Other Roleplay Pet Peeves

[rae2nerdy]

The point was I was agreeing that seeking out grammatical errors to point out is an annoying habit.

I thought as much it just came out of nowhere so I was like ?

 

[Ferociousfeind]

Gonna pile on the hating-but-not-really-LGBT train and say I'm mildly annoyed when an LGBT label is shoehorned onto a character.
You're reading the application, it seems great, they've got a cool, detailed backstory.
At the bottom it's revealed that they're gay.
????????
Would that not be relevant in the backstory? It's like you've just inserted that to appease to the LGBT masses.
Sure, people can be closeted, and pretend to not be gay, or bi, or transgender, or nonbinary, etcetera, but it should come up at some point.
No bullying? No internal conflict? Really? Their entire life was just peachy?
I don't know if I'm being a bit insensitive here - people in the past hid their nonconforming selves rather well or were killed - but it's rather suspicious that the character's LGBT-ness literally never comes up at any point in the entire roleplay besides "sexuality: bisexual"

 

[diablita]

While I do agree that there are people who do grossly fetishize LGBT characters, and that this is a problem in and of itself, I do see where people are coming from in wanting to write LGBT characters. I think the fact that many roleplayers, younger or not, prefer to write LGBT characters should be taken with a grain of salt. From my personal experience of the roleplaying community as a whole, I've observed that, often, the writers of these characters are LGBT themselves. I know that it can seem a bit overzealous at times, but I do strongly believe that a lot of people who are a part of the LGBT community themselves write exclusively LGBT characters because this is their only outlet to express themselves. Mainstream media is flooded with non-LGBT characters and storylines, so it makes sense that somebody who might not have the opportunity to see people like them represented in traditional media write the characters and stories they wish to see represented.

For me, that is the other side of the double-edged sword where LGBT roleplayers can write stories and express themselves as one is free to do. Honestly, many stories and RPs here on RPN rival some of the cookie cutter stories in media where it is "boy falls in love with the girl" or the other way around, but it's that small fraction of people fetishize and stereotype who push my buttons. On the notation of the younger roleplayer thing, I'm talking about those roleplayers who are fangirls and roleplay their desires of being yaoi character with the stereotyping of many homosexual relationships. While it may not be all LGBT characters on RPN, it is a large chunk.

 

[gambolingcat]

What everyone's getting at, using LGBT characters as an example, is the annoying habit of some writers to randomly tack identities and designations upon their characters without doing any of the prerequisite research necessary to understand the relevance of said identity/designation at even a rudimentary level. These writers want cookies without putting in the work.

They say, "My character is gay! Oh, yes! Super gay!" And then proceed do nothing to prove, explore, understand, or even really work it into the story as a detail. It's like how Rowling decided Dumbledore was gay ex post facto, yet this feature of his identity makes no appearance in the text, and has not apparently informed his character. (Tangential disclaimer: I'm not sure if it makes an appearance in books outside the main series. I haven't checked them out yet.)

A character's identities -- say, their sexuality -- don't have to be highly relevant to a plot. A person may just as well be gay as straight. But that's just the point that makes this cookie-seeking tendency so irksome; by using identities like backpack pins, these writers are expecting special points just for giving their characters a particular designation that isn't, by itself, remarkable. It's not real inclusivity. It's tokenism.

Simply being a lesbian doesn't make a character interesting by virtue of her lesbian-ness; what's interesting is how this character sees and moves through her world, and what her lesbianness means for her as she does.

Bear in mind, though, that being LGBT might not have the same implications in a fictional world as it has in our world, so a traumatic backstory isn't necessary 100% of the time. It doesn't always have to be angst, death, sadness.

 

[rae2nerdy]

To play devils advocate ::

I know that a lot of times for romance it’s a means of trying out different genders while keeping the players natural sexuality. It allows them to have a distance from the character while still putting themselves into the fantasy.

Talking about A straight female playing gay males

 

[Ronan]

Stereotypical characters, misrepresentation (be it from a culture, religion, sexuality, race, et cœtera), The Tragic Backstory, the brooding white male, the “shy and crying 24/7” submissive female (à la damsel-in-distress), glorification/romanticisation of mental illness or physical disability, and excessive swearing. I get it- we like to swear. We all do it, but no one swears every sentence.

I realise this pet peeve thread is about role-playing itself, but I have to add what really grinds my gears when it comes to writers, the pity parties. I understand RpN is an “escape from reality” for some, but if this website is becoming too toxic or draining for you, then please take care of yourself. Hit the log-off button and do something instead of crying about it or demanding pity from your friends. It does nothing. Only you can help yourself, and even then, we are not your urinal for you to dump all your life’s problems on or to blame. You need to take responsibility for your own actions, too. I mean, this is a website. Not your life’s work.

OK one more thing and perhaps the worst offender of all: the gross fetishisation of male/male relationships by women, and often underaged.

 

[memphis]

Spoiler

For me, that is the other side of the double-edged sword where LGBT roleplayers can write stories and express themselves as one is free to do. Honestly, many stories and RPs here on RPN rival some of the cookie cutter stories in media where it is "boy falls in love with the girl" or the other way around, but it's that small fraction of people fetishize and stereotype who push my buttons. On the notation of the younger roleplayer thing, I'm talking about those roleplayers who are fangirls and roleplay their desires of being yaoi character with the stereotyping of many homosexual relationships. While it may not be all LGBT characters on RPN, it is a large chunk.

Oh, I totally agree with you in that many younger roleplayers do fetishize LGBT relationships, particularly young women fetishizing gay men. I hate seeing this happen, because it takes away from the credibility of writers seeking to accurately and realistically write LGBT characters; I despise anything that refers to LGBT relationships using toxic and/or stereotypical labels such are yaoi/yuri, sub/dom, and top/bottom. It's gross. Would you refer to a straight character by their preferences in the bedroom? I hope not.

Spoiler

I don't know if I'm being a bit insensitive here - people in the past hid their nonconforming selves rather well or were killed - but it's rather suspicious that the character's LGBT-ness literally never comes up at any point in the entire roleplay besides "sexuality: bisexual"

I think you bring up some excellent points, but may I pose to you that how much of an impact a character's sexuality would have on their past and background would depend heavily on the setting and details surrounding the rp. If you're playing an openly gay man in the 1980s in the height of the AIDS panic, his sexuality is much more likely to be a defining part of his character and play a significant role in his story than if you were playing a lesbian space-pirate thousands of years into the future. Also, as gambolingcat mentioned, sexuality doesn't necessarily have to be relevant to the plot. Although it can be rather insidious to haphazardly throw an LGBT label onto a character just to tokenize them, we also should consider that it can be harmful to define a character too much by their sexuality, because then you face the other edge of the sword, and risk perpetuating harmful stereotypes that LGBT people behave in a certain way that is different to anyone else. Yes, it is a reality of modern society that LGBT people are more defined by their sexuality and/or or gender expression than non-LGBT people, but most people would not solely define themselves by their sexuality. So yes, if someone is to put an LGBT label on their character, they should address how being LGBT affects the way they interact with others and experience the world around them, but it doesn't always need to be an important, defining aspect of a character.

 

[gambolingcat]

This talk of fetishizing reminds me of another one of my pettier peeves...

- When writers keep telling me how beautiful their character is.

This one merits a little explanation. I love to read good description, and I always appreciate when writers work little bits of character description in throughout the length of the roleplay, even if I already knew about the feature they're describing. I can read about your character's fleabitten shins and Roman nose and charming dimples all the time and never get tired of it; sometimes those artful little reminders really help add visual gravity to a scene or gesture. I'm totally cool with characters being beautiful by any standard. What irks me is being told, constantly and with little variation, that a character is beautiful. Not shown -- told. "Her beautiful arms, his beautiful smile, their beautiful hair." OKAY, I got it. Your character is major fuckin' hottie. Noted, dude. Freakin' logged.

 

[Melpomene]

I think I'll give my two cents:

So, I don't mind having predetermined roles. By that I mean, perhaps I am given the role of the King or the Knight or the Blacksmith, or perhaps the Holy man. Well, I can still shape them to be my own, so I don't mind them at all. Leader, Messiah, Victor, Pariah, I can shape them as my own, even if their own experiences as that role would reflect in their personalities and such, I can decide how and often times, have some control about how the world treats them or how they have seen their loves thus far.

What I cannot do is have my character's personality be predetermined, and that is what could come up to be a problem for me sometimes in Roleplays.

I am exclusively a 1x1 rper. I do not do group Roleplays. If you are a 1x1 rper, you know the 1x1 rps are usually, for the most part, romance. Nothing wrong with that. I don't mind romance in my story as long as it is not the main focus. Which, I found many people who shared that sentiment, because, to us, a romance by itself gets boring. It's why I cannot get into any romance novels. In fact, even novels that aren't romance based, I tend not to like any romance that is IN them. To me, it usually feels shoe-horned in. I have a hard time finding romances I actually enjoy.

But, I am not completely out off by romances, so I am always willing to rp them. However, I tend to get... Perturbed when it is those romance male Character stereotypes that people start wanting me to follow. Now, I like to think myself as flexible. I can play male and female (I usually double), I will play a certain role, hell, I have even accepted using a certain face claim before. But you know what I hate? When someone tries to dictate how they want my character to act.

What I mean by falling into normal romance novel stereotypes is like, and I find many people want this, when their female is getting flirted with by another male, they want my male to get upset and get all punchy and violent and jealous.

Problem is, I tend not to make my males that way. Usually, if they are supposed to be a good guy anyways, they are not like that. He only time they might get a little assertive in such a situation is if that person is being disrespectful i.e. groping, making sexist comments, being crude, generally making their female uncomfortable.

However, they would want my character to basically get possessive and upset if they talked to any man that is interested them. I guess since I never found that sort of thing attractive, I never made my attractive males do that sort of thing. But it gets me a little irked when people try to push for my character to do that sort of thing.

I guess it just comes to me drawing the line at telling me what my characters' personality should and should not be. I prefer being able to choose door myself who my character is as a person, not have them defined for me, which is what I feel like people are doing when they try to push me to have my characters do things like this.

 

[rae2nerdy]

And that’s my core problem with character ratios I think. Because in my experience they are step 1 of - so you’ll play Christian Grey to my Anastasia Steele right ?

Like the person who has character ratios already has in their head the kind of love story they want to write. How each character will act and how the characters “romance” will unfold. To the point your pretty much just co-writing their fanfic.

And because they dont want to seem super controlling or whatever they’ll be like I mean I can totally help you write your self insert fantasy fanfic too. So I’ll play the Christien Grey to YOUR Anastasia Steele character.

But like the assumption is that everyone wants to basically write their own self insert fanfic and by allowing people to play two characters of opposite genders everyone gets their own separate fanfic made.

And that’s fine if the person you roleplaying with wants that specific version of “romance”

Buuuut for pretty much any kind of collaborative work where your partner just wants a story that isn’t solely about your characters getting frisky it’s annoying as heck.

Exactly because it feels like your partner is dictating how your characters are played while simultaneously acting like their doing you this huge favor

 

[Platypus]

People who constantly bump their interest check. Don't get me wrong, it certainly sucks when people aren't interested in your rp ideas but for heavens sake, just let the thread die if nobody has shown any interest in it for a week. People aren't going to be magically more interested in it because you bumped the thread a gazillion times.

 

[BackSet]

People who constantly bump their interest check. Don't get me wrong, it certainly sucks when people aren't interested in your rp ideas but for heavens sake, just let the thread die if nobody has shown any interest in it for a week. People aren't going to be magically more interested in it because you bumped the thread a gazillion times.

I only ever bump my interest check once because i usually post my interest checks in the evening so nobody notices them and i need to bump them.

 

[rae2nerdy]

People who constantly bump their interest check. Don't get me wrong, it certainly sucks when people aren't interested in your rp ideas but for heavens sake, just let the thread die if nobody has shown any interest in it for a week. People aren't going to be magically more interested in it because you bumped the thread a gazillion times.

Do you mean like multiple times in a day or reusing the thread?

Because I know a lot of people just use the same thread and update it as needed.

Personally I find this easier because I don’t have to shift through all these old threads to find the search. I just make one, update as needed, and away we go.

Now if your talking about the kind of people who make multiple search threads and bump them every five minutes thanyeah that’s kinda tacky.

At least wait until they’re off the first page otherwise you just look desperate

 

[Platypus]

Do you mean like multiple times in a day or reusing the thread?

Both, I guess. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by reusing the thread.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Both, I guess. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by reusing the thread.

So reusing a thread is where you make only one search thread.

And you just update it whenever your interest change or you need to find new roleplays.

Ex. - In my search thread I have my current craving : Charmed Inspired rps.​

​

Prior to that I had my current cravings listed as - Superheroes , Tamora Pierce, etc.​

​

So each time my interests change I don't make a new search thread entirely for that new interest. I just edit the current thread and add in the new interest and remove the old one.​

This is in contrast to the idea that every time you have a new interest or you are trying to find new partners you make a brand new search just for that.

Now I personally prefer the one search that you update approach because it's more convenient and it's easier to determine what people are looking for.

When people make multiple threads that they bump at random times it's harder to figure out which ones they're actually searching for.

It is especially annoying if they are bumping these different threads simultaneously.

 

[Platypus]

So reusing a thread is where you make only one search thread.

And you just update it whenever your interest change , you need to find new roleplays.

Oh, that's perfectly fine. If you're only using one thread to look for rps that naturally you're going to have to bump it more. But isn't that more or less something only done 1x1's search threads?
I'm talking about the looking for group threads.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Oh, that's perfectly fine. If you're only using one thread to look for rps that naturally you're going to have to bump it more. But isn't that more or less something only done 1x1's search threads?
I'm talking about the looking for group threads.

Ooh sorry I don't go groups so yeah it's done a lot in 1x1s.

I suppose you could re-use interest checks in groups in much the same way. If you have similar ideas you're trying to get off the ground and don't want to make a new thread. But it would be a lot more complicated unless you're literally just trying to reboot the same roleplay over and over.

 

[rae2nerdy]

So this isn't exactly directly related to roleplaying although I have come across similar people running groups in the past.

My general complaint on my other site is around people answering questions about game mechanics or lore.

Like especially if you have a really lore heavy roleplay or something with a lot of application steps you need to make sure those are clearly conveyed.

The game I'm isn't specifically roleplay but it does have roleplay elements. And oh BOY did i get shouted at when I tried to help define their stupid vague b.s. world building. Like I tried to make a map of the world for reference so people could pick where they wanted their characters to be.k

I got like this whole rant from the owner about how it was vague for a reason so people could make the world whatever they wanted and blah blah blah. And it's like cool story bro but if you're going to be running roleplays it should probably be a universal concept.

you can't have one person say = X is an hour away from Y and another person say X is two days drive and a short train ride away from Y.

But whatever. Roleplay is kind of a small aspect of the game and I've learned to pick my battles.

But then I have questions about like specific mechanics of the game linked to leveling up my character and such. And it's always

- We already answered this soo blah blah
- If you read here the answer is blah blah ( link to other website or long lore block )
- As we've estabilished (lol no they haven't) the answer is blah blah

Like they assume
A. pre-existing knowledge of the real world thing the game is based on
B. the fact that people can catalog all the questions asked on their stupid discord thread so they automatically know the questions that have been asked and answered (pro tip not how discord works )
C. are just in general really snarky and the kind of people that treat questions like an imposition.

And it's like - okay either simplify the shit out of this game or come up with some kind of frequently asked question thread or something. don't just act like it's the players duty to read your freaking mind or play detective to try to find some random information you posted like three months ago on a CHAT thread.

 

[torenia]

i get annoyed when people don't reference important points / dialog / actions of my post in theirs. not saying that everything warrants a descriptive elaboration but how are the characters really engaging if you just surface-read my post?

 

[BackSet]

pet peeve: when people ask me something and just go ahead and do things anyways without waiting fir my answer. It's at least semi-tolerable with characters (since even if you ask me beforehand they still need to be approved by me) but when it's actual posts it's annoying.

 

[The Fabulous Emerald]

i think my ultimate peeve is when the person you are interacting with replies with how that character responds to what your post is. cool, i like to see how a character reacts to something that my character has said or done, but what exactly can i do if you don't add anything to it?

 

[HipDip]

When I write six fucking paragraphs and my partner responds with a short sentence that doesn't move the plot at all.

That is always such a downer in Roleplay stories. I had recently been trying out a story with someone and they would post five words if I were lucky. After telling them I was through with it they claimed they could post longer and proceeded to post a sentence and a half. Yeah, its longer. But its still not going to cut it.

 

[Platypus]

When people just spams random fan art in OOC threads. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for an active OOC but I'd prefer that people actually used them to chat with the other players rather than spam a bunch of fan art.

Also, more often the not it just buries important posts.

 

[rae2nerdy]

When people just spams random fan art in OOC threads. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for an active OOC but I'd prefer that people actually used them to chat with the other players rather than spam a bunch of fan art.

Also, more often the not it just buries important posts.

Wait like gifs or actual fan art of characters? I mean either thing seems super obnoxious but ... like why fan art? What is the point in spamming that?

 

[Platypus]

Wait like gifs or actual fan art of characters? I mean either thing seems super obnoxious but ... like why fan art? What is the point in spamming that?

Actual fan art.

Eh, it mostly happens in fandom rps and I suspect that people do it in an vain attempt to prove they are the biggest fan.