Membership A roleplayers peeve moments

[Red Star 6]

I guess it's never bothered me because I've always assumed everybody has their favorites. As long as they get to me eventually, I'm cool with people posting multiple times a day to somebody else first. Usually, I try to get to everybody daily or at least every couple of days. But when I've been busy, sick, and stressed and I finally get a chance to post and I get crap for it because I didn't choose theirs? It just makes me not want to post to ANYBODY. 

This, so much for me. XD I'm like in the middle of you two who were discussing this. I'm totally fine with people posting repeatedly to one person while mine is sort of left behind. I do the same thing. I do sort of secretly hope that I'll at least get ONE post that day from them. Or at least one within 48 hours after they've been doing 1000000 posts everywhere else. xD  I try to do the same; if I'm vollying with a particular player, I try to make sure and get at least one post for everyone else on that particular site before the end of the day.

 

When someone says they want to plot with you but expects you to do all of the actual work for it. Like lolwat.

Ooooomg I had this happen the other day. The thread ended up lasting about 3 posts, because their character just ... wouldn't engage, so mine ended up walking on his way and leaving. xD

[Shadow Lady 2]

When I feel like I'm constantly having to pull teeth to get my partner to post, and when they do, they don't really do anything to advance the plot.

This is probably a combining of my two biggest peeves. I don't want anyone to feel like they have to write with me, Jesus. I want my partner to have fun too.

[VirusZero 176]

People who:

• vanish for weeks at a time then reappear only to whine about nothing going on or being left out.
• complain about having to read.
• complain about having no muse.
• constantly complain about their real life issues. (Please stop, we're not a support group for you. We're here to have fun and escape our own issues, not be bombarded by more.)
• sit around in the chatbox mentioning how they're going to post, but then don't. (Either post or stop stating you will.)
• only want to roleplay in the public chatbox. (Every once in a while? Sure, fill your boots. But keep it pg-13 and don't drown out a conversation going on.)
• only post "lol" or ">_>" in the chatbox.
• excessively picship. (I understand people love their celeb pairings and whatnot... but that doesn't mean spend hours gushing over them.)
• hound others for posts. (Bonus points if they tend to forget they owe posts back.)
• can't separate in character and out of character. (The fact my villain wants to kill your character does not mean I hate you. It's just that my character is a villain... it's what they do.)
• get offended over trivial things. (Seriously? you're offended because a fictional non-human character has green hair? )

There's undoubtedly more than that which annoy me, but at the moment I think that's enough.

[Tambourine 0]

Have not finished reading the whole thing, so I am not sure if anybody said these things or not, but...lots of things!

When you are a member of staff (or running a site) and...
01. Someone asks you why you do a certain thing one way (say...use a certain line of code in your application instead of another), you tell them because the other way messes with this or that (or you have tried it and it just does not work out), and they proceed to make a big deal and argue about it.  I'm sorry...I have been running this site for 'this long' but you just got here and clearly know better than me.  I bow to your (apparently) superior wisdom and discernment.
02. Someone makes a big deal about a very small and generic rule (say..a restriction on 13+ year old characters because your site is PG-13) when it does not apply to them (or you just told them it does not apply to them).
03. When someone new comes on in the chatbox, is apparently creating a character, and you can already tell that things are going to be all about them...everywhere...
04. This has also been mentioned but...OMG!!!  It drives me absolutely insane when a guest pops into the cbox and I (nor is anyone else) around to greet them.  I feel like I have most likely, totally, failed at hooking the interest of someone new because I did not happen to be there.  Because, let us face it, probably more than half the people that say 'hey' in the cbox and do not get a response deem you inactive without even checking to see whether there have been posts with the last few days or not.  (This one time...I stepped away from the computer for two minutes.  Someone came in the cbox asking the dreaded question 'Is this site active?'  After waiting a whole two minutes they are like 'Well, I guess not!'  They seriously based the answer of their question on two minutes?  *facepalm*)

And my peeves as a player...
01. As lots of people said, being promised posts over and over again and never receiving them on time.  It already kills me to wait when I am super duper excited about a thread or plot, so please do not tell me you are going to post, get my hopes up, and then CRUSH THEM WITH A ROCK!
02. When I have a plot idea involving my character that I really want to do, I try to get other people involved so it is not all about me (cause I'm conscious of this) but I had someone tell me that my plots are self-centered and it has made me even more self-conscious about suggesting plots that I have for my charries.
03. When someone clearly has two, three, or more posts to do but will not do them because other people are not posting (not necessarily to them because most of their threads have replies) because their muse is based on the activity of others.  This is the worst bunch of horse manure I have ever heard....
04. When I have looked over everything on a site and decide I want to join I will pop in the chatbox to say 'hi'.  Everyone is friendly and welcoming and 'you should totally join!'  Then when you do everything seems to change and nobody wants to post with you.......

[Baphomet 3]

When I feel like I'm constantly having to pull teeth to get my partner to post, and when they do, they don't really do anything to advance the plot.

This is probably a combining of my two biggest peeves. I don't want anyone to feel like they have to write with me, Jesus. I want my partner to have fun too.

So much this.  I'd rather someone just not RP with me if they refuse to contribute to plot.  I mean I don't expect a whole hell of a lot, but I'd appreciate at least giving me some action for my character to respond to and some quotes for my character to respond to.  It drives me absolutely bonkers when I get a threading partner who just posts what's going on in a character's head or writes rather than demonstrates what a character is like.  Example:  "Lucy is very sweet." versus "Lucy handed John a napkin absently, when she noted he'd accidentally spilled some chili on his expensive tie."  

[Guest Archaic Cyborg]

People who:

• vanish for weeks at a time then reappear only to whine about nothing going on or being left out.
• complain about having to read.
• complain about having no muse.
• constantly complain about their real life issues. (Please stop, we're not a support group for you. We're here to have fun and escape our own issues, not be bombarded by more.)
• sit around in the chatbox mentioning how they're going to post, but then don't. (Either post or stop stating you will.)
• only want to roleplay in the public chatbox. (Every once in a while? Sure, fill your boots. But keep it pg-13 and don't drown out a conversation going on.)
• only post "lol" or ">_>" in the chatbox.
• excessively picship. (I understand people love their celeb pairings and whatnot... but that doesn't mean spend hours gushing over them.)
• hound others for posts. (Bonus points if they tend to forget they owe posts back.)
• can't separate in character and out of character. (The fact my villain wants to kill your character does not mean I hate you. It's just that my character is a villain... it's what they do.)
• get offended over trivial things. (Seriously? you're offended because a fictional non-human character has green hair? )

There's undoubtedly more than that which annoy me, but at the moment I think that's enough.

I bolded the ones that really stand out to me. Because of reasons I wish never existed. >(

The basic foundation of RP is reading and writing. How do people expect to learn what is going on in the game or a single thread, if they don't want to read? How do they expect a plot to happen, if they can't be arsed to write? Is there magic involved? 

A few of my other peeves include players who expect the admin to offer a thread for each and every new player. Yeah, no. We're not robots, we don't have all the time in the world to do non-stop role-play with all their players, no matter if it's just 3 or 150 players. Stop it. Stop making us staff look bad because we're not cornering each new player with # threads.

Players who gush and squeal and flail over getting to play with a particular character of yours, be they a villain, criminal, or ________. And then they whinge, 'your character is too mean.. could you change their motives/personality/etc?'. You know full well how X behaves, and what their motivations are. Why are you suddenly upset that they're 'not a nice character' ?

On that note, villain = perfect boyfriend. Stop pretending my character is your BF. Keep pushing him like that, and he's going to enter Hulk mode. No, it's not fun or 'cute'. 

RPers who only write with you to push and poke your character, to get them to react a certain way. And once the player has had their fix, they suddenly lose all interest in the RP and drop out. I swear, this routine is getting old. I'm afraid to start new 1x1s, because this almost always happens: people love provoking my characters, they then get bored straight after, and move on. 

Another peeve:  when someone plots and plots and plots with you, only to get cold feet later, and they expect you to completely break character 'because they don't want to write against a mentally ill character' or the like. Er, what? I can't and nor will I even have a go at hand-waving X disability or disorder, to allude to it as opposed to actually... incorporating it. I won't play a drug addict if I can't explore his addiction and his habits. I can't play Batman's Mad Hatter, if  I am not allowed to portray his OCD and Paranoid Schizophrenia. What the fuck, mate. 

Players who sit on their hands because the staff aren't around 24/7. aka, 'if the staff aren't posting today, why should the rest of us post?'.  If you fail activity, that's your own fault. Not mine. 

Smart-arse players who deliberately wait until the last day before role call, to post activity, and/or they toe the line when almost-breaking-rules.  Crying afterwards 'but I didn't know you were serious!22!' is lulz.

 

[Red Star 6]

Self peeve time-

I used to always begrudge people who site hop a lot. You know the ones; they join your board, maintain interest for a couple of months, and suddenly they have "no muse!" and either leave your site, or actually have the gall to invite you to some other site. Sometimes they even add the "I still love it here, but this site's great too!" and you fall for it, and join the second site, and then WHOOPS, they stop posting on the first site and only have eyes for the second. And you think, "it's cool, this is the main site now!" but then lo and behold, a couple months later, that person has left site2 and moved onto site3. 

I used to get so frustrated! Not that people were leaving 'my' board, but that they would get me invested in six different sites ultimately, and then leave them all, and I was always feeling too guilty to leave a site without any notice or a solid reason other than "dear lord, too many." 

But anyway, my peeve is that I think I might be turning into that person. 

My RP patterns over the last couple years--basically since I started law school--have been erratic and unreliable. When I get stressed, I join 6 or 7 boards to distract myself from incoming exams and homework and readings and personal mojo that has been stressing me out. And then after that initial panick-joining has happened, after about a month I realize I really don't have TIME for these 6-7 boards, and end up having to leave 4-5 of them so that I actually have time to study. 

And then a couple months later the same thing happens. 

I also feel like this is the second or third time I've had this 'sudden realization' of what I am doing, and its impact on my RP reputation(??) and/or just the general impact on my RP partners. And I really hate it. I hate doing that. I hate my RP-self for doing that. It feels rude, and flakey, and I hate being flakey.

[Baphomet 3]

I realize that I may be breaking some sort of RP unspoken rule here, but I don't actually have a problem with people who are inactive if they:

• Have periodic bursts of activity in writing.
• Contribute to the site in other ways, like participating in competitions, or making graphics, or just generally bringing positivity to the table.
• Don't expect to get the same privs that an active writer would, such as access to special species, leader characters, etc.
• Don't bring a sense of negativity, complain about activity, or are rude when they are active.
• Don't advertise for whatever other sites they are on.

I know, my laundry list for 'ifs' is a bit long, but I have had some pretty good relationships with people who haven't been around very often, or were only around for a few months at a time a year.   

 

 

@ Red Star:  Life happens.  RP is a form of escapism mingled with social interaction.  I don't think anyone reasonable will hold it against you that you get busy, or join multiple sites when stressed.  I've been on sites before where members were attacked (sent e-mails by the staff) for leaving a site over something as simple as creative differences, and then written off as people with no sense of commitment.    Frankly, anyone who takes roleplay that seriously is doin' it wrong.

So don't worry about your rep.  I'd much rather have a self-aware, and polite occasional RPer than a persistently pernicious, dramatic, self-absorbed member who is around constantly.

[Shadow Lady 2]

A giant peeve of mine.

That one player who needs to keep moving their character away from the action core solely as a way to get attention both IC and OOC.

I was involved in a roleplay over msn messenger ages ago, in which we had a very important clan meeting taking place in the great hall. So, this one character decides that her character is going to her room for no apparent reason. Well, she is excused and all, and meeting continues.

During the meeting, another character goes to his chambers on being dismissed to leave, and hers starts picking a fight with him to create drama. And then she starts creating OOC drama because "my character is pregnant (they always are), being attacked (because she picked a fight) and nobody rallied to her side". Needless to say, this person didn't last long in the clan. But by the time she was kicked, she had created so. Much. Drama.

Edited July 27, 2015 by Shadow Lady

[Meushell 18]

People who have their character attack yours without warning. 99.9% of the time they expect to win in order to prove how awesome their character is, victimize your character, or both. People can get so mad when they can't (insert attack here) your character. Successful attacks can happen. It just takes patience and OOC communication.

People who think they know your character or site setting better than you do. In a way, it is kind of amusing when people argue with me about something I created.

Not so much anymore, but the term Mary Sue used to really bug me. For a while, it seemed like every rp character was a Sue or anti-Sue. At that point, it lost its meaning and was just a way of putting down other players. 

[Red Star 6]

That awkward moment where you fulfill a want ad without getting to know the person beforehand, they ask for your skype... and then from that instant on you're bombarded with constant picspam, even when you're not online. |:

[Shadow Lady 2]

‌@Red Star's post reminded me of a creature I started threading it and to whom I had the dumb idea of giving my Skype. Despite the fact that I had told him I was working and would be a little slow, he would keep 'tagging' me and poking or trying to get my attention and push for a post all the time.

When we reached the point where he said "(his preferred partner) is busy, so I'm stuck with you", and topped with "I expect back to back posts while you are online", the decision of deleting his contact and stopping threading became really easy.

[Guest Elphaba]

When the admins of nearly every Regency-era game are convinced that girls can only become debutantes at 18, like it's illegal for them to be presented to society at an earlier age. Like... what? Where did they get that idea? Even in Pride and Prejudice, a contemporary source, it was pointed out that Kitty and Lydia, aged 17 and 15 respectively, were out.

[Red Star 6]

When muse for one character consumes your entire ability to write. You want to write Moon Knight. All you want to write is Moon Knight. Difficulty avoiding joining ten other Marvel boards just to app Moon Knight. Wait desperately for people to respond for Moon Knight. Make oto many threads, just for more Moon Knight. People aren't posting fast enough. Join more Moon Knight boards. 

 

I haven't gotten to the "join more boards" bit yet, but.. Well, now that I've gone and mentioned it.. Ugh. 

Patience, grasshopper. Patience, the muse-obsession will die back down soon..

[Shadow Lady 2]

Biggest peeve atm: people who want to change your entire plot to suit them and get pissy if you don't want to. Let's say you pitch something like:

"This plot will happen in a space station, and there is someone trying to invade it. I would write the person trying to stop the invasion, and I need someone to write the invader".

And then you get.

"Wow, this plot is really cool, but can you write the invader? Or, can you change where the plot is set?"

And you reply: "I'm sorry, but I'm really craving to do this plot as it's pitch", and get a hissy fit from them because "you are not being creative or flexible and you should totally change your preferred plot around to make them want to write it".