Roleplaying Pet Peeves

One of my biggest peeves is a bit of a niche one, that I have some tolerance for happening sometimes but there'll be instances when it goes too far. I love group RPs. Love em to bits! Sometimes though there'll be instances of 1x1 dialogue within those RPs, and I hate when those drag on for so long that everyone else just feels excluded.

A lot of people I write with are significantly younger than me, maybe even half my age, so I'm a little more tolerant of one-liner replies to my multi-para posts. I just keep going and blindly hope that some of my writing style will just diffuse into their minds. That's how I learned to write more verbosely myself! Still, it does grate on me a little, especially if the post has no substance or even stalls the plot.

I'm also not a huge fan of contests of stubbornness. Thankfully I've not run into it much lately, but in combat sessions especially it's mega frustrating. I like to think of writing battle scenes with the objective of wowing an audience as opposed to having my character come out on top, so sure I take the fall sometimes.

Godmodding of course! One person I used to call my friend was really pushy about having one of my characters attend a party, but I didn't really fancy playing that character at the time so I gave her some in-character reason to be unable to attend. When said character then got ice beamed and dragged to the party I was absolutely livid.

Elitism. Can't stand it. The first forum I was at was full of it, and really limited my options on how I could have my characters interact with theirs. Limiting other people beyond what's reasonable is way uncool.

Whew that was a good rant :emoji_sweat_smile:
 
I don't mind too much if you have short replies, as long as it contributes to the plot and gives me something to reply to.

Making your characters way too overpowered annoys me. If your character has some unbelievable powers or abilities, you'd better have a whole backstory and canonically believable explanation for why and how they can do that. No god mode, come on now.

I hate writing fight scenes. Unless there's an actual story happening and it's not just "they punched them" or "they got stabbed", I will always timeskip or switch perspectives to avoid fight scenes.

Ghosting or taking sudden long breaks. If you need to take a break from the rp, please tell your partner! I'm in a rp that I really love, but my partner's in a different time zone and I think it's been 2 days since the last reply now. I'm very active and also have some anxiety while waiting for replies (I will literally check the forum for replies every 5 minutes) so it really stresses me out when you take forever to reply.

Forcing ships/pairings. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I don't care how much you like that character irl.
On the other hand, if it does work and you DON'T ship it then we'll also have a problem xD

Most of these are just my preference though.
 
Looks to me like every thing that is annoying to me is already posted but I should write mine down anyways

  • One liners that does not even contribute to anything. I am okay with one sentence replies especially when it is in a conversation. I could also tolerate these kinds when it comes to fight scenes. What I can't stand is that the person does this for multiple posts. Please, I beg of you, try to at least tell us what the person was feeling or what facial expression the character has. You'll just destroy your partner's motivation in doing one liners.
  • First Person POV. As for me, when using the 'I' format, I will automatically assume that it will be the writer doing the action and not the character themselves.
  • Sudden disappearance. Of all the RPs I joined ever since I started writing, only one was finished. Are we that boring or overbearing? Do give us a head's up when going MIA so that I could ask permission to just continue it. This is the reason why I am too afraid to go and search for a RP partner nowadays.
  • Mary Sue / Gary Sue. Enough said. I do know we had a character like this when we started writing but tone down the power play. Characters still need weaknesses. We're throwing hands if I see something like this [So far, I haven't]
  • Characters who will ignore you when MC interacts with them. I'm trying to help the RP progress. I am attempting to help the progress of the story. If you are to ignore these attempts, I will sadly ask permission to get.
 
I really hate it when the person can't decide on which pov they're using. In one sentence, they're writing in first person, but the next sentence is in third person. I also hate it when they use word shortcuts such 'u' instead of 'you'.
 
I've only roleplayed with a small group of people before so my frame of reference is slight but I think the biggest peeve I have is when someone doesn't actively acknowledge my wants?

As an example I was roleplaying with one of my oldest 1x1 partners and her character made it impossible to advance any sort of plot until I agreed to the type of relationship she wanted after I had expressed I'd rather not take it in that direction. She was normally a great friend and jovial about everything but once she got a ship in her mind, it had to sail or she'd break the roleplay with something previously established that she theoretically could do. In this example her character had lost control over some of her powers and couldn't undo what she had done until she was given the emotional confirmation that my character was into her.

It was just sort of a mood killer for the entire plot line, but I also tend to be a push over so even if my ideas are ignored, I'm a glutton for pain lol
 
I know we all have things that we're very familiar with in real life, so I'm probably guilty of this on a different topic but my pet peeve in RPs is Horses! These animals feature in so many tales and I certainly don't expect my fellow writers to be expert equestrians, but so often even the very basics are butchered.
 
Pet Peeves that Activate My Chaotic Evils:
1. One-Liners
Tolerance Level: Moderately High
Notes: I always write a minimum of one detailed paragraph. Whenever I meet one, I would attempt to let them do a bit better.

2. Elitism
Tolerance Level: Very Low
Notes: On the other side of both spectrums, people who force me into a minimum length that I cannot handle are not my kind of people. I'd rather sign-off than overworking myself for something that should lessen my stress.

3. Plot Stalling
Tolerance Level: Moderately Low
Notes: If I notice that someone is stalling my plot for whatever reasons, I may either warn them about it (when I'm a good guy), or whip out some villain magic to railroad them in an elaborate plot to punish their character for wasting my time (when I lose my patience).

4. Ghosting and Sudden Long Disappearances
Tolerance Level: Low (SLDs) / Zero (Ghosts)
Notes: If anyone wants to disappear, they'd better provide me with a reason. Giving someone a false hope should be a crime, and I punish that with a blacklist.

5. Overpowered / Godlike Characters
Tolerance Level: Above Medium to Zero
Notes: It all depends on the story and setting. Is everyone else a god? Cool, I'm making one for myself too so I could join in the fun. But dumping an SSJ3 into a group of mid-tier adventurers? Don't be surprised if I tell such offenders to nerf it down or "Get Out of Here."

6. Detail-Related Peeves
Tolerance Level: Above Medium
I simply ask for more details when I see a lack of details. I'm usually chill about it. But if someone fluffs up their response with too much irrelevant details, I get frustrated real fast and may ask for the opposite.

7. Godmodding, Powerplay, Metagaming etc.
Tolerance Level: Zero

Everyone who doesn't do it hates it, and so do I. It is unfair, unrealistic, and selfish. Ever participated in an arms race on having strong characters? That is how I came to hate it.

8. Mary Sues / Gary Stus
Tolerance Level: Below Zero
We all cannot be good at everything, so if someone tries to make a character who is made just to be perfect and to symbolize everything they fantasize in a single character, reality is going to break. A major proof on the strong hate I have towards them ruining my RP is the time when I created a band of characters dedicated solely to slaying any that infiltrates on of my RPs.

And that's how my rant goes, ladies and gents. I hope I have not caused any negative reaction here. Note that any scenarios mentioned primarily apply to RPs I head.
 
1.When admins want you to follow a plotline and don't allow your villains to develop. I recently was in a RP server where I had to resubmit my villainess, Dr.Ophelia Daniel and when I was allowed to play her, they literally banned me from their server because she was going to inform Dr.Eggman of their MAIN HQ they themselves walked her to. Yes, they walked a known supervillainess who already shown she could turn into a giant and was working for Eggman, to their central headquarters, on foot. Yes, she was blindfolded but damn why wouldn't you expect her to just deduce she was in a forest when she could smell, hear, and fell the air around her? You brought her to your main HQ without putting her on a transport, it's your fault for allowing an agent of Dr.Eggman to figure out your secret base. But oh no, I had to wait for months of approval so we could have a villain based RP. Everyone is too obsessed with shit that Amy and Tails are doing.

2.Another one, (which I've recently touched on). People being upset my characters are imperfect, and rude/mean. I get it, you want someone to kiss your characters ass. But, the thing is that when I RP my characters? I RP them as how they are in my story. Not everyone is nice, not everyone wants to be nice without MOTIVATION. A character can be nice, sweet, but in a morally grey world in my story, they're not. My heroes have this going for them: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotNice They don't have the luxury of being nice to everyone. If one of my characters, (mostly my villains) is being 'nice' to you? THEY'RE LYING AND MANIPULATING YOU.
 
Okay, thank you (person who made this thread).

1.Ghosting
I have zero tolerance for ghosting. If you’re leaving, give me a reason. If you don’t like me/what I’m doing, just tell me. I’m not that sensitive of a person really, and I will try to be mindful of other people’s emotions, but you don’t have to sugarcoat things for me. So, in short, don’t disappear on me.

2. Godmoding/Taking control of other people’s characters
Once again, zero tolerance. You do it, and I’m leaving. Sorry, but my characters are mine and mine alone. And your character should not be able to destroy an entire city with one blow unless they’re Kryptonian or a Greek/Roman/Egyptian god. Nor should they have an overly triggering/dramatic backstory that doesn’t contribute to the plot at all. Just my view on things and it really bothers me when this happens.

3. Not moving the story along with me
Okay, this isn’t that bad because I will tell people if they’re doing it, or ask for help in moving the story. But after so many times it’s just too exhausting to keep on. If I’m going to roleplay with you, I expect you to contribute to the story. Then again, that could just be me and my insensitive self.
 
I'm a novella/advanced literature roleplayer and I say: can you write ___ amount? They always respond with something positive and I get all worked up since I hind it hard to find good role-playing partners only to find out they send me: She smiled at love interest and blushed. It just makes me SO angry. I get so excited over nothing.

Obviously overtime you can shorten the length but for the first chunk of replies, you need to set the mood, characters, world creating etc.

No hate toward one liners or anything like that, it's just not for me and I don't find it exciting.
 
Non-Consetiual smut starters because it is just uncomfortable because I want to increase the story and the relationship if there is one before we get into things like that, but it makes me feel uncomfortable
 
Well, one thing that kind of annoys me is posts that are too long, especially if nothing is actually happening. Certain rps naturally have long posts, but other times I struggle to match length because there's literally nothing to talk about. Nothing's happening. And the other person's post is just irrelevant filler most of the time.

I do prefer that over the worse thing. The exact opposite. Normally my starters are kind of big to get the scene going. But what annoys me is that people ignore the effort and just write three sentences at most. Or just use the normal -insert reply- or insert reply thing.
 
I HATE HATE HATE people who make their character waaaay too powerful and one-shots everything like no big deal, at least have a detrimental property to the powers, it adds balance.
 
I have many, but see most have been mentioned previously. I will say that blatant ignoring of scene details really grinds my gears. If the post says it was raining at night, don't say it's sunny at noon to continue the scene. Anyway... yeah.
 
I've been rping for a long time, I don't have anything going on this site yet, but man do I have my peeves. Most of them have already been mentioned here, but one of my biggest peeves, and I see this too often with people who create their own characters, is the people who don't seem to put much thought into their characters. They create a character without putting thought into their history, their emotions, their backstories. The characters seem shallow, and surface level. Or they seem like they created the character just to create a victim. Ex: Characters that were created with contradictions. Like "She wanted to be good, so she didn't like her evil dad, but she wanted to join this evil team to be bad"... then your character is bad and doesn't actually want to be good? Or the characters that all they seem to do is complain. You write responses with them and every time they respond it's something like "My friend died and I hate life now." Like... Cool... My friend died too? I feel like too many characters are created without much thought or consideration to what humanity really is. How deep humanity goes. And I just can't write stories with characters that were not well thought out that seem to all be surface level.
 
Or maybe when someone doesn't reply to their rp threads even though they are online.
Not all the time do people come online just to reply to their roleplay threads. Heck, not even I do that. It doesn't mean I'm not interested, just means I will get to it eventually. It also doesn't mean I'm ghosting either.
I don't like being rushed to reply to anything. That's a good way for me to just completely ignore it.
 
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