Hydaelyn Role-Players

In my time being in the RP in the last year or so I've noticed a number of threads, discussion, and advice bits for those experiencing little to no roleplay. Whether they be fresh to the server, a returnee or someone who had culled their previous group it would usually be followed by the same lines and frustrations that many of us have gone through at one time or another.

But what I don't recall having seen much of (if any at all!) was a thread addressing the problem of having too much roleplay on ones' hands! While it's not something I hear being a big deal, a thread for discussion and advice might be nice for those who come across this sort of dilemma. Or who got more then what they might be used too in terms of RP management and need some tips!

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Rules

• Be nice to each other, folks! The mods are watching. They're always watching...(kwehkwehkweh)
  

• Please do not go off topic or I will ask mods to prune the thread if it gets too out of hand. (See my old Polyamory Guide. Oi.)
  

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On the subject in relation to myself personally...

It wasn't until the last few months that I opened myself to more RP. Became less introverted and more comfortable making stories with others. Just recently I had a mini rant on my Enjin wall when I had someone giving me a hard time about not belting out RP at lightspeed. The rant was more of a notice then anything else:



I'm frank with people about my work load and what I do with friends and family. Which is also how my time at the end of the day gets divided between RP. What I listed here is pretty much my comfortable maximum that keeps me busy without feeling like I'm going to drown. Mostly because not all of these RPs and people are ones that are like 'ogawddostoofwiffmeeverydaysenpai'. Some only post a few times a week. Some I only do things with once or twice a week. Some less then that. Only a fraction are a regular or daily basis.

But, even with advisories. Even with me being like 'I can't RP with you every day, sorry' there will be people that will say okie dokie but in a few weeks send me paragraph long rants about how I neglect them and dont put their RP above everyone elses' when they knew what they were getting into from the start.

My advice when coming across someone like this? Apologize. Try to discuss it. But don't pull your hair out over it. I'll admit over time I've grown jaded and when this sort of thing happens I just hit the block button without remorse. A year ago? I'd be feeling so guilty over it.

If you think you could have done a little better, then fess up to that. If you did the best you could and they still didn't like that: shrug and walk away, darlin'.

Honestly, the only time there's too much RP is when you begin to stress about being pulled in several different directions. Like with anything fun, it is totally possible to have too much of a good thing!

However, I definitely do think there's a certain... stigma, maybe, attached to the idea of "RP partners" with some people. A lot of people I've talked to in the past have wanted it to mean "exclusive rights to RP with this person," when in reality that's just... Well, it's downright creepy to want that much of a say over someone's time. Even if--and especially in some cases--the roleplay is romantic in nature.

Do I have a "main" RP partner? Totally! But that just means that it's one person that I turn to when I'm bored and I can rely on almost 100% of the time to help me brainstorm new ideas. I have a metric shitload of RP partners that I like to RP with--and it's a term I use to denote anyone that I invest any amount of time into.

I do think the responsible thing to do is to be upfront with someone about the sort of commitment you can give to them and their characters, and if they find that unacceptable it's perfectly okay if they decide to not invest their time into the storyline you're going to craft. No harm, no foul!

The problem is, as you say, when people begin to feel entitled to your time and try to force you into a situation where you do what they want you to do.

I mean, hell. If i tell someone I'm not available and they proceed to throw a hissy fit? I'm dropping them like a hot potato.

I've cut off friendships cold turkey because they weren't happy with the sort of commitment I was willing to give to our characters and pitched a damn fit. Especially when it's a romantic relationship--those tend to be the worst. People trying to treat me like I'm their SO simply because our characters are in a relationship is one of the scariest things I've run into.

For me, there's no concern regarding amount of RP, but I am wary of engaging with those who are vocal about caring about ONLY RP and don't care for the game itself.

In my experience that sort of player quits anyway, so they won't be around for long term development.

Edit: Lost the last half of my post.

Trying to keep up with this sort of player can be very demanding too. I'll just play the game itself for a day and when I return, notice that a dozen developments have happened with this character while I was gone, for a single day. I guess for me that's "too much" RP, and it always seems to come from individuals who "only care about RP" and are not really interested in the game itself.

If it stops being fun and starts becoming actual "work". Like, if you feel obligated to continue an rp but you aren't enjoying it, that's when you should consider if you're involved in too many. If it becomes overwhelming then try to cut back

I think it's definitely possible that people can be easily overwhelmed and spread themselves too thin. This is especially true of people who create events or lead a guild. Still, I'd say it's preferable to not having any role-play and it is - in many ways - the definition of a first world problem.

There's quite a few members of the community who barely get any consistent role-play through no fault of their own and so anyone who has too much role-play is very lucky. That doesn't mean they should just roll over and indulge anyone and everyone that comes their way, of course, but they're in a position where they can afford to turn people down and still have the luxury of multiple opportunities.

I can definitely sympathise with the plight though. I feel very guilty when I have to turn people down for role-play, especially since I've kept a few people waiting much longer than I'd like to due to the real world getting in the way or simply due to being too tired to stay awake to get around timezone differences.

It's also why I stopped creating events/leading a guild after departing WoW for FFXIV. By the time I'd attended to guild related stuff I ended up with very little free time to indulge in what I wanted to do.

So in short? Don't be afraid to indulge in some 'me' time. Everybody needs and deserves it - especially if they've got a lot going on.

As a final note? Don't be afraid to cut out people who are too clingy. If someone is pressuring you into role-playing with them as often as possible and trying to convince you to do it even after you tell them you're not in the mood/busy then that should be taken as a red flag. Some people have too much time on their hands and don't show much respect towards those who don't have the luxury of a flexible schedule.

There's a such thing as too much rp. It's called a burn out.

It happens everyday with people, you rp for a bit and then you get that feeling you wanna go raid or just do something other than rp for a bit. It happens as it should. 

Now for something more in line for the OP in a sense, if you can handle all of that then do you and be happy with it. I for one would go crazy if I had even half of that stuff going on. My max is one character in one game (unless you count fictional writing)

But yeah.... everyone has different breaking points. Don't stress it.

Personally, I am one of those people that is almost always in character, even when I'm not really in character (which is not as confusing as it sounds).  BUT I don't hold everyone else to this standard.  I RP as an escape.  I've been sick and disabled for most of my life, I'm in constant pain (even with painkillers), I have a very weak immune system and so on, so I RP as a way to forget, just for a little while, that I'm stuck in this messed up body.  It cheers me up, it makes me feel better, it helps keep me from having as many panic attacks and other things.  

People have lives outside of RP.  I've had great RP friends that I saw maybe twice a month, and I've had great RP friends I've seen almost daily.  So I think "too much" is subjective.  As long as people aren't forgetting there is a person behind the character and that person has a life of their own to live (and that includes with our own characters), then I don't consider it to be too much RP.  If people forget there is a person on the other side of a character, then yeah, that is a bit too much.

(07-25-2015, 11:23 PM)13uddy Wrote: [ -> ]If people forget there is a person on the other side of a character, then yeah, that is a bit too much.

That happens more often then not, I think, and usually not on purpose.

Another example of this: I started playing GW2 a bit more heavily before HW dropped due to a friend I had known for years wanting someone to play with him. So I did! It was fun and a good way for us to catch up after a long period where we didn't speak due to moving and losing contact with one another.

When we started the MMO, he ended up with a lot more RP then I did, mostly because he stayed at home all day while I had work and obligations on the home front that kept me from being able to spend 10+ hours getting RP. Which was cool, we just did what we could anyways and were happy with it.

At one point his amount of RP dwindled while mine gradually grew. I joined a guild of people I knew from the days before I retired GW2 as a full-time MMO to come to FF. I met some other RPers I wanted to make stories with. Now the friend that had far more RP then myself had nothing but our things (RP wise) to do while I became the one with a lot of roleplay.

After two weeks of this where as we RPed multiple times a week, I kept getting confronted by this friend being upset that I wasn't spending more time with him. It got to a point where he got SUPER specific about details. Such as...

Him: 'You never RP with me!'
Me: 'We just RPed two days ago!'
Him: 'Only for 65 minutes! -_-'
Me: '...Eh?'

It wasn't a bad thing...at first. As the issue grew, he showed he was fixating a lot on the small things to where RPing got less fun and more like a chore to appease an invisible time quota. On my end, could I have spent more time with him? Sure. Looking back on it and given his nature, he probably wouldn't have been content unless all that I did was with him or his RP picked up again so that he had other people to occupy himself with.

Eventually, we stopped RPing. I cut ties after getting the impression his need for RP was more important then our friendship. Do I regret it sometimes? Yeah. He was someone I knew for years after all. In the long run, it's probably for the better.

Nonsense! There is never too much rp! At least for me, anyway. xD

I'm currently juggling roleplay in seven different universes, with 2-3 characters in each (though TERA used to have far more), and tbh I'd probably be open to even more. That said, our rp schedule is so... large that we can fit it all in there (we rp almost every night), and a lot of it is forum/skype-based, which to me makes it super easy to do multiple scenes at one time. Just last night, I was roleplaying in four different scenes simultaneously, and I've had more in the past. xD It was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, as they were all very different scenes, but it was super fun!

This works really well for us in large part because we are a small, constant group of people who have a generally steady, unspoken agreed upon time for when we all come together to hang out, and who have been roleplaying and gaming together for many years. I can see how this level of RP volume wouldn't work for just anyone, though.

I guess I will amend my first statement. The only time there could be "too" much rp is when you stop having fun. When it stresses you out, then perhaps it's time to ease up a bit. You also have to acknowledge that sometimes you're going to have to choose one character/set of characters over others for a bit, but that does not mean you will never rp them again. For example, my husband and I have maintained our WoW rp, despite having quit the game some 4 years ago. We don't let it worry us if a week or two goes by (or even longer) without actively rping in that universe, because we know we'll get back to it eventually. Sometimes other scenes (and other activities) just take precedence for a bit.

So in short - RP to your heart's content!

Yes. It's happening to me right now. Some may have noticed, but I haven't RPed in months and went on to other things like my obsession with fishing. The release of Heavensward hasn't helped, either. But I figure each person has a specific threshold where it gets to be a little too much and needs to back off for a while, in order to prevent becoming completely disinterested in RP. Some may have noticed my utter devotion to pvp as of late. I'm just glad that shit is giving me esoterics.

Yes.  In two different ways.

1) The things most people notice, where you start treating in like a job and less like a game, stress gets involved, and all that jazz.

But more importantly

2) You're involved in so many things your character starts fracturing, could be you have to set time limits on RP (almost always a bad idea) because you have another one to visit.  Or your character starts to change drastically because of multiple storylies going on at the time. 

So yes, easily.  And most people don't notice its happening until its too late.

(08-01-2015, 03:55 PM)tfelver Wrote: [ -> ]Yes.  In two different ways.

1) The things most people notice, where you start treating in like a job and less like a game, stress gets involved, and all that jazz.

But more importantly

2) You're involved in so many things your character starts fracturing, could be you have to set time limits on RP (almost always a bad idea) because you have another one to visit.  Or your character starts to change drastically because of multiple storylies going on at the time. 

So yes, easily.  And most people don't notice its happening until its too late.

I've had the fracturing happen to me back when I played WoW and was still getting used to RPing on an MMO when before all I ever did was forum.