Menewsha Avatar Community - View Single Post - Rules in group roleplays (and something that made me uncomfortable)

02:20 PM

My biggest pet peeve is when the owners of RPs try to give their own characters some sort of "elevated" status. It can be something simple, like trying to constantly make the plot about themselves, or even being so blatant as to put "No one can godmode except for me" in the rules (I've seen this a couple times before).

For example, I was once in one that had a basic good vs evil plot. A small band of rogue mercenaries trying to defeat a wealthy crime lord. Simple, right? Well, the owner of the RP decided to make herself some rare, exotic princess who was the last of her kind or something. Throughout the entire roleplay she tried to constantly make the plot about her tragic, woeful back story and how we needed to defeat this crime lord in order to magically bring back her people. And btw, she didn't even mention this princess in the original post as being part of the plot. So yes, you wouldn't know about it until you joined. She didn't leave much room for anyone else to try and develop their own characters' back stories. Needless to say, I left that RP pretty quickly.

As for the "no homo" rule or any rule regarding sexuality, I think it would all depend on the context. If there's a set plot in the RP that would naturally encourage same or opposite-sex relationships (i.e. an all girls/boys school, a setting that's based on lordxlady engagements in medieval Europe...) then I don't mind that rule too much. It's only an RP after all. However, if the plot's something that's simple (i.e. two kingdoms at war with each other), then I really don't think it's necessary to add that in there.

I remember an RP I once saw that had IC rules and OOC rules. The OOC rules were directed at the players (no godmoding, no negative comments...), but the IC rules were like "laws" in the tavern we were in that our characters were supposed to follow. For example, no fighting, no free food/drink, the bar is off limits to customers... People still made their characters break those sometimes. Why? Because it made the RP more interesting. Even if it's not "natural" or against the setting's "law" to find a certain sexuality in your RP, that doesn't mean that it's completely non-existant.

Truthfully, I'm more one for freelance RPs or ones with basic plots. It's just much more convenient when you can do whatever you want with your character or even kinda wing it. That's another pet peeve of mine: when an RP has too many restrictions on characters possiilities.

Smores: I agree with you all the way.