Roleplay Pet Peeves

[Coyotedancer]

If I wanted to do the PvP-thing... IC or otherwise... I'd wander back over to Aion. <_<

[Haijinx]

On 7/18/2020 at 4:12 PM, Crater Kate said:

One of my favorite things to do is lampshade the hell out of the setup. 🙂

 

"Hey guys, uh, this might be a weird question, but does anyone ACTUALLY know what we're doing? I just got a call from Ghost Widow and she said meet these guys in this place and... look, if I'm being honest, I've just been following you guys around for the last half hour trying to blend in."

Awesome.

 

I like to complain how lazy the Freedom Phalanx is when doing Task Forces.  Making us do their work for them.

 

Especially Maniticore.  I hate that guy.  Plus he isn't fooling anybody, that's totally a wig.  He is B-A-L-D. 

 

[KonradKnox]

I have 3 main pet peeves.

 

1. Players who put into their bio [RP friendly/Walkups friendly/ hooks: feel free to recognize from blah] and then don't act friendly or deny it when you recognize them. If you've done this, you know who you are. Interacting with such players feels like a waste of time, like, why did I even bother approaching.

 

2. Level 5 Badasses. People who bully your fully kitted out person and then insist on an RP dice based fight. Na, bru. If you gonna be a prick, let's go to the arena.

 

3. Thousand year old entities. They are never properly played, and as humans we can't really have capacity to properly play a wise 3000 old elf, because it's just not believable, you end up having ancient beings acting like edgy children. Nobody wants to see Thor angstily hitting on an 18 year old girl at a night club. (Wasn't there a movie about that?) Just stick to semi normal age, please.

[Coyotedancer]

3 minutes ago, KonradKnox said:

3. Thousand year old entities. They are never properly played, and as humans we can't really have capacity to properly play a wise 3000 old elf, because it's just not believable, you end up having ancient beings acting like edgy children. Nobody wants to see Thor angstily hitting on an 18 year old girl at a night club. (Wasn't there a movie about that?) Just stick to semi normal age, please.

 

Even though I typically do have that "random friendly" tag in my crew's bios... and actually abide by it... Do yourself a favor and never talk to any of my Oranbegans. 

If you don't think anyone can handle roleplaying an elf, you'd just hate someone trying it with a group of fifteen-thousand year old body-snatching ghosts. 🤣

 

Snark aside, I do get what you mean, though. "I'm older than dirt, but never grew up" does get old. 

[Ruin Mage]

2 hours ago, KonradKnox said:

2. Level 5 Badasses. People who bully your fully kitted out person and then insist on an RP dice based fight. Na, bru. If you gonna be a prick, let's go to the arena.

On one hand, yes - the low level badasses can be a touch annoying but using the arena to solve IC conflict is a really wrinkle-brained move. Emote/Dice fight are less reliant on having builds.

 

 

2 hours ago, KonradKnox said:

3. Thousand year old entities. They are never properly played, and as humans we can't really have capacity to properly play a wise 3000 old elf, because it's just not believable, you end up having ancient beings acting like edgy children. Nobody wants to see Thor angstily hitting on an 18 year old girl at a night club. (Wasn't there a movie about that?)

I wouldn't say never, but they are certainly hard to portray if you want to play the wise and elegant sort. However, some people just never grow up. Even if that is annoying.

...that would make a hilarious movie, but also probably not a good one.

[johua]

people who put references or links to their naughty list website in their bio and don't even have anything worth laughing about.

like at least put something funny in there, otherwise you're just being gross.

[America's Angel]

No difference between level 5 badasses and level 50+3 badasses IMO. They're both just people sat at keyboards typing into a chatbox.

[Andreah]

On 11/25/2020 at 12:03 PM, KonradKnox said:

3. Thousand year old entities. They are never properly played, and as humans we can't really have capacity to properly play a wise 3000 old elf, because it's just not believable, you end up having ancient beings acting like edgy children. Nobody wants to see Thor angstily hitting on an 18 year old girl at a night club. (Wasn't there a movie about that?) Just stick to semi normal age, please.

I can't disagree very hard with this. But a skilled player could do it, with some effort. It helps to actually know some very old people in real life. But this is part of roleplaying -- learning how to portray something you are not, don't have much experience with, and that may not actually exist at all. Often literature offers us a solid base of exemplars to work from; e.g., how vampires and werewolves might behave. And this is true with the super-old, too. Where I wholly agree with Konrad's point is when players don't even try.

 

There's a counterpart I'm not fond of though -- they very young character with unbelievable lists of experiences and accomplishments. This end up as a bit of a thing with super-spies; they're very often in the physical prime of their early twenties, and yet have thirty years' and more worth of things they've done. 

[Andreah]

On 11/28/2020 at 6:58 AM, America's Angel said:

No difference between level 5 badasses and level 50+3 badasses IMO. They're both just people sat at keyboards typing into a chatbox.

A true mechanical badass, imo, would be someone whose badassery has exceeded the norm by a fair margin. E.g., show up on the team sporting a 50+4 level shift, and I'm impressed. Otherwise, mechanically, there's two kinds of characters; those who've hit our common badassery ceiling, and those who will shortly.

 

In RP, I'm a little more likely to extend some consideration for the mechanics not allowing a roleplayer to express their character's true power. Otherwise, I tend to the side of "put up or shut up". Your character says he can fly at 800 mph? Let go see. There's a game mechanic hard limit there, and I would hope for roleplay to either follow it or give me good IC reason why the character can't demonstrate it right here and right now. 

 

I'm not saying this is a super-turns-me-away thing to me, I just hope for in-character explanations or some restraint in roleplay, and when it's not there I'm a little peeved.

[Cobalt Arachne]

I usually try and be as accommodating and workable with any RP concept as I can be, after all, that flexibility and suspension of disbelief is what allows the immersion of RP to work and in-game narrative and growth to take place. You have to be able to work within another person's framework to some degree in order for meaningful interaction to take place, which means making concessions and compromises that are within a tolerable range.

...That being said, I guess there are two things I would say I'm not huge about:
 

• Non-CoH lore/canon-abiding RP character concept inserts; By this I mean, their character came from another game's universe/rules/canon and rather than tweak or re-write their character to work within City of Heroes, they mostly brought them in exactly as they were. Then we have a situation where they are expecting you to respect their RP concept but acknowledging it means supplanting the very foundations an in-universe written character is built-on. 
  
  This game conceptually is amazing for how wide the breadth of possibilities are and how you can really make basically anything work with a little elbow grease. But like, damn... if my accepting your RP concept means my own CoH-written character is basically wholly invalidated, then I dunno man... there's really not much I can do to work with you there. There's a middle-ground that has to be met for RP to flourish, and there are some people who don't make any concessions.
  
   
• Go to horny jail <bonk>; I'm not denouncing relationships and romance in RP, there's a lot you can do there, and it's a natural thing in the progression for certain characters and their growth. But like, there are definitely the cases where somebody is just looking for gratification and it's something that takes me out of the moment real quick.
  
  We're fighting for our lives against a horde of enemy soldiers, why are you getting frisky with your partner? This giant monster is destroying the area, I'm trying to confront it and deal with a large threat, please don't make weird passes at my character right now. Like in a bar setting having drinks? R&R? Sure, whatever; But like dang yo, context-sensitivity is pretty crucial in RP and some people are majorly lacking. Fortunately, I run into this one less often, but when it happens, eek.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Nayreia / Karonax

[CrudeVileTerror]

I'll say that context-sensitivity is something people lack in many forms of fiction, and even in the real world too.  Not saying it shouldn't bother you, of course.  Just that it happens in places other than roleplay.  My spouse won't stop touching my butt at really inappropriate times, for example . . . 

[Cobalt Arachne]

3 hours ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

I'll say that context-sensitivity is something people lack in many forms of fiction, and even in the real world too.  Not saying it shouldn't bother you, of course.  Just that it happens in places other than roleplay.  My spouse won't stop touching my butt at really inappropriate times, for example . . . 

Haha! I will give you that, it is definitely something that exists outside of RP, and part of it is definitely me and how I react; Maybe I should simply start baking how I respond to that kind of thing into my RP concepts so it doesn't take me out of the moment so much. 😅

Certainly degrees of it doesn't hurt; A couple RP pair in a mission being a couple with those kind of small tokens of love is totally fine. When it starts feeling like they'd rather be doing the horizontal tango than RPing that I begin raising an eyebrow... Which I guess that also happens in the real world too, not that it isn't any less uncomfortable. 😳

Edited December 12, 2020 by Nayreia / Karonax

[Haijinx]

9 hours ago, Nayreia / Karonax said:

 

• Go to horny jail <bonk>; I'm not denouncing relationships and romance in RP, there's a lot you can do there, and it's a natural thing in the progression for certain characters and their growth. But like, there are definitely the cases where somebody is just looking for gratification and it's something that takes me out of the moment real quick.
  
  We're fighting for our lives against a horde of enemy soldiers, why are you getting frisky with your partner? This giant monster is destroying the area, I'm trying to confront it and deal with a large threat, please don't make weird passes at my character right now. Like in a bar setting having drinks? R&R? Sure, whatever; But like dang yo, context-sensitivity is pretty crucial in RP and some people are majorly lacking. Fortunately, I run into this one less often, but when it happens, eek.

People can do whatever they want I figure.

 

BUT 

 

It does surprise me there is still a ERP clique active in COX roleplay.  

 

There are a lot of other games out there better suited for that stuff.

[Cobalt Arachne]

30 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

People can do whatever they want I figure.

Pretty much; I don't condemn ERP, it's just as valid as any other type of consensual RP. I try and respect everyone's choice as valid and be accommodated (within acceptable range) as that's important for making RP work.

 

It's just a little uncomfortable to be pulled into it by proximity or things get suddenly sexually charged when the initial RP premise was not established as such. As mentioned, it's not too common thankfully.

[Ruin Mage]

The horny is too powerful.

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, Nayreia / Karonax said:

Pretty much; I don't condemn ERP, it's just as valid as any other type of consensual RP. I try and respect everyone's choice as valid and be accommodated (within acceptable range) as that's important for making RP work.

 

It's just a little uncomfortable to be pulled into it by proximity or things get suddenly sexually charged when the initial RP premise was not established as such. As mentioned, it's not too common thankfully.

Ive often wondered if there is a certain exhibitionist slant to some of it.  

 

No way to know, I suppose.  

[Starforge]

I prefer to RP superheroes in this game but to each their own.

[Cobalt Arachne]

10 minutes ago, Starforge said:

I prefer to RP superheroes in this game but to each their own.

Non-superheroes? In my superhero MMORPG? It's more likely than you'd think.

[Coyotedancer]

Well, in fairness... Some of us *are* playing Vigs, Rogues and Villains

[Haijinx]

11 hours ago, Nayreia / Karonax said:

Non-superheroes? In my superhero MMORPG? It's more likely than you'd think.

A lot of Jedi seem to have travelled from long ago and the galaxy far far away to Paragon City.

 

 

[Haijinx]

9 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

Well, in fairness... Some of us *are* playing Vigs, Rogues and Villains

I generally prefer a street level vigilante in the style of Gotham Bat-verse. 

 

But of course with a COHverse origin not related to the DC IPs  

[CrudeVileTerror]

I like to play me some civies who get dragged along on the "supers'" (mis)adventures.  I lean more on the "City" side of the title, and I find there are plenty of roleplay opportunities in that vein.  The characters who come across as black-and-white or four-colour caricatures tend to invoke some quiet eye-rolling, but I generally try not to shame anyone for their preference to play in that space.

[Tiger Shadow]

I made my first foray into RP several weeks ago. I made a character called Groucho Marx. I made a costume I thought was adequate (I spent most of my effort on the face sliders) and have been told several times is fantastic. I have mainly said the things I think Groucho would say, occasionally I have to mention that Groucho is one of the OG insult comics and I don't mean things personally. But otherwise things are going great, I'm having fun, I'm throwing out the right jokes, and everyone's reacting well.

 

And I realize that I'm playing a guy who died before I was born. But this is good, so far everyone seems to like my Groucho. Maybe they'll like my original characters. And as it turns out, they do. Groucho gave me the confidence to try doing my own RP, and Everlasting accepted me. Really, you guys are great on the RP front, I think I'll be here for a while.

[BrandX]

On 6/12/2020 at 8:40 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."

 

 

Awww...I sorta feel like I'm supposed to feel bad for most my characters being ageless (the weak immortality) by being tech/part of their powers or just truly immortal (like my main is).  😛

[TheOtherTed]

4 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

Awww...I sorta feel like I'm supposed to feel bad for most my characters being ageless (the weak immortality) by being tech/part of their powers or just truly immortal (like my main is).  😛

Not at all!  So long as your immortal characters don't automatically assume they're the only immortals in town.