Viewpoint "I don't get it." What's an RP Fandom/Theme/Idea you could never understand?

[nerdy tangents]

Umm.... not self-explanatory at all, actually. Alpha and Omega makes me think of the Christian proverb.
Revelations 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, 'who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty"

Is this a take on Christian roleplaying?

So resident ABO expert here it’s actually a really interesting genre that people kinda dunk on.

So to start with it’s based on a debunked scientific study based on the “hierarchy” of captive wolves. It’s essentially “one scientist for five seconds thought animals had toxic masculinity and then he realized it’s just that zoo animals aren’t properly socialized.”

So if your aren’t familiar with canine social dynamics ;;; in pack setting it is always a large family headed by two parents (with mom more often then not the one in charge).

It’s mom & dad, all the kiddos, and ocassionally the single aunts/uncles.

And a lot of your more modern ABO actually plays into that kind of pack dynamic while also playing around with gender identity (more on this later).


Now the case study that gives the genre it’s name (alpha - beta - omega ) was done on captive animals with no socialization. So much like your domestic dog if you don’t socialize if well the animals were hyper reactive. And in canines hyper reactive is often misconstrued as aggression. (It’s why I made that crack about toxic masculinity, it’s actually a very similar mentality. Where a deeply insecure person tries to control the world around them through outblown aggression. Dogs and other canines are especially prone to this).

So the idea was alpha wolves are aggressive, beta wolves are peacemakers, and omega wolves are submissive.

This was then translated into a literary device for exploring gender roles and gender identity.

Alpha = toxic men
Beta = intersex diplomats
Omega = submissive women

Now depending on the authors the genre runs the gamut from super reductive gender eccentialism to a detailed deconstruction of that very idea.

Much in the same way you can get romance novels that run the gamut from “hot guy ravishes female doormat and then they get married” to “two people communicating their desires in a equal partnership”

I think the most popular published examples of the genre are more in the smut range but in fanfic you get more of a spectrum. Just kinda depends on how you choose to interpret the premise.

 

[Murdergurl]

Fandoms, in and of themselves, and why people are so devoted to them.

i think the upside to using a fandom as a background of an RP is that you dont have to do the worldbuilding. Like, lets take Star Wars. I dont necessarily have to (or even WANT to) roleplay as the canonical characters. But taking the fandom setting pretty much puts everyone on familiar territory without having to do a whole lot of explaining. also the reference material is there for anyone who wants to look it up. It takes a lot of burden of the shoulder of whomever is in charge of running the show.

 

[Malphaestus]

i think the upside to using a fandom as a background of an RP is that you dont have to do the worldbuilding. Like, lets take Star Wars. I dont necessarily have to (or even WANT to) roleplay as the canonical characters. But taking the fandom setting pretty much puts everyone on familiar territory without having to do a whole lot of explaining. also the reference material is there for anyone who wants to look it up. It takes a lot of burden of the shoulder of whomever is in charge of running the show.

And what of the fanatical devotion. The cult following; the defending of fandoms.

 

[Shawdios]

And what of the fanatical devotion. The cult following; the defending of fandoms.

People really like grouping together and obsessing over things. Fandoms are simply the by product of people connecting with eachother and sharing their love for a thing. (Sometimes those connections are toxic and that’s why there are toxic fandoms)

 

[nerdy tangents]

I feel that. I like role playing romance as a addition to the experience, not the main focus despite ironically being a huge romance genre fan.

I am also a huge romance genre fan and I think for me it boils down to what makes me finish a romance book or stop halfway through.

Do I care about the characters? Is there some kind of character arc?

(I hate it when it’s just “this person is pretty and so that other person wants to date them.” )

I don’t need some epic saga (I am fine with slice of life plots) but I at least need to feel like the characters are growing ass people and aren’t unlikable dicks. Which is harder then you would think.

 

[Malphaestus]

People really like grouping together and obsessing over things. Fandoms are simply the by product of people connecting with eachother and sharing their love for a thing. (Sometimes those connections are toxic and that’s why there are toxic fandoms)

This is a fair argument.

 

[Murdergurl]

And what of the fanatical devotion. The cult following; the defending of fandoms.

I think that you are probably painting most of the fans in a bad light by the few that make themselves notorious. In other words, in most fandoms I think the people that are fans are within a realm of normality. and it's mostly just the ones that make themselves loud and obnoxious that get noticed.
How's that idiom go?: The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Like, I'll put myself under the examination table here. I'm a Star Wars fan. But I couldn't even really give you a proper synopsis about the last trilogy. Not a big fan of Rey or Kylo or whatever. I'm also not a fan of the Disney acquisition. But I also thought that the first trilogy was kinda stupid and too "kiddy". Really over-the-top compared to the OG trilogy. But regardless of my opinions, people can like and dislike whatever they want of SW. It doesn't affect me, and tbh isn't really all that important.

I'm also a fan of Warhammer 40k. But I will readily admit that I don't know a lot about a whole lot of factions besides Chaos, SoB, and Orks. This may all be Chinese to you. But my point is that not every fan is a die-hard fan. It's just that it's the die-hard fans that make the rest of us look bad. But you shouldn't judge the majority by the very small minority.

 

[Walliver]

Unplanned pregnancy/most romance plots involving pregnancy

Personally, I can sum up my feelings in one word: gross.
People who demand that kind of trope are usually not super nice people, nor are they particularly fun to write with. Also just- why? Besides the fact that it’s weird, I think my character would be smart enough to not have that happen? Idk, the trope just grosses me out and people who like it kinda bother me.

 

[Zepherine]

One thing I can never understand in fandom RPs is using both Canon characters AND the original plot-line of the anime/game/movie as the premise. I mean, aren’t we just writing a novelization of what happened? I’d love to do something more original than that.

Another thing that bothers me when partners use realistic FCs is when your partner explicitly says that they want a certain race/culture that you use. Unless we are RPing as blood relatives, I don’t understand why you need to impose that someone. I’ve even had a partner once question my FC for not being “Asian” enough because the actor that I used was of mixed descent. Excuse me, but it’s my character - I don’t think I need your approval for what their appearance is.

 

[Jules8008]

RP'ing as real people is...weird. I still shudder when I think of all of these Antisepticeye x Darkiplier roleplays from, when was it, 2013 tumblr or smth?

General genres I don't like:
Medieval: Idk, never interested me. Also maybe because I think castles are mid at best.
Historical: ESPECIALLY if it's WW Historical and one of the writers is feeling the roleplay a bit too much if you get my drift.
High Fantasy: Kinda the same reason as medieval. Never got the appeal. Also my creativity isn't good enough for that genre.

 

[nerdy tangents]

J Jules8008 lol too be fair those are all historical genres. Like medieval and high fantasy are often interchangeable in a lot of peoples mind. So if like the only difference between the actual 1500s is you added dragons then it might as well be a historical roleplay.

I personally won’t go back any further then the Regency Era and even then it’s mostly cuz the fashion was baller as fuck in that era.

But yeah historical can be tricky cuz there is a lot of implicit (and sometimes explicit depending on who your writing with) bias that goes into it. Because people like the safe narratives that white men were the only ones who existed as human beings until like the mid 1960s.

 

[Edric Blight]

Agreed J Jules8008 . I will never understand the appeal of RPing as real life people. It just weirds me out.

I’d like to stick to OCs or fandom characters in a fictional story, thank you very much.

 

[Murdergurl]

Furries. They are like super-cringe. Not so much here, but in my searches for group servers on discord and just searching on other sites for RPs, I see a lot of furry-centric stuff and I'm like... yuk. And I'm not sure which one I consider worse, the full-on furry, or the neko boy/girl that is essentially a human but just with tagged on tail/ears. Also comes in fox/wolf variety. lol

I give anything furry related a wide berth

 

[Edric Blight]

Furries. They are like super-cringe. Not so much here, but in my searches for group servers on discord and just searching on other sites for RPs, I see a lot of furry-centric stuff and I'm like... yuk. And I'm not sure which one I consider worse, the full-on furry, or the neko boy/girl that is essentially a human but just with tagged on tail/ears. Also comes in fox/wolf variety. lol

I give anything furry related a wide berth

Facts. I don’t understand the appeal of it either.

Listen, power to the people who like being furries and RPing as them, but I can’t personally understand the appeal.

It’s just something I don’t get. Oh well. So I peacefully stray away from those types of RPs.

 

[Idea]

dk, never interested me. Also maybe because I think castles are mid at best.

Yeah, castles tend to be pretty mid-ieval.

I'll see myself out.

High Fantasy: Kinda the same reason as medieval. Never got the appeal. Also my creativity isn't good enough for that genre.

I can't speak for everyone else who is into the High Fantasy genre, but to me a big part of the appeal of fantasy in general is the presence of magic. Note that by magic, I'm including things like for instance fantasy races, I like to say that fantasy "breaks" with reality whereas something like science fiction merely stretches or bends it, but I digress. I feel like the space of possibilities opened by the presence of magic or the unreal nature of a fantasy world opens a vast array of possibilities in characters, worldbuilding, stories and so on. It also allows me to diverge from a basis in our reality, putting more focus on creating something new rather than portraying things I may be more unfamiliar with.

 

[Murdergurl]

Another genre... or maybe it's a category? of roleplaying I just really dont get are the Nation RPs. I've kinda sorta tried them out, but the concept eludes me. I don't really understand how you roleplay that. "50,000 troops march over the border, with 20 tanks, etc." It's like if someone tried to runa tabletop wargame... but in RP format. I feel like this genre is best left to something with a more visual representation like video games or actual tabletop. And putting it into a text narrative is just kinda... goofy.

 

[PinkSodaPopRemix]

People wanting to role-play abusive/toxic relationships that somehow work out. Like, are you okay? That's not something that should be romanticized.

I also can't get why people don't want a plot. Like even slice of life anime have sub plots. I'd even be fine with those, as long as there is something to cause character development and move the story along. I just don't get it.

I also don't completely get genderbenders? Like if you like the character, you like the character, y'know? Their personality isn't going to change based on their gender. But that may just be because I'm pan, but people usually just want to change the gender of everyone from my experience because they think it'll be interesting. Maybe it's because of societal standards per gender?

 

[Jannah]

i think the upside to using a fandom as a background of an RP is that you dont have to do the worldbuilding. Like, lets take Star Wars. I dont necessarily have to (or even WANT to) roleplay as the canonical characters. But taking the fandom setting pretty much puts everyone on familiar territory without having to do a whole lot of explaining. also the reference material is there for anyone who wants to look it up. It takes a lot of burden of the shoulder of whomever is in charge of running the show.

This is literally why I like fandom settings. It's a lot of effort to worldbuild, especially in RP when there's no guarantee the RP will even last beyond a few posts. It just seems like a waste of time. If I want to do a RP set in a fictional world then I tend to lean towards fandom universes or worlds parallel to our own (basically our world, but with some minor differences). Only stipulation I have with fandom universes is no playing canon characters. OC's only.

 

[Jannah]

Another genre... or maybe it's a category? or roleplaying I just really dont get are the Nation RPs. I've kinda sorta tried them out, but the concept eludes me. I don't really understand how you roleplay that. "50,000 troops march over the border, with 20 tanks, etc." It's like if someone tried to runa tabletop wargame... but in RP format. I feel like this genre is best left to something with a more visual representation like video games or actual tabletop. And putting it into a text narrative is just kinda... goofy.

I have done nation RP in the past, but it was more so character RP focused on the leaders and other major figures. Basically diplomacy type stuff. The war stuff always feels more like a tabletop game, though.

 

[Jannah]

J Jules8008 lol too be fair those are all historical genres. Like medieval and high fantasy are often interchangeable in a lot of peoples mind. So if like the only difference between the actual 1500s is you added dragons then it might as well be a historical roleplay.

I personally won’t go back any further then the Regency Era and even then it’s mostly cuz the fashion was baller as fuck in that era.

But yeah historical can be tricky cuz there is a lot of implicit (and sometimes explicit depending on who your writing with) bias that goes into it. Because people like the safe narratives that white men were the only ones who existed as human beings until like the mid 1960s.

Definitely depends on the RPers. As you know I primarily do historical RP. I do try to play in diverse settings, though, which usually works out anyway due to the types of historical settings I take interest in.

 

[Murdergurl]

This is literally why I like fandom settings. It's a lot of effort to worldbuild, especially in RP when there's no guarantee the RP will even last beyond a few posts. It just seems like a waste of time. If I want to do a RP set in a fictional world then I tend to lean towards fandom universes or worlds parallel to our own (basically our world, but with some minor differences). Only stipulation I have with fandom universes is no playing canon characters. OC's only.

I (try to) do this too. Get the backdrop of a well-known fandom and use that as a setting for original characters. This way, the setup is simple and relatively effortless. Puts everyone on the same page without working for weeks on a worldbuild that might go unrequited.

 

[StrixDesmodus]

I also don't completely get genderbenders? Like if you like the character, you like the character, y'know? Their personality isn't going to change based on their gender. But that may just be because I'm pan, but people usually just want to change the gender of everyone from my experience because they think it'll be interesting. Maybe it's because of societal standards per gender?[/FONT]

As someone who's not cisgender, I also don't like that trope. I'm not saying it can't be done tastefully, but the most common versions of it tend to take the experiences that people like me face and reduce it to a gimmick seems to try to reinforce to the consumers that everybody's gender is always binary, stereotypical, and anatomy-based.

 

[PinkSodaPopRemix]

As someone who's not cisgender, I also don't like that trope. I'm not saying it can't be done tastefully, but the most common versions of it tend to take the experiences that people like me face and reduce it to a gimmick seems to try to reinforce to the consumers that everybody's gender is always binary, stereotypical, and anatomy-based.

Honestly, I never looked at it that way. I'm genderfluid, so I'm not binary, but the thought of that never crossed my mind. But the more I think about it, the more just hate the concept overall.

 

[Trektek]

Another genre... or maybe it's a category? of roleplaying I just really dont get are the Nation RPs. I've kinda sorta tried them out, but the concept eludes me. I don't really understand how you roleplay that. "50,000 troops march over the border, with 20 tanks, etc." It's like if someone tried to runa tabletop wargame... but in RP format. I feel like this genre is best left to something with a more visual representation like video games or actual tabletop. And putting it into a text narrative is just kinda... goofy.

To be fair, when I run my BoN threads, we do have a map which we update every turn to show where people have moved their troops or set up a new city. Or even if a major explosion caused a giant crater, etc. Considering your love of Warhammer 40k stuff, you might like my next one coming up. BoN: Act 3: Modern Age. One of the players is basically going to be playing as Orks.

 

[Murdergurl]

To be fair, when I run my BoN threads, we do have a map which we update every turn to show where people have moved their troops or set up a new city. Or even if a major explosion caused a giant crater, etc. Considering your love of Warhammer 40k stuff, you might like my next one coming up. BoN: Act 3: Modern Age. One of the players is basically going to be playing as Orks.

The thing about NRPs is tht I have a really hard time not playing as an actual, personal character. Like, it's weird to me. I don't want to be 200,000 troops and 50 tanks, and 5 Dreadnaughts. I just wanna be my own lil' Gobbo in the mix of it all. I don't want to be staring down a field of an entire platoon and summarizing their actions. I want to enjoy the personal drama of my one personal character. Regarding roleplay, I just can't see the appeal of taking the role of an entire army/nation.