Experiences OC Pet Peeves

[Kylesar1]

Characters who can't get along in a group setting. I was once in an RP where everyone was part of a grand quest to restore lost magic and the characters were new recruits under the lead of an elite knight commander. There was sure to be some distrust, of course. There was this one character who was insanely arrogant and 100% refused to cooperate, help in a battle, and even threatened the lead knight. Then the player wanted to complain when my character booted his character from the convoy. If your character needs time to open up to others, that's fine, but the uncooperative lone wolf does NOT fly in a group setting. I tend to keep my interactions realistic and if realistically you'd get booted from the group, you'd get booted from the group.


Deeply tragic backstories. Your character is NOT the sole survivor of a village raid. The only exception is fucking Sasuke because it was his brother that did the killing and WANTED him alive. Anything besides that is unrealistic. The chances of a child escaping when a village is raided and everyone killed is slim-none


Weaknesses that aren't actual weaknesses- My rule for weaknesses are fairly simple: If it's not exploitable, it's not a weakness. If your character's weakness is that they don't want to use their magic, they better be damn near dead before they use it. If they fear the water, they better not be fighting on a boat in the middle of the ocean. If they're a powerful mage and they fear dogs, they better cower before my beautiful corgi. Point is, don't put it as a weakness if someone can't exploit that weakness to defeat you in battle.

Mystery that isn't mystery- Someone in an RP I ran tried to join my character's group. They came up while my character was talking to other characters about joining the group. The first thing the character said when they initiated the conversation was along the lines of "please don't question me. I don't want to answer any questions about my self." They got mad and accused me of ignoring their character when my character told them to fuck off then. No one is about to take a complete stranger who REFUSES to divulge anything about themselves in their group. Bull. Shit. Mystery is about subtlety. They could've lied about their names or abilities. They could've done many many things to get around the obstacle of divulging their real information. Refusing to say anything about them and expecting to still be taken in isn't mystery. It's TERRIBLE WRITING if not complete laziness

Over-reliance on magic- If your character has nothing going about them except they can use magic, that's not a practical character. I'd rather a no magic character with a lot of wit than the most powerful mage who can't do shit if they can't cast a spell. I tend to inject anti-magic into a lot of my fantasy RPs just to counteract what magic can do. This also goes into when we're actually RPing and magic is a get out of jail free card of sorts. Lose a limb? Magic. About to lose a battle? Magic.
Too often, it's used as a lazy-ass go-to for every situation. Once a player got mad at me because I said the King's Castle is made with anti-magic enchanted material. Therefore, you can't use magic inside the castle and you can't teleport neither in or out. If your magic can make someone take their own life or you can teleport, do you HONESTLY think the ruler of the country wouldn't have a countermeasure?

 

[Melpomene]

Over-reliance on magic- If your character has nothing going about them except they can use magic, that's not a practical character. I'd rather a no magic character with a lot of wit than the most powerful mage who can't do shit if they can't cast a spell. I tend to inject anti-magic into a lot of my fantasy RPs just to counteract what magic can do. This also goes into when we're actually RPing and magic is a get out of jail free card of sorts. Lose a limb? Magic. About to lose a battle? Magic.
Too often, it's used as a lazy-ass go-to for every situation. Once a player got mad at me because I said the King's Castle is made with anti-magic enchanted material. Therefore, you can't use magic inside the castle and you can't teleport neither in or out. If your magic can make someone take their own life or you can teleport, do you HONESTLY think the ruler of the country wouldn't have a countermeasure?

I feel this so much. I agree that magic tends to be a very over used countermeasure in many RPs and published work. Things stop being tense when I know that magic is always there to save the day.

 

[Brea The Brave]

Deeply tragic backstories. Your character is NOT the sole survivor of a village raid. The only exception is fucking Sasuke because it was his brother that did the killing and WANTED him alive. Anything besides that is unrealistic. The chances of a child escaping when a village is raided and everyone killed is slim-none

Well actually there are other exception to this rule but as you said if they're going to do it the reason has to make sense. Kilik was the sole survivor of his temple because he had an item that protected him from the force that killed everyone else. Bakura survived because the ritual his people were slaughtered for only required 99 people, I could argue that it's a bit unrealistic that there were exactly 100 people in his village but hey.

 

[PolikShadowbliss]

The Stabbity Stab one-dimenionsial villianous character: I had one roleplay session where someone played a completely arrogant, completely unstable little girl that liked to stab people for no reason simply because she could. What's worse is that she had no sense of self-perservation or anything remotely logical. She would actually threaten people in a way that was for sure going to one day get her freaking killed. And do so constantly. It was fine for a while when she was new, but soon became seriously grating when the player refused to even remotely change the way she even behaved even when faced with a considerable drawback. One-dimensional villians who only exist to kill people with zero personality or emotion, or even thought into their overall character and motivitions really piss me off. I am fine with murderous villians that I just hate as long as they are done really well.

The Gary Sue who refuses to acknowlege that he is a f***king Gary Sue: I hate this type of player! The powergamer who makes his character a literal God incarnate who can do everything and anything. You can't beat him because he always has some bullshit counter. You can't reason with him because he literally makes up bullshit explanation of nature and shit. You try to get rid of him or powerplay him himself, and he either get pissed off and leaves, or just laughs and continues on his ways. When you finally point out that his character is a Gary Sue, he refuses to acknowlege or even consider it. He doesn't give his character any exploitable weaknesses and is just horrible to play with. (This also works with Mary Sues too)

Someone being a demi-god in a world where Gods and Goddesses are not established yet: Or basically that one person who creates a "speacial" character while everyone else is playing "normal" characters, either through blood or lineage.

The character that exists just for romance: You know the character. The character that only exists to be "shipped" with someone. And generally it doesn't come naturally.

The edgy I don't give a shit bitchy character: This character is such a pain in the f***king ass. "Oh look at me, the primary trait I have is that I don't freaking care about anything or anyone!" "Oh look at me, I am being a bitch just for being a bitch." Like seriously, who actually thinks this is a good character?! It's just an unlikable two-dimensional one-note character that just gets on everyone's nerves and will most likely get the player playing with them to lash out either out-of-character or in-character!



I would also like to point out that I am guilty of half the stuff in this thread. My first character here has memory loss. And I have created powerful characters that always seem to win no matter what and made them insane as well. I also tend to gravtiate toward faceclaims, generally female celebrities that I like.
Ugh. Reading all these pet peeves is making me rethink some of my decisons.

 

[Brea The Brave]

Over-reliance on magic- If your character has nothing going about them except they can use magic, that's not a practical character. I'd rather a no magic character with a lot of wit than the most powerful mage who can't do shit if they can't cast a spell. I tend to inject anti-magic into a lot of my fantasy RPs just to counteract what magic can do. This also goes into when we're actually RPing and magic is a get out of jail free card of sorts. Lose a limb? Magic. About to lose a battle? Magic.
Too often, it's used as a lazy-ass go-to for every situation. Once a player got mad at me because I said the King's Castle is made with anti-magic enchanted material. Therefore, you can't use magic inside the castle and you can't teleport neither in or out. If your magic can make someone take their own life or you can teleport, do you HONESTLY think the ruler of the country wouldn't have a countermeasure?

I feel this so much. I agree that magic tends to be a very over used countermeasure in many RPs and published work. Things stop being tense when I know that magic is always there to save the day.

I understand the frustration, but there is an easy way to deal with these sort of things that don't necessarily require anti-magic. Usually, the "cause magic" or "a wizard did it" syndrome only tends to happen with Light Magic Systems which is why I tend to make Hard Magic Systems where everything works a certain way, has limitations, requirements, and drawbacks. Though I do usually put in wags to silence or make someone's magic unstable or weaker.

 

[AndPeggy]

-When people try to insert their already-existing OC into a new RP without changing them to fit the lore. It just leads to so much confusion and inconsistency.

-Endgame ships in group RPs. So predictable and boring. Like, no matter what happens in this long, huge unpredictable RP, the story for your character is going to end the same way? Nah.

 

[Da Doofus]

When, despite what may happen in a scene, they react to it the same
Every
Time

Logically speaking, some emotion, fear, or anything is typically expected in a living being

 

[PolikShadowbliss]

When, despite what may happen in a scene, they react to it the same
Every
Time

Logically speaking, some emotion, fear, or anything is typically expected in a living being

Oh I hate that! I had a player who for some reason never reacted to anything that was happening, it was annoying!

 

[Kylesar1]

I understand the frustration, but there is an easy way to deal with these sort of things that don't necessarily require anti-magic. Usually, the "cause magic" or "a wizard did it" syndrome only tends to happen with Light Magic Systems which is why I tend to make Hard Magic Systems where everything works a certain way, has limitations, requirements, and drawbacks. Though I do usually put in wags to silence or make someone's magic unstable or weaker.

Anti-Magic has actually grown on me as I've developed it into an actual element of magic. One can use it to dispel magic, but they themselves can't use any other element. If you're trained in anti-magic, you can't use ANY other type of magic, meaning it's a dedicated path and you must gain some sort of versatility by training in something else non-magic.
If you wear anti-magic armor, you may have a resistance or immunity to magic, but you ALSO can't cast any magic while you're wearing.
I've developed a fairy regulated magic system that's easy to follow and can't be over-relied on

Lately though, I've been looking into fantasy without magic, or fantasy with magic that would be discovered later on the RP...........but good luck selling a fantasy RP on here without magic.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Lately though, I've been looking into fantasy without magic, or fantasy with magic that would be discovered later on the RP...........but good luck selling a fantasy RP on here without magic.

Depends on how you pitch it. I do a lot of roleplays with magical creatures (dragons unicorn etc) where humans have no magic of their own. Sometimes humans can do "magic" by utilizing their animals. So make dragon armor or light their house with glowing plants or cook with unicorn milk for health. And sometimes they just have super nifty flying lizards that they keep as pets.

So it's possible to do fantasy without magic you just have to pitch the made up nature of the world. Don't bring up magic (because then people will feel the lack). If you have some ideas that you need help pitching I'd be happy to take a look and help you work on them.

 

[Melpomene]

I understand the frustration, but there is an easy way to deal with these sort of things that don't necessarily require anti-magic. Usually, the "cause magic" or "a wizard did it" syndrome only tends to happen with Light Magic Systems which is why I tend to make Hard Magic Systems where everything works a certain way, has limitations, requirements, and drawbacks. Though I do usually put in wags to silence or make someone's magic unstable or weaker.

Yeah, that's something I implement into my stories when magic is a prominent thing in them. I don't care as much if magic only pops up every once and a while, but when it is prevalent, I think it needs to have very prominent drawbacks so that it isn't abused.

Lately though, I've been looking into fantasy without magic, or fantasy with magic that would be discovered later on the RP...........but good luck selling a fantasy RP on here without magic

I have to say that I actually like the idea of a fantasy without magic. I've read a few like it, usually just having fantasy creatures and other elements, but not magic. In truth, I think you could do it!

 

[PolikShadowbliss]

One thing that I hate and I just realized this today while pondering my own character's ability.

Characters who exist only to counter another character's powerful ability. For example: Let's say your character has Divination, and they have the power to scry people and know their intentions. (This isn't a random example by the way, as one of my characters has that exact power) Then another player comes in and creates a character that just happens to be immune to divination. And it's clear they did it just to counter your power, rather than genuine forsight.

Other pet peeves I have.

You guys probably had someone like this in at least one RP but that one player who creates this all-powerful descrution lord but then bitches about you when you reasonably counter their attacks either by dodging or finding ways to avoid damage.

The player that does not take the RP seriously and just memes everywhere. For example: let's say you are running a dinosaur RP and someone just randomly comes in and writes a full paragraph about a bloody horse. They also don't bother following canon or even the rules and is just there clearly to troll or annoy people.

The speacial snowflake that wants things to happen his way and then literally leaves when things don't happen his way.

Players who have their characters do something that's completely out-of-character just to accomplish a goal or didn't have any proper motivation to do said thing.

The hypocrite who complains about your characters being overpowered. Enough said.

And this is a minor pet peeve and doesn't really annoy me as much, but the one player who always does soul-crushing plots that tramatize your characters to the point where you don't trust any of his characters anymore or are actually scared when they post. I don't mind soul-crushing plots but those plots actually hurt, and I can only take so much.

 

[N.Fia]

That one character that is just good at everything. Always bored in school because they're so damned superior to everyone else who has a perfectly fine life but is still angsty. Sure I understand that it is a teenager thing but when you get up to the older characters and they're still behaving like children, it's kind of annoying.

I also kind of dislike the character that is written like the main character of the story with undiscovered powers that will be revealed later in the series. It turns out that this character was adopted but never told about their abilities for fear it could bring harm to others. Maybe if I were writing as a GM this would be fine, but I feel like in an RP, especially a 1x1, both of the characters are main characters and when one is trying to be the main character, it takes the fun out of things because then your character has become an accessory to the RP. Perhaps that's something unique to me.

Sometimes I try to redirect things but at other times, I just drop it because it's not worth to compete to have a main character in the story.

 

[Idea]

Over-reliance on magic- If your character has nothing going about them except they can use magic, that's not a practical character. I'd rather a no magic character with a lot of wit than the most powerful mage who can't do shit if they can't cast a spell. I tend to inject anti-magic into a lot of my fantasy RPs just to counteract what magic can do. This also goes into when we're actually RPing and magic is a get out of jail free card of sorts. Lose a limb? Magic. About to lose a battle? Magic.
Too often, it's used as a lazy-ass go-to for every situation. Once a player got mad at me because I said the King's Castle is made with anti-magic enchanted material. Therefore, you can't use magic inside the castle and you can't teleport neither in or out. If your magic can make someone take their own life or you can teleport, do you HONESTLY think the ruler of the country wouldn't have a countermeasure?

I have to disagree here, on a couple of fronts. But first, I want to say, if this is just something that annoys you of course, that's your business. When I say I disagree it's not that I disagree with you a having a problem with characters that rely too much on magic, but rather I disagree with some of the justifications you brought for that.

First, it is quite possible and pratical to have a character that relies exclusively on magic, depending on the magic system of course. This falls much into the same sort of area where an overpowered character can also be a good character if the person playing them is skilled enough to develop them as a character with awareness of that side of them and incorporating them into meaningful, impactful character arcs, while also providing weaknesses/flaws in other respects to balance it out.

That said, a character that relies too much on magic has one major advantage there: Their flaws and arc are basically built-in. It still takes skill and self-control to pull off, but it's not as far fetched to accomplish this in your average RP as a well-done OP character. There is weaknesses to exploit in the form of them only being as capable as their magic goes, and weak in other regards, plus whatever they needed to do to accomplish that magic in the first place can hinder them as well. They have the built-in arc to grow out of their dependency on magic. And if you live in a world with magic, much like with any powerful tool anywhere there are people who will be obsessed with it.

All in all, those types have all the tools needed for an interesting character pretty much there. They'd need more to character to not be one-dimensional of course, but nothing says they can't have it.


The second regard in which I disagree is that as @Brea The Brave already pointed out, hard magic systems do have proper drawbacks (assuming they are written competently) or far more minor capabilities for magic.


In conclusion, it is quite possible to make interesting characters that are pretty much built around the magic system or whose skills are all about the world's magic. It makes sense for such a character to exist even. You are of course still fully entitled to finding them annoying if that's the case of course, tastes are tastes.

 

[Idea]

I also kind of dislike the character that is written like the main character of the story with undiscovered powers that will be revealed later in the series. It turns out that this character was adopted but never told about their abilities for fear it could bring harm to others. Maybe if I were writing as a GM this would be fine, but I feel like in an RP, especially a 1x1, both of the characters are main characters and when one is trying to be the main character, it takes the fun out of things because then your character has become an accessory to the RP. Perhaps that's something unique to me.

This quite pisses me off as well, specially in 1x1s. I really hate the idea of players hiding stuff from me, though I am midly willing to accept it if at least they told the GM. In 1x1s and RPs I GM though, I better know about your backstory abilities and personality.

 

[N.Fia]

This quite pisses me off as well, specially in 1x1s. I really hate the idea of players hiding stuff from me, though I am midly willing to accept it if at least they told the GM. In 1x1s and RPs I GM though, I better know about your backstory abilities and personality.

I think the worst type, though, is the person who writes out a backstory and character traits and then completely disregards them in order to make the big reveal. Why even write that your character type is X when you're just going to change it to Y with no rhyme or reason. At least when I have a character that would do a 180, I list in their character description: compulsive liar with no ties to people and a tendency to stab in the back, or something.

 

[PhoenixMire]

Characters who exist only to counter another character's powerful ability. For example: Let's say your character has Divination, and they have the power to scry people and know their intentions. (This isn't a random example by the way, as one of my characters has that exact power) Then another player comes in and creates a character that just happens to be immune to divination. And it's clear they did it just to counter your power, rather than genuine forsight.

Man that sounds awful. This reminded me that I've had similar things happen, but it's been so many years (like 9 or so lol) that I can't remember any specifics. I just vaguely remember joining some RPs and something like this happening...?
I should write down my experiences so I actually remember them.

 

[CookieCrush]

When people don't ask for a brief summary of the plot. It makes things more difficult for everybody involved. Additionally, characters who literally pop-up out of nowhere. I get it if they were teleporting/had invisibility, but still. It can be quite jarring.

Excessive amounts of swearing. Do you really have to curse in every sentence? I'd understand if it were out of fear or anger, but most of the time, keep your language somewhat decent.

Mary Sues. Need I say more?

Joke characters in serious RPs. Mood killers and annoying. Likewise for serious characters in joke RPs.

When an RP goes dead in 3 hours. As somebody who's mostly RPed on Amino, this is disappointingly a staple for the fandom RPs. I can only think of 1 that didn't within 1 day, and that was my first one.

People who don't know their own character aka reacting differently to the same scenario. Unless they've undergone character development or it's been shown to be ineffective and your character's not brain dead, maybe consider developing your OC more.

 

[PolikShadowbliss]

Man that sounds awful. This reminded me that I've had similar things happen, but it's been so many years (like 9 or so lol) that I can't remember any specifics. I just vaguely remember joining some RPs and something like this happening...?
I should write down my experiences so I actually remember them.

Counter-characters suck for everyone.

 

[Cat.Chrestomanci]

I hate characters that don't make sense in the context of the RP. You've decided on a plot/introductory point and then this character is inexplicably there. They have no reason to be there based on their character type and the backflips required in order to get the character there are just absurd. I understand that you want to use that character, in which case you should just ask to change the plot. If the partner isn't willing to comply, I would say that you can drop it or try and adapt instead of just making the RP not believable/painful to wade through. Sometimes, I've had it where the character that was introduced in the sheet physically cannot be in that world without introducing mechanics or just flat out physically cannot exist for other reasons. There are plenty of ways to avoid this dilemma but people either don't want to put in the work to tweak things to fit or don't want to confront about changing things I guess? But that seriously annoys me.

 

[PolikShadowbliss]

An "original" character that has absolutely nothing remotely original about them, they are literally just a copycat of another more famous characters.

The character that believes they are morally superior to your character in all ways and feels the need to rub it in. Those characters really annoy me.

 

[Brea The Brave]

Anti-Magic has actually grown on me as I've developed it into an actual element of magic. One can use it to dispel magic, but they themselves can't use any other element. If you're trained in anti-magic, you can't use ANY other type of magic, meaning it's a dedicated path and you must gain some sort of versatility by training in something else non-magic.
If you wear anti-magic armor, you may have resistance or immunity to magic, but you also can't cast any magic while you're wearing.
I've developed a fairy regulated magic system that's easy to follow and can't be over-relied on

Lately, though, I've been looking into fantasy without magic, or fantasy with magic that would be discovered later on the RP...........but good luck selling a fantasy RP on here without magic.

Well while it may be annoying it's completely practical to rely on magic in a world where it exists. I mean just look at us, there aren't people who are very reliant on technology and there are only rare cases where it can't help them. Also maybe it's just me but I don't care if someone relies solely on magic, of there get caught with their pants down, it's not really my problem.

I mean I get what you're saying I'm just saying that I never had to resort to anti-magic to fix this problem. It doesn't mean I didn't have it, but I didn't need it.

 

[BDark]

I hate when OCs come from a rough/abusive/dark/evil family.

I mean, if it's well written...

Aighte. Time to pop my aegis.

• "Oh woe be me!" sort of characters. Everything is going wrong for them. Everything has always went downhill for them. Just no.
  
  
• Edgy people. You know the one I'm talking about. The "I'm [insert young age] but I can kill you in so many ways and I'm a badass and I love being edgy, did I mention that I'm super edgy?" Probably r/iamverysmart and r/iam14andthisisdeep as well.
  
  
• Always being ready to strike. Unless it makes sense, like, say, your character's on a hunt or has some issues or something, I hate it when their hand is always shooting towards their knife/gun/sword/whatever.
  
  
• Psychopaths/Crazy/Unhinged/Mad characters. Just pisses me right off.
  
  
• When a character is ridiculously talented/skilled/whatever for their age. Unless it makes sense, like your character being a good artist because he's the son of a deity or because he's some mythological figure, it just pisses me off. Why and how can your character read Shakespeare since he was 2? Why can she shoot down flies with a bow and arrow blindfolded using her tongue and teeth when she was just 5?
  
  
• Convenience. Explain it or it out. If, say, your character needs some sword that's a family heirloom and it just so happened to have fallen off the tree right when you needed it then it's shit.
  
  
• Loners.

That's it. Done ranting. Serry.

 

[doneanddusted]

you know when people create a character and try a bit too hard to make them the main character of the roleplay?

it's a little d i s g u s t i n g

 

[Jet]

I don't have any OC pet peeves when it comes to individual character back stories, mainly because you might be the type who usually has upbeat characters and you want a tragic one for once. Can't hate on people for making clichéd "dark" backstories on a micro level. For that one person that might be a new frontier.

However, when the entire RP decides to have orphans all at once it's just rediculous. Or having abusive families. Like ffs, read the other character sheets and if it's all depressing then maybe change it up just a little.

As far as capabilities are concerned, power trippers are the worst. The comically competitent characters who can just do it all without breaking a sweat. I get it though, they're usually younger, to them having a do it all beast is fun. For someone who has had hundreds of characters, at this point I self limit because that's far more enjoyable.