What is your turning point?

[Rinel]

The only things I've found that make me less inclined to seek out RP with someone are

1. When they act controlling OOC ("don't pose like that," "be more/less active," "don't play with that person"). Absolute turnoff. Obviously pointers and corrections about theme are fine, but if you're unhappy I'm not saying anything in a council of nobles and the king? I'm playing a blacksmith's daughter. She's not going to be offering her opinion unasked. I'll talk later.

2. when they act clannish and uninterested in RP. This is less a "I don't like you" and more a "this doesn't seem to be working" thing. Sometimes you get the vibe people would rather RP with someone else. No harm, no foul--but if it happens a lot I'll generally stop looking to RP with that person.

This is a good thread. Though now I'm going to be on the lookout for all these behaviors in my playing. Except short poses. I'm going to keep doing short poses. You people are crazy.

[Arkandel]

It's perfectly acceptable (and from a certain point of view, a positive thing) to realize RP just isn't working out between you and someone else because you're looking for different things.

This could be anything; emphasis on TS/romance, playing together more often, posing style, type of scenes, pace... anything. It's fine to just go find something else to do, it really is.

The issue here is how to communicate this. It's no surprise most of us aren't very good at communicating what we want to do. Notice the difference here:

• Hey, I was looking for more of <X> in my RP. Is that something you're also after and to what degree?

• Hey, you're not giving me enough of <X> kind of RP and I want more.

It's easy to mistake one for the other, but I don't like the idea of just cutting someone off without giving them a chance to even know there's a problem first. For all we know the other person would be into doing more of that sweet, sweet <X> or they haven't realized it wasn't happening because they've been busy doing <Y> instead.

But as usual how to bring it up requires trust, and that's not a common commodity. Hell, even the timing might matter; catch the other person at a bad time with something that sounds like a demand instead of a prompt to chat, and you can bring a good playing relationship to an end.

[Doozer]

Are there training classes in how to offer hot TS?

[Ganymede]

@shincashay said in What is your turning point?:

Are there training classes in how to offer hot TS?

I wish there were. I play PCs that are not at all shy about wanting and having sex, but do I get any?

I hate virginal whiners.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Rinel I am a firm believer in the right pose at the right time. Sometimes you need two paragraphs. Sometimes, one line for impact is definitely the way to go.

[Altair]

Interesting topic.

Bad:

• Passive aggression. Huge no. Guaranteed way to get me to do the opposite of what you're trying to manipulate me to do. Example:

I'm sooo bored. Maybe I should RP.
A few minutes of silence
I MIGHT AS WELL QUIT RP, IT'S NOT FATED TO BE FOR ME ANYMORE!
Ragequit, after five minutes of waiting for sympathy.

• Repeated instances of standing me up for scenes, especially without bothering to 1) let me know in advance 2) apologize after the fact, if circumstances prevent #1. What will take this from 'irritation' to 'actual anger' is if I have scheduled a scene with someone at a certain time, and they walk off to scene with someone else who happens to offer them RP prior to the scheduled start time of our scene.

• Rudeness in metaposing. If you got shit to talk, say it out loud in your dialogue. No matter how much characters might dislike each other IC, it's still perfectly possible to write the meta in a respectful way. I tend to think that people are playing a character because they love them, and so they would accordingly feel good if their character is treated with respect. Isn't the point of this for everyone to feel good/have fun?

• Related to above: people who are rude, dismissive, or powergamey even in OOC chatter. 100% guaranteed that behavior extends into RP.

• Inability to share attention/spotlight. Making everything about yourself most or all of the time.

• Pure social RP. If I find the scenes are just hangout social without anything really happening as a result of them, I will spend my time in another way.

Good:

• Probably the biggest thing here is initiative. I usually find myself doing the setting/coming up with ideas/pushing everything forward, because I am a Type A nitpicker and it bugs me when stuff sits undone without anyone dealing with it. Not being an especially creative person, this is real tiring. Someone who thinks for themselves, collaborates with me to help think of stuff, and even sometimes comes up with ideas for me, is therefore a huge relief.

• People focused more on character development as the purpose of their RP. It shows when someone is in RP to write their character's responses and personal changes, as a result of the things that happen around them, in a coherent and believable way.

• Shares attention, plot hooks, and approaches RP collaboratively with an eye towards how to ensure everyone has some fun.

• Interest in my character, related to the point above on how "people presumably play a character because they love them." I like mine. I therefore like it when people are obviously keeping my interests and the specifics of my character in mind. Being treated like an infodump NPC in someone else's RP video game turns me off very quickly.

[Ghost]

Negative turning points

1. When someone needs to make every scene, plot, etc about their characters.

I find that players do this often have very little care for other PCs outside of where it can advance their own PC. Proactive players claim to write a lot of plot for people (yay!), but the plots are central to their PCs, involve their PCs, and promote their PCs. Some people you simply cannot tear away from needing to be central.

2. OOC obsession.

Whenever I RPed with someone who would constantly page me with ooc gossip, knew every player, refused to RP with 62 different players, always wanted reassurances oocly, etc. Let's be honest. No one stays on the good list with those people. Inevitably, you become Satan to them.

3. That growing sense that you're just a warm body to some itch the other player needs scratching.

I'm not even talking about TS. I'm talking about the concept that people can't RP by themselves, they need partners, but sometimes being a partner apparently meant this strange sense that the person you're RPing with has already predetermined what the scene is and just needs someone to fulfill the other end. Once, someone tried to talk me into making a very specific character, only for me to find out that character concept was an actual character on another game whose player she'd had a falling out with, but still wanted to continue that story.

[SG]

@ifrit said in What is your turning point?:

Also I don't personally enjoy RPing with characters whose main concept is 'a dick to everyone'.

To me, it's not so much I hate RPing with these characters, it's that often there's very little IC reason for most people to do anything with these characters. Like, if I'm planning a shadowrun in the local bar and some complete asshole is in the corner just being a dick, why on earth is it on ME to invite them along? Unless there's some compelling hook, my character is going to look at them and be like, fuck that guy, and move on with their life.

ETA: Places that expect you to play based on meta-knowledge rather than IC knowledge. Yes, I know staff has just told me that shooting the hijacker is a bad move because they're a Sith Lord, but my character just thinks they're a stupid hijacker--why the fuck would they think the stupid hijacker is a Sith Lord? Why is a sith lord wasting their time hijacking a shuttle?

[Tinuviel]

I am exceptionally picky when it comes to long-term roleplay partners.

There needs to be some kind of chemistry there. Not in the romantic sense, but I need to feel totally comfortable throwing an idea at them and having them run with it. RP, as I see it, is an improv game. The minute you say "no" to a thing, is the minute I look at you warily. The more you say "yes, and" the better.

This is nothing to do with sexual or emotional roleplay. This is on the level of... yes you were at that event in my life, and here's what you did. That kind of deal.

I find those folks once in every dozen prospective RP partners.

[surreality]

@ghost said in What is your turning point?:

Once, someone tried to talk me into making a very specific character, only for me to find out that character concept was an actual character on another game whose player she'd had a falling out with, but still wanted to continue that story.

Since this is in constructive, I can really only say: that's pretty awful and unsettling.

You know me well enough, I think, to fill in the horrified flood of metaphors and creative profanity that instantly inspired in my brain, though.

@Tinuviel My favorite RPers are the people who can run with something crazy along those lines -- sometimes characters that grew up together, knew each other a long time, or just spend a lot of time together off screen.

A gem is someone you can toss something like, "Ugh, don't get me started on last night," at, and over the course of the scene the details of something that never got role-played and was just off-screen is fleshed out via improv. Typically involves at least some degree of humor.

"Ugh, don't get me started about last night."
"I still say that waitress was into you!"
"Do people into you usually pour coffee down your shirt?!"
"...if they want to see if it'll get me out of it, maybe."
...and so on.

The people you can spit something like that out with without any pages or consultation in a comfortable back and forth? TREASURE THEM.

[Ostheim]

1. Don't be weird.
2. Have a good sense of humor.
3. Don't write novels instead of poses. As people have said, there's a time and place for prose.
4. Communicate. That is, if you actually want to make the RP work.
5. Keep OOC to a minimum unless I know you well. Nothing busts immersion quicker. This one is very much a personal preference thing, and it's usually not a deal breaker. I don't mind OOC if it's to clear something up or get some clarity.
6. I will treasure people who are quick.

[TheOnceler]

Nothing.

I will be very interested.
And then I will not.

And there's nothing that causes it or that can prevent it.

[Auspice]

I don't mind long- or short-posers, but I have a very specific requirement for both:

Make it interesting.

If 90% of your 10-sentence-each 3-paragraph pose intro into the room is just reposing the room's description, I am probably going to very quickly find a way to leave.

No one gives a shit if you can rewrite what the room looks like in florid prose in your pose. We want to know what your character is doing. No one, no one is judging you on whether you have the bulkiest poses in all the land.

I have played with some people who pack a fantastic punch into short, single paragraph poses because they pick precise, impactful words. And it's great. I love it. I know exactly what they mean, what they intend, and I never find myself wondering what's going on.

After all my screenwriting classes, my own poses have become shorter (word economy is huge in the screenplay world; it's what I'd lose grade points on the most, my scene descriptions and actions being too long). But have I lost any RP? Newp.

But seriously. Just tell us what your character is doing and saying. Don't retell us what other people are doing and saying or repose room descriptions. I have seen this over the years as pose padding and it drives me fucking insane.

And on the short-pose side of the coin: if you don't give me anything to play off of, you are no better than set dressing and I will run away if we are in a one-on-one scene.

[Wizz]

@ghost said in What is your turning point?:

Once, someone tried to talk me into making a very specific character, only for me to find out that character concept was an actual character on another game whose player she'd had a falling out with, but still wanted to continue that story.

I had a somewhat similar experience that was super disappointing because the app process started out so great, the character was basically writing himself and I just coincidentally found these two people who wanted to do like a group app. I instantly had tons of chemistry with one of the players and we were joking and riffing and bouncing ideas like years-old chums, but the other was just so weird and stand-offish over the fact that I wouldn't use this one specific played-by and description and personality for the character because -- turns out -- they almost literally could not imagine characters in a scene together if their played-bys had never been on-screen together, in movies or shows or whatever. They pestered me about it so much I basically made up an excuse and left.

[krmbm]

"I just met you, but now I am going to pour out my entire back-story in our first conversation together. Now your turn to do the same!"

[Ostheim]

@krmbm
Yeah, I hate this. Gotta preserve some mystery and interest in follow-up RP, right?

[Ganymede]

@krmbm said in What is your turning point?:

"I just met you, but now I am going to pour out my entire back-story in our first conversation together. Now your turn to do the same!"

I actually like RPing with these folks.

So easy to manipulate later.

I'm an equal-opportunity exploiter.

[Wizz]

@krmbm said in What is your turning point?:

"I just met you, but now I am going to pour out my entire back-story in our first conversation together. Now your turn to do the same!"

wait is this not how you meet new people IRL

[Auspice]

@krmbm said in What is your turning point?:

"I just met you, but now I am going to pour out my entire back-story in our first conversation together. Now your turn to do the same!"

Those same people when they get mad that you won't do the same.

"YOUR CHARACTER WON'T SHARE ANYTHING."
...yeah they've known each other like, a week. We've RP'd maybe twice.

Did you miss the part where she's kind of a shy, withdrawn person? Patience. :<

[Lithium]

@auspice More like: Did you miss the part where unknown people may be working for the big bad and I certainly am not giving you ammo with which to fuck me over.