Biggest Rp Pet Peeve

[Terminal]

<Snipped quote by Terminal>

Why do these bother you? And is this a three way tie? (If not, pick one.)

@Lady Amalthea

Tricky one there. All three make me feel different mixtures of rage, disappointment, and disgust. I suppose the biggest MAGNITUDE of all of those would count for the purposes of your question.

Which would mean my biggest pet peeve in this specific context would be Casual Roleplayers, because that disappoints me far more than the other two do, in addition to how much the other two make me angry and disgusted.

One of the biggest flaws I perceive to exist within the framework of RPG is the way in which people use the three two different 'level' subforums. More specifically, that the posted guidelines for each subforum are at best misleading. Most of the people on this forum write as a hobby, even in advanced - which in my opinion is detrimental and contrary to the spirit of that subforum's purpose. I would like to think that the Advanced Subforum should be a place where one strives to only put forward their best effort and nothing less. People look at Advanced and think that the only qualifier for posting there should be technical ability and skill level for writing, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of Advanced Threads suffer high turnover more because of posters who treat roleplaying as a hobby, post twice, and then vanish into thin air never to be seen again.

In that framework, I would define Casual Roleplayers not only as posters who have not yet reached an advanced level of writing proficiency, but also those who lack the motivation and commitment to actually take the effort seriously. By that metric, a significant percentage of the Advanced Roleplay population - perhaps as much as 75% or more - would qualify as casual roleplayers rather than advanced.

That is my problem with casual roleplayers. Either they fail to perform at an advanced level, or else they behave below an advanced level to the detriment of people who actually take roleplaying and writing seriously, while publicly projecting the exact opposite. The disappointment I feel at how much wasted potential is present is overwhelming. Throw in some disgust comes from how their behavior in the advanced subforum damages the advanced community as a whole.

So in a way, my problem is not even with people who actually frequent the Casual Subforum. If they think they are not quite up to advanced standards or else only go there because of concerns over time and commitment, that's absolutely fine. That's exactly the reason the Casual Subforum exists, and there is no shame in pursuing a hobby and building skill over time in a (somewhat) consequence free environment. What I dislike are the Casual Roleplayers masquerading as Advanced Roleplayers who refuse to take the concept seriously. As I said earlier - if they are not prepared to put forward their best effort, then they should not be in the Advanced Subforum! We have another Subforum for that! It's called Casual!

Part of the problem is due, in my opinion, to the listed guidelines for each of the subforums. My entire rant here is based wholly on an opinionated viewpoint of what the guidelines should be, not what they actually are - and so my problem is baseless in the sense that the people I accuse of being Casual roleplayers are, by the definition of the suggested guidelines, actually Advanced. The reason I see this as a problem at all in the first place though, is because the issues I describe above are (again, in my opinion) caused in part by the inadequate guidelines.

[Shorticus]

People look at Advanced and think that the only qualifier for posting there should be technical ability and skill level for writing, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of Advanced Threads suffer high turnover more because of posters who treat roleplaying as a hobby, post twice, and then vanish into thin air never to be seen again.

That is my problem with casual roleplayers. Either they fail to perform at an advanced level, or else they behave below an advanced level to the detriment of people who actually take roleplaying and writing seriously, while publicly projecting the exact opposite.

There's an interesting point you bring up here, but I'd like to make a simple note:

Roleplaying is a hobby for everyone on these forums.

A hobby is something you don't do professionally. The only people I know of that roleplay professionally are actors, whether they be Broadway or big screen or something less famous than either of those. I suppose mimes and clowns are professional roleplayers as well. Maybe you could argue that professional writers are roleplayers? But the fact remains that if you're on this forum, you're probably here for one of two reasons:

• To improve yourself as a writer,
• Or to just have some darned fun.

A huge percentage of our population is going to be the latter. It's fun to roleplay, it's fun to write, it's fun to express yourself. Most folks are probably here for both reasons, really; you can only get better the more you write. But the fact of the matter remains: this is a darned hobby. This is a place to have fun.

Now, I am not saying that you can't take a hobby seriously. I take my hobby pretty seriously, though I'll always put real life matters (like going to college and paying bills) first. However, I care enough about roleplaying that I try to put forth good quality writing, and when I'm stumped or mentally blocked I try to figure out how the heck to overcome that. I use roleplaying to better myself as an author, and you can bet your behind that a lot of my skills as a writer are thanks to the trial and error I developed while roleplaying.

But this is still a hobby. I take it seriously, and a lot of people do, but it's still a hobby. To try and define us as anything other than hobbyists is a silly endeavor.

I agree with you that people in the Advanced section should try to not overextend themselves and should try to at least let people know when they're going to leave. They shouldn't vanish. They should produce good quality writing and show good sportsmanship as writers. But that doesn't make it a profession. We're still hobbyists.

That's all I wanted to say. Sorry about the tangent.

Nations in NRPs based purely on conquest. Not even trying to make it interesting like "they believe that by conquering other peoples, they will save them from doomsday" or "they are a dying race and were once peaceful but are now forced into war". Just pure "I want to win this NRP so fuck y'all, I can beat all of your sorry asses with a race dedicated to nothing but war even though realistically such a nation cannot sustain itself and would also be culturally dead".

@ClocktowerEchos

You just hit the nail square in the head. I don't have much more to say than "Amen" and "Preach it!"

[ClocktowerEchos]

Something else I just remembered, when people use the Nation tab, BUT ITS NOT A FUCKING NRP OR EVEN RELATING TO ONE AND THEY JUST PUT IT THERE FOR SOME GOD FUCKING REASON THAT I STILL CAN'T UNDERSTAND HOW OR WHY SOMEONE WOULD EVER FUCKING DO THAT.

/endrant

[Ace of Hearts]

<Snipped quote by Lady Amalthea>

Tricky one there. All three make me feel different mixtures of rage, disappointment, and disgust. I suppose the biggest MAGNITUDE of all of those would count for the purposes of your question.

Which would mean my biggest pet peeve in this specific context would be Casual Roleplayers, because that disappoints me far more than the other two do, in addition to how much the other two make me angry and disgusted.

One of the biggest flaws I perceive to exist within the framework of RPG is the way in which people use the three two different 'level' subforums. More specifically, that the posted guidelines for each subforum are at best misleading. Most of the people on this forum write as a hobby, even in advanced - which in my opinion is detrimental and contrary to the spirit of that subforum's purpose. I would like to think that the Advanced Subforum should be a place where one strives to only put forward their best effort and nothing less. People look at Advanced and think that the only qualifier for posting there should be technical ability and skill level for writing, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of Advanced Threads suffer high turnover more because of posters who treat roleplaying as a hobby, post twice, and then vanish into thin air never to be seen again.

In that framework, I would define Casual Roleplayers not only as posters who have not yet reached an advanced level of writing proficiency, but also those who lack the motivation and commitment to actually take the effort seriously. By that metric, a significant percentage of the Advanced Roleplay population - perhaps as much as 75% or more - would qualify as casual roleplayers rather than advanced.

That is my problem with casual roleplayers. Either they fail to perform at an advanced level, or else they behave below an advanced level to the detriment of people who actually take roleplaying and writing seriously, while publicly projecting the exact opposite. The disappointment I feel at how much wasted potential is present is overwhelming. Throw in some disgust comes from how their behavior in the advanced subforum damages the advanced community as a whole.

So in a way, my problem is not even with people who actually frequent the Casual Subforum. If they think they are not quite up to advanced standards or else only go there because of concerns over time and commitment, that's absolutely fine. That's exactly the reason the Casual Subforum exists, and there is no shame in pursuing a hobby and building skill over time in a (somewhat) consequence free environment. What I dislike are the Casual Roleplayers masquerading as Advanced Roleplayers who refuse to take the concept seriously. As I said earlier - if they are not prepared to put forward their best effort, then they should not be in the Advanced Subforum! We have another Subforum for that! It's called Casual!

Part of the problem is due, in my opinion, to the listed guidelines for each of the subforums. My entire rant here is based wholly on an opinionated viewpoint of what the guidelines should be, not what they actually are - and so my problem is baseless in the sense that the people I accuse of being Casual roleplayers are, by the definition of the suggested guidelines, actually Advanced. The reason I see this as a problem at all in the first place though, is because the issues I describe above are (again, in my opinion) caused in part by the inadequate guidelines.

@Terminal

Can you believe children play with Legos, too? God, they don't even realize those are for miniature architecture.

[Tyler Night]

My biggest pet peeves are people who use text speak in rp or short cuts.

[Katastrophe]

I've been ignored on other forums because of my fresh meat status and I worry that because I just registered yesterday on here, I won't be given that chance.

I didn't know that was a thing until it happened to me so here's to it not happening again.

Even when I casually browse off-topic threads, I like to read more than I comment so I don't know if most people assume that because I don't participate a lot, I'm not a committed player?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Ellri]

@Katastrophe We personally don't check post count or join date on anyone who try to join our RPs. When you joined the guild doesn't say anything other than that. It does not say how skilled you are, how long you write, etc.

[ArenaSnow]

I've been ignored on other forums because of my fresh meat status and I worry that because I just registered yesterday on here, I won't be given that chance.

I didn't know that was a thing until it happened to me so here's to it not happening again.

Even when I casually browse off-topic threads, I like to read more than I comment so I don't know if most people assume that because I don't participate a lot, I'm not a committed player?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Katastrophe

That shouldn't be much of a problem here.

[Katastrophe]

Thank you both, I really appreciate that!

[ArenaSnow]

Thank you both, I really appreciate that!

@Katastrophe

Worst comes to worst, shoot me a PM and I might be able to find you roleplays for various categories/writing styles if you can't find a certain thing you are looking for.

[Katastrophe]

Worst comes to worst, shoot me a PM and I might be able to find you roleplays for various categories/writing styles if you can't find a certain thing you are looking for.

@ArenaSnow

Here, have all of my thank you's and more tiny thank you's!

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

Individuals who have a blatant disregard for the premise, including the intentions governed by the Game Master themselves. In this I mean not so much a discrepancy on power or ability - it all comes down to how one uses it, because a clever character can out wit and out perform most anything else - but more so the repeated in and out of game behavior of, "My character is going to do this (or can do this) if it is valid or not, plot and party be damned." A common example I see is rewriting of the exact same material to make it appear as though it were different and then submitting it again hoping the reviewer is fooled by the illusion that the problem has some how changed.

If you were told before it was not suitable, why would you just rewrite it using different words but otherwise identical? Being more descriptive, limiting or something of the sort even might work - compromise at best - but why try to wedge something in? What is there to be really gained from having everything?

Building off that, and equally related to out of game concepts of the same tone, when you are told to alter something by a Game Master because of a perfectly valid reason, why either try to twist the intent or ignore it? This is not exactly a winning battle in any case, and if the Game Master is truly wrong and refuses to hear you out, being little more than a tyrant, perhaps you should bow out politely, but that scenario is not common. What is far, far more common are those who won't simply alter a post, which usually could have been avoided by reading the other posts in the first place, or adhering to the spirit of a topic and story.

Perhaps it stems from my mixture of tabletop optimization and start as a forum based roleplayer, but there's ways to handle these sort of situations without much issue; either revise the entire mechanism within the criteria or do not play. Admittedly I see it most where one tries to adapt a character who does not adapt well to the plot, and the adaptation is done poorly, but all the same it isn't limited there.

[Shorticus]

If you were told before it was not suitable, why would you just rewrite it using different words but otherwise identical? Being more descriptive, limiting or something of the sort even might work - compromise at best - but why try to wedge something in? What is there to be really gained from having everything?

I definitely agree this is a huge problem in general. And... really, it isn't the end of the world when you have to change your character concept.

There was one roleplay where I really wanted to play a non-human character at the start. I wanted to play with the trope of "the good monster" in a world where monsters are pretty much always evil. I had it all worked out in my head as to why this made sense, why this would be cool, and how it fit into the lore of the world. I'd done a fair bit of studying for the matter and even had a unique idea for how I'd write from the character's perspective. I was ready...

...and then I was promptly told that my character concept wouldn't fit the setting. So, what did I do? I scrapped the concept entirely and went with a completely different character, and that roleplay has been my favorite on these forums since.

Now, I'm not saying you have to stick around if your character concept gets denied. You can leave. That's a perfectly valid thing to do. What's pretty shitty would be me trying to wedge my character into a story that my character doesn't belong in, especially after the GM says "No, sorry, I don't think that fits my vision of what this roleplay is about." My character would've gotten in the way of the plot, would've had to behave very, very carefully around other players, and... Etc.

In short: folks, please just learn to either play with different concepts when asked or know when to take a bow.

[Ammokkx]

Characters that try to be too edgy in an otherwise light-hearted enviroment or setting. Not to say they can't be an ass, that I like. I meant that more as in terms of 'Why the hell are they bringing up their past, wangsting all over the place, all because someone dared talk to them?'. This is slightly gone up in ranks due to being a GM now, but even as a player I hate seeing that. I don't really want to see your edgelord 2000x backstory in every single post, and it isn't fun for anyone when your character actively repels every conversation/half the cast. We kinda want this to be a cohesive, albeit quirky group. Hating one guy is fine, but when half the PC's are against you it's gone maybe a bit too far.

Or asspulling/breaking character by using OOC knowledge. Those are amazingly annoying to.

[Arawak]

Grammar-School levels of soft science in Science Fiction roleplays.

@Terminal

I get more fed up with sci-fi RPs that lack a coherent style than sci-fi that's soft with humanoid aliens. If there's a Galaxy where lizard people and humanoid aliens are in a Cold War and cosnsitent with the mentality it is going for, I'd be fine with it.

It's when nothing has any coherency/focus or you get the try-hards who focus on "realistic sci-fi" only to proceed to make laughably cliched aliens that I start losing interest. Than again I get bothered by people who seem more concerned on the technical details on some fictional spaceship than like, a story.

I can't tell you how many NRPs I lost interest in because of that one faction which rubbed me the wrong way that was allowed to exist. It's just too many.

[Dmessenger]

my biggest pet peeve is people that create a character that is "all knowing". By this I mean when a person's character has a secret that they haven't told anyone yet and has only been mentioned as a thought bubble and another character calls them out on what the other character thought. Mind you this was in multiple rps where there were no super powers were present.

Now if a person just accidentally read a thought as them speaking that is understandable, that can be solved. I've done this, but I just don't like it when some ruins a secret that was going to be used as something to shock the characters.

[Frizan]

Writing pretty=/=Writing well

It's possible to write a very detailed novella about your character's individual actions during a given event and have actually written absolutely nothing at all. Get the important details down and fill in any major holes that you think need filling. Don't spend three paragraphs analyzing the density and temperament of the steel someone is using for their weapon. Such technical explanations are the realm of handbooks and instruction manuals.

Also, you don't need to ramble on about the individual radius of every follicle of facial hair your character has nor do you need to go into excruciating detail about the particular fabric your character prefers their pants to be made out of in order to create a good character description. It's okay to leave some blanks here and there, that's what imagination is for. As long as you get the important details down, I promise that people will understand what your character looks like and write accordingly.

[FantasyChic]

Also, you don't need to ramble on about the individual radius of every follicle of facial hair your character has nor do you need to go into excruciating detail about the particular fabric your character prefers their pants to be made out of in order to create a good character description. It's okay to leave some blanks here and there, that's what imagination is for. As long as you get the important details down, I promise that people will understand what your character looks like and write accordingly.

@Frizan

This. So much this.

When I was RPing in MMOs I found this happening more often than not. It was especially stupid considering you could see what their character looked like because..well..they were right in front of you. Yet, they still had to leave a detailed paragraph on what their hair was doing.

And if they didn't detail their looks, they detailed the environment. I can allow some detail on the surroundings, but sometimes they went to extreme limits to do this. It was also annoying because there was a text limit sometimes, you couldn't always get everything in one go, so it took them multiple times to get it going.

I haven't noticed it on here in a game yet, but it is still annoying.

[TheFiredancer]

One line script format when everyone else has already been doing paragraph(s) . Seriously! Not only do you completely ignore what everyone else is doing in a thread, but I don't have a damn thing to work off of with a one line script format! (Middle of a dialogue section, the one line can be forgiven in a Casual, but outside of that!?)

Also, god-modding/OP players and characters (GM's are god, so they don't count in this peeve). It bothers the hell out of me because, even in worlds of magical talking ponies or people with superhuman abilities or magic, there needs to be some realism at least in the personality with Player Characters... -__-

And finally, people that post out of the set order, be it a rotationary with one post per GM post or a set order, X then Y then Z then A then X et cetera. Whatever the set order, please, for the love of the GM, stick to it!

Okay, I'm done venting now...

[SleepingSilence]

When I was in highschool, me and my friends would roleplay. But it'd always seem to devolve into a word count post match. No matter how it actually added to the current story, it would be hundreds upon hundreds of words explaining how they killed a few wolves. The kind of detail that honestly gets boring to read after a while. (at least for me.)

My pet peeves from my experiences of role playing. God modding in any manner. Building overpowered characters is so commonplace, it's a challenge to balance perfectly but often most people don't try very hard. Though not just that, if you're in a roleplay that involves action, expect your character to be in danger, they can get hurt, they can die. (usually you let people make another character.) Basically, assuming your character is immortal, and people that quit or get upset because they die. There's a lot more that fits into that category. But that's my short explanation.

Another one...Quitters, without reasonable explanations. It's a real bummer when you get people into an RP and they post one or twice and you never see them again.