discussion Red Flags in RP/RP Partners?

[Mermaid]

I feel like this must have been discussed here before but I wasn't able to find an existing thread. Sorry if I've unwittingly created a thread on a commonly discussed topic!

 

What are some red flags for you when it comes to role play you're involved in or people you're role playing with? Things that make you think things like "maybe I shouldn't RP with this person" or "maybe this scene isn't for me". How do you deal with it?

 

I feel like I should be offering my own opinions and experiences to start this thread off but, as with most topics like this, some experiences are as recent as the past month or two and I worry about people involved finding these forums.

[Gegenji]

It's definitely a... touchy topic. Since you could be very easily describing things you've had people do and - if they're savvy enough to recognize it - there could be a lot of hurt feelings.

 

To try and throw a general, vague one out there... I'd say be wary of characters/players who get clingy a little too fast (though I suppose being clingy at all is probably a bad thing)? This is mostly for relationship RP, and from what I've seen and heard more than any personal experience.

 

Like, the characters who are absolutely smitten with your character from the get-go or after a single date, moving right into that WE WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER scenario. Obviously, if you planned out them potentially doing the whole "love at first sight" thing, then it's not so bad. But when a single, random date has them attached to the hip with you... it can be problematic.

 

It also can get a lot worse if they start seeing the RP partner thing as exclusionary (though this can be its own issue, I bet). As in, every RP you do has to include them somehow or they start getting upset and fussy if you're RPing with others without them. That sort of clinginess and possessiveness, if caught early, is probably a pretty solid red flag that this person may not be someone to RP with...

[Mermaid]

It's definitely a... touchy topic. Since you could be very easily describing things you've had people do and - if they're savvy enough to recognize it - there could be a lot of hurt feelings.

 

Yes, I'm very worried about that myself. :dazed:

 

I guess there is one experience I can share without even needing to generalize it. It happened so long ago I'm no longer in touch with the person.

 

A friend started playing a tabletop RPG adventure path I had played a bit of. They would tell me their experiences and show me art they drew of their character. As soon I started talking about my experiences with the adventure path, however, they would suddenly seem to lose interest in the conversation. Are we not having a discussion? Was I just supposed to say your art was nice? It made me feel like they might be the kind of person to make the game all about them.

[Gegenji]

Ah, that's another pretty solid general one. Folks who seem to just like to focus on their character. Where the RP is very obviously just the "Me (and Maybe Friends) Show."

 

There's a bunch of different flavors of it too:

• People who like to be super-dramatic about their character to actively draw attention to themselves from whatever else is going on,
  
• People who try to portray their character as basically the best at everything, so they can "solve" every situation, and
  
• People who actively belittle and posture their character as just being better than everyone else and all the others are not worth their time/effort.
  

 

The latter one is a bit of a greyer subject, though, oddly enough. Since that could be very much just a facet of a character's personality. But if it looks like that it's also the player rather than just a bit of the character... or that's all the character is... then that might be something to be wary of.

[Syranelle Ironleaf]

Beware of anyone who has no respect for your time.  

 

If you arrange to do something with them, be it RP or PVE, and they constantly flake out -- then that should be a red flag that they aren't interested in whatever you're offering.

 

(Disclaimer: Some folks (like me) have extenuating Life Circumstances, but people with those kinds of stipulations should always be up-front about them before getting too involved with other people.)

 

This also, however, extends to people who connive you into staying longer than you plan to.  I get that RP is fun and sometimes you don't want a scene to end, but if you say, "I need to be in bed by 11pm because I have work tomorrow," a good RP partner should always respect that.  Real Life should always come first and foremost.  If you volunteer yourself to stay longer without badgering from your potential partner, then that's on you, but you shouldn't be coerced into it.

 

Beware of anyone who has no respect for your boundaries.

 

No matter the boundary, be it your preferences in RP, subjects you don't want to discuss IC or OOC, or even time away from the PC/game -- a good RP partner should respect your boundaries.  If they get upset over any barriers you've set, that should pretty much tell you everything you need to know about them.

[Nebbs]

My list... Basically not RPing

• Going afk all the time
  
• Using RP as filler
  
• Being ooc 
  
• Talking ooc too much
  
• Wanting me to do all the work
  
• Having no dimensions to your char
  

Then there are RL OOC reasons

• Bigots
  
• Judgemental
  
• Intolorent
  

That should do as a start 

[ExAtomos]

A lot of these are just bad RP. One I'll add is including what your character feels/does/says in their emotes. This is closely related to not giving you a choice on what you do/say or how you can react, which I think someone already mentioned.

 

A straight up red flag (one I've had to deal with myself) is someone telling you you look good only when it suits their preferences and giving you shit until you change back if you change to something they don't like.

 

Another is being rude, critical, or abusive in RP and trying to cover it with "Oh, it's just my character's personality".

[Warren Castille]

I'm wary of anyone who tags themselves as a ParaRPer. It's nothing against the type, but my experience have taught me that I can safely AFK for 12+ minutes between posts and then return to a thesaurus' worth of alternate words used to describe things readily visible on their character.

 

As a minor tangent: Usage of "orbs" "hues" and "spheres" when referring to your eyes. Just stop.

[SapphireSkylines]

I'm wary of anyone who tags themselves as a ParaRPer. It's nothing against the type, but my experience have taught me that I can safely AFK for 12+ minutes between posts and then return to a thesaurus' worth of alternate words used to describe things readily visible on their character.

 

As a minor tangent: Usage of "orbs" "hues" and "spheres" when referring to your eyes. Just stop.

 

I don't have anything against paragraph roleplayers, but in my experience the people who are, are usually the ones who are very picky about how their roleplay is. What kind of skill level your RP partner is at, how the RP plays out, the style of the RP partner's writing and I usually want to steer clear of that, especially since I see roleplay as just a fun thing to do and would prefer RP partners to be more casual and laid back.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

As a minor tangent: Usage of "orbs" "hues" and "spheres" when referring to your eyes. Just stop.

 

This one is a huge point, in my opinion. While it's good to flex vocabulary a little, there's not a lot to be gained by "evasive language". My experience with players who go especially purple with their prose is that they're not as interested in storytelling (or story-participating) as they are in trying to feel superior to others (or inversely, cause others to feel inferior) as a power complex by way of attempting to demonstrate how superior they are at writing. Might not be true of everyone, I just speak from my own experience with people like that.

[Askier]

-snip-

 

As a minor tangent: Usage of "orbs" "hues" and "spheres" when referring to your eyes. Just stop.

What about "optics"? xp

 

One that's a flag for me is someone who wants to rp fight without using random the first time you fight them, or met them even.   I'm not saying rp fighting without rolls is bad.  I do it all the time, but with people I have rped with before.   I had alot of bad rp fights way back when I started with people who didn't like to roll, nor understood what a good fight should be.  Many a brawl was spent having all of my attacks somehow miss. this would go on until I had my character lose so I could go do something fun.

[Warren Castille]

As a minor tangent: Usage of "orbs" "hues" and "spheres" when referring to your eyes. Just stop.

 

This one is a huge point, in my opinion. While it's good to flex vocabulary a little, there's not a lot to be gained by "evasive language". My experience with players who go especially purple with their prose is that they're not as interested in storytelling (or story-participating) as they are in trying to feel superior to others (or inversely, cause others to feel inferior) as a power complex by way of attempting to demonstrate how superior they are at writing. Might not be true of everyone, I just speak from my own experience with people like that.

 

Word. These are the people who fancy themselves as authors yet never write anything.

 

Not all ParaRPers, naturally. It's just the actively shitty ones that spoil the tag for everyone else.

[Askier]

As a minor tangent: Usage of "orbs" "hues" and "spheres" when referring to your eyes. Just stop.

 

This one is a huge point, in my opinion. While it's good to flex vocabulary a little, there's not a lot to be gained by "evasive language". My experience with players who go especially purple with their prose is that they're not as interested in storytelling (or story-participating) as they are in trying to feel superior to others (or inversely, cause others to feel inferior) as a power complex by way of attempting to demonstrate how superior they are at writing. Might not be true of everyone, I just speak from my own experience with people like that.

 

Word. These are the people who fancy themselves as authors yet never write anything.

 

Not all ParaRPers, naturally. It's just the actively shitty ones that spoil the tag for everyone else.

 

Yeah, those dirty para-rpers like Roen! Who needs them and their well written plots and well constructed sentences and clever use of adjectives and...

 

NOTICE ME SENPAI!!!!!

 

Seriously though I know what you're talking about Warren Nothing grinds a scene like 30 minutes between posts)

[Warren Castille]

 

Yeah, those dirty para-rpers like Roen! Who needs them and their well written plots and well constructed sentences and clever use of adjectives and...

 

These are all the reasons I like paragraph roleplay. A lot of too-important folks use it to try and prop themselves up as elite, and that sucks.

 

We're all writing fan fiction, people. None of us are better than anyone else!

[ExAtomos]

As a minor tangent: Usage of "orbs" "hues" and "spheres" when referring to your eyes. Just stop.

 

This one is a huge point, in my opinion. While it's good to flex vocabulary a little, there's not a lot to be gained by "evasive language". My experience with players who go especially purple with their prose is that they're not as interested in storytelling (or story-participating) as they are in trying to feel superior to others (or inversely, cause others to feel inferior) as a power complex by way of attempting to demonstrate how superior they are at writing. Might not be true of everyone, I just speak from my own experience with people like that.

 

Sometimes I wonder if it's cause folks are deathly afraid of repeating words, sounding too basic/illiterate, or struggle conveying what their character looks/moves like if it something that isn't obvious with the limited character designer. I think it's more a sign of being a poor writer than just going with simplicity. (lol! why'd i get the angry face smiley? xDDD )

 

But I do wonder why folks who paraRP often have a strict requirement that their rp partner also does it... Anyone can enlighten me?

[Roen]

Yeah, those dirty para-rpers like Roen! Who needs them and their well written plots and well constructed sentences and clever use of adjectives and...

 

NOTICE ME SENPAI!!!!!

 

Seriously though I know what you're talking about Warren Nothing grinds a scene like 30 minutes between posts)

 

Wait-- Wha?? Why you mention me here?

 

I've never labeled myself as a para-RPer. Put that label some place else! Although sometimes, yes, my posts during RP can be longer than others. And sometimes I respond with a "...." and nothing else. Whatever the situation calls for, really. And I don't mind long posts as long as they have some kind of a narrative point to them, and it is written out in a timely fashion. I don't like waiting five minutes for a response. I start getting paranoid and start sending tells going "Did you see my last post? Did it get lost...?" Although I doubt (I think) that Warren was referring to my style of RP...

 

As for orbs and hues, yes, they do often make me take note of it, but I have yet to avoid playing with those players for that reason. But if certain personality traits like those that were mentioned above about those players emerge, I run for the hills. It just makes RP no fun!

 

Let's see, to contribute to the original purpose of thread.. I sometimes take a look at their style of combat RP (not that I do a lot of those) if it comes up. It kind of shows how cooperative the player is when interacting with another. I take note when it is a give and take, and cringe when it isn't.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

A big red flag for me is when players present characters or stories which push hard against lore, and the individual(s) involved have an intricate Viet Cong tunnel system of reasons why their idea is totally okay and you should be on board with it - and if you question it even a little, you immediately become the worst and you can go die in a fire.

 

I don't mean to say we should never tolerate bending the lore - on the contrary, the lore bends itself often enough even without our input, so why not, with some restraint. The point is when it becomes obvious that the player isn't actually even looking within the lore for ideas for a character or story, but rather, they've come up with a character or story concept which obviously isn't very reasonable in this setting, and their exploration of the lore is instead used to seek every tiny morsel of anything which renders the concept remotely plausible.

 

As I see it, there's heaps and piles of really great characters and stories that could be enjoyed that are wholly within the lore, or perhaps edging slightly against it, and so the only rational justification to behave like that is that the player is "stuck" on a concept. Sometimes this might only be a matter of writer's block, but most of the time, at least in my experience, it's due to the player's obsession over a particular theme which at an almost (or sometimes literally) fetish-like level they need to have or else they just can't even get interested in roleplay.

[xelliexell]

 

But I do wonder why folks who paraRP often have a strict requirement that their rp partner also does it... Anyone can enlighten me?

 

I don't have any such expectations of my own RP partners, but I figure that it's one part personal preference, and one part fear of receiving a reply post like "D'ranmaia Shenn smiles."

 

I think that when a response doesn't give your RP partner anything to interact with, it can create a frustrating situation. I know this can happen whether a post is long or short, but it might be a more common occurrence with short posters? Maybe those people have had too many bad experiences with people who give them nothing to play off of, which makes the RP feel burdensome and one-sided?

[Warren Castille]

Roleplay is like tennis. You have to serve the ball back to your opposite. People who don't, or people who juggle the ball on their racket to show off how great they are?

 

Yeah, fuck 'em.

[Aya]

I hope this thread doesn't devolve into weighing the value of different writing styles

 

Shakespeare or Hemmingway, or anywhere in between, people are going to enjoy both reading and writing in different ways!

 

The only thing that bothers me is when the style is clearly inappropriate for the venue. For example, dropping multi-post paragraphs into the rapidly scrolling chat of a busy public place.

[Warren Castille]

That's why I tried to emphasize that the medium isn't the problem, just people utilizing it "wrong" is. I guess in my old age I've grown cynical in how people use writing to try and inflate themselves.

[ExAtomos]

 

But I do wonder why folks who paraRP often have a strict requirement that their rp partner also does it... Anyone can enlighten me?

 

I don't have any such expectations of my own RP partners, but I figure that it's one part personal preference, and one part fear of receiving a reply post like "D'ranmaia Shenn smiles."

 

I think that when a response doesn't give your RP partner anything to interact with, it can create a frustrating situation. I know this can happen whether a post is long or short, but it might be a more common occurrence with short posters? Maybe those people have had too many bad experiences with people who give them nothing to play off of, which makes the RP feel burdensome and one-sided?

 

Aha, that could be. And I think someone mentioned upstream how awful it is to be the only one carrying the RP. I've been there and it was so bad I had to basically take my character OOC just to keep the convo moving (At the time, the folks I was trying to RP with also just stood there and insulted my character the whole time [even though lore-wise I was in the right] and claimed it as an IC personality thing)(). ; ; I've used a few sentences to fill in the little motions/body language that is half of how we communicate irl since our character models don't move besides breathing, but I don't consider myself a paraRPers since I try to keep things simple and conversational otherwise.

[ExAtomos]

Emoting one's thoughts that are hyper-critical/rude of their RP partner. Has this been mentioned? (I'm not keen on RPing with folks who do the emoted thoughts thing, but that's just a writing style difference.) I've seen this in action and it was really horrible for all of us present since we just had to watch this person write this shit and no one was able to respond ICly.

[Warren Castille]

Emoting one's thoughts that are hyper-critical/rude of their RP partner. Has this been mentioned? (I'm not keen on RPing with folks who do the emoted thoughts thing, but that's just a writing style difference.) I've seen this in action and it was really horrible for all of us present since we just had to watch this person write this shit and no one was able to respond ICly.

 

Fucking YES

 

If you emote your thoughts, that's great for letting people around you know how you feel, and incredibly ineffective to let people know how to respond to you. It's awful. People shouldn't do it unless it's followed by body language or something to allow a hint of insight, but hey.

 

I've actually, legitimately watched someone post a 3-part "roleplay" post that was ENTIRELY INTERNAL MONOLOGUE and while it was certainly something to read... No one could do anything with it.

[Akeno Asukai]

[align=justify]I'm learning so much about this community...

 

To be fair, I'll admit that I only read the first page of comments/replies. I saw a few that more or less grind on me, but don't necessarily stop me from engaging in RP with someone "guilty" of that particular peeve.

[/align]

[align=justify]So, onto my personal red flags. 

 

My number one red flag for potential RP friends is who they associate themselves with. I am aware of how much of a prejudice this is however, over the years and numerous games I've come to learn that birds of a feather flock together and you can learn a lot about someone based on the company they keep.

          That being said, I won't immediately write the person off as being problematic, but I do find myself a little more vigilant around them -- especially if they rub elbows with a number of people I consider to be problematic. 

 

Second on the list of enormous red flags are people who, right off the bat, want to get to know more about you on an out of character level. If it's the first time we're interacting and I'm suddenly under fire from a barrage of questions asking the personal stuff (generally, my gender, my timezone, etc) I tend to get a little queasy. 

[/align]

[align=justify]          I much prefer people to wait for a consistent dialogue to be present before starting to get to know me as a person. 

 

The third highest flag for me gets a little more "personal" (for lack of a better word) and is in regards to someone's search info. Generally speaking, I always read a characters search information before attempting to interact with them; it often gives me an idea of what to expect without having to scroll through whatever is clogging my chat log to read through their emotes. 

[/align]

[align=justify]          I've come to find that Balmung specifically has a very direct line between search information and the kind of RP one can expect from that person. Most people I've come into contact with (again, I have to emphasize that this is my experience) who use an excessive amount of auto-translate tags, any version of "E" RP and (as Warren pointed out) "Para" (specifically this word in my experience) aren't usually long-term story seekers. For me, it lets me know to be wary of them as the chance for them sticking around long-term aren't exactly in the double-digits.

          I was going to make this it's own "thing", but decided against it. It should probably be a lot higher on the list, if I'm honest. The phrase "D-MRP" or "Dark" or any combination of that particular "genre"/"trope". This is something I have encountered in a number of games and it's almost always lead to characters whose sole purpose is to be a bad-ass as possible. I believe many communities use the label "Edge Lord"; they're often villain characters whose only real form of torture is adult in nature. They tend to ignore in character consequences and simply prance around attempting to "torture" and maim and murder anybody they don't like. I don't find them to have a lot of substance, or haven't I suppose would be a better statement. 

 

As far as language and using a thesaurus, I don't mind either. There are a few "triggering" words, but the forums are no place for those. Generally speaking, I don't mind waiting an eternity for people to respond unless I waited twenty minutes and your response is, "...". Then I want to bash my face into my keyboard and uninstall the game in its entirety.[/align]