RP Pet Peeves

[AaronShadows]

Some universes have methods by which scars can be removed and serious injuries reversed. Warcraft has many different kinds of healing; even the Undead can get a Shadow Priest or Necromancer to repair their body. But, it is very annoying in settings where there's no excuse.

An even more extreme form is people who take phenomenal damage, but are back up in five minutes and dandy when you see them the next day. We have this in spades on my server, sadly. There was one elf who we literally formed a small army just to kill, because he was such a bad roleplayer; we shot him full of shadowbolts, set him on fire, struck him with divine lightning, blasted him with a laser canon, and shot him numerous times with magical bullets. One of his equally-badly-played buddies resurrected him not five minutes later.

There's another peeve of mine; resurrection is not cheap! Not even in Warcraft. A Necromancer can bring you back on short notice, but only as a horrible decaying corpse which constantly trips over its own loose entrails. A real resurrection takes work, hard rituals which can easily backfire, and probably a long quest. It's not something that should happen every day of the week for vile marty stu Elf-whatever-it-was-I-don't-remember's.

And then we have the idiots who claim to be the master of their chosen occupation because of training in a poorly-written backstory, or something. Often, these people don't even do any research or show any signs of practice in play. Mages have to actually study their spells and work to commit them to memory. Archers need to practice and there -is- a right way to hold a bow and fire it, contrary to popular ignorance. Warriors need to exercise and practice to remain strong and skilled, but I somehow never see bored warrior characters typing out an emote (the way we express character actions on WoW servers) about doing a few quick exercises while they're waiting. You know you have lifestyle issues if you're too lazy to even roleplay physical activity! O.o

[Miranda_]

Yeah; vampires can heal injuries, but a lot of people have regular humans shrugging off scars and cuts that would bring them down.

Also, far too many RPers are obsessed with elves. -.-

[AaronShadows]

IKR? The problem is exacerbated beyond belief in WoW, because Blood Elves also happen to be the prettiest race in the game. Naturally, everyone then plays them because they want to look good. The result is eighteen-year-old knife-ears with no concept of their own lore walking around chewing bubblegum, adjusting their sunglasses (this is in a fantasy setting, remember) and threatening to hit people with a sword too big for them to hold.

Also, those chaps who feel the need to smash the laws of physics into itty bitty pieces. Have you ever seen an anorexic elf holding a gigantic self-reloading rifle with a bayonet and a huge revolver-style ammunition thingy in one hand and a claymore as wide and long as her body in the other? It's not good for your mental health. -.-

[Miranda_]

I also hate it when people either post in the thread or PM you to ask if they can join a ginormous RP that's over two thousand pages long.

No, no you can't. Do try to have some common sense. -.- Even worse when they just post their opening post in the RP without even asking first.

[Elanorea]

Well, at least you gotta admire the dedication of anybody who's willing to read through 2k pages of text-heavy RP

[Miranda_]

Another blast from the past of things I dislike about RPing. XD

1. Jumping in.

This is different from the noobs who just post an intro in an RP without checking the number of pages. This kind of person just starts posting without caring whether they're wanted or not. XD As in someone who posted way back in one of the old RPs; she just leapt in with a pointless post that made no sense. Sometimes, the jumper is someone who you've already told in PM that they can't join, other times it's just a random noob posting "can u be my friend" or "this is crap and u r all losers lol". It's very annoying.

2. Ignoring the RP concept.

I used to post on another RP forum at one time; once we had an RP which was a fantasy RP. This person joined with a character who belonged more in a science fiction type of RP; her character was a beautiful alien princess. The RP was nearly killed dead by her idiocy; it was held up for ages while the players tried to hammer it into her thick skull that her character didn't fit in with the fantasy RP.

3. Not listening to advice.

Sometimes, if you have an RP that's open to everyone, you'll get someone wanting to join who's new to the forum, or new to RPing entirely. Sometimes that person will be welcomed into the community, like Queenie, cuz they posted in a reasonable manner, read the rules etc. Other times, that person will carry on posting disgusting Mary Sues and ignore all attempts by players to get them to change their character. Like this person once who posted a profile of a Mary Sue which had about four paragraphs on her looks, and a completely unrealistic backstory. -.- She eventually bowed out with a patronising comment, acting as tho she was an RP expert, when in actual fact she was worse than a novice.

[Silent_Wolf]

Being an ass-hole GM.

I wound up just leaving a Marvel board I was on about a year ago, maybe two now? The two main GMs had demoted their third because he was becoming rather irritable with them over their RPing (lackadaisical posting, poor grammar, difficult structure). The girl had an excuse, which he was fine with and so was I: English wasn't her first language, as she could type excellently in messenger in German, and she also had some degree of dyslexia. She did try to work on it; but her posts were still painful at times.

The other guy. Oh, jesus, the other guy. He had all the powerful Marvel characters - Iron Fist, the Hulk, Little Hulk, She Hulk, Loki, the list went on and on and freaking ON - and he hated our OC characters and went out of his way to kill one of mine. Yes, kill: He said as GM, he had right to randomly deny a character and killed her on the spot. To this day I have no idea why he denied her after approving her - and he also was irritated because she was lightly based on Witchblade, apparently. How does having an Iron Man suit translate into Witchblade?!

On that same line of thought, he also allowed some guy to create a knock-off version of Jackie from The Darkness comic series - which by the way is a Top Cow series, which he loathed and after my Iron Woman character was killed off, he banned all non-Marvel-type characters but let this guy have his mafia gangster with a curse. He only barely let me use Fern because, I sh*t you not, "shes hot." -__- Even though he complained endlessly after that she was a rip of Hellboy.

[Miranda_]

Ugh, I hate that kind of person. -.- The other RP board I used to go on? Killed dead cuz the admin got a huge chip on her shoulder and suddenly decided that we all had to RP according to her tastes or else. She'd close RPs that ran along themes she didn't like cuz she couldn't join, and she also forced all RPs to be open to everyone.

This was particularly annoying cuz a lot of us were fairly experienced and liked to RP together without some random noob walking in and ruining it. While we did try and make an effort to coach the newbies, we wanted to have at least one or two private RPs where we could relax and enjoy ourselves. But the admin said that it wasn't fair to exclude people cuz of lack of experience, and banned private RPs.

She also made a ridiculous rule stating that every single RP had to have a massive disclaimer posted if it were based on a movie, book or computer game; if you didn't put it in, or posted it and it wasn't to her satisfaction, she'd just delete the RP which was really irritating if you'd just spent hours typing it all out. Eventually, everyone just got sick of her and there was a mass exodus, leaving her with just a few buttlickers and random noobs to RP with. I went back there a couple of years later, and the forum had vanished.

[Silent_Wolf]

That wasn't even the kicker that made me leave. The jerk guy GM messaged me one day and told me I was being pathetic for being attached to "Words on a screen" and that I needed to grow up. When I told him I wasn't mad at him for killing her, as in killing the character, just that I wish he'd told me he was planning on doing it or at least told me why, he said he didn't have to: He was the GM, and his word was law. Unfortunately, he spun his own version of events to the girl GM, who also started to dislike me.

Then my dad went into the hospital, and I told them I wouldn't be on as much. Guy told me he didn't give a crap and that I had just better be posting soon.

I quit. No fanfare, no nothing. Stopped posting, stopped logging into my messenger.

[Miranda_]

That's always the best way; I quit that other RP forum in much the same way. Before that, I and the other disgruntled RPers had communicated thru PM. Some said they were going to stick to one on one RPing over MSN Messenger in future, some said they were going to give up, and some were going to find other sites but we all had the same goal in mind; ie, to leave.

I just don't see the point in being a douche over RPing. While I won't allow Mary Sues or badly made RPs (as in, just one or two lines with no plot) here, I won't interfere with RPs if they abide by the rules. Even if it's one I don't join.