Viewpoint Unpopular roleplay opinions?

I agree. I love a good animal companion character.

Oh man, I'm still sad this one RP died before my character's friend who went to buy a dog for my character, came back with the puppo. He picked the dog out and everything, but my character never got to meet it. D:
 
Veery unpopular opinion judging from the threads, but:
Unless you're doing erp or heavy sexual content, there's no need to feel uncomfortable rping with people under 18.
 
Veery unpopular opinion judging from the threads, but:
Unless you're doing erp or heavy sexual content, there's no need to feel uncomfortable rping with people under 18.
It's a liability thing, particularly in 1x1s and off-site RPs. Roleplaying online with a minor just comes off as sketchy, even if it's SFW.

But I will say that not letting under 18's participate in an on-site group RP because you don't think they can handle the content is probably being overly cautious.
 
I will admit I have not read through all 40 pages of comments, and I barely feel as though I have the right to share for not doing so.. but I love to see that of those I have read, that there are folks out there who share some of my own unpopular opinions. I am not alone!

I would like to add that I feel there is a very fine line between playing a character with a sassy and spicy attitude, and one who crosses over into being condescending. It's such an overplayed personality type as it is, and it's difficult to do without putting real thought into it to avoid drifting into 'superiority complex' territory. You know what I want to see more of? Characters who are humble, and maybe even mildly unlucky at times - all opportunities for the character to grow.
 
I think ghosting / ditching / ignoring / blocking is both an acceptable and reasonable route out of a roleplay situation a player doesn't want to be in. People aren't required to divulge why if they don't want to RP and are not beholden to a partner because they initially agreed to RP with them.
i just saw this but 👏👏👏 y e s
 
Veery unpopular opinion judging from the threads, but:
Unless you're doing erp or heavy sexual content, there's no need to feel uncomfortable rping with people under 18.

Honestly hard agree. If some parent had a problem with their kid learning about homesteading and magical goat subspecies I feel like the internet should not be a place for their kid. Cuz that’s like the most PG stuff you can possible do. (signed a platonic fantasy role player who likes magical goats)
 
Honestly hard agree. If some parent had a problem with their kid learning about homesteading and magical goat subspecies I feel like the internet should not be a place for their kid. Cuz that’s like the most PG stuff you can possible do. (signed a platonic fantasy role player who likes magical goats)
Yeah but a lot of people don't do role plays like that. Like I think a lot of parents might have a problem with their child role playing being captured or being a killer.
 
People put too much effort into trying to be "different" and forget that they should write a good character first. Everything has been written before, you might as well enhance the original idea rather than trying to be too unique and lose sight of the themes and focus on your character.
 
I have such a big internal dilemma about this. I totally agree with you, and I am the first one to admit that inspiration comes, most part of the time, from other works, but at the same time I always think that my characters/plots are clichés, and therefore I abandon the idea. It's rather frustrating.
In the end I guess that one can build up great characters/stories by using clichés, I just hace a hard time doing so 😅

the key to working with cliches and stereotypes is two fold.

1. don’t make all your characters the same stereotype or cliche. Especially if your doing a cliche/stereotype of a minority community. Ex. Making one black character a drug dealer is fine. Making all of your black characters drug dealers is a problem.

2. Give a reason for the cliche. Don’t just write down random traits try to think how the character would get those traits. Ex. If your black character is a drug dealer, why? Why do they sell drugs? What kind of drugs do they sell? What is their organization like? What other opportunities do they have?

Basically take the surface level traits and ask yourself the question why. It’s your world so you can make up the answers. But the point is always there has to be a reason why. And that reason can’t just be because I said so.
 
People put too much effort into trying to be "different" and forget that they should write a good character first. Everything has been written before, you might as well enhance the original idea rather than trying to be too unique and lose sight of the themes and focus on your character.
Honestly I'd love to see a superhero role play of extreme stereotypes, think Karens, British tea sipping aristocrats, angry Jhadi Muslims, gun obsessed Americans and fat taco munching Mexicans. Oh, and a drunken Russian bear.

Bring on the madness :)
 
Honestly I'd love to see a superhero role play of extreme stereotypes, think Karens, British tea sipping aristocrats, angry Jhadi Muslims, gun obsessed Americans and fat taco munching Mexicans. Oh, and a drunken Russian bear.

Bring on the madness :)
That would actually be amazing.
 
No one cares how much you can write. Stating that you’re a novella writer just means you’re a pompous douche.
 
No one cares how much you can write. Stating that you’re a novella writer just means you’re a pompous douche.

Honestly, it depends. If a person is looking for a casual and laid-back RP experience then length should not matter. However, if you're viewing it more with the lens of being collaborative story-telling then length can often be important as it drives plot and character development(unless the majority of the response is purple prose).
 
It's more graphically and technically primitive (while ironically more mechanically complex), but if you liked Skyrim I would suggest looking at Morrowind as being a vastly more interesting setting with a more sophisticated story.
 
M Mesenterium my point is that a cliche is a series of traits that people use as short hand. Ex. "Clumsy shy girl = Nerd." "Peppy blonde girl = Cheerleader" and so and so forth. These are not invalid personality types just because they are written about alot. I can assure you from personal experience that there are blonde peppy girls that are cheerleaders IRL and there are shy clumsy girls that are nerds.

A cliche is only an issue if you assume two things

1. Every character has to be the same. So all cheerleaders have to be blonde OR all nerdy girls are shy/clumsy. That is not only untrue it makes for a boring assortment of characters. After all if your character is just one of the crowd how do they stand out?

2. You don't give an explanation for the character being the way they are. Why is your character clumsy? Why are they a cheerleader? That is what I meant. If your character has an explanation for acting the way they do then it's not a cliche. It's a well-rounded character. So what if other people have written the same character? Or the same backstory? I mean just because other blonde cheerleaders exist out in the world doesn't mean your character can't also be a blonde cheerleader. As long as you make them a blonde cheerleader for a reason.
 
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My pet peeves with cliches are:

A: When people are assuming a character is auto cliche and make assumptions.

Examples- Auto assume all nomad tribes fall under barbarian rules. Person working in library is a helpless 'nerd'.

B:. If you make a character not the cliche they make it a huge plot point to make s huge deal about it.

"OMG! You are a computer expert but still in great shape! Let me somehow twist this into a utter fascination too many people have and a Deux ex machina."
 
Examples- Auto assume all nomad tribes fall under barbarian rules. Person working in library is a helpless 'nerd'.

As an actual librarian I find it amusing how many people have this weird stereotypical view of librarians and how resistant they are to changing it. I have worked in a library for almost thirteen years and last weekend my mom had the nerve to flat out tell me I didn’t know how libraries were run cuz I told her the stereotype about this quite place were people read books isn’t an accurate depiction of the services library offer. She literally tried to pull a definition off google to prove that I (the person trained and actively working as a librarian) didn’t know what I was talking about.

So yeah the helpless nerd thing is weird to me. Like y’all think dealing with the public is something a bunch of shy wilting flowers can do every week?
 
I'm not a fan of dialogue towers. By which I mean, I can't stand it when there are multiple points of conversation happening in a single reply (often divided up by paragraph) because it literally makes no sense, temporally speaking.

If character A talks about the weather, then weapons training, and then something about, oh, I don't know, books - and character B reacts to all three items, congratulations, you now have 3 separate conversations happening simultaneously that don't lead into one another.

It just feels like word count padding. I get that it's more efficient in revealing info about your character, but. It's just so messy!
 
My pet peeves with cliches are:

A: When people are assuming a character is auto cliche and make assumptions.

Examples- Auto assume all nomad tribes fall under barbarian rules. Person working in library is a helpless 'nerd'.

B:. If you make a character not the cliche they make it a huge plot point to make s huge deal about it.

"OMG! You are a computer expert but still in great shape! Let me somehow twist this into a utter fascination too many people have and a Deux ex machina."

Now I kind of want to do a RP with a nomadic tribe that is incredibly scholarly. Perhaps they're nomadic because they want to travel around and learn more about the world.
 

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