of deal. If your potential players are spending more time trying to keep your overly original setting straight instead of focusing on character development or roleplaying, you may be in trouble. It's kind of like if you join a fandom RP you have never seen the source material for, only there's no wiki to save you.

This is a part of the reason I prefer fandom RPs because people already know the setting and most of the lore, all they have to worry about is making a good character and playing. The thing some people don't seem to realize is that somebody running a fandom based RP can be just as creative as somebody making a totally original world; they still have to come up with a captivating plot and keep players invested, which requires quite a bit of dedication.

Plus, it's fun to tell stories in a world you love to flesh out that universe a bit more.

[vancexentan]

I appreciate you expanding on what I said and I agree one hundred percent dervish.

[Pachamac]

The moment when joining a new rp and needing to read through a giantass bible full of lore and mechanics etc to the point where it feels like homework and a chore is when the rp's already lost me.

Agreed perfectly.

[Gowi]

I like "bibles of lore", it makes me look at an established and consistent universe. Though there should be was a GM can "summarize" it per ce to make it easy to get into over "go read the wiki".

[vancexentan]

For what? A roleplay that may very well die or not get enough people in it? Most of the people I've seen short of advanced wouldn't have the enthusiasm you do. It's like cramming all of Mobile Suit Gundam into one short story it'd be not interesting to read unless you experience it for yourself. If someone told me the story of Avatar the last airbender in a compressed way it'd be like this (SPOILERS AHEAD TOOT TOOT!):

The One Hundred Year War between the Fire Nation and the Earth Nation happened after the Fire Nation suddenly attacked the Air Nation killing all of it's people and forcing the avatar into flee. One hundred years after the initial impact of the war, the avatar awoke from an ice berg and started out on his travels to master the five elements and defeat the fire lord to restore balance to the world with the aid of his friends. The Avatar proceeded to aid in the defense of The Northern Water Tribe while avoiding the exiled fire prince zuko. He then proceeded to go to the Earth kingdom where his journey unfortunately failed and proceeded to cause the Earth King's last capital city to fall to traitorous Dai Li Agents led by the exiled prince's younger sister while the exiled prince re-joined his nation. After that the avatar went into hiding and eventually attacked the fire nation but due to knowledge leaking out previously they failed. Then they were joined by the exiled prince whom felt remorseful from his actions and with his help they managed to stop the fire lord and restore peace to the world.

Sounds generic doesn't it?

[Gowi]

I run dedicated original settings, some of which have been around for awhile. I like role-playing in these with my players (and new players) so as a GM I have to make sure they don't have to read an encylopedia. If I wanted to run my medieval fantasy I would have to explain the setting, some terminology, the timeline, the races, and how magic works. I'm not going to explain it in one sentence, but I'm not going to force a prospective new player to have to read six paragraphs of the history of magic and it's laws and the organizations in them. A good role-play lets players know what they are getting into and explain it so they aren't lost in the dark.

Also, that above summary you just posted was absolutely terrible and not because it was a summary.

[Psyga315]

vancexentan said forcing the avatar into flee.

I thought he ran off because of the pressures of being the Avatar or something along those lines.

[vancexentan]

If that is so then you are better than running original roleplays than I am and the ones that I have seen. If so props to you for being able to do so. However I'm just going to drop this Gowi not because I don't believe I can further argue but because nothing I say will change your stance nor will it be productive and not end in a way that would cause the mods to close the thread. If the others would like to argue on that is fine.

Also yes I made that error Psy. I was trying to make a condensed version of the basic events of avatar. But sake of just putting it out there that could also be argued as the general consensus of what happened to Aang by the general public. I would believe that most people assumed the avatar vanished due to the air bender genocide and has not reappeared being that he fled from the war and went somewhere.

[Psyga315]

vancexentan said
Also yes I made that error Psy. I was trying to make a condensed version of the basic events of avatar. But sake of just putting it out there that could also be argued as the general consensus of what happened to Aang by the general public. I would believe that most people assumed the avatar vanished due to the air bender genocide and has not reappeared being that he fled from the war and went somewhere.

Ah, okay then. Sorry about that.

[Brian Stryker]

While new to this website, I've been rping since i was a freshman in high school (2006). One thing that always bugs me is rp length. I don't think everyone needs to be a master but it annoys me when I give this long detailed response and all I get is a few sentences that completely derails it.

[vancexentan]

I know that feel Brian.

[Prince]

>.> I rewrote a solid 100 years of history for my Avatar roleplay, changing its entire geo-political background while keeping certain select themes. You can use the wiki, but I had to format a lot of information to be applicable. There's also another thought. A wikia isn't a bible of Lore. If you actually look at a Wikia, most pages are fairly short and wrote by fans; it's the central characters that have the most substantial length. If you remove them, chances are, you don't actually have a whole lot in terms of core information. Additionally, a lot of it is plot-based references. Again, this are often irrelevant or only needed for minor citation if you're doing an AU. A continued universe, however (common in Star Wars, Naruto, etc) would find those more useful.

I do like to have available information, though. I've recently became part of a One Piece RP. I haven't followed One Piece since like episode 35, but I was able to do amplitudes of research to create depth, understand the universe, etc. Something to bitch about, I'd say, is either a) a lack of needed information or b) a GM and/or other person responsible for providing information that won't. Fact is, to create anything in depth, you have to have a source. The more your source provides or can provide, the better quality things will be. Even when writing a research paper, not all your quotes, citations and sources will make it into your paper, but likely many of them will have been part of the rough draft, initial writing process or merely brainstorming. The more information and input available, the more you have to work with. Simple. Even if it doesn't make the final cut.

[Rare]

Brian Stryker said
While new to this website, I've been rping since i was a freshman in high school (2006). One thing that always bugs me is rp length. I don't think everyone needs to be a master but it annoys me when I give this long detailed response and all I get is a few sentences that completely derails it.

Which is why you might want to go to Free.