• Grammar/Spelling. I make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes! But glaring issues like leaving out punctuation on the regular and/or misspelling words to the point of me not understanding them is a big, big gripe of mine.
  

• Post length. I'll admit it. I'm a wordy bastard. I'm likely not going to be engaged in the roleplay (if it's a longer scene) if the posts are less than a paragraph. Granted, that's moreso for private scenes. In a public venue it tends to shift towards shorter, more succinct posts. Mostly for the surrounding folks' chatbox sake.
  

• I can't stand it when it becomes clear that the player has an agenda for their character and will stop at nothing to achieve that agenda. Nothing makes me nope out faster than feeling pressured into having my character behave in a certain way OR ELSE.
  

• The writer's voice is also incredibly important to me. If you can't pound out 2-3 paragraphs while keeping a consistent and engaging voice? Don't! I won't hold it against you if your posts are shorter but entertaining and rich in content. I'm guilty of it as well, but I'll zone out of a scene really quickly if the posts I've receiving are basically just a checklist of what that character is doing in reaction to mine. Give me some meat! A book is rarely just, "And so and so does this and this and then does this!" Spice it up a little bit, and I don't mean by using flowery words.
  

• Posts that take too long. I like having some downtime between posts if the scene's a more private one. I really do! But taking 15-30 minutes for a post is a bit absurd. Tone it down a little bit if you're going to run long. Please.
  

• And last, but certainly not least, when people get OOC upset due to how my character is acting. Everyone will agree with this, and while I genuinely understand being a little butthurt when a scene didn't play out the way you wanted it to. Conduct yourself like an adult.
  

• Unique characters. This runs the gamut, but in general the best way to put it is that there's some obvious thought put into the character's actions. Not everyone does this, and that's cool! But it's not for me.
  

• Hooks. I love it when people approach me with a hook in mind. It doesn't always pan out the way anyone wanted it to, but that typically leaves more room for interaction later. So long as everything didn't immediately go up in flames. Any RP I've had that lasts any significant amount of time has happened because either myself or the person that approached me had something in mind for how the interaction could begin and/or continue.
  

• Voice. Voice, voice, voice. This is literally the opposite of my above point. I love nothing more than when I get to read something interesting that carries the author's voice with it. It's a nebulous quality that's hard to pin down, absolutely, but it's honestly the most imperative one for me. Y'either got it or y'don't.
  

• Meaty posts and knowing when to use them. You aren't going to be dropping a shitload of prose at me in the bar if we're gonna get along. You just aren't. However, if we're in a private scene I definitely want something I can latch onto. Be it either prosey-ass-prose that gives me ideas for future character interactions or--well, anything that allows me to bite down and chew at it for a while. I've met a lot of people that equate this to extended posts, but it's not that at all. Just know what you've got and work it.
  

• Someone who knows the time and place for multi-para. I love multi-para. I don’t mind waiting on multi-para. I don’t want to play with someone dropping four emotes worth of para in the bar, however.
  
• Someone who isn’t afraid to make fun of their character, portray their characters in an unattractive light, or have their characters be wrong. I just can't deal with a character who is correct and sexyfine all the time anymore.
  
• Someone who is willing to speak and be friendly with me OOC.I want to feel like I can actually talk to the player. Being BEST FRIENDS isn’t a requirement (though it’s totally a perk) but if I feel like I can’t approach someone about what times they’re on or a problem I have then. . . Well, that’s a problem!
  
• On that note: Someone who will also reach out to me for RP.Chasing people all the time isn’t any fun.
  
• Hooks and hooks and hooks and hooks. I absolutely love people who will lay out things that my character can react to.
  
• Good characterization. I don’t necessarily need characters to feel like people so much as I need them to be three dimensional and interesting. I want my time spent interacting with a character to feel rewarding as I begin to uncover what makes them tick and why they act as they do.
  
• RP that serves to further an overarching plot. The plot doesn’t have to be big, mind you. However I do want to feel that our characters are impacting and influencing one another. Small filler RP is cute but I don’t want all my RP to be fluff.
  
• BE BIG OL’ PARA TRASH JUST LIKE ME. Yup. It’s me. I’m that person. Will you let me throw three emotes with of text at you and still speak to me afterwards? GREAT. EXCELLENT. It’s not a requirement but good golly will I like you for it. 
  

• Have fun with it
  
• Don't take yourself so seriously
  
• It's cool to have typos but really crappy sentence structure is just a pet peeve.
  

• Be stylistically interesting. This goes beyond word choice; RPers, like a lot of writers in general, have taken the old chestnuts of writing advice from the late-19th/early-20th century to heart. This means a lot of RPers who are writing in a sort of quasi-Modernist fashion, which is fine if one is intentionally going for that. But I like to see people playing with narration, sentence structures, and rhythm in a way that reflects on their character beyond authentic depictions thereof.
  
• Fill out the little corners of the world. I'm very happy with RP concepts that examine the implications of lore in ways beyond the obvious; such characters help round out the setting.
  
• Dice. I've situated myself pretty nicely in this regard so I don't really require it from people anymore, not that I ever required it in the past. But I like the controlled unpredictability afforded by a good dice system.
  
• An existentialist approach to characters and decision-making. You control your character; saying "But my character wouldn't do that!" as if they have agency over you rather than vice-versa feels like roleplaying in bad faith. It's fine if you don't want a character to do thing X because you've laid out clear boundaries for what your character will and won't do, but acknowledge that you've laid them out.
  

(04-16-2015, 10:55 AM)Alothia Wrote:

• Someone who makes my time RPing with them enjoyable. It could depend on what mood I'm in. Sometimes it's someone who doesn't mind doing something goofy. Sometimes it's someone that makes me have a lot of feels.
  
• Someone who is quick, but if they're not quick, someone who makes rich posts. I'm willing to compromise time if I feel like you're enriching the experience.
  
• Someone I can talk to OOCly about what is going on ICly and not feel like I'm being a pain. I'm a communicator. I like to talk out what is going on.
  

I'm sure I have more, but it's lunch time. I'll type more later.

• K.I.S.S - Keep it Simple Stupid. Post lengths that are unneededly lengthy, characters that are unneededly bloated, complicated plot lines so confusing it hard to follow them. A lot of people think Unique or good means overly complicated. If it takes a sentence to say something, say it in a sentence. If it take a paragraph, say it in a paragraph. If your character has so much stuff thrown into them because you the player thought all that was cool, it's going to be hard to follow. Same with plots. K.I.S.S - best thing I ever learned in English Class.
  
• Show me, don't tell me. One thing that bothers me about RPers sometimes is they'll come in and tell us how are characters are supposed to respond to theirs based on something in their profile. That we're supposed to think they are extremely charming, or extremely intimidating, or an extremely good fighter. Then of course, they get frustrated that people don't respond in such a way. I would much rather you show me through your acting and roleplaying ten telling me right out the gate then get mad when it fails.
  
• Don't take OOC talk personally. This is a huge one for me, since my guild likes to comb through characters decisions with a fine toothed comb and talk about whether or not what they made a good one. One thing I really like about the people I rp with is that they will talk about the negative aspects of a character along with the positive, never throwing out "Yay your character is so good!" for no reason. I think this helps us keep the OOC/IC barrier intact, we're able to criticize character decisions without criticizing the player for playing them. Some people take this as a personal attack however, unable to see that other characters would see theirs in a negative light.
  
• Don't be afraid to let your character lose or get hurt. As a GM this is vital. So many people will get really pissed off really easily if it looks like their character is going to lose or something happens to them they didn't anticipate. It doesn't even matter if you warn them something is coming first, when it happens some people will still get upset. I like working with fluid people.
  
• Don't take lore talk personally.
  
• Be interesting.