Other Roleplay Pet peeves

[Frownist]

I have so many that feel recently relevant!

• Folks who h o a r d threads and scenes they don't actually have time, motivation, or inspiration for. I know it happens to the best of us. I know people can lose inspiration suddenly. I'm specifically talking about people who know they don't care about writing with someone/their character, but they ask for a thread anyway. Nothing makes me feel like chopped liver faster in a group.
  
  
• People who jump in, see that longtime members of the group are tight and have developed a rapport, and cry about cliques without giving it some time. You can't expect to have the close-knit relationship with the longtime members immediately. It's one thing if they're genuinely excluding you, but in a group setting, people come and go. You need to prove you have "staying power" before people will put forth effort to get to know you.
  
  
• Conversely... joining a group in which none of the existing members are willing to write with anyone but the writer involved in their character's ship.
  
  
• Joining a group where people snatch ships up immediately - usually before characters have been introduced IC - and if your character's not involved in a ship, you don't get to write.
  
  
• When people want to write with me based on the faceclaim I used. This one's so discouraging. I know it's supposed to be complimentary, but I just feel flipped off. None of the development, writing, or characterization matters; just, "hot faceclaim, want to write together?"
  
  
• When I'm literally minding my business, writing and having fun, and the adult (over 30) writers in the group cannot go without starting OOC drama-fires.
  
  
• When the emotional states of everyone in a group seem to be weirdly entangled.

Specifically for number three is in group roleplays where the GM only pays attention to certain people or a certain plot happening within the roleplay. I know it’s exciting to see how plots unravel but that’s a very easy way to have other role players of your group lose interest in the roleplay. Like, if someone submits a character and you don’t find them interesting and don’t give them anything to do.. Then don’t accept the person into the roleplay. You’re not obligated to accept them just because they showed interest.

 

[natsukashii]

At the moment, I loathe when I make plans with my character and someone else's character to ship and it's pretty clear that was my desire and other plans are made without me being notified, it kinda grinds my gears.

Additionally and just in a general sense, if a big decision, no matter how small to you, is made without my knowledge, esp if it pertains to a roleplay that I am a co-gm of and i'm not part of that conversation, that also grinds my gears.

 

[Icee]

At the moment, I loathe when I make plans with my character and someone else's character to ship and it's pretty clear that was my desire and other plans are made without me being notified, it kinda grinds my gears.

Additionally and just in a general sense, if a big decision, no matter how small to you, is made without my knowledge, esp if it pertains to a roleplay that I am a co-gm of and i'm not part of that conversation, that also grinds my gears.

Honestly, I don't wanna grind people's gears on planning so I get nervous to really make/vocalize plans. I'm just tending to be flexible but will say if I don't like a shipping idea when it gets brought up. I also tend to lean toward no committed canon/oc ships because it grinds my gears when people want me to FORCE myself to make the chemistry work when it's NOT. I'm not gonna butcher a canon character's personality to fit OCS.

Yeah that's also why I don't manage groups because that type of thing happens on choices which leads to drama.

 

[GojiBean]

At the moment, I loathe when I make plans with my character and someone else's character to ship and it's pretty clear that was my desire and other plans are made without me being notified, it kinda grinds my gears.

Hoyo.

I'm going to be honest, this statement with its current phrasing concerns me a little bit.

Presuming you contacted the owner of the character in the ship via DM and you both agreed to ship your characters together, but then they don't follow through and instead have their character ship with another character, then I can see your irritation being justified.

However...

If you're not directly communicating and coming to some kind of agreement ahead of time then I'm afraid you have no right getting upset about the ship not working out.

I'm going to be very blunt with you about this: It doesn't matter how how clear you think you're making your intentions either IC or OOC, nobody owes you a successful or mutual ship, nor does anyone owe you any kind of communication about whatever plans they make for their own characters because that's entirely their own business.

Remember, they know their own character better than you ever will. Even if you think what your character is saying/doing IC should be romantically attractive to this other character because it's how you see it working in your own head, their owner may know that the opposite is true and that whatever your character is saying/doing is in fact unattractive and turning their character off. They have no obligation to tell you what's going on in their character's head and can simply let their character's IC dialogue and interactions do the talking for them. And if it turns out that their character naturally becomes romantically attracted to a completely different character, that's also entirely their business.

At present, the implication in your statement is that you feel entitled to the ships you create in your head working out because you want them to, and that you feel entitled to direct communication if and when the other character's owner takes them in a different romantic direction. This is all sounding very toxic, and I highly recommend that you take a step back and re-evaluate how you see ships and romance in roleplays.

A one-sided ship which never sails isn't worth getting upset over. Chalk it up to your characters not being as compatible as you initially thought, and move on.

Cheers!

- GojiBean

 

[riwole_]

when me and my partner plot a promising roleplay and then suddenly, i get a problem and inform them that i'll reply whenever i can, yet still they ghost me after i'm back and say "you ghosted me first."
NO YOU DID??

 

[TripleVegas]

Every once in a while there's this one person in a group roleplay who borders on breaking the rules and ruins the run for everybody else.

 

[kawaiiyote]

when a person reaches out to me to plot something in the group, & another writer swoops in to remind that person that they still need to plot something together. or worse, that they'd be interested in the plot the person reached out to me about - then they start plotting together before i can even respond.

it happens often enough for me to consider this a whole peeve.

 

[Steve Jobs]

When a mod or GM takes lore questions/suggestions as personal insults.

 

[Cogwork]

The amount of people who are baffled over the idea that I'd like to include "predetermined romance" in my romance roleplays genuinely pisses me off.

Fuck me for wanting to know ahead of time if a roleplay I'm going to be putting god knows how much time into is going to include the actual thing I'm interested in I guess.

I swear if you pulled the same shit with literally any other genre rp you'd be laughed out of the room.

 

[Jannah]

The amount of people who are baffled over the idea that I'd like to include "predetermined romance" in my romance roleplays genuinely pisses me off.

Fuck me for wanting to know ahead of time if a roleplay I'm going to be putting god knows how much time into is going to include the actual thing I'm interested in I guess.

I swear if you pulled the same shit with literally any other genre rp you'd be laughed out of the room.

I am one of those people who likes romance to develop naturally, but then again I typically don't make it the primary plot focus in most of my RP's. For someone specifically seeking romance RP's it's understandable that they will require romance in their RP's. I thought that would be pretty obvious to other players as well. Like, if they don't want romance then why seek out romance RP's?

 

[Chained Echoes]

When a person is not interested in collaborating with a partner but is looking for someone to just do their ideas, wants, characters, etc. To top it off they have a ridiculous attitude about it too.

 

[WhiskeyMarten]

Faceclaims!! I hate finding faceclaims!!!! I hated it before, and I hate it more now that Pinterest and other sites are infested with AI.

 

[saniachan]

Man, gotta hate it when I cooked an IC post up to what I thought was the most recent posts but the site didn't refresh until I posted and there's more stuff posted which I'm now forced to accommodate via post edit at mere minutes after I posted. Like, why???

 

[Yunalescaa]

If your plot summary for your group RP is over 500 words, you might want to just start writing your own story. If I have to read 1500 words of your plot to understand what is happening before we start I fear your story is far too complicated. I'll probably get people calling me silly for that. But I genuinely don't think the general plot I'm reading to decide if I'm interested needs to be that long.

I do understand that to some extent there will be lore and extra exposition you might want to give to the players so they fully understand. Again, I think if you've surpassed 1000 words on the plot alone, there might be some plot bloat actually. I think it's okay if the plot grab is pretty short. You can have a thread or discord channel that just lays out the additional needed details.

 

[jump.]

when people make plots that end up directly effecting your character but don't bother to include you in the plotting until last minute

 

[Chained Echoes]

When someone has their character react to my character's internal thoughts. Just no and no for some type of ability to read minds especially if this is not discussed.

 

[Steve Jobs]

Some new but not new ones:

- When two players try to skip ahead without getting approval from the GM/ other players
- Using a real life institution or area and flattening them into a generic city/company/etc
- Throwing names together without researching the regional usage/spelling, proper spelling, or the meaning behind them.

 

[Jannah]

Some new but not new ones:

- When two players try to skip ahead without getting approval from the GM/ other players
- Using a real life institution or area and flattening them into a generic city/company/etc
- Throwing names together without researching the regional usage/spelling, proper spelling, or the meaning behind them.

What do you mean by this second one? Care to elaborate on that?

 

[Steve Jobs]

What do you mean by this second one? Care to elaborate on that?

An example would be setting a roleplay in San Francisco, CA. I feel like if you (general you) are going to use SF, then as a GM you should incorporate its quirks/distinguishing features into your writing/aesthetic (ex: topography, the weather, the architecture). That isn't to say you need to make references at every opportunity, but I don't see the point in referencing a San Francisco if you're just going to treat it like any other big city. It breaks my immersion and doubly so if the roleplay is set somewhere that I've lived in.

 

[nerdy tangents]

An example would be setting a roleplay in San Francisco, CA. I feel like if you (general you) are going to use SF, then as a GM you should incorporate its quirks/distinguishing features into your writing/aesthetic (ex: topography, the weather, the architecture). That isn't to say you need to make references at every opportunity, but I don't see the point in referencing a San Francisco if you're just going to treat it like any other big city. It breaks my immersion and doubly so if the roleplay is set somewhere that I've lived in.

In fairness most peoples only experience with locations is books, TVs and movies.

So outside of one major landmark (example the Golden Gate Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, etc.) you are getting pretty generic vibes from every city.

Granted that’s cuz for the movies/TV shows your in a backlot somewhere not the actual city. And most people writing books also haven’t been to the place or done any particular research beyond what they have absorbed from pop culture.

Not necessarily disagreeing with your pet peeve just saying that most people aren’t actually going to realize how different major cities are from one another because the media does a bad job showing it.