What CAN'T You Roleplay?

[Ainina]

I know that there are tons of good roleplayers here on RPA. However, I'm sure we all know that roleplaying isn't a complete cakewalk. It can be frustrating and take tons of struggling to come up with that One Great Perfect In Character Response (TM).

Out of curiosity and boredom I'd like to know what some of your personal roleplaying weaknesses are.

My biggest roleplay weaknesses are overthinking and writing too much. My characters can't just say "Cool story bro" and move on to what's important. They must have a (-n overblown, in my opinion) reaction for every action another character does.
This also tends to bog down actions scenes I try to write. What used to be my character just lifting a boulder off the ground with her powers essentially becomes a paragraph or so me gushing over my character in a cool pose. Eyuck.

So, what are your roleplaying/writing weaknesses? Do you:
- struggle through certain genres and/or scenes, like romance and/or horror?
- hate hate hate hate hate roleplaying with certain characters because they're hard to work with/you just don't like them?
- Take too long to make a respond because you fuss too much over what your character would do and how they would do it?
- wish you could think of characters that are more unique, rounded, interesting, etc?
- not have any roleplaying weaknesses?

Go on and share it please!

(Please ignore me spoonfeeding you discussion topics. If you have something else to discuss, feel free to bring it up.)

[SandQueen]

I have a few

-I HATE playing highschool aged characters. I loved highschool, I really did. But I liked it because my life in highschool was awesome. So I really can't play the clumsy, bookish, or anti-social reluctant type that ends up saving the day. Because when I was in highschool I was the first one to start organizing people to do stuff and if push came to shove I'd snap your neck with my legs.

-I don't particularly like playing characters that are explicitly non-human. The only exception is the Eldar from Warhammer 40,000 and that's just because I've read pretty much everything there is to read about them and have a sprawling army. But I've made a career... to the point of attaining a doctorate... of understanding the human condition. So while playing a non-human can be amusing it's hardly exercising the full extent of what I can utilize with my current knowledge.

-I don't like most fantasy settings. I like the Lord of the Rings and conventional western-ish settings with Elves and Golbins and all that but as far as I'm concerned there's far too many people that want to mess with that.

-I'm a stickler for "real". My husband is former military, I've been shooting since I was five, I know for a fact that my uncle has killed at least twelve people in cold blood... so when I see characters running around with Desert Eagles and katanas it HONESTLY irritates me.

GMing wise there's a lot that I accept but there's a few things that I'm adamant about. First and foremost being players that think that they're a unique and rare snowflake instead of a member of a cohesive group. Why did the Fellowship in Lord of the Rings work well? Because everyone had a role:

-Aragorn was the leader, was kinda sneaky, and worth a damn with a sword
-Legolas was meh with swords but was a really good shot and pretty agile
-Gimli was a beast in melee, not much for distance, and about as quiet as God slamming his hand in a car door.
-Gandalf was a freakin wizard
-Boromir was kind of a beast but also had some leader-ish characteristics.
-The hobbits sort of evolved over the course of the books to relate to whoever they were around the most.

But everyone knew what they were could at and the group worked as a unified whole. There was no one saying "Well I'm going to go off alone because I'm clearly more pro than the rest of you." No, the only time anything close to that happened was when Gandalf picked a fight with a Balrog and that was more a case of "I'm okay with dieing, the rest of you gtfo".

And I won't DEMAND that everyone stay together no matter what, if they want to go off and do their own thing that's fine. But 99% of the time it makes things HARDER for everyone else or gets their character killed.

[Drakkon]

I have like, two or three but more will come as I write.

I DESPISE arrogant characters. Wither they have a reason to be or no. And I don't mean like 'We'll be better off if I fight them.' Kind of arrogant. I mean like 'Out of my way bottom trash filth.' arrogant. It irks me to the point where every character I make will hate them just for that. High and mighty characters don't go well for me, and I do my best to kill, or seriously hurt em. (In a fighting rp at least..)

- When somebody is clearly on the rp page but after several hours has not posted a thing. And when they do it's something quick and easy. Granted real life, not knowing how to respond are major players but I'm used to 'instant rp' still so the out of character 'Brb' is something I love. But not used to not having.

- Time zones. Everyone can relate. There is not one rp here that doesn't have a player who has a separate time zone then the majority of players. Even though I'm not bothered by it all too much, its still something that kinda gets at me. As a GM I don't like it when people have to miss out because they need to sleep.

[Ru]

The one thing I can't do, as of right now, is play people who are significantly old and this is because I do not have a sufficient amount of information concerning them. I'm rarely ever around "geezers". The oldest person I'm around is my mom and she is in her early forties. So, I have a hard time playing them for I feel I will do something inaccurate to some sense. I do have a couple old characters, but I don't use them as often. One is a doctor, thus makes sense why he'd be healthy (since he'd know how to take care of himself) and the other is a military buff.

There are, however, certain RPs and types and such that I avoid out of preference.

-It is rare to see Ru in a heavily mech-based RP, simply because she does not like mech. Now, I mean shit like Transformers and Zoids (though I did enjoy watching Zoids). If the mech is minor like in the old school Bubblegum Crisis, then whatever. I do not want giant gundamesque shit.

-Parody RPs/RPs based off of something. This is mainly avoided if they want people to play canons instead of original characters. I only joined Powers because I was pretty much begged to by Riri. Otherwise, I avoid RPs based off something unless it has an interesting premise and does not require canon characters. Like in the Scott Pilgrim RP I'm in... no one is playing those characters. It is the same universe, different plot that is sort of similar, etc. but none of the characters are from the books. So, I am happy for this.

-Females. I prefer playing males. Sure, I do play females, but if I have to choose between the genders then I would choose that.

-I don't join RPs where the GM specifically put in their rules "Only straight couples". In fact, I end up not liking the GM because of it because that is highly homophobic and bothersome. I can vaguely understand with romance for 1x1, but only because a 1x1 for romance needs to fit the genders and I'm willing to play whatever... but group RPs? No. If you specifically tell me "You must be heterosexual" then I will specifically tell you "Go suck on a cock." The end.

-I hate godmoding/powerplaying, thus why I tend to avoid action RPs. People have a bad habit of not realizing their characters' abilities and want to go overboard... since people don't like to have their characters die. I had this issue in a RP I had awhile back where the person wanted to overpower everyone—including the two guys who worked out every fuckin' day and had training with street fighting... Their character had some minor self-defense classes, that was it. So, no. The player was not happy when I pointed this out to them.

-I also avoid joining RPs. I rather host a RP, because I can trust myself to kick people into shape, to kill off inactive players, and to enforce rules. I have seen many pushover GMs and it irks me. Don't make rules to let everyone stomp all over you. Sheesh. Not to say I don't join RPs (it's clear I do...) but yes.

-People who make one sentence, one paragraph, and really short replies. I avoid this by requiring two solid paragraph per post in my RPs. This is not because I don't acknowledge that a short post can be fantastic, nor because I want seven fuckin' paragraphs, but because I have yet to find one RPer who can make a good short post. Usually what I have seen are, what I call, "cop outs" or maybe "cock outs"... I don't know. Either way it's cowardly. Sometimes I'll let people get away with it, but only if I know the RPer is fantastic or something (like Auki <3~ or Mel~ who don't ever do this anyway).

-I avoid action RPs because of the aforementioned powerplaying/godmoding that comes of it.

-People who try drastically hard to play the "recessive baby". I don't mind some in my RPs, but I hate when suddenly my RP is filled with a bunch of red-headed purple-eyed babies. Those traits are rarely seen for a reason. Or like in my RP Mythos... The MAIN blood type in that is O and AB. When I usually speak to people they tell me they are A or B.... but hey! That just fucks them over later. Thing is, I'd like people to consider that dominant traits. I mean, seriously. Sometimes played a brown-eyed brunette or something. =.= Or hazel.

-People who play races inaccurately. Now, I understand if you're Japanese born in America with a family who was born in America and you're a bit detached from your roots, but if you are sitting here going "I'm a Japanese transfer student" then you better be fuckin' Japanese and behave like one. There are certain customs in one country that is different than another, so making your character suddenly change all of that makes no sense. I'm not saying learn Japanese. Hell, I didn't like German for my German characters. Occasionally I do talk to my brother who knows some German or I used to ask my German friend, but I do do a bit of research on who/what I am playing.

-For the above irritation... I mainly hate it when someone is clearly playing a Caucasian American who, for some odd reason, has the name of "Yuki". I used to do this in my earlier days of RPing and I'm still irked by myself for it. I don't do it anymore ever. Not unless I explain WHY in their history... like maybe their mother was obsessed with anime—I don't know.



This post is getting biiiiggggg. Oopsies~

I'll post more later. 8D Enjoy?

[Mr. Scarlet]

Before I sat anything: Other people that like Touhou = awesomeface

I can't roleplay girls, or people outside of a +-5ish age group.
or anything that isn't humanoid, like, a wolf or dog.
But what really restricts the characters I make is not being able to roleplay something that I generally wouldn't do in the situation. I always have my characters hold some form of my own personality/ thought proccess so that I don't do anything too out of character.

So all my characters tend to look somewhat similar, and I almost always have them have the same hobbies as me. It gives me the feeling that they reflect something of myself, but flesh it out into an entire person.

But by oding this, my characters may seem too similar to eachother to otherp layers, which is something I don't want.
Hasn't happened yet here, but I'm sure it will come up as I hang around longer.

[Stryker]

O.o

Ru... kinda covered... everything for me. *Waves politely*

[Lord Tully]

Well, the only thing I'm not really comfortable RPing is MalexMale romances or being the female in a MalexFemale romance. It's mainly because I am not attracted to men, so I don't really know how to put across of my character's feelings of being attracted to a male character romantically, which I think would just lead to a mediocre RP beyond just making me uncomfortable. This is mostly in regards to 1x1 RPs since unwanted romance is pretty easily avoidable in a group RP.

[Fox Xalian]

Interesting. Instead of what we can it's what we can't roleplay.

Well first off, I can't play gay male characters. Now don't get me wrong, I am in no way a homophobic persion. If you where to look at all my female characters most are bi and only one is a lesbian. I just can't do gay males because I'm not gay. I can do a straight female, and once did a sex scene where she lost her virginity to a guy and I ahve done heaps of lesbian sex scenes and straight ones where I played the male character, which are rare for me to make. But I think it's because I'm straight so I know how to act around girls and know how to have fun with them, considering I'd know more about guys considering I am a guy. But if I ever was to do a gay guy I'd have my best friend on stand by to help me, he's bi after all.

On a note from my last point. I can't make male characters. Well I can make them I just can't name them. Not sure why.

One of the things Mr. Scarlet said is true for me. All my characters have a semblence of me tyo them. Mostly my personality. Well my old ones used to be, all my knew ones aren't like that now. But one of them is pretty much a carbon copy of me, just with different looks. The looks I wish I had.

I also can't do fanfic or parody, well not for most of the current anime and I do some based off games/movies I like. But if it's anime I would rather do some of the older ones (Pokemon, but not the newest ones. Sailor Moon. Card Captor Sakura etc.).

Roleplays that are or have gone to one-liners. I ask for one paragraph at least for a reason, I need something to work with. But that doesn't mean go on for 20 paragraphs about the colour of the persons outfit. Now I'm not promising I'll do more then one paragraph, because I struggle to do more then one, especially with one character. Let me ahve more then one and I'll see what I can do. Although I can understand not being able to write one paragraph sometimes, so as long as I can amke a paragraph in reply to yours then all is right with the world. But if you do it time and time again then I'll gladly jump on you for it.

Strangely wnough I suck at using one character. I have and make pairs of characters for a reason. As I mentioned in my last point, I tend to write more with more then one. But again, that doesn't mean you have to.

Okay that's it.

[Ainina]

@ SandQueen: Interesting to include GMing peeves as well. I forgot that simply writing in character isn't all there is to roleplaying. I'm guilty of playing a few special snowflakes myself, so I'd like to know how you get roleplayers to start working together as a team.

@ Drakkon: Haha, I love arrogant characters. I find that pride is an easy character flaw to roleplay and keep consistent. Watching how hard arrogant characters can fall doesn't hurt either.

@Ru: I don't like mech RPs either. I have a few friends and cousins who are into gundams and robotics and such, so I feel like I'm letting them down if I try to roleplay with giant robots and the lot.

@ Mr. Scarlet: Always glad to see another Touhou fan! I'm still a newbie to the fandom though. I haven't played any of the games (Mystial Chain doesn't count) but I love the characters, the music and especially the fanmade arranges.

What I do to make characters more than myself with different looks is to remember my most embarrassing moments. Weird, I know, but have you ever thought something like "Maybe that guy wouldn't have dared to cut in line in front of me if I was braver/more aggressive" or "If only I was more quiet, I wouldn't have looked so obnoxious" or something like that? I find that focusing on such thoughts and visualizing helps me make characters that I can relate to but aren't completely the same as me.

@Stryker: Yeah, no one can really say they like roleplaying with godmodders. Nice to see someone stop by and post anyways.

@Sprinkles: I think that's fine, to not roleplay scenarios you don't think you can go through with. That's why I hesitate to roleplay out of the generic.

@ Fox Xalion: Yeah, I didn't see a topic like this before, so I thought people would like seeing something new here. What I think is interesting is how you managed to write a sex scene from a female virgin's point of view when you're a guy.

I think I know what you mean about RPing with more than one character. Using other characters/NPCs seems like a great way to reveal/explore characters without being overly explicit about it.

Thank you to everyone for responding so far. Please keep the discussion coming!

[Lúthien]

Well, like Ru said, I can't do parody roleplays especially when they involve original characters from the fandom. I liked Powers because I enjoyed playing as Wonder Woman for the time being; however, I'm talking parodies like Lord of the Rings or Final Fantasy. It's difficult for me to play as an original character, plus, I think they're fine the way they are. Even though The Journey is a parody roleplay, it's not directed towards one fandom but many. And the original characters are not even involved and the plot is entirely different.

I can't do RP Battles. I just…I just feel there's no plot behind it (correct me if I'm wrong!). It's just writing a long detailed fighting post and to me, that's a bit boring. Not only this, but I'm horrible at writing fighting scenes. So I avoid that section altogether.

I avoid the military, war heavy roleplays. Mainly because I have no knowledge with the military or weapons related to it. It's also very difficult for me to relate to a military type of character or even make one because I have no experience in that field.

I can't play characters younger than me. I'm talking, like, teenagers here. I passed that age already and I feel a lot more comfortable playing a character in their twenties or older. If I HAVE to play as teenagers (i.e: My RP has NPCs in their teens), then I will. But if it's like a high school magical academy drama roleplay, you definitely will not see me in there.

I have a love hate relationship with Private Roleplays. I feel very comfortable having a private RP with my boyfriend or my friends, simply because I know them like a book. But with other RP members on here? For some reason, I get uncomfies. Mainly because I don't want to fall into a roleplay that sounds a bit cheesy (like said high school magical academy rp). I love original ideas, but I'm bad at coming up with anything and I like spur of the moment ideas. Another reason I feel uncomfies with Private Roleplays is because I feel like the other RPer is constantly judging me xD.

Maybe one day I'll get out of my shell and try a private roleplay again. One day.