Viewpoint What Roleplaying Clichés Need to die out?

[BakaTheIdiot]

Now, with every form of media come clichés, but honestly, some are just done to death. What RP clichés need to stop existing?

For mine: the entire idea of Love at First Sight.

Y'all... No. This plotline has been done so many times that what little variety it could have doesn't really exist anymore. It's a generally shallow idea to begin with, and I feel like it doesn't bring much - if anything at all - to the Roleplaying experience. To shorten, it's basic, and painfully boring.

Now, before y'all go nuclear with your replies, this is just my opinion. I love me some romance, but it needs to be built towards. Not even just slow burn - just anything that isn't first sight.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Clumsy as a personality trait. - Your character's physical tendency to fall/trip/walk into things/etc. has nothing to do with their freaking personality people.
Like I get it, your trying to use a shorthand to tell your partners that your character is a shy nerdy girl cliche. But ya know as someone who is actually a shy nerdy girl who is clumsy it's a little old. If you're going to write the trope at least stick to your guns. Don't just be like "tee hee she's clumsy cuz she fell in front of love interest." No have her as roll her ankles as she is stepping off the sidewalk and end up in crutches for a few weeks. Make it matter or don't write it into the description. Shy and Nerdy are pretty fine descriptors on their own.

Right sorry, that got a little intense.

 

[AdmiralStarNight]

How about the idea that your NEEDS to be the powerful, special character to ever exist in order to be top dog? (so a Mary Sue I guess) you have no clue how many times I’ve seen people be like: “well they can do super speed and deathjitsu from Arturo and one punch everyone after training for a few months, he’s also got a sword/grenad/lightsaber mix weapon he made himself.” And it frustrates me. You don’t have to be powerful all the time! Being a bit normal or say, smart at something can be hella more interestin.

 

[Minako]

How about the idea that your NEEDS to be the powerful, special character to ever exist in order to be top dog? (so a Mary Sue I guess) you have no clue how many times I’ve seen people be like: “well they can do super speed and deathjitsu from Arturo and one punch everyone after training for a few months, he’s also got a sword/grenad/lightsaber mix weapon he made himself.” And it frustrates me. You don’t have to be powerful all the time! Being a bit normal or say, smart at something can be hella more interestin.

^ Well, sort of this!

Now, granted, I don't usually roleplay with people who I don't really know as friends, BUT I've been RPing long enough to see this trend prevalent more often than not.

I also agree being crafty or clever as opposed to just straight powerful is far more superior to straight bull-dozing through an enemy or obstacle anyway!

But well, there will always be RPers like this, especially the younger ones or newer ones to start, I'm afraid!

Another rather tired trope that has long since worn out its welcome (somewhat on this subject) is putting more effort into writing said characters POWERS or PHYSICAL DESCRIPTIONS than their actual personality.

What I mean is their 'power/abilities' section will be several paragraphs long, as well as their physical description, but then when you get to their personality its barely a paragraph long at best.

I personally think their personality should be more described and fleshed out than their power (not to say that their power shouldn't be, especially if its like, say, magic or something that NEEDS to be explained... BUT there shouldn't be SO MUCH POWERS and such that warrant several paragraphs of explanation to start) or physical description (especially when a picture is worth a thousand words and it's easy to find a picture OR, if they're an artist of course, draw it themselves), but again, thats just a preferance.

Not that I've seen this personally too often, but when I pop in on other RP's character sheets from time to time its been present more often than not.

 

[Tove]

Overly stuttering shy characters.
All dialogue and I do mean all dialogue is as if the character is in a constant state of nervousness or fear. Every interaction is either blushing or stuttering.

My spouse stuttered growing up. From what he's told me, it's not fun. It's embarrassing to have people look at you like you're stupid when you're trying to convey your words to them so when people have their characters act that way or speak that way, it's unrealistic. It seems like they think it's cute or something.

 

[Crayons]

Dead parents/dead family/last survivor of x.

When a canon character is last survivor of x, the OC is mysteriously ... also the last survivor of x. Surprise!

Stoic samurai archetype. Like, please. Stoic is an outward trait, there should be something underneath that. Stoic, but strategising. Stoic, but passionate. Stoic, but really stupid so he puts on a stoic face to hide the fact that he doesn't understand wtf is going on. If all your character has is stoicism then you might as well replace them with a rock.

Edgelords. Unless you have a great twist on this trope, just no.

Descriptive RP cliches. By this I mean using words like "orbs" or "optics" to refer to eyes, or "tiers" to refer to lips. Words that only appear in roleplay or fanfiction. Luckily this seems to be dying out and a lot of younger players haven't even seen it. It is perfectly fine to use the word eyes to mean eyes even if you have to use the word eyes multiple times.

 

[Ayama]

Descriptive RP cliches. By this I mean using words like "orbs" or "optics" to refer to eyes, or "tiers" to refer to lips. Words that only appear in roleplay or fanfiction. Luckily this seems to be dying out and a lot of younger players haven't even seen it. It is perfectly fine to use the word eyes to mean eyes even if you have to use the word eyes multiple times.

Or 'the male/female' instead of guy/girl, man/woman, ... x.x

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[Crayons]

Or 'the male/female' instead of guy/girl, man/woman, ... x.x

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YES. Also included: trying to find any other way to mention the person without using their name, for example "the brunette", "the blonde", "the older male", "the teen" etc. This is fine if the character's don't know each other's names but once they do, just use their names. "The blond man walked down the street" is fine if you don't know who the blond man is. If you have already established that the blond man is Kevin, just say "Kevin walked down the street" unless the fact that he is blond is relevant for some reason. It is OK to use people's names multiple times. It is fine. You don't need to find synonyms.

This is generally worse in fanfic tbh.

 

[Crow]

It is neat seeing some of these answers. I don't agree with 'em all, but most is still fine.

Well, when it comes to certain tropes or character types, there's a gauge.

Take the edgelord for example. In all their broodiness and moodiness, they can be fun to watch and fun to play. If you have the right roleplayer depicting them, and have other roleplayers or characters to play them off, they're a neat part of the team. But when you don't, oh no. Oh nononono... Everything goes wrong, and I mean everything! Regular edgelords know how to keep cool in the appropriate scenario, but then you have edgelord edgelords that just want to nuke every damn thing in sight and will strangle and torture anyone who opposes them or anyone in sight like some kind of tyrant madman even though they want to prove themselves better than the antagonists like holy fuck man can you believe that.

As for common offenders already listed like lots of powers, dead relatives, it really depends from RP to RP, character to character, all that.

Dead parents/dead family/last survivor of x.

When a canon character is last survivor of x, the OC is mysteriously ... also the last survivor of x. Surprise!

Someone tell Sasuke that his bloodline's still chilling on those Naruto RP forums.

Uchihas are the most prominent example of this. It's a bit funny, really.

 

[Ayama]

YES. Also included: trying to find any other way to mention the person without using their name, for example "the brunette", "the blonde" etc. This is fine if the character's don't know each other's names but once they do, just use their names. "The blond man walked down the street" is fine if you don't know who the blond man is. If you have already established that the blond man is Kevin, just say "Kevin walked down the street" unless the fact that he is blond is relevant for some reason. It is OK to use people's names multiple times. It is fine. You don't need to find synonyms.

Personally, I am more averse to 'Kevin did this, Kevin did that, Kevin ate an apple today', so I enjoy writing that alternates with pronouns, titles/descriptors, and just plain names- as long as it doesn't go overboard.

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[Crayons]

Someone tell Sasuke that his bloodline's still chilling on those Naruto RP forums.

Uchihas are the most prominent example of this. It's a bit funny, really.

This is exactly what I was thinking of. XD

 

[Crayons]

Personally, I am more averse to 'Kevin did this, Kevin did that, Kevin ate an apple today', so I enjoy writing that alternates with pronouns, titles/descriptors, and just plain names- as long as it doesn't go overboard.

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Kevin did this. He did that. He ate an apple today. Pronouns exist for a reason. XD

 

[Ayama]

Kevin did this. He did that. He ate an apple today. Pronouns exist for a reason. XD

Yes but so do titles and descriptors. There's nothing inherently wrong with using them- the issue that tends to come up with RP or FF writing is that they're overused, and that they're horribly generic/formulaic xD

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[Crayons]

Yes but so do titles and descriptors. There's nothing inherently wrong with using them- the issue that tends to come up with RP or FF writing is that they're overused, and that they're horribly generic/formulaic xD

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I agree.

 

[Ayama]

I agree.

-le gasp!-

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[Crayons]

-le gasp!-

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There is definitely something wrong with calling people "the blonde" and "the brunet" though. XDD

 

[Ayama]

There is definitely something wrong with calling people "the blonde" and "the brunet" though. XDD

Not at all- it's seen relatively frequently in published work. What you won't see, however, is the author doing so repeatedly, or referring to someone as 'the male/female' x.x

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[BakaTheIdiot]

Really diggin' the amount of attention this is getting! Seeing a lot of answers, some I relate to more than others, and some of which I've... honestly been lucky to avoid. For example, I don't think I've ever encountered a "god-mode" Roleplayer. Usually, the partners/groups I get are pretty chill and fair. The only exception I can think of is this JJBA RP I was in, that died fairly quickly, but everyone had somewhat over-the-top powers - myself included. AND we were going up against a literal superbeing, capable of controlling life forms, so yeah, we had a reason to be fairly OP at times.

...Anyway.

I tend to avoid the descriptors of "the blonde" or "the figure" or the x, y, ans z. This is not to say I never use it, it's just not a common appearance in my Roleplays. However, I could totally justify using it in the first place, especially in early RP stages.

 

[tointernalize]

I'm personally not a fan of the "grocery list dialog" - as in, one character replying to absolutely anything and everything the other said, despite the fact this is nothing like what real conversations look like. When a person is telling you a story in real life, you're not going to provide commentary on every last bit of the story; normally you'd only react to the last thing said, or the most important part of the story / the one that stood out to you the most. It's almost (but not really) a form of god-modding, seeing as to how my character's dialog/reactions would have changed if someone intervened while they were in the middle of a story/speech/whatever. I know it's not quite a cliche, but something I've seen a lot of people do in my +15 years of roleplay.

 

[Crayons]

I'm personally not a fan of the "grocery list dialog" - as in, one character replying to absolutely anything and everything the other said, despite the fact this is nothing like what real conversations look like. When a person is telling you a story in real life, you're not going to provide commentary on every last bit of the story; normally you'd only react to the last thing said, or the most important part of the story / the one that stood out to you the most. It's almost (but not really) a form of god-modding, seeing as to how my character's dialog/reactions would have changed if someone intervened while they were in the middle of a story/speech/whatever. I know it's not quite a cliche, but something I've seen a lot of people do in my +15 years of roleplay.

Yeah, but in a real conversation you can interrupt with your reply whenever... in an RP you have to wait till it's your post. This is just one of the weird time dilation things about RP and a downside of turn based interaction ifaic.

 

[Natural Flavour]

How about the idea that your NEEDS to be the powerful, special character to ever exist in order to be top dog? (so a Mary Sue I guess) you have no clue how many times I’ve seen people be like: “well they can do super speed and deathjitsu from Arturo and one punch everyone after training for a few months, he’s also got a sword/grenad/lightsaber mix weapon he made himself.” And it frustrates me. You don’t have to be powerful all the time! Being a bit normal or say, smart at something can be hella more interestin.

Tee hee~ It's really funny to watch when an entire BNHA RP is full of characters like that XD Luckily most of them listen to reason tho in a fight when you have to give the victory to the other guy XD Just a little bit of moping and it's fine. Except for this one girl who literally could not listen and thought she could beat the shit out of anybody and so we restrained her with shit that was inescapable and she escaped in like 5 seconds XD we kicked her out. XD

 

[ashwynne]

There is definitely something wrong with calling people "the blonde" and "the brunet" though. XDD

Uh-oh, I do this a fair bit It’s all fine and dandy when characters aren’t interacting closely for an extended period of time, but when you have two male (or two female) characters in close proximity for a while, using ‘he’ is confusing without including a descriptor to differentiate them and using their names constantly just sounds choppy.

I have definitely seen it be overused or used badly but (as with most things in writing) my experience is that it can also be done in a way that is subtle enough to hardly be noticed but useful enough to smoothly differentiate characters.

As for me personally... I’m incredibly sick of the “shy girl but fierce when she needs to be” cliche. You have to pick one. Or at the very least make it so that acting out to protect someone/something/themselves is a massive internal struggle and they’re panicking the entire time or have a breakdown afterwards. THAT could be interesting but 99% of the time you have Mary Sue blushing, stammering, and being entirely nonfunctional in general until trouble happens and then suddenly they’re a snarling badass.

As someone who IS naturally shy at first but also very protective of the people in my life, I can tell you that turning into a fiery ball of rage also triggers a parallel anxiety that manifests either during or after. Being “shy” until it’s no longer convenient—with no repercussions for acting otherwise—is just some weird author wish-fulfillment and not accurate at all.

 

[LazyDaze]

"Doesn't let people get close to him, but will die for those who manage to get close."

I've done my share of this too, but one time I saw this exact line (maybe with variations of wording) for five different characters in one Character thread and I'm like....is anyone going to RP with each other? Like it's fine and all, but its sorta like the dead parents thing. Let's try to have some variety and originality once an awhile. xD

 

[Afropuppy]

Or 'the male/female' instead of guy/girl, man/woman, ... x.x

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I personally use male/female a lot, but that's only when I'm referring to an animal or creature. Problem is that I rarely roleplay something other than animals so I rarely use boy/girl and man/woman. When I'm actually playing as a human though I'm way more likely to say boy/girl than male/female

 

[Afropuppy]

"Doesn't let people get close to him, but will die for those who manage to get close."

I've done my share of this too, but one time I saw this exact line (maybe with variations of wording) for five different characters in one Character thread and I'm like....is anyone going to RP with each other? Like it's fine and all, but its sorta like the dead parents thing. Let's try to have some variety and originality once an awhile. xD

In one of the roleplays I was in (a wolf roleplay btw), pretty much every character except for mine and two other people's had that thing. Went about as bad as it sounds, long story short it was the 3 of us roleplaying as an actual wolf pack and the rest of the group were just making "he heard barking in the distance but couldn't be bothered to check it out" posts all throughout the roleplay