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Pet peeves when people play something without personal experience


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Not everyone can have experienced everything. It's just not possible.  But, people can show an interest in something and do the background research.

My only pet-peeve is when everything seems to have been 'pulled out of their butt' with nothing concrete to support what is being written. This is especially true in historical RP's.

If I don't think I can show the due respect and research to a particular role, then I won't play/write it.

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I'm all for people trying new things and writing how they want to write. I, personally, prefer realism. I want to be as accurate as I can be, so I like the people I rp with to also be interested in being accurate in the same way I would expect someone picking up a canon character that isn't au to be as accurate to the canon as possible. Real life is sometimes my canon, and I love a good canonically built character. That said, if people want to play pretend differently, more power to them.

 

I do get irrationally irritated with people who play "drug addicts," make it a big part of their app or character sheet, and then never actually have their characters suffer the consequences. I get that suffering isn't "fun" but neither is drug addiction if we are honest. I also really detest people who play abusive characters and refuse to recognize that they are abusive, instead marketing them as great, fun, but stern. Oooh, or the one that gets my goat and will make me leave a site is the misuse of OCD just to signify that their character enjoys cleaning or something equally mundane and not at all character defining. Same thing with killing off loved ones for history, making it appear as a large part of their development, and then never mention it ever again, but I'm not sure that qualifies for this situation.

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Doesn't it somewhat depend on the genre, the RPG's premise, and expectations? If it is set in the real world, then I'd expect to do lots of research and look for accurate portrayals of the character's ethnicity, background, professions, etc. However, if the world is based in a cinematic reality, wouldn't it be expected to have bigger-than-life characters?

 

Personally, I avoid gritty reality. Writing and, in general, reading, watching movies and television are for getting me out of the real world for a little while each day. When I want reality, there's the news, reference books, and documentaries. I do tend to research for my posts and characters, but if I'm spending more time researching than writing, it sort of defeats the purpose of RPing for me.

 

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5 hours ago, Stormwolfe said:

Doesn't it somewhat depend on the genre, the RPG's premise, and expectations? If it is set in the real world, then I'd expect to do lots of research and look for accurate portrayals of the character's ethnicity, background, professions, etc. However, if the world is based in a cinematic reality, wouldn't it be expected to have bigger-than-life characters?

 

I would say yes and no. Most realities are based off of reality although culturally I do think this is accurate.

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Since lack of research has already been mentioned many times, I won't venture too far down that road.  But I will say that what the DSM says (manual / criteria list for mental illness) and what people actually experience can be very different things.  So it's always good to not just go off the concise list of symptoms but to actually explore what those symptoms look like in individuals so you can understand them better.

 

My biggest pet peeve would be people who say, "You're doing it wrong because I am [profession] or I have [illness] and that's not what my experience is like."  Obviously people can be painfully wrong and it's understandable that one would like to correct them and/or point them in the right direction, but there are ways to go about it and that's not one of them.  Experiences differ.

 

Another pet peeve I have is when I'm told that "anyone can play a black person / gay person / [whatever]-gender person!" and then three seconds later the same person, in another conversation, says, "If you're not black / gay / [whatever]-gender, then you really cannot and will not understand what they struggle with!"  Thanks, dude, for making me very confused and for providing me with pretty much no help here.

 

Also, I don't like it when people present one "cool" or "edgy" aspect of their character as who the character is overall.  Be it disabled, or homosexual, or whatever.  I remember I had a member who apped a character who was a sex worker.  I pended his app and told him that he needed to expand the character because the entire application - personality, history, etc. - revolved around this one trait.  It took him a couple times to figure out that brief re-wording wasn't what I was going for, and I had to tell him that if he didn't give the character a personality in the next edit, I was denying the character.

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Personally, I love playing mentally ill characters. My favorite part is researching the symptoms that these characters experience and applying it to real-life situations for the roleplay itself.

 

Anyway, my pet peeve regarding this is when people want to RP out an insane character, but instead of doing any research, they just go with giving them an alternate personality disorder and call it a day. 

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my thing with this is always like, yes, do your research, but also think about age of character too. I had someone get really mad at my that my character who was supposed to be really good at something made a mistake at that thing once. Like. yes. the HUMAN character made a MISTAKE. and misunderstood the thing that they were good at. While trying to explain how to do that thing and teach it to someone else.

 

Here's my peeve with this. Doing and teaching are very different things and I've seen it happen in rp a lot that if character A can do thing, they can magically teach someone. I am a teacher (well....was. Decided to work in the non-profit sector instead) being able to do something and being able to teach it are two very different things.

 

Not only that but assuming that my character making a mistake means I haven't done my research is a really big leap. It's like people have made comments about other characters being super perfect in this very thread. Yes, I want to know how these things are done, HOWEVER I like to leave leeway for them to fuck things up. AKA I like to no write a sue/stu.

 

On a different note, I like researching places/situations/historical events that could have effected my characters family history and think about how that could potentially create some interesting things for them to cope with. I have a background I use revolving around the last magdalene laundry in Ireland to close. It provides a pretty wide age range and fits in a myriad of board types. Gives me lots of options and ways to play a character, a lot of different ways to think about how she/he would interact with others. I've seen lots of things where people put historical events and happenings in character bios and don't really think about the potential trauma it would cause. Much like folks have said about Mental illness, thinking about family structure, ways people were raised, etc. I'm comfortable writing a single parent home, or dead mom bc my mom died when I was a kid. Cancer diagnosis is easy for me to think about how it might affect. Or seizure, bc I've dealt with that. But seeing people write characters who don't seem to have any kind of...gravitas behind that kind of news, or any kind of lingering feelings thereafter....that is what gets to me. I'm 17 years out on my mom's death, well over half my life, and there's not a day goes by that I don't miss her. When someone says "well my character was close to her mom but she's over it now."  I just want to flip a god damn table.

 

all the thoughts.

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/2/2018 at 12:57 AM, Uaithne said:

My biggest pet peeve would be people who say, "You're doing it wrong because I am [profession] or I have [illness] and that's not what my experience is like."  Obviously people can be painfully wrong and it's understandable that one would like to correct them and/or point them in the right direction, but there are ways to go about it and that's not one of them.  Experiences differ.

 

Another pet peeve I have is when I'm told that "anyone can play a black person / gay person / [whatever]-gender person!" and then three seconds later the same person, in another conversation, says, "If you're not black / gay / [whatever]-gender, then you really cannot and will not understand what they struggle with!"  Thanks, dude, for making me very confused and for providing me with pretty much no help here.

 

THIS. THIS SO MUCH. People like this really... irk me. The people that drive their experience down your throat because you happen to play a character in their profession or that has an illness that they have, yet don't really take into consideration that everyone has different experiences PLUS the roleplay is fictional and things can usually differ a little for the sake of fun. 

 

And then there's... those that want to promote Social Justice everywhere, but don't know which side they'd rather choose. TBH, I try to avoid the crap out of people like this. I can't help it. We usually clash big time. I'm a chill laidback type. My characters aren't there to offend you; if they do, don't read my posts. This is fiction, and my character / posts aren't meant to represent everyone who's had this illness / life experience / sexuality. 

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On 1/1/2018 at 1:17 PM, firefly said:

My pet peeve is when a characters are said to be something and then it is never actually played out.

 

Ugh mine too. 

 

It annoys me when people add disabilities, past traumatic experiences, disorders, etc.  to their character's app just to fill space,  but never research or incorporate these effects into their otherwise perfect, Mary-Sue-extension of their (wannabe) ooc self. 

 

Had a player once whose character was mute,  and carried around a small chalk board slate and chalk to communicate with everyone.  Kind of a pointless attribute without any obstacles whatsoever... til she crossed paths with my illiterate character.  LoL.  Then the player became frustrated because she had no way at all to communicate with my character.  

 

Had she been practicing communication with her specific disability,  she might've had something else to write about besides unhindered, unimaginative dialog on a chalkboard. 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Pretty much everything I would have commented on has been touched.

 

I work in mental health so my initial comments were going to revolve around the common mistakes I see in characters with specific mental illness: OCD, DiD, Schizophrenia, PTSD, and my personal favorite, bipolar. 

 

People are going to experience their symptoms differently than one another. (It's honestly part of why I love my work. ) I think, personally, where the "pet peeve" section comes in for me personally is this:

 

Sometimes, a character played by someone who lacks the experience* reinforces negative impressions that have real-world consequences. Whether those consequences are minor or not will depend on perception, but I believe they are real.

 

 

 

 

 

(*You can get experience from research & primary sources. I'm not saying you have to personally have the diagnosis to write it.)

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As someone with a degree in psychology it drives me up the wall to see writers who list mental illness as a "personality quirk". Literally saw one app that listed: anxiety as a quirk. 

 

Im on the fence with stereotypes. Elements are okay. But when it becomes your whole package that is just wrong. 

 

I like the the idea of giving advice, so long as it is done politely. I think a lot of people forget how hard you can come acrossed in writing. 

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12 hours ago, ReDRidingHood said:

I think, personally, where the "pet peeve" section comes in for me personally is this:

 

Sometimes, a character played by someone who lacks the experience* reinforces negative impressions that have real-world consequences. Whether those consequences are minor or not will depend on perception, but I believe they are real.

🙌

 

It's easy to say that people have different experiences, and some people will have experiences that align to certain stereotypes, but roleplay (and writing in general) do not exist within a vacuum. If a well-rounded character has some stereotypical experiences or traits, whatever. Even if they mostly have stereotypical traits, I don't care as long as it makes sense. But when everything seems to be messily pasted together based off of stereotypes and Hollywood fact with no real effort into making it a cohesive whole... it does throw up some red flags. Ignorance can be remedied, and most people are willing to learn, but if they only portray negative stereotypes it starts looking a lot less like different strokes for different folks and more like they just don't care. And if they don't care, why should I care? Some people find the details to be just set dressing, and there's nothing wrong with that. Personally, I'm not one of those people, but I'm not going to say that their play style is wrong. However, I do care about those details and I spend a lot of time making sure that they fit together. I'd rather play with someone who won't find them extraneous.

 

What I find annoying is not really in regards to accurate portrayal, but more like variety? If someone plays multiple characters and they all experience... let's say grief, the same way, it can get pretty boring. As people have already said in this thread, there's so much variety to the human experience, and even emotions manifest differently within different people! Some people grieve through tears, while in others it looks more like anger. Some people seem to not react at all, while others purposefully do not react. There's so much variety to be had! Why stick to the same old formula?

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  • 3 months later...

So I know this is kind of an old topic, but it caught my eye because I actually think about this a lot, in a way. I've seen similar posts up, but, to me, writing is a form of experiencing. Maybe that sounds weird, but I have the tendency to write to learn about my characters, and I become very emotionally involved with who the character becomes. I definitely do research, and I want to keep things reasonable, but, so long as I know I'm not woefully inaccurate or being ridiculous... I write what my muse tells me to write. Beyond that, I love writing new and different characters because I want to explore through them. There's that quote, "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads only lives one." I feel like writing is very similar in that regard. So, I don't worry too much about nit-picky accuracy, so long as 1) its reasonable within the story, and 2) it feels like the character. Which, that might seem retroactive, but I don't see anything wrong with growing with a character. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

HIGHKEY mental illnesses or disabilities. Please... like, I can even be okay with inaccurate portrayals as long as it's done softly and with humanity but sometimes people are just so... horrible. It's like a horror movie.

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