Experiences Biggest RP "Culture Shocks?"

[Myling]

i believe the biggest reason why gm's might not accept characters without giving them the opportunity to edit is when there are limited slots. i see this most often (and find it the most relevant!) with roleplays that have fixed roles that characters should fall into, where the character count has already been predetermined. otherwise, gm's may just want to keep the group on a smaller scale. it's obviously not for everyone and it sucks getting rejected, but as someone who prefers this system i think the reasoning is quite sound! (＾▽＾)

of course there are always those who don't fall under these categories and inexplicably reject applications in roleplays that may not require selection, but i believe this is the thought process most gm's who run application-based roleplays have. hopefully that helps you understand it a little better! ٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶

and to avoid digressing completely:
funnily enough, even though i would say my first brush with roleplay was on instagram (book fandom kids,,, you know the drill), i can't recall myself having an actual one-liner phase like i see some mention, and i transitioned into ocs quite quickly despite getting into roleplay via fandoms ( ´ ω ` ) it's surprising to say, but the more i think about it the more similarities my brief time on instagram has with my current experience on rpn! Σ(°ロ°)

i also see a ton of people talking about the coding and i cannot agree enough! that was probably the biggest difference for me, though mostly because the old sites i had been on weren't forums and didn't quite allow for coding. when i was on instagram, designing cses and aesthetics was totally a thing though, so i guess i wasn't always as far off as i thought! considering i had no prior experience w/ coding and only learnt bbcode because i thought accordions were cool, i think i've come a really long way (o˘◡˘o)

Right! I actually like application based method more, too. Even though I probably didn't sound like it lol. But I think its neat that instead of who is the fastest, your skills and creativity determines whether you get accepted ^^

I just didn't know it was a thing, so i was little surprised when I first noticed it~

 

[natsukashii]

I'm probably gonna sound hella unoriginal, but yeah, RPN's coding vs other sites/platforms i've been on has been the biggest culture shock for me. Like so many others, where I divide my RPing on, the coding potential isn't as much. It's there, but holy hell, on RPN there's just so much. And, of course, I can't make heads or tails out of it. Coding was never really my strong suit, so I'm just so happy there are so many who not only know their way around the bbcode, but are so willing to let people like me who don't to use their beautiful creations.

Another thing I suppose has been the biggest culture shock for me since coming to RPN, which it's not so much relating to rping in itself, but I found the lack of toxicity to be refreshing. The energy here vs places like in some discord servers I've rped in, some subreddits, and even some smaller rp sites is so much better. In how long I've been rping (going on 13 years now), I thought I'd be immune to things like this, yet here I am, amazed at how lovely this community is!

 

[DisneyGirl]

The writing itself was the biggest culture shock for me. If not for joining this site, I don’t think I’d be the writer I am today and I’m not even sure I would have continued to write either. It’s what makes this place so special and dear in my heart, along with all the wonderful friendships I’ve made along the way.

I grew up in the roleplay community but until RPN I had only ever done one-liners. For the record, I still love a good one liner roleplay, but it wasn’t until I challenged myself in the RP world a little that I realized maybe I could write fiction??? I had always wanted to be a ~writer~ but it wasn’t until after high school that I really started to take my writing more seriously. I didn’t have much writing experience, though, so I definitely needed improvement with things like dialogue, description, characters and plotting.

Once I jumped into the community here, however, I started trying out longer form writing because that’s what my partners were doing. At first it was just a couple of paragraphs. 200 or 300 words a post, maybe? Yet it was through this that I found out that not only could I write prose—even if it was cheesy and eye roll worthy at the time and still is at times, rofl—but I really, really enjoyed it like nothing else I have in my life. Writing felt like home.

I got more practice with dialogue and description and got to try on different characters and did a ton of brainstorming that I had never done before in my other RP circles. I was roleplaying like it was my part-time job and writing like I never had before because I had found this magical little place where my creativity could run wild. That dream to write something of my own still tugged at me. I’d only written short stories but there was a hunger for more. I had never considered it before but...could I actually write novels?

Well, I figured, why not? Roleplaying is a completely different animal than writing a novel, but all the things I had been scared of before had been things I was already doing on a daily basis thanks to my RPN roleplays. The scariest one of all?

All. Those. Words.

Could I really write 500 words a day for my story? I was already doing that and more for my 1x1s, so, heck yes I could! Everyday I have to remind myself, “Look, if you can stay up till 2am cranking out 2, 3 and sometimes 4K words (!!!!) for a post for a roleplay you love, YOU CAN WRITE THIS CHAPTER FOR A STORY YOU LOVE. PRETEND IT’S A REPLY.”

So, yeah, big culture shock but RPNation ultimately took my writing took the next level and showed me I could actually do something I was scared I wasn’t talented enough to do

 

[Lucyfer]

This was years ago, but I honestly didn't know about 1x1 RPing. It wasn't a section on the other sites I used, so until someone asked me about doing it, I had no idea. Now I do those exclusively, lol.

 

[FrostyDragon]

(hope it’s okay to revive an old topic, This one caught my interest and inspired me to post.)

Until earlier this year, it had been over a decade since I’d RPed. My original RP group moved on after our RP ended, and we didn’t really bother to try to keep in contact. Real life kept me away from RPing for a good while. I moved from England to USA to get married, then spent some years setting up a business and a new life here. The RPing craving hit me from time to time, but I never followered through.

I guess covid changed that. I find RPing is a way of escape and therapy for me. After living with Covid rampaging through our world for almost a year, that craving to get back into RPing became irresistible. I needed that escape more than ever.

I stumbled upon RPNetwork then, during my initial search for an RP community. But its size intimidated me. I joined a different place, one with a pretty low member count. I had a particular RP I wanted to run, so posted it up and quickly fell back in love with the hobby.

sadly, the rp died rather quickly. One of the big problems was that there was no, opportunity for OOC discussion, so there was no easy way to communicate with players. several had wanted to discuss on discord, but I’m not a discord fan and I was concerned about those that didn’t join the channel missing out.

I felt kinda burned by the whole thing. I’d invested time and love into the rp and felt it’s downfall could have been avoided if there’d been a way to better communicate with the group.

so, I returned to my search for an RP home and found my way back here. This time I joined!

the biggest thing that sticks out to me about this community is the efficiency of the mods - I’ve seen no issues with board related drama, no spambots posting up ads for certain NSFW subjects, and certainly no members intimidating others into doing things that make them uncomfortable. The forum is laid out very well, with RPing separated well into forums that make sense and are easy to figure out. I like that I can quickly get stuck into an rp without having to rely on mods to post or approve a topic for each and every rp I want to start.

plus, the community seems great and most of the interest checks I’ve looked at so far have been clear about expectations. I like that people here are comfortable about listing their triggers. I don’t have issues with triggers, but I love that my partner has confidence to say upfront so I don’t RP something that would really distress them.

These points, in particular, are what made RPnation stand our from the rest.

 

[x_Tasia_X]

I role played on Wattpad and Amino for most of my life. I’m very used to fast paced replies and people not matching me in literacy. Also pretty amused to looking in the ‘following activity’ section to look for new rod my friends might’ve joined and being hit in the face with smut.
Rpnation doesn’t have these things(I’m very grateful for it) and while I do sometimes miss getting fast replies I think slower replies are better for me and give me a lot more time to think about my own reply before I post it.

 

[Walliver]

Definitely the fact that you can’t look at everyone’s rps (DMs are private). On Scratch, you can see everything, anything you want to. Man, it was weird.