It’s finally come up at yet another roleplay community forum I frequent: a Roleplay Pet Peeves thread. Right now, the thread has almost 100 responses, mostly variations of:
- -I hate people who do/do not play Character Type X.
- -I hate people who observe/ignore RP Guideline Y.
- -I hate people who get more attention than me.
- -I hate people who don’t submit to MY ideas of what should happen to THEIR character.
- -I hate people don’t agree with MY idea of reality in the RPG.
Seriously. There’s a lot of hate, and not surprisingly, it all comes across as a group of sanctimonious prigs telling other people how they should be roleplaying. I begin to wonder if any group of online roleplayers can resist indulging in this sort of negativity! I had this long rant written out detailing my own pet peeves, but realized that I’ve pretty much ranted myself out on pet peeves — See http://ping.fm/m2WHA . So I narrowed it down, quite a bit.
Eve’s Roleplay Pet Peeves
1. I don’t like people blending IC and OOC. In particular, I don’t like seeing Player A turning into an emo snert because Player B’s character is in a relationship with Player C’s character and Player A has the hots for Player C. Unfortunately, I’ve been seeing this a lot lately.
2. I don’t dig Player X deciding what is “realistic” or “reasonable” for Player Y to do with his/her character. Particularly when Player X decides to bash Player Y for not agreeing to “accept the consequences” and lie down for the ensuing steamroll.
3. I’m not particularly thrilled with the trend of “hating” other people OOC based on what sort of character they play, what sort of storylines they prefer, or who they choose to roleplay with.
4. I don’t get the whole intolerance of different play styles thing, and I don’t like policing how other people are roleplaying. If you think someone else’s RP is ridiculous, the chances are that they think your RP is pretty stupid, too. Does it really matter? Do you really think you have to like everyone, and that everyone has to like you?
5. I don’t like Forum RP posts that consist of copy-and-paste chat logs, huge blocks of text with bizarre punctuation and haphazard spelling and florescent colors, or, outside of a character journal, completely self-absorbed narrative lacking any dialogue.
Tell me. What bothers you when you’re roleplaying?
As the years go by and my role playing comes in spurts and pieces, it’s not so much what people do when they role play–it’s what they do behind the scenes WHILE role playing that really grinds my gears these days.
Some of the ooc behavior and conduct blows my mind.
I could post my long list that I didn’t want to post at the forums cos it’d get me banned.
Longpost is looooooooooooooooong.
I’d have to say my biggest pet peeve is the whole “Us vs. Them” attitude people take on. The politics get disgusting. People are always so quick to form factions and suspect people of forming factions against them. It’s pathetic internet behavior at its worse. I don’t know how many times in my time RPing I’ve seen drama rama erupt over someone suspecting that there is some underground faction or group that is gunning for them/doesn’t like them/plotting their demise. I can’t stand seeing when people take this attitude. I hate it even more when other people making the accusation that they’re being “black balled” because a super sekrit underground group of RP Illuminati have put the word out. I can’t stand all the back-biting bullshit that arises from people feeling the need to form these OOC groups, and then using them to fight/create drama/plot against other “groups”.
I also can’t stand players who think that they are special just because they have some sort of “power” when it comes to RP. People who think that their characters RP popularity actually amounts to anything in the real world.
Oh, and my biggest pet peeve right now is actually very specific. I can’t stand the fact that during the whole Slavery drama Brutin was exposed to be one of the biggest blenders I’d ever encountered in my time RPing yet everyone turned a blind eye to it. Yet a few months later when his blending wasn’t too appreciated by those who were on “his side”, they all acted like they hadn’t had any previous evidence that he was a blender. And a bad one at that. Way to not see the forest from the trees.
@elf_fu — good gods, totally. As I find myself more pinched for time, I find that I really want to spend more time actually roleplaying, not screwing around OOC. How does anyone have all that time for the behind the scenes BS?
@Lilithiel — I’ve seen your Longpost and while it’s pretty caustic, some of that needs to be said. If you want to put it up here as a guest post, feel free.
@Bad Juju — I agree. That “It’s Us Against Them” attitude stinks up so many internet communities and gets old very fast in RP groups. I would love to see the drama left IC. I understand not everyone can get along, and it’s human nature to form cliques, but yeah – I’ve seen those RP Illuminati conspiracies and they blow my mind.