What was one mistake you always made when you were new to roleplaying?

I wrote my own story - with overpowered characters and stuff that didn't make sense. I got booted from the roleplay. I regret it very much.
 
My Circle of Errors:
1. Creating OP characters (to the point that I mainly dwelled in RPs dedicated to them). Is still create OP characters, but I have learned how to properly use them and give some drawbacks to make them easier to take down.
2. Terrible lack of detail. I am glad that someone actually had the patience to teach me on how to make more detailed paragraphs.
3. "How can your OC just dodge that?"
Me: -dodges the question.-

Behold, my Unholy Trinity.
 
I was in the Sonic fandom, so my characters looked like Blaze, Shadow, and Tails. They all had goofy names and their backstories were silly. Now I have a family of villains and I have expanded into human OC's, but yeah back in 2010 things were a little silly. One character I got a lot of flak for being medium functioning autistic, even though I have Aspergers myself. Then again, I've changed her.

This:
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Turned into this:

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And this:

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I had a tendency to make all of my characters the same, really loud expressive personalities. Now, I'm able to have more character diversity.
 
homogeneous character design, tendency to powerplay and character sheets with little detail. I used to be the absolute worst, but shame and ridicule motivated me to become great in spite of the negativity thrown at me. Still guilty of homogenous character design since it's not often ya find a nice faceclaim.
 
I had two opposite sides of the spectrum.

At the very beginning I was unwilling to speak up when I thought someone was doing something wrong. For example in one group RP, the GM was having all the characters partake in a mario kart style race. It was fun, but strangely, during the entire race, his characters were always in first, second and third place, and if they ever changed positions it was usually between themselves. I kept RPing and had one of my characters drive up to them, and after another user tossed something at them to slow them down, I had my character take the first place for a moment.

Right after I did that, the GM had one of the race announcers (RPed by him as well, of course) say that my character was disqualified. When my character asked why he had been disqualified, the announcer said "For being OP". Seriously, he didn't go into OOC chat or anything to tell me to not do that, he had his characters straight up disqualify my character "for being OP", his definition of "OP" being that my character had the first place for a few posts. I didn't say anything to him because I didn't want to confront the GM, so I just had my character disqualified and had the rest of my characters take place in some of the subplot shenanigans that were going on, ignoring the race completely. It seems the GM of that roleplay was a bit new to RPing as well, and he always had his characters win everything.

A few months later, when I was feeling more comfortable and confident in expressing myself clearly, I mentioned to him that I didn't like what he did there, and he acknowledged what he did was wrong. He had grown as an RPer as well, but both of us being new to this, I didn't want to speak up, and he had his characters always steal the spotlight.

But some time later, as he started to spend less time with the roleplay, I started to gain more of an influence in the roleplay, to the point where I've become the new unofficial leader of the roleplay. I started a side project with another roleplayer on the site, and now that I wasn't afraid to speak up and do things, I think I may have made another mistake.

The side project was basically like an episodic series where each episode we would switch who was the "GM" of the roleplay. He'd lead one episode, then I'd lead the next, and so on. But we made a mistake of not communicating our ideas properly. Both of us wanted it to be a fun experience for the other to play, so we prepared plot twists and surprises secretly, that we would only display during the roleplay. We ended up in several arguments about how that plot twist shouldn't be there because it ruined the other's plans for the next episode, etc. We also had a few arguments about whether the other was having his characters be too OP (because the RP had a decent emphasis in combat), and sometimes one of us even had a planned outcome, but the other didn't like it because his characters would have to act out of character to reach that outcome.

Overall, those problems taught us one thing: Communication is key to a successful roleplay. And while a surprise can be interesting, it's important to discuss any major plot twists with your roleplay partner to make sure you both like the idea, and not just toss the plot twist without asking your roleplay partner if they want that or not.

In conlusion, I made several mistakes during my early days of roleplaying, but overall I've improved as a writer and a roleplayer. I was lucky to be in a roleplay full of people who were new to roleplaying as well, so we all pretty much learned together along the way, and it was a lot of fun. The roleplay is still standing today, and while many things have changed, I really made long-lasting friendships there, and I'm grateful to have had those experiences that taught me so many things about writing, roleplaying, and even how to discuss things with people. Lessons that I still use today.
 
Had OP characters and had Mary/Gary Sues. Character sheets that were heavily lacking in detail, even my written posts were lacking. Half of the time they were a single word or a mere sentence compared to the wall of texts I write these days. Plots were lacking, as was world and characters. Not very good or interesting stuff, let me tell you. My younger self was terrible, but I've gotten better over the years I believe. I'm a bit more prouder of my stuff these days compared to back then.
 
I think the biggest mistake I made back when was thinking that I needed to be "winning". It made for a very shallow experience.
 
I think the biggest mistake I made back when was thinking that I needed to be "winning". It made for a very shallow experience.

That was another of my problems as well. The need to always have your character being winning or coming out on top, never allowed to lose at anything. I think a lot of people probably had that issue as well.
 
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