Why You Should Keep an Open Mind and Not Judge Other Roleplayers in Most Cases

[Sig]

I wanted to make this thread after reviewing numerous posts made in multiple threads where roleplayers have drawn negative assumptions and judgments about other roleplayers.  We are all guilty of doing this from time to time.  

 

It is common for role-players to draw assumptions and judge each other for a variety of reasons.  Common examples include assessing role-players based on their: (1) post length, grammatical structure, or word-choice; (2) decisions regarding character aesthetics; (3) common themes in RP, including comedy, drama, and horror; (4) disposition towards violent or erotic content in RP; and (5) beliefs regarding the stringency of lore-compliance.  These are only a few examples.  

 

I am of the belief that role-players should strive to keep open minds and find as much value in as many forms of role-play as possible.  It is amazing how some of the best role-players I know exhibit completely different RP styles, content preferences, and beliefs on lore-compliance.  The sign of a good role-player is not adherence to any particular value, but instead the ability to create dynamic, interesting content in real-time.  Most people who role-play possess this skill and utilize it to create their own unique form of RP, which brings them personal enjoyment.  There is value to be found any genuine style of role-play, as it is the product of creativity and imagination.

 

We should always keep in mind that other role-players are spending scarce, valuable time from their busy lives to engage in what amounts to a collaborative creative writing exercise.  We should always appreciate the efforts and interests others show in role-playing for this reason.  With this in mind, it is not our place to judge or assume things about other role-players based on their valid preferences or styles.  The only exception to this is when a person roleplays intentionally to harass or annoy other roleplayers (which is very rare).  We should look to learn from and adapt to different RP preferences and styles in the vast majority of settings.  

 

The next time you find yourself drawing a negative assumption or judgment about a roleplayer or their preferences consider keeping an open mind.  The role-player posting snippy one-to-two line dialogue might spout off some of the wittiest lines you've heard in weeks.  A character purporting to be a voidsent might serve as a horrifying, wonderful antagonist.  A scantily-clad Miqo'te flirting in the Quicksand might have an incredibly well-written backstory.  The possibilities are endless, so keep the door open.

[Aedan Marceaux]

I disagree. I believe it is my place to judge or assume things based on people's choices for their RP. I, too, am using what you described as "scarce, valuable time from [my] busy life"... as such, it should be my choice who/what I RP with at any given moment.

 

 

To make that choice, I have to assume and judge based on the choices the people have made.

 

 

Now, if you're trying to say "We should be nice and not tell people off for the choices they make"... I can agree with that a little more.

 

 

But your post, to me, comes off as "you should accept everything people do and RP with them no matter what."

 

 

Sorry. I have standards that need to be met for me to thoroughly enjoy RP.

[Verad]

There is no middle ground in this, and the stakes are incredibly high.

[Teadrinker]

I congenially and respectfully disagree.

 

A character can just be a horrible character and the player can then get on another one and play much better - this I will agree with.

 

But things like grammar, sentence structure, the content of RP, flagrant and unnecessary sexuality with no actual basis in the character's development...

 

You can't fix that. The player just needs to grow out of it or stay within circles that like it or don't mind it. I don't think it's bad having standards and playing by them. That being said, more often than not I do give people chances. I'd say I'm batting at about a 90% disappointment rate.

[S'imba]

The big one I've seen is taking absolutely everything a character says as truth and simply writing the rper off as a lore breaker. Which may be a complete lie on an ic level. There have been lots of characters S'imba knows that have tended to use terms to describe him that aren't remotely true about him. Some of it he'd deny other stuff he'd be too ignorant to know it's not true. 

 

A character claiming to be a black or white mage, S'imba is probably going to believe them. For one he doesn't have the knowledge of the lore on an ic level other than he knows of their existence. So with a few flashy spells it's not exactly hard for a conjurer to pass themselves off as a white mage to him. Makes for a lot more interesting character interaction to not just assume that the character is lore breaking. 

 

Just my thoughts on it.

[Ashe]

Yeah, I have to agree with Etienne.

There are certain things regarding RP that I personally look for and I think everyone has a bias towards certain things whether they admit it or not.

For me, if I see that your main objective in your RP is a sexual relationship between characters, I will judge someone on that and distance myself from that RP because that is not what I am looking for. 

 

I can agree that directly telling someone off for their choices isn't right. But explaining to someone why their idea may not be accepted or why it may be more challenging than it's worth really isn't the same as telling someone off. If you're going to come from out of nowhere with some crazy idea that may not make sense to 98% of RPers, most people won't accept it. That's just a fact.

 

Everyone has their own standards. I won't ERP. I won't RP in the QS. I have trouble RPing with someone who doesn't type as much as I do because if I start typing paragraphs and they respond with one line, then it gets me nowhere. I won't RP with someone who RPs a different lore set (i.e. if someone is RPing a different FF game in FFXIV or Naruto or some other thing). I won't RP with someone who sexualizes LGBT people for the sake of sexualizing them (looking at all of the guys who RP lesbians as women who will chase anything with lady parts).  The list goes on...I have standards. And I bet you have standards too even if you don't want to admit them.

 

I bet there are people who have trouble with how I type because I write like how I have to write for graphic novel scripts. I miss commas because our style has us remove commas for professional publications (context: I am a graphic novel editor). I RP an asshole Elezen who is difficult to be around. He's not nice to entire groups of people for the sake of not being nice to them, etc. I bet there are plenty of people who aren't open to OOCly committing their time to that kind of RP, and I understand that. 

 

If you're going to RP, people need to understand that not everyone is going to accept everything everyone puts out there. If someone can't accept that, then they're kind of out of luck. LUCKILY there's a group for just about everything...so if people can't find a group that does what they do then perhaps there is something wrong with what they're doing. 

 

That's my two cents...

 

Quick Edit: I've had characters who are outright horrible who I have just had to remove but can RP my other characters much better. THAT is something that exists. But most of the time that's not the case from what I found.

[Oli!]

Not making a statement on the content of the post itself, but isn't it a bit of a judgement to say that the judgements people are making are necessarily malicious?

[Dat Oni]

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

I know that there's always a chance that what we perceive as shit is just that, shit, but for the most part, I give people as much time as possible before I draw any sort of conclusion.

 

There is nothing wrong with keeping an open mind. There is no reason, or rather, no good reason why you cannot, and you have next-to-nothing to lose in the process of doing so.

[Teadrinker]

 

There is nothing wrong with keeping an open mind. There is no reason, or rather, no good reason why you cannot, and you have next-to-nothing to lose in the process of doing so.

 

My enjoyment of RP and the game has nosedived when I've lowered my standards.

[Temmi]

I have to respectfully disagree with the OP.

 

As a few others have touched on, I have standards that have to be met in order for me to fully enjoy roleplaying with another.

 

If someone has very poor sentence structure to the point that their sentences are ambiguous, then that is absolutely an issue for me. If their grammar is poor to the extent that I'm re-re-reading their posts to comprehend, that's also an issue. If they're misspelling frequently, it's a distraction, and once again, that's an issue. For me to enjoy my RP, I have to understand what the other person is trying to convey, and it has to be clean and legible.

 

If someone is roleplaying something that clashes with my personal views of the world, then the simple act of accepting their character could completely shift my roleplay. I'm not willing to do that.

 

If I'm typing several full sentences, and receiving a few words in return, I feel disappointed because (typically, there are exceptions!) the onus is being placed on me to continue the scene. I absolutely despise situations where the other is merely responding to what I'm doing, and I'm providing all the content. I want my roleplay to be a collaboration event.

 

These are my choices, and I don't expect everyone to make the same ones.

 

What I will agree with is that we should all attempt to respect what others choose.

 

If someone chooses to roleplay something that I personally don't believe should be roleplayed, then that's their choice! I'm not going to speak down to them as though they've made a wrong choice, but I do have a right to decline to roleplay with them. But I also don't expect them to try and force me to accept their views.

 

I think there needs to be respect on both sides.

[Faye]

I can sorta understand both sides here. For starters, I wanna say there's a difference between judging someone, as opposed to judging someone then being an asshole about it. Judging someone is normal, we all do it, there's no harm there. Being an asshole unprovoked, though, is something that's really never called for.

 

Sure, someone with terrible grammer and spelling may actually write a compelling story and have a well thought out character. Sure, maybe that dude breaking every lore rule possible may actually be really fun to RP with. But for some people these things are deal breakers, and even for those who aren't as rigid, time is limited. Why waste it RPing with a person you're unsure about on the off-chance you might end up enjoying it?

 

I'm someone who'll give anyone a chance, but I can't blame others for not doing the same. For some it's worth the risk of lost time and unpleasant experiences, for others it's not. Neither way is wrong.

[Ashe]

 

I'm someone who'll give anyone a chance, but I can't blame others for not doing the same. For some it's worth the risk of lost time and unpleasant experiences, for others it's not. Neither way is wrong.

 

I'm like this too.

I'll RP with anyone who asks, but if I don't like what happens the first few times, I am kind of convinced it won't change.

It's like watching a TV show. You watch a few episodes, decide if you like it or not and if you don't, you don't engage with it. 

 

If I'm not drawn in the first handful of tries...it's not going to work.

[Sig]

The list goes on...I have standards. And I bet you have standards too even if you don't want to admit them.

 

We all gravitate towards roleplay that is consistent with our own style and preferences.  There is nothing wrong about this.  It is unfortunate, however, when a preference or style turns into a "standard," which closes the door to many potentially valuable forms of roleplay and scenes.

[-no longer matters-]

I will give anyone a chance. As someone who makes stupid typos on a regular basis. (Such as space bar not being pressed even though a swear I did on an occasional words, or "like" becoming "liek", and "the" becoming "teh" etc.) I try to give everyone a chance. 

 

I make mistakes I'm not perfect and who the hell knows why the mistakes I make even happen. So I'm not judgmental on people who make spelling/typing mistakes. Now if they are RPing "O u r not going 2 stop me." I may have to draw a line in the sand there, because that's just laziness.

 

As for character concepts I'll literally give almost anything a chance. I mean hell some people think my characters suck. It is what it is, I'm not perfect so it's hard to slam people without giving them a chance.

[Virella]

The list goes on...I have standards. And I bet you have standards too even if you don't want to admit them.

 

We all gravitate towards roleplay that is consistent with our own style and preferences.  There is nothing wrong about this.  It is unfortunate, however, when a preference or style turns into a "standard," which closes the door to many potentially valuable forms of roleplay and scenes.

I fear that not every roleplay and scene is worth time and attention though. I totally get what you are aiming at, and I think Faye put it nicely, but there's nothing wrong with having standards. I would roleplay personally with anyone who walked up to me IC, and if they ask me OOC to RP? I would do it as well, just certain people I would never seek out for roleplay. May it be their chars not being interesting, their writing is meh, I don't like what they did with the lore, perhaps the situation and place of said characters meeting isn't ideal ect. There's plenty of reasons of not wanting to roleplay with someone without being a dick about it.

 

We all play this game for our enjoyment, and eh, who are people to say what you should do, or not do, with that free time? Be as picky as you want, its your 13 euros per month you're paying.

[Ashe]

The list goes on...I have standards. And I bet you have standards too even if you don't want to admit them.

 

We all gravitate towards roleplay that is consistent with our own style and preferences.  There is nothing wrong about this.  It is unfortunate, however, when a preference or style turns into a "standard," which closes the door to many potentially valuable forms of roleplay and scenes.

If you say you're not guilty of that, I'd have to call your bluff.

No one is innocent of letting their biases dictate which RP they choose to pursue...or not.

[111]

The list goes on...I have standards. And I bet you have standards too even if you don't want to admit them.

 

We all gravitate towards roleplay that is consistent with our own style and preferences.  There is nothing wrong about this.  It is unfortunate, however, when a preference or style turns into a "standard," which closes the door to many potentially valuable forms of roleplay and scenes.

Think of it like this Sig. 

 

Let's say you have a 10% chance of 'clicking' with a random RPer. You have no standards, you RP with anyone regardless of lore breaking, bad grammar, whatever. So if you RP with 100 people, you might have 10 really cool interesting experiences. 

 

Not disputing that.

 

However if you have a standard that ups that number, to say... 20% or 30%, you'll actually be getting more interesting RP with people. You might miss out on some people, but overall, you are gaining.

 

If you have no standards, you would actually miss out on on people, because you would be wasting a lot of time pursuing leads that do not go anywhere.

[Paradox]

No one is innocent of letting their biases dictate which RP they choose to pursue...or not.

 

 

This is an odd statement for me because with me it's only partially true. I honestly don't RP with people who meet my asshole bias. What decides mostly who I don't RP with is their player and their behavior towards others more than their characters. If I know someone's an asshole, tends to shit talk about people, fuck people over, don't play reindeer games with them because they're snobbish, cliquish, etc. I don't really want to roleplay with them. No matter how lore compliant or cool their characters are or how many people say they're awesome.

 

 

The only bias I have against actual characters or character ideas are ones that are made to make fun of minorities, groups, or sexualities specifically. So I suppose in a sense this statement is true for me, but it kind of errs into common sense territory in that regard. But I'm also quite open minded otherwise. I've gotten into RP with ERP-centric/focused characters before, and turned it via conversation and interaction into normal everyday RP, because even if someone's specifically looking for one thing, it doesn't mean they eschew the other, if you can turn it in that direction. Through effort and attention, a lot can be done. News on that at eleven. But, that brings me to my view.

 

 

The problem is, in this community I've noticed, a lot of simply judging or being personally biased turns into shaming, mocking, and shit-talking. It's one thing to say that something isn't up to your standards, but it seems to be that a lot of people want to roleplay police and use 'the community standard' as their Captain America shield. I've seen a lot of threads asking about something, and while it starts as constructive discussion, certain individuals tend to come in and just bash the unholy hell out of someone's concept or idea and state why they're wrong as fact rather than opinion, then shut down any arguments or facts to the contrary and sit on their soapbox, calling them selfish, or lazy, or other such things. That's more than a standard, that's being intolerant.

 

 

The amount of close-mindedness generally has nothing to do with actual standards, and everything to do with heavy biases or past experiences that went sour. These things are different. For example. Someone may be playing a world-hopper. (This seems to be a hot topic.) Instead of interacting with this person IC and thus, IC deciding that maybe this person is crazy, which is very viable, they instead decide to never RP with this person, who outside of the character idea they may not like otherwise may very well be an excellent roleplayer. But the moment someone hits another person's bias meter, they never want to RP with that person, even if they run into another character of theirs that may be entirely lore compliant.

 

The thing about having standards is that standards aren't always able to be met by everyone, and when people tend to bunch into groups, as people are wont to do, it cuts people out that otherwise would be fun to play with. Standards often also tend to create tension as much as doing any weeding out, especially I've noticed, with people that hug lore like a bible, despite the fact the lore has a lot of holes and inconsistencies at times. That, and this community has some of the worst standards of character idea tolerance I've come across in my 20+ years of roleplay. Don't get me wrong; I have seen worse, but this is in the top 10 by far. If I had a dollar for every instance of the words 'edgy' or 'special snowflake' uttered casually by people in a snide fashion at some just asking for opinions, I'd be sitting on Trump money.

 

 

There are some accepting people. I've met some. But I also see a lot of judgment. And I don't mean casual judgment based on standards, or 'I don't agree with this idea, but best of luck'. I mean snobbery, mockery, and disdain before they ever get a chance to interact with someone more than once or twice. I agree with OP to some extent. It is good to be open minded and not be judgmental. And I disagree to some point; we are allowed to have our own standards because we do want to have fun and not have our time wasted. But I also know some people will sit in their own corners, play in their sandboxes, and pull a George Lucas and kick all the toys out they don't like and say 'my sandbox'. And that makes me a little sad. I think we should all be a little more accepting and open, or at the very least, not be complete douche canoes about it when we don't like something. Giving someone a chance may indeed waste your time. But you might also be pleasantly surprised. You never know.

 

Just my two gil.

[S'imba]

I think judging may be the wrong word...there's nothing wrong with avoiding RP that you're not into. It's when things get taken out of character and condescending when it becomes a problem. Calling people out as bad or going into a linkshell and saying how so and so is a bad rper is what in my opinion needs to be avoided. All that will cause is more people to avoid the roleplayer, which only makes the situation worse. Yeah there's a lot of stereotypes out there. You see a scantily clad cat girl, yeah chances are high that they could be just looking for erp. You want to avoid a character like that and not risk having to rp with someone like that it's fine. It's when a person starts vocalizing those assumptions that's the problem. Even if that character isn't an erper and their character is scantily clad for an actual IC reason suddenly they start getting a negative reputation.  There's a lot of people that are new to rping and normally need a little extra patience. If that person gets hit with a lot of negativity they'll almost certainly be pushed away and have several stereotypes about RPers confirmed causing them to just become another troll.

People all have standards and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you're out in a public place or event then you're going to have to deal with what those standards say is subpar rp. You'll have to deal with RP that may be considered disruptive or obnoxious. Though I think in those situations is where people need to exercise extra tolerance even if you don't like the character or rper. A person may not like it when people post short little responses. Though then there's people who won't appreciate waiting for a paragraph of text, describing every little facial movement for a yes or no question. 

 

Basically just be nice to each other and avoid the backbiting.

[Ashe]

No one is innocent of letting their biases dictate which RP they choose to pursue...or not.

 

 

This is an odd statement for me because with me it's only partially true. I honestly don't RP with people who meet my asshole bias. What decides mostly who I don't RP with is their player and their behavior towards others more than their characters. If I know someone's an asshole, tends to shit talk about people, fuck people over, don't play reindeer games with them because they're snobbish, cliquish, etc. I don't really want to roleplay with them. No matter how lore compliant or cool their characters are or how many people say they're awesome.

 

 

The only bias I have against actual characters or character ideas are ones that are made to make fun of minorities, groups, or sexualities specifically. So I suppose in a sense this statement is true for me, but it kind of errs into common sense territory in that regard. But I'm also quite open minded otherwise. I've gotten into RP with ERP-centric/focused characters before, and turned it via conversation and interaction into normal everyday RP, because even if someone's specifically looking for one thing, it doesn't mean they eschew the other, if you can turn it in that direction. Through effort and attention, a lot can be done. News on that at eleven. But, that brings me to my view.

 

 

The problem is, in this community I've noticed, a lot of simply judging or being personally biased turns into shaming, mocking, and shit-talking. It's one thing to say that something isn't up to your standards, but it seems to be that a lot of people want to roleplay police and use 'the community standard' as their Captain America shield. I've seen a lot of threads asking about something, and while it starts as constructive discussion, certain individuals tend to come in and just bash the unholy hell out of someone's concept or idea and state why they're wrong as fact rather than opinion, then shut down any arguments or facts to the contrary and sit on their soapbox, calling them selfish, or lazy, or other such things. That's more than a standard, that's being intolerant.

 

 

The amount of close-mindedness generally has nothing to do with actual standards, and everything to do with heavy biases or past experiences that went sour. These things are different. For example. Someone may be playing a world-hopper. (This seems to be a hot topic.) Instead of interacting with this person IC and thus, IC deciding that maybe this person is crazy, which is very viable, they instead decide to never RP with this person, who outside of the character idea they may not like otherwise may very well be an excellent roleplayer. But the moment someone hits another person's bias meter, they never want to RP with that person, even if they run into another character of theirs that may be entirely lore compliant.

 

The thing about having standards is that standards aren't always able to be met by everyone, and when people tend to bunch into groups, as people are wont to do, it cuts people out that otherwise would be fun to play with. Standards often also tend to create tension as much as doing any weeding out, especially I've noticed, with people that hug lore like a bible, despite the fact the lore has a lot of holes and inconsistencies at times. That, and this community has some of the worst standards of character idea tolerance I've come across in my 20+ years of roleplay. Don't get me wrong; I have seen worse, but this is in the top 10 by far. If I had a dollar for every instance of the words 'edgy' or 'special snowflake' uttered casually by people in a snide fashion at some just asking for opinions, I'd be sitting on Trump money.

 

 

There are some accepting people. I've met some. But I also see a lot of judgment. And I don't mean casual judgment based on standards, or 'I don't agree with this idea, but best of luck'. I mean snobbery, mockery, and disdain before they ever get a chance to interact with someone more than once or twice. I agree with OP to some extent. It is good to be open minded and not be judgmental. And I disagree to some point; we are allowed to have our own standards because we do want to have fun and not have our time wasted. But I also know some people will sit in their own corners, play in their sandboxes, and pull a George Lucas and kick all the toys out they don't like and say 'my sandbox'. And that makes me a little sad. I think we should all be a little more accepting and open, or at the very least, not be complete douche canoes about it when we don't like something. Giving someone a chance may indeed waste your time. But you might also be pleasantly surprised. You never know.

 

Just my two gil.

 

If you see THAT much disdain for other people's stuff, then you're hanging with the wrong crowd. 

 

I don't really RP with people who sit in a corner and talk about people they don't RP with/randomly see on the street in Ul'Dah and make fun of them, etc. 

If you're hanging with those kinds of people, then maybe find a new group. 

 

My FC will sometimes make fun of each other's stuff because it's legit funny and fun to joke about out of context. But ripping on other people is not okay.

 

Making suggestions, constructive comments with concrete examples, answering someone's question honestly with examples and back up comments and suggestions...I don't see what's wrong with that. 

 

Having standards is okay though. I have them and I've adjusted to other people who may not be used to certain levels of RP. My hope usually that that person will expand what they try, etc. 

 

Ahhhhh I forgot what I'm trying to say...words >.<

[Paradox]

Making suggestions, constructive comments with concrete examples, answering someone's question honestly with examples and back up comments and suggestions...I don't see what's wrong with that.

 

There's nothing wrong with that. But a lot of the time on these very forums, I see constructive criticism turn into snarking, sniping, and being very harsh as opposed to constructive. There's a lot of threads on this forum I've observed where people come in name-calling (again, the whole 'edgy', 'snowflake', etc) just because that person doesn't like the idea, and instead of being constructive, they're douchey.

 

Jokingly making fun of each other's stuff among people you hang with is different from bashing people's ideas because you don't like them. Keep in mind I'm using 'you' as a general statement here, I'm not actually directing that at you personally. But I do see it a lot on the forums here especially. I know people get tired of addressing the same topics, and that's part of it, but still.

 

I adjust to most things, myself. It might be because I'm old, and I've been at this for so long, I just like to see what people will do. Not having a life also means I have a little more time to waste, overall. Maybe it's that. I dunno.

 

But yeah, words are hard. I think words should be outlawed. We could communicate by waving fish around. That might be fun. Especially since a lot of topics around here tend to flounder anyway. >>

[DoomsdayClock]

I think there is a positive message in the initial post that is valid for good community building. I hope that it doesn't get too lost somewhere along the way.

[Ashe]

Making suggestions, constructive comments with concrete examples, answering someone's question honestly with examples and back up comments and suggestions...I don't see what's wrong with that.

 

There's nothing wrong with that. But a lot of the time on these very forums, I see constructive criticism turn into snarking, sniping, and being very harsh as opposed to constructive. There's a lot of threads on this forum I've observed where people come in name-calling (again, the whole 'edgy', 'snowflake', etc) just because that person doesn't like the idea, and instead of being constructive, they're douchey.

 

Jokingly making fun of each other's stuff among people you hang with is different from bashing people's ideas because you don't like them. Keep in mind I'm using 'you' as a general statement here, I'm not actually directing that at you personally. But I do see it a lot on the forums here especially. I know people get tired of addressing the same topics, and that's part of it, but still.

 

I adjust to most things, myself. It might be because I'm old, and I've been at this for so long, I just like to see what people will do. Not having a life also means I have a little more time to waste, overall. Maybe it's that. I dunno.

 

But yeah, words are hard. I think words should be outlawed. We could communicate by waving fish around. That might be fun. Especially since a lot of topics around here tend to flounder anyway. >>

Yes, that!!

I seem to have forgotten my coffee today, so words are not on my side...

[Dis]

I’ve actually had some problems of my own when it comes to dealing with the judgmental side of things. That side of things is precisely why I completely rewrote Glioca to have two separate backstories: one for private play, and one for public play. The two eventually merged, and I’ve distanced myself a great deal from her ‘world-traveler’ in the sense of crossing dimensions, into a world-traveler in the literal sense that she’s traveled all over the world to and through the various continents.

 

The biggest problem I’ve noticed is that a number of people originally ‘wrote me off’ when I first created the character and started talking about her on the RPC. Fast forward almost six months later, and some of these same people still avoid me, despite the way I and my character have changed. I made one statement, once, and was written off, and told by others that they wouldn’t interact with my character. Some individuals still avoid my other characters, including those who are lore compliant.

 

I’d like to think I’m not a bad RPer, but when faced with clusters of people who don’t want to interact with me based on my character concept, it flies in the face of everything I’ve ever learned about RPers as an open-minded group of creative individuals who I can create collaborative works with. It’s also a considerable blow to one’s self-esteem.

 

How many RPers have others directly or indirectly insulted who have in turn withdrawn into a bubble and ended up inevitably abandoning their story, their character, or RP entirely as a hobby? As a community, we have an effect on others in our community. Words are a powerful tool, as we’re all aware.

 

And before anyone goes on about not being validated by someone else’s views and opinions on your writing, I urge you to think of how you yourself would feel if someone refused to write with you because they decided they didn’t like interacting with your specific type of character (mundane, slice of life, combat oriented, etc). I think most people would brush it off, but not everyone would.

 

From the perspective of an individual who has been shunned for a world-traveler concept, I can say that one of the worst feelings in the world is being told that your creative idea, thoughts and effort is ‘worth less’ than the creative ideas and thoughts of someone else.

 

Many people consider world traveling characters to be lazy, for example, but I feel like this isn’t the case. Those who opt to play these types of characters have to spend weeks, if not months very carefully weaving their story into the existing lore, combing it for loopholes and ways we might ‘go around’ but still ‘fit within’ the system.

 

People don’t want to play a ‘special snowflake’ or an ‘edgelord’. They want to play a concept that is outside of their normal bubble, one that they find interesting and engaging, and hope that others also find interesting and engaging. Maybe they want their character to be treated as crazy, maybe they want those skeptical reactions and those outlandish attitudes from others. By shunning them and refusing to interact with them, we’re isolating them, and telling them that they’re ‘wrong’, or somehow ‘worse’ than we are, for playing something different.

 

I can only sum this up in one sentence. That’s not okay. You can have standards, you can have views and opinions, but please try and remember that there’s another person on the other end of that character you’re bashing, one who is trying to be creative with you, not just around you.

[Zhavi]

If you're saying don't be an asshole unnecessarily (sometimes the raw, brutal truth is a good thing), then I agree.

 

If you're saying something around the sentiment of don't form opinions and judgements about who people are oocly based on their rp, then I agree (minus predatory behaviors).

 

If you're saying don't attach your opinion of someone's writing to the individual who wrote it (ie, their writing is bad, therefore they're bad), then I agree.

 

If you're saying scrub your mind clean of any sort of negative opinion on others' writing/roleplay based upon that writing and your own preferences or ideas about what is good or bad writing/roleplay, then no. I vehemently do not agree.

 

 

aside: I ain't changing my preferences just because someone's feelings might get hurt. Live and let live. I have precious little free time, and I will not spend it rping something I do not enjoy. However, I'm not going to put someone down for enjoying something I don't, either. You do you.