Roleplay Pet Peeves

[blue4333]

What are some of your pet peeves when it comes to roleplaying? Pet peeves that make you /em eyeroll. Keep in mind, this is a thread in jest, it's not that serious.

 

One pet peeve of mine is when people text in 3 or 4 single sentences rapidly in chat as if they're texting. For example, sentence 1: "Cool.", sentence 2: "I don't like wearing pants.", sentence 3: "random quirky fluff". Let me get a word in omg.

Edited June 11, 2020 by blue4333

[justicebeliever]

I always shiver at threads like this.  I love to Role Play, but I know that I am really bad at it.  I want to role play more in missions, but I find that my anxiety gets higher when I have a goal to meet (defeat all, rescue so and so, find the glowie, whatever), that I get so focused on not failing (which admitted, is pretty hard to do) or falling behind, that I forget to hold up my end of the conversation.

 

I'm sure that I am someone's pet peeve

[Coyotedancer]

Mine? The fact that my typing skills, which are poor at the best of times, go *completely* to hell when I try to chat and play the game at the same time. 

 

Makes things troublesome, because I prefer active, roleplayed missions over just standing around watching other people chat about things I either have no part in or ACTIVELY DON'T WANT TO have any part in. (About 90% of the "BarP" conversations I've seen, both in the D and elsewhere... I'm looking at you. XD) 

[Latex]

My Roleplaying pet peeve is pet peeves, there is enough divisiveness between RP'ers as it is.

 

I think this hobby has hundreds of different ways of being viable or fun, there isn't a wrong way to Roleplay other than the basic tenants that make Roleplay... Roleplay. The key is to find communities within communities that you mesh with, this could be a Supergroup or a Chat Channel etc. There is parts of my Roleplay people won't like and I dislike some parts of Roleplay others enjoy, being tolerant to different styles even the things that may seem silly to you is what I feel works best, that doesn't mean you have to partake in that specific style of RP. Any types of RP (or even characters) that I dislike I just quietly avoid without kicking up dust.

[Ruin Mage]

My pet peeve is pet peeves--damnit, Latex beat me to it.

[Fortuneteller]

I don't have a specific thing that peeves me on the regular. Though one thing i can recall that happened to me a few weeks back kinda did. A player sent me a /tell asking me to use quotation marks "" around my text, citing that it looked prettier in the chat if everyone used them. I refused to because A: It's a pain in the ass to do so. and B: It's pointless to do so.

They said they wouldn't RP with me anymore. I /shrugged IRL and said buh bye to them.

[ImpousVileTerror]

Less of a roleplay pet peeve, and more of a pet peeve related to roleplay on Homecoming:

I wish more people would use these forums to coordinate and organize, and that other players would engage with the players who -do- post here.

It's the official board, after all.  It does rather make it -the- place to go.  Yet even the OOC/RP Global channels see more consistent activity than this board does, and we only have about 1100 members in those channels (average), with maybe 1% to 3% of them being active, and 7% to 12% generally being online at any given time.  And it's not like you can post files or write well-structured prose in the Global Channels.

 

So . . . what I'm really saying is . . . 

 

Thank you to everyone who is posting in this thread, and on this board!  Whether it be complaints or creative endeavours, I do appreciate seeing activity here.

[TheOtherTed]

I kind of sort of RPed on live, and I haven't really gotten into RP here, but I can think of three things that used to drive me a little nuts.

 

The first:  RP that denies the group's immediate reality in some way.  The most stark example was whenever our SG ran TFs, one senior officer or another would just stop and decide to have a "rap and bull" session like some hip teacher from a 70's era after-school special.  We'd be prompted with questions about our characters' backgrounds, while standing not ten feet away from a spawn of, say, Council (who would usually be staring right at us as if in disbelief).  The third time it happened, I mustered up the courage to say, "Sir, we've got a job to do," but the inevitable fight had already broken out before I was done typing.

 

The second:  Making assumptions about your fellow heroes/villains without even attempting to read their bios.  The first team I ever joined on Virtue did this.  I was third to join, and everyone who joined after - every single one - greeted the team with "Greetings, mortals."  I started to wonder if this was some sort of server joke that I wasn't in on yet, but, nope, every dang diddley do-gooder there (except my character) had a bio certifying his or her divinity.  My character eventually quipped that maybe the city should change its nickname to "City of Immortals."

 

The third:  Demanding backstory.  And more backstory.  And essays, and short stories, and timelines, and anthologies, and so on.  I'd describe myself as a "light" RPer - I have a general idea of where my characters came from, and what their personalities are like, and I try to stay in character.  Almost all my characters have a bio of some sort, but for me, that's pretty much where the investment ends.  On live, I was in a few SGs that would start out requiring a bio (no problem), then an "origin story" of some sort (ok, sure, could be fun) - and then a follow-up on the origin story - and then a life history - and then a full questionnaire of likes, dislikes, places visited, relatives, important events in each stage of life, etc.  I understand that people really get into that sort of thing, and I've seen some impressive writing come out of it, but trying to pull all that out of someone like me is like trying to teach a pig to sing.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2020 by TheOtherTed
Words. Miss. I.

[Saeletra]

15 minutes ago, TheOtherTed said:

The second:  Making assumptions about your fellow heroes/villains without even attempting to read their bios.  The first team I ever joined on Virtue did this.  I was third to join, and everyone who joined after - every single one - greeted the team with "Greetings, mortals."  I started to wonder if this was some sort of server joke that I wasn't in on yet, but, nope, every dang diddley do-gooder there (except my character) had a bio certifying his or her divinity.  My character eventually quipped that maybe the city should change its nickname to "City of Immortals."

 

I think I was on that team! I distinctly remember the "City of Immortals" comment. That team prompted me to change my join greeting to "Fear Not, I am bound to the service of Paragon. My fire will not harm you."

[blue4333]

Well, two days ago, I parked my toon in Pocket D while I alt-tabbed to Youtube. Another thing that annoys me is when people "ERP" in public, I'm not kinkshaming or anything but can you at least find a secluded spot or something? One of them was swapping to costumes of increasing nudity right beside me. 

[TheOtherTed]

3 hours ago, Saeletra said:

I think I was on that team! I distinctly remember the "City of Immortals" comment. That team prompted me to change my join greeting to "Fear Not, I am bound to the service of Paragon. My fire will not harm you."

Heh, maybe!  If so, we must have teamed up again, because I remember the "bound to the service of Paragon" quote.  It (ironically) led me to make my first immortal character on Virtue, a "biker elf" who was doing community service for some infraction or other.

[ImpousVileTerror]

And thusly, between Ted and Sael, the cycle is complete.

One was but a learner, but they are now the myster!

 

 . . . I have no idea what I'm saying.

[Saeletra]

9 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

Heh, maybe!  If so, we must have teamed up again, because I remember the "bound to the service of Paragon" quote.  It (ironically) led me to make my first immortal character on Virtue, a "biker elf" who was doing community service for some infraction or other.

I love it when inspiration strikes and a new character is born or created!

 

So as not to derail the thread anymore. My biggest RP Pet Peeves tend to go hand in hand.

 

Excessive and over the top drama for the sake of drama.

Characters that absolutely have to be the center of attention and turn every RP or story line to be about them.

[Coyotedancer]

6 hours ago, Saeletra said:

Excessive and over the top drama for the sake of drama.

 

'Have to admit, that one makes me side-eye a bit, too...

 

A friend mentioned awhile back that he and his partner-in-mischief were specifically planning on introducing a couple of new characters, getting them to the point where people in their RP circle were attached to them... fond of them and all that... just so they could then kill off said-characters and create copious ~roleplaying dramus~. I laughed, wished him luck and made a mental note never to let another character of mine have anything but the most casual of attachments to anyone new of his.

 

I'm a Dirty Casual. I'm just not in it for All The Drama. XD

[Latex]

8 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

'Have to admit, that one makes me side-eye a bit, too...

 

A friend mentioned awhile back that he and his partner-in-mischief were specifically planning on introducing a couple of new characters, getting them to the point where people in their RP circle were attached to them... fond of them and all that... just so they could then kill off said-characters and create copious ~roleplaying dramus~. I laughed, wished him luck and made a mental note never to let another character of mine have anything but the most casual of attachments to anyone new of his.

 

I'm a Dirty Casual. I'm just not in it for All The Drama. XD

If it was In-Character drama I'd say that was a good thing!

It's when OOC ends up in a blender with IC drama that things start to go bad.
 

[Coyotedancer]

16 minutes ago, Latex said:

If it was In-Character drama I'd say that was a good thing!

It's when OOC ends up in a blender with IC drama that things start to go bad.
 

I consider OOC drama at least a little inevitable within any given roleplay community. People being people, it's just going to happen. I'm just not a huge fan of "engineered drama" IC either. It struck me as a bit of an asshole move, to be blunt about it. Fun for them, I'm sure, but maybe not so much for the people who had no idea what they were planning.

 

Like I said, I made a mental note of the plan and have just sort of avoided anything the two of them have created since. 'Not my bag, you know? If they want to go that route, it's not my place to tell them it's BadWrongFun. It's just not something I want any part of myself.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[ImpousVileTerror]

These days I try to treat my roleplay like I treat my sex:  Communicate.  Establish the scene.  Confirm informed consent.  Remain open to changes that happen in the heat of the moment.  Make an effort to debrief/aftercare.

 

Honestly . . . I find there's a lot of overlap in the two.

 

So, if the case of killing off a character as part of a dramatic reveal, I do try to establish first if the other players I'm engaging in the narrative with are comfortable with surprises, and just how far their comfort extends.  I do this with frank and direct conversation.  I also try to strike up meaningful conversations on what other players' expectations are in regard to theme and tone, which can vary WILDLY in this setting.  While the scene is taking place, I do try to remind other players to let me know if anything is ever uncomfortable or too graphic, and let them know that we can "hand wave" or "fade to black" if necessary.  And - . . . oh.  I just thought of a pet peeve.

 

Asking for feedback after a scene and getting a "it was fine" reply.

DAMNIT!   I want criticisms!  I want to improve!   *flails tentacles*

[General Idiot]

Personally the one that always irritates me a little is people RPing powers their character doesn't and couldn't actually have. I don't mind stuff you might have in a few more levels or creative interpretations of powersets but there's a limit to how far artistic license can go before it becomes stupid. Stuff that's straight up impossible for a character of your chosen powersets to do at all ever annoys the hell out of me.

 

Sure, not everyone has time or motivation to level to 50 and IO themselves out before RPing or make variations of a character with different archetypes (A couple of people I know actually do that, have several versions of the same character with different ATs but the same general theme) but keep things within reason. A stone brute is a stone brute, not an energy blaster - something I saw someone actually RPing back on live once.

[r0y]

On 6/12/2020 at 7:40 PM, TheOtherTed said:

The second:  Making assumptions about your fellow heroes/villains without even attempting to read their bios.  The first team I ever joined on Virtue did this.  I was third to join, and everyone who joined after - every single one - greeted the team with "Greetings, mortals."  I started to wonder if this was some sort of server joke that I wasn't in on yet, but, nope, every dang diddley do-gooder there (except my character) had a bio certifying his or her divinity.  My character eventually quipped that maybe the city should change its nickname to "City of Immortals."

If there (or should there be) a /slash command to pop up the $target's info window?  so people (RP'ers) can easily macro it?  e.g. /macro i "/toggleinfo $target" or something... that might help.

 

I know one can leave that window floating (I sometimes do, but I have a LOT of screen real estate, and it probably isn't good for those with UHD res or lower).

 

Also, a generally-accepted RP SCALE would be nice.  I'll *very rarely* do "light rp" with an RP team, I don't do the "hang out at the bar and flirt" RP.  I mean, I see "casual RP" or "light RP is OK" and I'm there.  Inversely, a "heavy RP" or "serious RP only" is also very useful to me (and the team), as it's not for me, but for more RP-centric.  Something like a letter or code thing "RP1" or "RP9" for light to heavy?  I dunno, just brainstorming.

Edited July 11, 2020 by r0y

[Greycat]

Roleplayers only RPing that they're roleplaying, especially when they're RPing a character who, themselves, RP. *nods*

 

>.>

[r0y]

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

Roleplayers only RPing that they're roleplaying, especially when they're RPing a character who, themselves, RP. *nods*

 

>.>

I'm the dude playin' the dude, disguised as another dude!

[TheOtherTed]

...Victor Victoria?  So confused...

[SylvanMansion]

On 6/12/2020 at 9:33 AM, Coyotedancer said:

Mine? The fact that my typing skills, which are poor at the best of times, go *completely* to hell when I try to chat and play the game at the same time. 

 

This is me, too. I have trouble reading and playing at the same time, especially if the group is in a mission.

[Oginth]

17 hours ago, r0y said:

If there (or should there be) a /slash command to pop up the $target's info window?  so people (RP'ers) can easily macro it?  e.g. /macro i "/toggleinfo $target" or something... that might help

This would be nice, especially on chat.

[ImpousVileTerror]

Ta-da!

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/16387-tempests-roleplay-suggestion-compendium/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-238743

Here's hoping.