RPing pet hates

[Lace Neil Singer]

I will post this, cuz it happened in an RP of mine recently. Said RP is a Streetfighter one, with canon characters only. No fan characters allowed at all; given that the Streetfighter canon has tons of characters, it's hardly an issue, yet this idiot tried to join it with her fan character the other day. -.- The fan character wasn't a Mary Sue, but it is laid down in the rules that fan characters are not allowed, so I was rather annoyed that she'd ignored them. Also, the RP is past fifty pages and I generally don't let new people join after that, as they'll only get lost within the story. She claimed to have read it all, but her post showed clearly that she had not.

[Hyena Dandy]

I posted this before, but I wanna bring it up again.

Being interrupted. 'Cause last night, I was in an awesome RP on the Lil' Miss Rarity page on Facebook. It was great,and really tense. The storyline we've been running (which is different from the Tumblr) is that their parents won't let her see her sister, and she's sad about it. So one of the other characters, who is an incarnation of death who's fallen in love with Rarity (Fandom RP yay?) has taken the form of a little kid. Sheclaims her parents are away and she needs to stay with Sweetie for some time. It's kinda a tense moment and then this guy just jumps in and makes an ass of himself and I'm like... Dude. Uncalled for.

[Mytical]

A gm/dm should also not take control of characters unless like mentioned above..ie players ok. That is a pet peeve of mine. Who says because there is a noise behind me I automatically turn around? Will I? Most likely, but never assume anything with me. Now if characters are out of control, I might see it, but other then if I am able to dodge/hit/etc something .. a characters actions should be left to the character.

[Dreamstalker]

I'll let the GM take temporary control of my character if it moves the story along and it's something central to the plot that I either forgot to do, or didn't react to/do in time (that isn't dependent on character response).

[Hyena Dandy]

I only control someone else's character in a situation where we've discussed what we're doing before-hand. I'll do the same thing in a roleplay, if my friend and I have planned out a sketch (we redo comedy routines with our characters as well as musical numbers) then we'll ignore any attempts by someone else to interfere with the sketch. If the event isn't planned out before-hand, I won't have my character hit someone. I'll have them ATTEMPT to hit someone, and allow that person a chance to dodge it. There are exceptions, but only with people I know really well.

[Mytical]

When two people work together about a roleplay, and one gives the other permission (ie they have talked/im'd whatever with each other)..then it is fine. If not, then the forum I moderate I WILL go back and delete/edit the post. If it is a forum I do not moderate I will talk to the poster about it, and even go so far (if they won't change it) to make sure others note to ignore it..ie it never happened.

[Android Kaeli]

I fully understand that controlling another character is one of the big no-no's of RPing, which is why there are safeguards that I've put up against overcontrol. If there IS overcontrol, then the player[s] would be kicked out and their characters left to do whatever -- I've had to warn a few people to not overcontrol other characters. If another player kills a character that's not their own outside of spawned fodder, that's an automatic kick.

It's what Skunkle mentioned: it is a reaction to something that someone else did and the reaction another character has to it while also keeping the flow of the RP going. It's not like I allow the players to take another player's character away from them or do a free for all for the characters, unless the character owner will be away and says that so and so will be taking over such and such character until further notice.

[Dreamstalker]

The friend in the Ghostbusters RPG did some godmodding, but we generally ignored it (I think everyone wanted to see how far she would go and how creative we would be in putting a stop to it).

She went into the realm of deus ex machina ridiculousness when one of the canon characters "died". Basically, the Mary Sue Of Doom retconned herself to have Time Lord-like powers (think of how River saved Eleven). When she tried this, the demon jumped to her--an important part of the battle setup that she ignored was that anyone who engaged this entity directly was not to be touched if they were still conscious. He was playing possum knowing that it would try to find a better target (just dumb luck that target was her ...now that I think back on it that setup was the most stupidly obvious thing in the campaign).

She couldn't accuse us of not telling her what was going on (every piece of advice for the encounter was followed except for the one bit in the middle she didn't like). Mary Sue didn't die, but lost all her powers permanently and gained a few flaws...one day she forgot about a major one and her character did die.

The next one she played was surprisingly normal.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I have a couple of immortal invulnerable characters... but both can be neutralised. One can actually be killed; he just returns from death after a time, ie any time from a few months to a year, depending on how he was killed. The other I based slightly on Omega Red; he can be frozen in ice. I've never had a character who can't be neutralised; it doesn't make for inspired RPing.

[Gravekeeper]

Cool, what have you released?(or would you rather not say for anonymity ´s sake?)

Ehhhh...hrm. How to put. Been in, out and around the industry for a long time. ( Was even a reviewer for a while, press copies ftw ). Unfortunately, long long ago the first company I was with perished with the dot com bubble before the project was completed and thus I went back into customer service for rent paying purposes. The second company likewise perished before it got off the ground in the shakey aftermarket. Its only been the last couple years with mobile devices and digital distribution coming into their own that there's room again for indie dev companies in the industry that's allowed me and an ex compatriot from my old company to form up as a side business outside of our day jobs.

Thus, annoyingly, I have tons of experience but little credits.

[SkullKing]

Its already set up that way. Game designer is my side job thus I do not require assistance, heh. ;p

Cool, what have you released?(or would you rather not say for anonymity ´s sake?)

Also, it is not that godlike character´s are necessarily bad, but the same way that is difficult to write compelling stories to character´s that are too powerful, it is very hard to roleplay a very powerful character and keep it´s action interesting for everyone.


Normally they require some kind of restriction in their actions, like eatman's rule of always honoring a contract, or the phantom stranger´s prohibition on taking direct action in nearly all circumstances.

I did play a god like character once successively, but it was a very specific setup, where there were two different organization fighting for control of a city, and I was a neutral arms dealer, and as such, didn´t want to use the power he had to take over the city, to him the war was more of a spectator sport.

He was also used as a neutral party to arbiter duels and some disputes.

[Gravekeeper]

I never really understood the appeal of godlike characters anyhow. If nothing is a threat to you, what is the point?

The point is getting your rocks off by imposing your virtual dick on others. You don't understand because the thought of forcing another human being to comply to your will doesn't make you moist. ;p

[Mytical]

I never really understood the appeal of godlike characters anyhow. If nothing is a threat to you, what is the point? Even superman has a weakness.

I've played with some .. interesting gms/dms that turned every character I started into Deux Ex Machina...so those characters are only cameo characters now...way toned down from what they ended up as in the game. Rather have somebody survive because of skill and luck then because they are invincible. Guess I am more of a "batman" then a "Beyonder"

[Gravekeeper]

So my former friend dictating my character's wardrobes (as I mentioned earlier in this thread) would not be tolerated by a lot of other RP'ers?

No, actually it wouldn't. Essentially the general rule at least in every circle I've ever been in, is that you only have domain over your own characters. You can't dictate the appearence, actions or reactions of anyone else. As you're assuming control over their character when you do. Mainly because of godmoders who would dicate the action of their character *and* the reaction of another character to it.

Hero vs Villain RP where both sides are on the same page and hostility is part of the game is one thing, interjecting "I could kill you with no effort whatsoever" into casual conversation is another.

Thats just people being dicks on a powertrip. Has nothing to do with RP. I'm sure they'd say the same thing in real life if they could hide behind a mask of anonymity to prevent having to back up said words. This is yet another reason I tend to play integral support characters in MMOs. So I can control who in the group lives or dies according to my whims. =p

[Amanita]

So my former friend dictating my character's wardrobes (as I mentioned earlier in this thread) would not be tolerated by a lot of other RP'ers?

Here's another one I hate:
I sometimes roleplay in the MMO I play, City of Heroes. I just love how open the game's character creator is, and how almost any character concept you can imagine can fit into it.
Many of my characters are the Avatars of actual skyscrapers, and those can be fun to RP. However, I really HATE it when I run into RPers in casual conversation who are all like "Oh, I could snap your structure with one hand..I could easily destroy you, blahblahblah..."
Is it just me, or is that hella rude, like RPing with a human character and saying "I could just kill you/rape you/whatever and you couldn't stop me!"

Seriously, it's a huge turn-off when people RP like that, to me it comes across as rude, bordering on godmoding. And it has a way of turning RP into a pissing contest, which I hate. Seriously. Pissing contests "My toon could beat up yours" are not fun at all. I really don't need the casual hostility. If somebody IRL decided to share just how easily they could kill me and how I couldn't do fuck-all to stop them during a casual conversation, I certainly would not see the humor in it. In fact, I would be telling that person to get the fuck away from me, because I don't associate with people who brag about how easily they could harm me for shits and giggles.

Hero vs Villain RP where both sides are on the same page and hostility is part of the game is one thing, interjecting "I could kill you with no effort whatsoever" into casual conversation is another.