Experiences I don't train new roleplayers.

[ShadowHounder]

Honestly I find the attitude of the OP a bit condescending. "You can't do this and that." You can play with whomever you like, but dont blame a style of writing you dislike of being less "skilled." And I'm not even talking about 4 word posts or anything. Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey are easy wish fulfillment books which fit every Mary Sue trope imagineable, but they inspired millions to try out writing, even if its coming from a direction I don't enjoy.

I can fully respect you not wanting to play a half-demon half-angel misunderstood Orphan with superpowers, but I'm gonna fight you tooth and nail if you call that unskilled or inferior roleplaying.

I don't think that's really the problem here... The issue with newbie RPers is that it's often like they don't even try. Tropes are often simply used as scapegoats to avoid putting actual thought into your character... and the other issue that's presented here is the matter of "one-liners." I'm sure with the right kind of dedication or prior experience, anyone can make a Mary Sue trope new and interesting. But when it's obvious that someone not only doesn't know how to RP, but isn't even trying to learn... that's when they just need to leave. It's unskilled and inferior not because of the writing style, but because of the traps it places upon newer writers.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Honestly I find the attitude of the OP a bit condescending. "You can't do this and that." You can play with whomever you like, but dont blame a style of writing you dislike of being less "skilled." And I'm not even talking about 4 word posts or anything. Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey are easy wish fulfillment books which fit every Mary Sue trope imagineable, but they inspired millions to try out writing, even if its coming from a direction I don't enjoy.

I can fully respect you not wanting to play a half-demon half-angel misunderstood Orphan with superpowers, but I'm gonna fight you tooth and nail if you call that unskilled or inferior roleplaying.

I mean as you said yourself being unskilled isn’t a bad thing. EL James is an objectively bad writer but she got a lot of women comfortable with reading erotica.

Doesn’t change the fact that from a technical standpoint her books are trash. (And I mean the actual writing not the abusive and misogynistic themes which are also garbage)

So by your own example so what if someone calls out the lack of technical skill of roleplayers? That isn’t them saying those roleplayers don’t have value. It’s just saying they aren’t going to Roleplay with someone with bad technique

 

[Lord Aphrodite]

Honestly I find the attitude of the OP a bit condescending. "You can't do this and that." You can play with whomever you like, but dont blame a style of writing you dislike of being less "skilled." And I'm not even talking about 4 word posts or anything. Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey are easy wish fulfillment books which fit every Mary Sue trope imagineable, but they inspired millions to try out writing, even if its coming from a direction I don't enjoy.

I can fully respect you not wanting to play a half-demon half-angel misunderstood Orphan with superpowers, but I'm gonna fight you tooth and nail if you call that unskilled or inferior roleplaying.

I understand that you’re mad about my original post, but if you read through the thread, you’d find that I changed my viewpoint and opinion based on what people said here.

I guess I’ve learned a lot from reading this!

What I’ve learned is that it depends on attitudes. I’ve changed my viewpoint a little, but I still don’t think that I’d train the new guys.

I think what happened to me in the past is what you guys described about not meshing well with the people in the past. I’ve had attitudes clash and words said.

Maybe next time I’ll be more open.

Especially in this post.

So I’m asking you to please read my thread before treating me like I’m a close-minded person, because I’m not.

As for me being condescending, I can agree with you on that point. I was a little frustrated when I wrote the initial post. But I’m not going to change the way the post is worded, because I don’t see anything wrong with it.

 

[FoolsErin]

I agree and disagree. I too, would probably not have the patience to put up with someone who can’t really get that a hybrid of fifteen ludicrously powered species wouldn’t be appreciated in some roleplays, and that while laser beams are cool when fired out of eyes, they really don’t fit into a modern realistic setting. But I occasionally poke through the introductions subforum, and will definitely answer or explain things about the site to newcomers if they need it. So it’s a yes and a no.

 

[d1uni5ys24si3o]

OOF,
I never pay attention to how long you've been roleplaying or how experienced you are when accepting invites. I can get a general vibe of the person right off the bat and sometimes I do go against my own intuition. I always regret it. To be honest, I don't find that experience is that beneficial to most roleplayers (unless you hit the 10 years mark). The worst roleplayers I've met were experienced ones and I mostly disliked roleplaying with them because of their attitude. For me, roleplaying is all about having fun and making friends who love writing. So yeah one-liners bother me and extremely slow non-communicative dynamics are annoying af, I will tolerate to a certain level and will make it clear I don't like it. I give a chance but if they do not improve, then it's a done deal. It's not an experience problem it is an attitude problem.

Does this mean I go out of my way to roleplay 1x1 with newbies? Absolutely not lmfao. I will recruit them in my group roleplays, I have no problem with that. I think it's fun to have someone a bit newer because it balances out the roleplay and keeps it casual. Something that unfortunately many experienced roleplayers forget. Writing a wall of words is fun, but I can't keep up with that when you study full time and work full time lol.

I was actually talking about this in my roleplays ooc how much I missed the days where roleplays exceeded 10 pages. Even if the posts were 4 sentences and honestly really cliche, at least you got somewhere and it was relatively entertaining. Now it's always 10 paragraphs, two posts in and it dies lol. It dies more often than not because people start feeling anxious and start stressing over keeping it unique and super creative and flamboyant like... Honestly, we need to chill down a little haha.

Back to the topic at hand though, I won't go out of my way to find newbies to roleplay with but I won't reject them either. If anyone asks me questions or explanations on something, out of respect I will give them a fully detailed tutorial at best of my knowledge. The reason why is 1) I enjoy mentoring and helping 2) the person went out of their way to ask me of all people. I feel like it's my duty to at the very least answer them.

Then again, I have buddha level patience once you are an acquaintance to me. I would never judge anyone (nor see it as controversial) if someone doesn't want to mentor a new member. To each their own skills and liking. It's a hobby, there are no real obligations imposed on you so you do you and have fun! If it wasn't for me liking it, heck I wouldn't bother at all! It just so happens it falls within the things I enjoy.

 

[peritwinkle]

When it comes to people who have never written in their lives or are just starting out, I refuse. I understand that you learn and become experienced through practice, but I don’t find it enjoyable having to guide my partner throughout the entire RP, how to make characters work, what they can and can’t do in a roleplay and so on.

This is hypocritical in a sense, since we all started out from the bottom. But I need a constant challenge in order to keep me interested.

 

[d1uni5ys24si3o]

When it comes to people who have never written in their lives or are just starting out, I refuse. I understand that you learn and become experienced through practice, but I don’t find it enjoyable having to guide my partner throughout the entire RP, how to make characters work, what they can and can’t do in a roleplay and so on.

This is hypocritical in a sense, since we all started out from the bottom. But I need a constant challenge in order to keep me interested.

and tbh... I dont think the other roleplayer would enjoy roleplaying with someone with experience. I always thought the best way to learn roleplaying is by roleplaying with people your level and slowly build up together. Take your time and stuff

 

[peritwinkle]

and tbh... I dont think the other roleplayer would enjoy roleplaying with someone with experience. I always thought the best way to learn roleplaying is by roleplaying with people your level and slowly build up together. Take your time and stuff

I agree and disagree. Roleplaying with advanced writers can be a tough challenge but personally, I had a very abrupt switch from one-liners to 1k word posts when I met someone who was significantly more detailed than I was. I was essentially forced to improve and I definitely saw it as something positive.

I think you can never learn if you don’t expand your horizons and stick to one thing instead.

 

[rae2nerdy]

and tbh... I dont think the other roleplayer would enjoy roleplaying with someone with experience. I always thought the best way to learn roleplaying is by roleplaying with people your level and slowly build up together. Take your time and stuff

I think it depends on the roleplay style more than the experience level. Like for instance I do a lot of world building in my roleplays. So me pairing up with someone more experienced who could sort of help me work out how to add in world building effectively would have been great.

Now if we're talking someone who is starting out and only wants to do a casual roleplay than pairing them up with someone who is experienced and like detailed replies would not be a good thing.

But that's because their styles don't match not necessarily because their experience levels don't.

 

[d1uni5ys24si3o]

I think it depends on the roleplay style more than the experience level. Like for instance I do a lot of world building in my roleplays. So me pairing up with someone more experienced who could sort of help me work out how to add in world building effectively would have been great.

Now if we're talking someone who is starting out and only wants to do a casual roleplay than pairing them up with someone who is experienced and like detailed replies would not be a good thing.

But that's because their styles don't match not necessarily because their experience levels don't.

I agree and disagree. Roleplaying with advanced writers can be a tough challenge but personally, I had a very abrupt switch from one-liners to 1k word posts when I met someone who was significantly more detailed than I was. I was essentially forced to improve and I definitely saw it as something positive.

I think you can never learn if you don’t expand your horizons and stick to one thing instead.

point made.
I agree with you guys.

 

[NoviceOfRoleplay]

A good roleplay will naturally train newbies to your liking. By both the interactions your set up, which should take a quick OOC chat if they don't understand the gravity of itneractions, as well as social pressure to try to match post lengths and style of fellow group members.

 

[Sludge]

I often meet roleplayers who are extremely hesitant to get their characters into bad situations.

Here is a cool idea if you have more than one newbie in your non-dice rp. Try to get them to face off each other in combat or any kind of conflict. It could be great for showing how they have full control over the outcome of any action and the value of having a character fail. Also godmodding check.

Never actually tried it, but it could be fun in theory.

 

[NoviceOfRoleplay]

I often meet roleplayers who are extremely hesitant to get their characters into bad situations.

Here is a cool idea if you have more than one newbie in your non-dice rp. Try to get them to face off each other in combat or any kind of conflict. It could be great for showing how they have full control over the outcome of any action and the value of having a character fail. Also godmodding check.

Never actually tried it, but it could be fun in theory.

As a non-dice roleplayer, you cannot let them figure that out themselves. They will naturally want to just dodge or say it didn't hurt that much.

To introduce them, you got to mess them up yourself.

 

[Sludge]

As a non-dice roleplayer, you cannot let them figure that out themselves. They will naturally want to just dodge or say it didn't hurt that much.

To introduce them, you got to mess them up yourself.

Actually that's what I'm hoping for. As they keep dodging and attacking in attempts to show why their character is superior they might realize how pointless it is. Worked for me when I first got into the hobby.

Tho, in practice they'll probably get bored first... so it isn't really a viable thing to do.

On a side note, it gotta be pretty difficult to mess up players unless you just straight up go and tell them "hey, you got cut by that attack."

 

[NoviceOfRoleplay]

Actually that's what I'm hoping for. As they keep dodging and attacking in attempts to show why their character is superior they might realize how pointless it is. Worked for me when I first got into the hobby.

Tho, in practice they'll probably get bored first... so it isn't really a viable thing to do.

On a side note, it gotta be pretty difficult to mess up players unless you just straight up go and tell them "hey, you got cut by that attack."

That what I mean. Staright up have them get hurt. Cripple them and make them realzie it is okay and can still be fun if you have some sort of "cripple".

 

[StrawberryAvalanche]

Honestly if I'm friends with the person in general then yeah I'll teach them how to RP. Other than that no not really. I've had newbies come up to me and ask to RP fandoms even though I'm usually very clear that I don't RP fandoms anymore. But they'd still persist until I'd have to hit that block button.

But to be honest when a newbie I don't know asks me to teach them, I'm nice and send them a tips post I found on Tumblr (I'll find the link later it's in my likes list), and tell them to try to read up on these and then hit me up later. But sometimes people are like: "no I just wanted to do (NSFW) RP".

But yeah no I usually only help friends with it, other than that, no.

 

[BackSet]

I do not "train" new roleplayers. That's better left to people who display more empathy and less frustration. I'm a bad teacher and a bad helper, no matter how hard I try.