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

[Kestrel]

Jig said
snip

I'm not saying don't converse or plot stuff OOC, I'm saying you don't have to read the character sheet to do so.

Locking yourself was meant as in forgoing character development. I think the rest is moving away from 'should people read character sheets or not' discussion though.

Pachamac said
No, not at all. I don't require or expect people to read my CSes. Even if they did or didn't I would still read every other player's because again I think it's common courtesy and simple nicety. If they've gone to the effort of writing it out, then as someone who may be playing and rping with them it's a simple, nice thing to read their input and work.

Common courtesy suggests a behaviour you would expect from most people. That's my gripe, not whether it's nice or not.

Scout said
Well, Kestrel, I'm not saying that I need them to read it and tell me what i did right. But imagine an RP where the characters have spent years together training or practicing or becoming specialized in *something.* It would be entirely necessary to at least discuss what their relationship is, even if it's as small as "they barely know each other" - they would still know a little bit about one another.

Which I covered when I mentioned mixing back-stories, yeah.

[Genkai]

For me, I hate when players drop due to lack of interest. (In a 1x1 sense, as groups are a different ballpark...)

If someone isn't interested anymore or is bored, I would think they would speak up and help fix their problem, rather than walk away from it entirely. In a one on one, two people are communicating to ensure they're both enjoying a story they make together. If one is unhappy, the signs aren't hard to miss and yet it always goes beyond the point of fixing a stale point or plot. The bored player doesn't speak up until they've given up and the other player is already resigned, possibly expecting their partner to drop. So why can't someone speak up and be proactive rather than passive? I understand that sometimes the content itself (the setting for example) is getting dull but if the plot and roles need to change, that shouldn't be a difficult thing to do. So many people in one on ones walk away from their partner without trying to fix it or at least have some closure.

I think both parties are at fault.

But the more criminal one in my eye, is the one who walks away without an attempt to fix it or start something else.

So when partners leave, I feel like my time has been wasted, as has my outreach to befriend them. Sure, some RPs can be called off on nicer terms but usually, I invest myself into a RP. When it's ended prematurely and without a good enough fight to keep it going, it pisses me off. People will lose interest in things though, it happens. What pisses me off is when they give up and don't try to make things work. No, I'm not advocating that RPs should be forced to continue if the writers aren't happy. I just think writers should be more considerate of those they end up ditching without trying to mend it. After all, if they're bored, they are ultimately the ones who need to figure out how to stay interested or to change something to make them care again.

[SoleAccord]

People who make zero effort to try and write anything even after you've given them perfectly good ideas, then drop out due to 'getting bored' when they put no effort forward to begin with. I am sick and tired of having to hold hands with grown men because they lack any creativity whatsoever, and equally mad when people say they're busy but are posting freely elsewhere.

Hope people that do that catch a disease, I'm fed up reading excuses and lies.

[soph]

SoleAccord said
.Hope people that do that catch a disease, I'm fed up reading excuses and lies.

Because of something on the internet? Nope.

You should never wish illness/possible death on ANYBODY, except for people that have murdered/completely broken the law in many, many ways. See, that's what I don't get. People who wish death on other people over the internet.

[SoleAccord]

LowKey123 said
Because of something on the internet? Nope. You should never wish illness/possible death on ANYBODY, except for people that have murdered/completely broken the law in many, many ways. See, that's what I don't get. People who wish death on other people over the internet.

Didn't wish death, I said disease, can't cure death but you can cure disease.

[soph]

SoleAccord said
Didn't wish death, I said disease, can't cure death but you can cure disease.

Yes, but it's still almost unbearable and it stops you from doing some things.

[SoleAccord]

LowKey123 said
Yes, but it's still almost unbearable and it stops you from doing some things.

Good thing I didn't say how terrible and crippling it would be to their everyday lives and left it up to imagination then. I'm annoyed, I'm releasing that annoyance through bitching, please let me do that.

[Imperfectionist]

SoleAccord said
People who make zero effort to try and write anything even after you've given them perfectly good ideas, then drop out due to 'getting bored' when they put no effort forward to begin with. I am sick and tired of having to hold hands with grown men because they lack any creativity whatsoever, and equally mad when people say they're busy but are posting freely elsewhere.

...It's possible that the "perfectly good" ideas weren't actually as good as you thought. Before you go wishing illness on people because you're frustrated, look at yourself, and see if you've given these people any reason to stay.

[SoleAccord]

Imperfectionist said
...It's possible that the "perfectly good" ideas weren't actually as good as you thought. Before you go wishing illness on people because you're frustrated, look at yourself, and see if you've given these people any reason to .

More than enough creative suggestions were offered to let them continue writing, but they didn't put any effort into using them and didn't try to communicate with any of us so we could help them. There were plenty of friendly people who were happy to help, and they chose not to communicate with any of us, thus I'm here bitching about it. I know some of them from another site, so I'm not surprised, but that doesn't change the irritation that comes from it. You couldn't understand unless you were there, so it's just going to be easier for you to assume I'm the bad guy when I tell you I gave them material they could have used and think it was bad. Some people just don't take help they're given and back out because of it. Not everyone is guiltless when someone else calls it out. That being said unless you're in my shoes you're probably not going to understand my own perspective, but don't leap to the defense of the very type of people I'm complaining about. And don't take 'diseases' that seriously, because I'm not, it was just to better convey how irritable I am about the matter.

Let me bitch like the thread is meant to allow before this gets derailed and closed like the last one, I at least feel better getting it out without a flame war ensuing.

[Prince]

It's nice to see that there's still friction, even without my presence; although, admittedly, I've just been busy.

I do have the ability to relate to Accord here. There have been situations where I feel like I have had to hold the hand of a roleplayer as they 'designed' a character for a more advanced setting without the real ability or experience to do so. In the instances where a character must be tethered quite heavily to a setting, by methods such as prior plot exposure or supervised fabrication of new events, additions and editions to the roleplay, some players simply aren't far enough along the developmental pathway to perform these tasks as sufficiently as one would wish for the roleplay. In such situation, I grow intensely frustrated when, at those points, said players become ungrateful for the time, effort and in some more radical cases the fact you made a majority of the character for them to play. This is most evident when there is any kind of IC ranking system or stratification that these players wish to be part of. At these times, when several alternatives have been handed out and when you have given every extra inch that is available, frustration is inevitable.

This is an instance, primarily, where a many of those here would have simply weeded out the individual far beforehand as they seemed to lack the potential to effectively participate, so this is a level of frustration I don't see a whole lot of people here... being very sympathetic with. I make personal efforts to outreach to players willing to put forth as much effort as you do in character creation. No player will ever get better if they're continuously denied, or not given advanced experience; trial by fire, even if they get burned, often teaches far more than attaining tons of experience in lower tier roleplays.

Regardless, there is another point to be made. An idea that is 'good' to the GM or 'good' to a Lore Master might not be the elements that a roleplayer is working for. It is hugely important to keep in mind that within all characters exists the potential for intricacies, logical (often psychological) justifications and overall a central theme being aimed for. Nothing is 'perfectly' good regardless. It is important to remember that essentially all things are subjective to personal interpretation. That said, I again don't feel like this issue at all is one related to skill as much as it is one related to attitude and the Roleplayer-GM dynamic. This isn't a single-sided situation here, and we don't know the exact details, and I highly doubt a thread dedicated to judging situations such as these in an unbiased, courtroom style manner would last long or even hold much real importance aside from entertainment value.

[Lillian Thorne]

SoleAccord said
Good thing I didn't say how terrible and crippling it would be to their everyday lives and left it up to imagination then. I'm annoyed, I'm releasing that annoyance through bitching, please let me do that.

Except that wishing ill on someone for not meeting your entertainment needs is in no way Fonz cool and not a necessary component of "bitching". Feel free to bitch but let's not wish harm on people, degree of harm doesn't really matter.

[SoleAccord]

It's not about entertainment demands, its about failing to commit when you have a cast entirely willing to help you get involved, and then claiming 'boredom' when you hadn't been engaged to begin with, not only wasting their time but everyone else's too. Just a huge slap to the face of everyone who bothered to read what you did manage to bring to the table.

But seeing as this is a pretty big deal for some people, guess I won't do it again.

EDIT - And just so there's no confusion, its not the fact they wanted to leave, its the reason behind it. That's my real problem, ignoring the resources you have at your disposal and suggestions people offered just to say 'nah' and not try to rekindle the fires at all. It's not cool.

[Prince]

Oh man, Lillian took on a sexy new image.

[Imperfectionist]

Hmm. Alright, yeah, I'm getting a better picture of what you mean, Accord. I'll freely admit that after the "diseases" comment, I was seeing you as an arrogant GM who thought his ideas were so great that no one could possibly get bored with them... I'm sorry for misinterpreting.

Honestly, though, I do think these people should be cut a little slack. Like Prince said, no one is ever going to learn their style and the RPs that best fit them if they're constantly rejected from everything they want to try... Dealing with that sometimes inevitable disappointment is another integral part of GMing. Over time, some people just aren't going to click with you, or your style, or with the group, and when they don't click, they don't have fun. When they don't have fun, the RP (no matter how excited they were at the beginning) is suddenly a chore, and they're stuck. They feel like they have some responsibility to stay and muscle through it, and they know that the GM and the group would probably be very frustrated if they just left (-cough cough-)... And that's where the excuses come in. They tell themselves, and the GM, that they'll "work on a post soon" or that they "just need some time to work out a character thing", or whatever, when they know they probably won't have the motivation to actually follow through.

My point is, guilting people into continuing an RP (something that is quite time consuming, and done for entertainment) when they really don't want to is futile, and even rather a bit cruel. The GM in this situation needs to accept the disappointment, accept the frustration and simply move on. Sometimes that person was absolutely integral to the plot, and their leaving ruins the entire game. That sucks, and if that happened to me, bitching would indeed be the response, but even then, you move on. You make new RPs. You talk to the other people in the group, and see if you can get it restarted, see if you can work around the absence.

Sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes it might even bring you to tears, but that's the job. Players are just people, widely varied and always changeable, and unless you always play with people you've known for years (and every once in a while, especially if that is the case), you aren't going to get perfect players every time. You're going to get disappointed, and you have to work through it.

--

EDIT: Funnily enough, this very thing happened with me a while back, in a game that Lillian was running ( I like the new avi/sig, by the way). I was the player, the person who loved the setting, loved the plot, made a character who I thought could be quite interesting to play, and even started off a bit of early drama with the villains... And then it just lost me. Hours I spent, trying to write a good post, trying to contribute to the story, and it wouldn't come. I was actually even brought to tears just writing Lillain a PM about how much trouble I was having, that's how emotional it was. I was so ashamed, so angry at myself. I was in an RP with Lillian goddamn Thorne, and I was fucking it up. Jesus, that sucked so much...

I ended up killing the character off there at the beginning, and that was that. I was out, and I felt a thousand times more free, even if I was disappointed in how poorly I had handled it. In the end, the most healthy thing to do was just to leave.

I realize this isn't exactly an equivalent situation to the "boredom", but I thought it would be good to bring it up.

EDIT 2: Oops, I forgot to mention that Lillian was very understanding, and handled the situation as I think a good GM should. :) She helped to provide an interesting exit, I left the game, and there was no bad blood between us or anything like that.

[vancexentan]

I hate it when everyone is interested in a roleplay then all of a sudden they hardly ever post and then they all take their time and then the GM get's busy and then it dies because everyone gets bored of the roleplay.

[DrawnIn]

Personally I always get a little annoyed with 'mindreaders'. Sometimes, in RP's that have no fantasy in them at all, there's these people who consistently make their character respond to things mine is thinking.

Also people who join an RP with an elaborate plot or lots of important information and then proceed to.. not read any of that at all. Those people kind of get on my nerves.

[vancexentan]

I feel you with that. It's one of the main drawbacks to post by post people think they can just react to whatever the other guy is thinking.

[Jig]

That's called meta-gaming, and it's the third (and often forgotten) sin of PbP RPing, along with godmoding and powerplaying.

[DrawnIn]

Ah, thanks for the explanation ^^ I actually didn't know it had a specific name, to be honest.

[Jig]

Meta-gaming is, more widely, using OoC information as the player, resulting in the character having access to knowledge (or just instinct) - as you put it, telepathically knowing what your character is thinking - that they shouldn't have access to.

I'm of the opinion that a little bit of meta-gaming is necessary to have your character in the right time in the right place for the story, but done carelessly, it feels really annoying, as you know.