Other Common problem?

[Idek9000]

Hey. Don't know if you guys have had these kinds of rpers before. Ever had flakey rp partners? Not in the traditional sense but more like they get bored like way too quick with something and it's just like.... It's the first day in the rp world and you've already lost interest....

 

[Idea]

Yeah it happens a lot. It's the natural consequence of the "it's just a hobby" approach, when taken too far, since roleplaying is a lot more of a hobby like fishing than it is, say, watching TV. You need to put in effort and to have patience because building up to what makes things worth it and slow moments are an inevitable part of it. Many, however, expect immediate gratification the whole way through and take that if they are not having fun at every moment, that means the roleplay itself is lacking and therefore leave it.

Well, it's not always like this of course, sometimes a player will just be testing the waters and decide to leave sooner rather than later if they realized they wouldn't be as interested in the kind of roleplaying being set up than they previously thought. This happen especially in hype-driven roleplays where the person created or joined because they were still caught up on the hype of something and out of sheer excitement for the idea, without really giving it time to see whether the idea can survive when the hype inevitably dies down.

Another common case is when two players find that are a mismatch or that their styles are incompatible. The best way to avoid this, I learned, is to really make a thorough check of the person's preferences in style and see whether they match up with yours. For an extremely detail-heavy RPer such as myself, and one with requirements of length, quality, thread placement and my personal enjoyment of playing in first person, it really snowballs into my Rps dropping like flies due to technical details if I don't filter them properly in the first place.

 

[Idek9000]

I don't know if this is similar but there was once an Rper who I met that I should have seen for what they were. Messaged them by the mistake of being too tired to see that they were really only interested in a universe that I didn't actually know. ( an mmorpg of all things. I've never played it I'm afraid). I wish I hadn't messaged them and I wish they had warned me just how indifferent they truly were to anything that wasn't x unamed rpg. They flopped out of the rp not even half an hour of in universe time. Like if this niche fandom is the only thing you want to do, don't get my hopes up and pretend to be open minded about doing other things if you really just want to do that one thing. Justs say outright that you're just not interested in anything that isn't x.

 

[Idea]

Like if this niche fandom is the only thing you want to do, don't get my hopes up and pretend to be open minded about doing other things if you really just want to do that one thing. Justs say outright that you're just not interested in anything that isn't x.

Yep, definitely agree with that last part. It's why I dismiss threads or requests that say "they will do anything", since you can't possibly actually be passionate about everything, you do have preferences, that's not an optional thing. It is also why I recommend honesty and honestly stating one's preferences in my guide to making a good interest check.

 

[PhoenixMire]

Yeah it happens a lot. It's the natural consequence of the "it's just a hobby" approach, when taken too far, since roleplaying is a lot more of a hobby like fishing than it is, say, watching TV. You need to put in effort and to have patience because building up to what makes things worth it and slow moments are an inevitable part of it. Many, however, expect immediate gratification the whole way through and take that if they are not having fun at every moment, that means the roleplay itself is lacking and therefore leave it.

Well, it's not always like this of course, sometimes a player will just be testing the waters and decide to leave sooner rather than later if they realized they wouldn't be as interested in the kind of roleplaying being set up than they previously thought. This happen especially in hype-driven roleplays where the person created or joined because they were still caught up on the hype of something and out of sheer excitement for the idea, without really giving it time to see whether the idea can survive when the hype inevitably dies down.

Another common case is when two players find that are a mismatch or that their styles are incompatible. The best way to avoid this, I learned, is to really make a thorough check of the person's preferences in style and see whether they match up with yours. For an extremely detail-heavy RPer such as myself, and one with requirements of length, quality, thread placement and my personal enjoyment of playing in first person, it really snowballs into my Rps dropping like flies due to technical details if I don't filter them properly in the first place.

All of this can be true.
Or maybe they just have ADD.
Idk if I have ADD for sure, but I certainly have a crappy attention span lol

 

[Jannah]

I'm the type of RPer who gets bored quickly. It's usually because I get an idea in my head thinking it would be fun to write out, but then once I actually do it's like "hmm...this is lame now." A lot of my ideas would also be better for novels, but I can't be arsed to write novels. I rarely finish anything I start because I get stuck trying to figure out plot. Worldbuilding and character development I'm good at, but the minute it comes to deriving an actual plot all my ideas fall flat.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

Like, five last partners in a row were like this. I do not exaggerate.

I just sigh and shrug it off. It's not like me feeling anything about it would do any good, though I sure as hell won't be spending any more time coming up with something for them. There might be multiple reasons for what they do and why they do it, but, honestly, after a while I just stopped caring, and started hoping that one day I shall find a responsible player who'll click with me, and we'll create a story longer than three posts.

Worst part for me is, such people usually drive me off from a plot I was so excited about, as it now filled with negative connotations. And this I hate. I do not want to put my heart into something over and over again to get disappointed. I fear getting my most passionate and convoluted ideas out there in the search threads, because of people who just stop two posts in, who'd ruin it for me. So I go for idle RPs instead. If the person doesn't ghost, then maybe I'll offer them one of the good ones later. That, however, is yet to happen here.

 

[tinydollxo]

I can be pretty flaky myself.

I fluctuate from being very relaxed and peaceful to being very scatterbrained and anxiety ridden. Sometimes I have zero motivation and then a switch will flip and I'll have so much flow I can't get it all written out. I like to put a lot of effort into my characters and sometimes that takes me a while, so it puts me off a little bit if someone wants to start our rp right away. Don't get me wrong, sometimes we mesh really well and we can get things going, but more often than not, I need some time. So if someone is hounding me for replies, I'll bail. If someone doesn't seem like they're even putting much effort into their replies or they're hurrying because they want to rush things along, I'll bail.

Also, I work a lot and teach yoga on the side, so sometimes I'll be around for a bit day to day but other times I'll be gone for 3-7 days and when I come back I feel like they've probably lost interest and I'm too embarrassed to ask so I bail, lol. I know it's shitty but I am probably one of those flaky people you're talking about.

 

[PhoenixMire]

I can be pretty flaky myself.

I fluctuate from being very relaxed and peaceful to being very scatterbrained and anxiety ridden. Sometimes I have zero motivation and then a switch will flip and I'll have so much flow I can't get it all written out.

This just described my entire life

 

[Jannah]

This just described my entire life

Same tbh.

 

[darline]

A past friend of mine, actually.

The funny thing is that she’s the one to approach me first for RP. I loved writing with her because she’s simply a good writer. But after 2 posts on her side she’d just stop replying. We’d have regular conversations but she would never reply. Thankfully she stopped asking for RP.

I KNOW it’s not me, because we have nearly the exact same writing style. I honestly think she was just too lazy to post.

 

[idyll]

Way too many flaky rpers. I have not once in my life gotten to finish an rp, and most of the time, it's because of this problem.