Role Play Sins what NOT to do

Role Play Sins Dont Do Them.

This list is a group of things you should 100% never ever do. Things which will automatically make you the Forever Aloner of your roleplaying crowd. These are the #1 ways to kill a roleplay, unless the roleplayers you are playing with are fairly dense or very very easy going. These are things that have proven time and time again to be the worst thing you can do forever. Please don’t do them.

Don’t assume relationships.
One of the worst problems I’ve seen in roleplay is when someone joins a roleplay and having never roleplayed with anyone there before, starts claiming relationships that have never happened. Claiming things like a canon character has been in love with you since day one, when the person playing the character has never seen you? That’s a terrible idea, especially with Original Characters. You are not the long lost sibling of a canon character who has for all intents and purposes been described as an only child. You were not raised by the canon character, and you were not their second cousin twice removed, nor their ex-lover unless they specifically talk with you about it and say yes.
It’s annoying to deal with, and it makes people pretty uncomfortable. It’s a bad idea in general to not work out things like this before a roleplay, or checking with people to see how they feel about it. Would you walk up to a stranger and tell them that you are now married with kids? No! That’s stupid!

Don’t force Roleplay styles on others.
If someone has stated in OOC or otherwise that they aren’t comfortable roleplaying with someone who, for instance, uses stars for actions instead of novel style, or first person roleplaying styles then DON’T try to sneak it past them. They have a reason for it, they don’t want to roleplay with that kind of roleplayer, and trying to force it on them against their will is completely rude.
If you just simply cannot live without roleplaying with them, you are the guest in their house asking permission for RP! You should change what you do to suit what they want so you can get what you want in return. It’s all about compromise to get to a place where you can both enjoy yourself. If you simply can’t change what you do, then you two are better off not roleplaying together. Respect their wishes, and leave them alone.
The person asking for roleplay should be the one to compromise. You’re asking someone else to take time away from what they are doing to do something you want. If they do something you dislike, you should tolerate it for the session, and make a note not to do it again. It’s your fault for asking, reap what you sow unless you can ask in a nice manner if they maybe possibly wouldn’t mind kind of not doing something maybe? Roleplayers won’t kill you, but if they say no, drop it and enjoy what you get.

Don’t flirt with/molest non-smut-characters.
If a character has been made for a fighting or other serious roleplay and doesn’t seem to have any mention of sexual promise on their profile, do not use a character to try and get laid by them. If your character is just there for sex, in a roleplay created for the plot, you don’t belong. Don’t push it, there’s plenty of places online to get your rocks off, you don’t need to ruin the roleplay of those who enjoy romantic, subtle, and serious roleplay over cybering.
It’s not a bad thing to want to have sex online, it is a bad thing to try and push it on people who don’t seem to want it. Stick to sex-based chats. Stick to people with sexual profiles. If a character politely turns you down, or doesn’t show interest at all, or even seems to avoid your character, don’t continue. Let them be, let them have what they want. There are plenty of fish in the sea, and messing with people will just earn you a reputation as someone to avoid.
The biggest tip off is, if a character has an OOC section of profiel card or home page that says “no smut”, then you should seriously fuck off. What’s wrong with you? People have limits, respect them or you’re a callous moronic fool. This is why it’s smart to read the OOC section, because if you don’t you’re going to get reamed by angry roleplayers, and not in the way you wanted.

Learn to spell and use proper grammar.
You are how you appear in your writing; people look for roleplayers who can spell well, and write sentences that make sense to a reader. You don’t have to be the best at either, but if your post looks like someone a teenager would text her boyfriend in class you aren’t playing up to snuff.
Different people have different levels of what is acceptable, some people won’t roleplay with you if you have any typos whatsoever. In fact they will correct you constantly, and then get frustrated and leave. These people are pretty good, you’d best leave them to each other. Some people are semi-literate or something to the effect of the term (although it has suffered heavy degradation through overuse). These people can handle a few typos, and are generally more casual about writing. They aren’t completely insufferable, but they do like it when someone can write well enough to get things across. They’re generally more friendly to creative phrasing.
It keeps going down from there, just find a group who types like you do, and figure out what you’re comfortable with. If people complain, do better, if you can’t do better, play somewhere else and let them have their fun without flinching every time you make a post. Remember to reread your post real quick, even a quick skim, and hit major typos with the nice red wriggly line of correction.
The one time you can ignore these things is when you are typing for a character who does it in character. Small accent changes, like missing g’s replaced with apostrophe’s and stuff like that. No one will complain about a little bit of quirkiness, but don’t overplay your hand. Be readable, there is nothing worse than trying to roleplay with someone who says “*i wlkd inta teh bsuilin.8” seriously.

Don’t walk off/leave on a roleplay.
If a roleplay scares you maybe you can suddenly log off, block them, and run. But unless it’s so terribad it’s actually causing you to break out in hives and your eyes to boil, show a little respect for your roleplaying partner and at least say “Gotta go bye!”
If it’s a long term roleplay, tell them you’ve left. It sucks to be stuck in a scene only to find out that the character you’re waiting on has left the entire site and gone on a 8 year hiatus. Get your character out of the way, tell them you’re leaving, and don’t leave them hanging. It hurts, it makes people feel like shit when their partner just up and leaves without a word. You ask “What did I do wrong?” or “Why’d they go?” Sometimes it breeds anger and resentment. You don’t want a good roleplayer you want to talk to again to hate you for forgetting to say bye in a big old painfully serious mid-climax RP, or for someone to complain to their friends only to spread the rumor that you’re a bad roleplayer. A simple “GTG Bye!” will suffice in most cases. It’s better than staying online for 4 hours hoping for another post that will never come.
Of course if your internet cuts out what can you do? Just apologize when you get back. Keep things smoothed over with good manners.

Keep the IRL Drama out of RP.
There are people out there who have screwed you over, people who you have dated, or been angry with. These people might roleplay with you, but unless you have a problem with how they roleplay, or with something else that directly effects roleplay, either shut up and deal, or walk away.
Do not make your character hate them for no reason, don’t attack them, don’t try to stop them from playing with other people or cause issues because of it. Just stop and breathe. If you can’t handle it leave. Don’t spread gossip, don’t start rumors, don’t be a dick. Things happened, and if you fuck up the good time other people are having because of it, then you’re a dick too.
Don’t reply to an extremely long post without effort.
Unless you’ve agreed beforehand that you understand that your roleplaying partner isn’t that great at longer posts; having a roleplay with someone where you’ve posted evenly large things back and forth and then suddenly getting a single line out of no where is pretty rude. Especially with no explanation.
There’s always room for an OH NO my kid just ate an entire box of rat poison, and oh shoot I have to shower before school, but try not to spring it on people too often. Someone who regularly just doesn’t have it in them to post a good healthy amount tends to make a larger poster lose interest, almost as if they sense that you aren’t really into it. Especially true when the roleplayer suddenly posting less has proven in the past to be robustly worded when interested. It makes you seem a bit distracted and uncomfortable, and can kill a roleplay. It’s not a serious sin, unless you do it to the point that it makes the other player frustrated with you.

Don’t be a Mary Sue. Don’t be a Godmodder.
For the love of all the things you have ever loved, please for the sake of those close to you, do not roleplay a Mary Sue. This is a simple rule okay, it hurts, it literally burns a good roleplayer to have to deal with a Mary Sue. You are not perfect, wonderful, not everyone likes you, and not everyone who doesn’t are enemies.
For the blah blah, love, generally the same mess as above, please don’t play a Godmodder. It’s generally just as bad as a Mary Sue. There are people who will outright tell you you are one and walk away from a roleplay. Some of these people don’t know what they’re talking about, but if a competent roleplayer complains take it to heart. You need to not do this, it is the biggest pestilence that anyone in any roleplay has to deal with and it really really sucks. Find out more about Godmodding and Godmodder styles on the article about The Anti-Munch Project which is devoted to ending this viral disease. (I’m being dramatic, it’s fun, try it.)

Don’t play your characters waaay OOCly.
There is some lenience for head-canon, and some for situations that change how your character acts, but if you are playing a character too different from the norm, doing things no one could imagine, you are a bad roleplayer. There’s just no other way to say it. If your character is depicted in series (or in your canon) as a calm peaceful shy retiring sort, playing them a flamboyant oversexualized friendly type who assaults everyone for attention is not going to go down well.
Keep their basic personality, and adapt, but never, and I mean never, ever make a character so different as to be unrecognizable. You will find people who have a tolerance for some changes, here and there, but to completely warp a character you’ll need serious back-story and explanations or you can just get a new character to do what you want with them. You will find people who tolerate a character played so badly that it gives them a bad name, these are bad roleplayers, keep looking for a community who has some taste. I may sound rude, but more often than not groups who allow this are also havens for God-mods, and hidden-smut RPers who will ruin a roleplay for you sooner or later by coming out of the woodwork and simply making things terrible. If you like this sort of business, by all means enjoy yourself, just don’t expect it to be accepted elsewhere.

Show respect to fellow roleplayers.
For one thing, showing your fellow roleplayers respect can mean the difference between friends, and a room full of enemies. Do not judge people without at least talking to them a little. Everyone thinks their character is the best, the strongest and the one who owns everyone. Consider everyone your equal, or be willing to accept others as better than you, and a whole new world opens up. A lot more people are going to respect you for when you show your prowess with simple roleplaying, instead of trying to bluff your way around saying you are the best of everything.
One of the big things I see are people who roleplay women being immediately down-classed to “not as good” at fighting. This is why more and more women are playing males; to avoid this kind of annoying stuff. Yeah I know, it seems like another GIRL POWER rant, but people will honestly take well written roleplay posts and disregard them if they realize they are played by a female. I have taken to only playing male characters to avoid this in the past, because I just could not fight against the stereotypes any longer. If you can find someone who doesn’t reject your fighting posts, or casually handwave their way past them despite playing a female character, you have found a diamond in the rough. Thank them.
Pay attention to what is said, and “listen” to the mood of the room. It’s not just text on the screen, roleplay has moods. If the roleplay has become serious, or is serious, do not jump in with random joking jokes. Don’t keep laughingly chatting it up, especially with the characters involved, if the mood of their roleplay is serious. It’s rude as hell to be discussing your character’s painful self-awareness of death and have someone joking grab their shoulders and yell “OMG MONKEYS!” It is rude, obnoxious, and will give you a bad name among your roleplaying group. Keep your big yap shut when serious RP starts up, or head for the door.
Also, don’t let OOC flood out roleplay, if they are slow posters and you’ve managed 2 pages of OOC between posts, it may be time to take it elsewhere. Depends on the roleplayer, a few posts are okay, but if you make their roleplay disappear under the bullshit you aren’t being very mannerly.
Possibly a personal thing on this last one: Don’t bug me when I’m roleplaying. If I’m roleplaying, keep your OOC questions to bubbles or I feel like I’m replying to you in character and it’s just rude. Stop bugging me, I’m roleplaying, and you are watching this RP so why haven’t you noticed this yet? This is terribly rude so I’ll mention it even if I’m not sure it’s a widespread thing.

Don’t try to change how someone else RP’s a character due to personal preference only.
Okay, you see a character, they have something they like to do and your headcanon says otherwise. If it’s headcanon, leave it alone. Do not try to force a character you SWEAR is gay in your headcanon to play their character gay, when they have had no evidence towards it in canon strong enough to enforce the facts. If someone was in canon 100% undeniably a user of swords and despised guns; then the person playing them with a gun is wrong (This is debatable however, backstory solves so much, but if you can’t deal with it don’t RP with them). If you just prefer thinking of them with guns, leave off.
Asking them is one thing, it’s fine to ask them if they wouldn’t pretty please do something you’d like more, but if they say no; you drop that idea like it’s a hot potato. You might debate it depending on the person, but if you try to force it on them by roleplaying it against their will you are an asshole my dear.

If they roleplay a character as having blue eyes, and you want them to be red, and you roleplay “She looked into his red eyes!” when he has clearly stated blue in previous posts, you are being an asshat and need to back down. Do not roleplay things contradictory to what a character wants or suggested in roleplay simply to fill your own headcanon slots. Do not enforce your headcanons on others through roleplay, by saying things like they were being “obviously upset” when a character has stated they were “cool as a cucumber.”
One thing to keep in mind, roleplay with people you know is going to be different than public, stranger fueled, RP. With some people you can just unthinkably bend or break these ideas, with an unspoken agreement. If you have this kind of relationship with a roleplayer, good on ya, you probably deserve it. Be aware you might catch some heat off others, but don’t let it shake you from a nice comfortable relationship with someone. Be happy you can have what you have. ♥

Other extenuated situations, such as a roleplay literally modified to be made for a group of Mary Sues played well, or a roleplay that demands you do one of the above sins, are of course reasons to break the ‘rules’ so to speak. Sometimes these can be a ton of fun, and remember these are just general “sins”. I’m not trying to rule your life, just give you an idea of things that cause widespread agony amongst roleplayers.

As always, once you know the rules well, you can break the rules safely. Backstory, explanations, details, and extremely well done roleplaying can safely destroy all these rules and still create a likable character and a great roleplayer. If you have to ask whether you’re one of them; you are not in fact one of them.

Agreed!

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Well said. I agree and understand

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