Skip to main content

Forums » Smalltalk » Roleplaying Flaws

When roleplaying, what would you consider to be your biggest flaws?

My characters have a tendency to be a bit clichéd at times and more often than develop from something that is actually pretty cool and respectable to your typical male shonen protagonist.
Claine Moderator

I find I only play a few character tropes.

Quiet bookworms.
Stealthy cunning types.
Gets drunk and gets into fights.
Oh god...

I play inherently good characters. Like... playing a villain is almost lost on me. I can play pretty mean characters that can and will be violent toward those that are antagonistic, but overall, a lot of the characters I play are just... always leaning toward good, or the neutral grounds of things.
rat

Hmm... I'd say my biggest flaw is how long I take to post. I've been real-time RPing for years and I still struggle with timekeeping. I've always preferred forum style RP where posts are once or twice a day, and it's taking a while to adjust.

It ties into self-confidence issues. In trying to create a post I'm satisfied with I often forget how quick the minutes pass, and that other people are waiting for their turn. I'll read over everything I write - including this - multiple times before I can convince myself to let it go. I'm optimistic I'll get past this eventually though, and I have good buds who are far too patient with me.

(I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with character comfort zones. RP is for personal enjoyment after all, but I do always try to stretch the boundaries each time I make a character - not just to enrich my writing skills, but because I might find something new to enjoy which I'd never have considered before.)
I feel like my biggest flaws are starting sentences with She, he, they. And ending conversations as She said/he said. Its not a problem to do it here and there, but I do it without thinking and next thing I know every sentence starts with She or (character name). So I often go through and try and reword sentences so that it doesn't start with that. I also try and think of different ways to say said. I often use pondered, huffed, muttered etc, but it can be tiring. I didn't even notice this until a few years ago when I was rping with someone and they told me to stop doing that. I was inherently mad but looking back it makes for poor writing. Lookng up at my paragraph here I have started nearly sentence with I. :I old habits die hard lol.

I also have a habit of playing characters where everything they do has a reason and that reason is right. I've stepped back and made my characters make some really poor decisions that effect them negatively. I found when I was younger X character would do this and omg what are you doing!? But then it turns out what they did was right all along! Now I am meaner and make then mess up. I still do this habit, but luckily I can catch myself sometimes.
KansasVenomoth Topic Starter

reeno-alchemist wrote:
I feel like my biggest flaws are starting sentences with She, he, they. And ending conversations as She said/he said. Its not a problem to do it here and there, but I do it without thinking and next thing I know every sentence starts with She or (character name). So I often go through and try and reword sentences so that it doesn't start with that. I also try and think of different ways to say said. I often use pondered, huffed, muttered etc, but it can be tiring. I didn't even notice this until a few years ago when I was rping with someone and they told me to stop doing that. I was inherently mad but looking back it makes for poor writing. Lookng up at my paragraph here I have started nearly sentence with I. :I old habits die hard lol.

I also have a habit of playing characters where everything they do has a reason and that reason is right. I've stepped back and made my characters make some really poor decisions that effect them negatively. I found when I was younger X character would do this and omg what are you doing!? But then it turns out what they did was right all along! Now I am meaner and make then mess up. I still do this habit, but luckily I can catch myself sometimes.

A lot of my characters will end up having unnecessarily detailed descriptions for even the simplest of things, lmao. They could be eating a simple cheeseburger and it'll turn into something way longer than it needed to be.
Calling myself out:
- takes ten thousand years to write anything
- sucks at pacing
- writes self into a corner frequently
- plot? what's that???
KansasVenomoth Topic Starter

Yersinia wrote:
Calling myself out:
- takes ten thousand years to write anything
- sucks at pacing
- writes self into a corner frequently

I can relate with this one a lot...
Ilmarinen Moderator

I'm a pretty flaky RPer when it comes down to it, and it can take me a long time to reply. RPing villains is tough for me, too--mostly because I find it hard to be a jerk to other people's characters! I worry that if my character is too jerky or cruel or stoic, they won't be fun to interact with.
reeno-alchemist wrote:
I feel like my biggest flaws are starting sentences with She, he, they. And ending conversations as She said/he said.

Varied sentence structure is HARD, and crucial to interesting writing ... however, I disagree with what your partner said about "he/she/they said!" That dialogue tag is so ubiquitous that the eye skims it. Like, you technically can overuse it. But it's exhausting to read said-bookisms like "she hollered, she whispered, she yowled" over and over and over ... it can pull the reader out of the scene.
KansasVenomoth Topic Starter

Heimdall wrote:
I'm a pretty flaky RPer when it comes down to it, and it can take me a long time to reply. RPing villains is tough for me, too--mostly because I find it hard to be a jerk to other people's characters! I worry that if my character is too jerky or cruel or stoic, they won't be fun to interact with.
reeno-alchemist wrote:
I feel like my biggest flaws are starting sentences with She, he, they. And ending conversations as She said/he said.

Varied sentence structure is HARD, and crucial to interesting writing ... however, I disagree with what your partner said about "he/she/they said!" That dialogue tag is so ubiquitous that the eye skims it. Like, you technically can overuse it. But it's exhausting to read said-bookisms like "she hollered, she whispered, she yowled" over and over and over ... it can pull the reader out of the scene.

Several of my characters are supposed to be "Cold, harsh, and blunt", but 95% of the time they're overly cheery, almost to the point you'd want to kill them.
Kyce

My flaky times when responding, sometimes I'll get back to someone 5 times in one day while simultaneously being able to not be able to think of a reply for two months. deepest apologies and heaviest thanks to people who write with me
Kyce wrote:
My flaky times when responding, sometimes I'll get back to someone 5 times in one day while simultaneously being able to not be able to think of a reply for two months. deepest apologies and heaviest thanks to people who write with me

This. Just this. I'm so flaky, and my muses like to leave me and go do their own thing at the most inopportune of times. I can never RP with people who expect me to reply at least once a day because I can't pump out a quality response on what feels like a daily/hourly deadline, you know? It's no fun if I'm being rushed to respond every day. Don't get me wrong, I can snap out a few responses on a good day and when my muses are kind to me. But when I and/or my muses are just not feeling it, or I'm too stressed, it can take a while before you hear from me. I also thank you and everyone who's RPing with me for putting up with my flighty self as well, you're all angels.

Another thing with me: I tend to hold back in RP. A lot. Like, I get nervous when a muse inspires me to do a certain thing. Is it too much, will the other player tell me to back off and play right? So I end up keeping my replies tame, and thus my characters tamer than they actually are... Which is a shame, especially for my more dominant/demanding characters who crave excitement and spontaneity. I'd love to find a RP where my wilder muses can roam free and do as they like in terms of personality and actions, but I've yet to find someone. Maybe one day in the future.

EDIT: Ah, and one more thing: I'm. Too. Shy. To ask. People. To RP. With me. So deathly shy. I've only put out a total of two RP ads that I've ended up reusing for the same two characters and one meet cute ad. It's much better than what I used to do (which was not do anything at all aside from wait), but it's still not enough at times. If not for the fact I'm afraid of people biting me over a simple mistake, I'd be a bit more talky and likely to ask others. So yeah, I'mma just slink back in my hidey-hole.
Like reeno-alchemist, I have a habit of starting a sentence with "she/he" and struggle with not adding "said" after a character saying something. I don't know if it's a flaw or more of a preference, but I don't like using a male as my main character. It bothers me, but at the same time, I'm unlikely to change it.
Asroc

English. English is not my first, so I still get some words mixed up.

Respond times. I am either busy or just dealing with anxiety. I RP Canons and I still fear RPing with others due to fear of being ridiculed.
I can get control freakish when I'm in charge of a plot. Usually it doesn't show because I hold back my feelings, but I do start to lose interest when people rush through events too quickly for me to influence them toward my plans (though people putting too many actions / skipping too much time in one post is one of my pet peeves anyway... that and autoplaying my characters). Equally, I'm also incredibly submissive when other people are in charge of the setting. I take the RP slow (my posts are still as long and descriptive as they would be otherwise, just with less/slowed-down action sequences) and let the other person guide me along.

I also feel I don't adapt well to what other people are expecting activity-wise. E.g. if someone's posts are action-focused and they want to drive on with a plot, I more often than not end up spending too much time on platonic relationship development between characters. I'm pretty sure I've been abandoned in more than one RP in the past for spending too much time on that (especially those who aren't good at that kind of RP event and consequently have no idea what to say).

I suppose there's also the limit on my pool of characters... I just enjoy RPing as child characters more. They're more fun, I feel more comfortable with them and they're as close as I can get to returning to a less complicated time of life. Some people clearly aren't comfortable RPing with characters so young; others want to focus on themes that would be immoral to involve them in. so finding an RP partner is generally more difficult than it would be otherwise. I also don't have any female characters on RPR yet... not because I don't have any female characters, they're just not as interesting as the ones I currently have up and thus I have no desire to RP as them at current. I also don't have a particularly large range of real-world nationalities between my characters... usually because my OCs are designed around them existing in a setting simultaneously, and thus they live in close proximity (outside of RPs of course). So that's why all of my speech-capable characters currently up on RPR have some kind of British accent. XD

I could add not getting involved in the community as a flaw too... the less exposure I get, the less likely to draw interest. But I'm shy and have social anxiety issues, so I'm not big on OOC conversation. I'm only posting this now because of frustrations on stalling/inactive RPs that are probably related to my flaws. x3
Asroc

[quote='Riik').

I could add not getting involved in the community as a flaw too... the less exposure I get, the less likely to draw interest. But I'm shy and have social anxiety issues, so I'm not big on OOC conversation. I'm only posting this now because of frustrations on stalling/inactive RPs that are probably related to my flaws. x3[/quote]

I kind of have the same thing. I been on smaller RP forums where they invoke site wide stories where every place has a connecting story, but nothing makes no sense. I mean, time line issues and just no real flow or continuity of the characters, plot, etc. Worse when the admins and users want replies every seven seconds where things turn sloppy and unprofessional. I have social anxiety as well. I don't do well in large crowds. Which is why I prefer 1X1 RPs or controlled group RPs where there is one story, rather than the stories branching all over and users causing a fuss over one person who does somethin' different.

Allot of my stress just comes from bad RP GMs who shirk over quality and give turds for replies.

I mean, I will admit, in smaller, 1x1 Rps, I can get lazy and then pick up the pace when things get into action.

I have mild OCD when I like things going in order. Such as group RPs. I like a posting order.
Lupus-Raziel-Shadows

i have a habit of either making my characters extremely powerful, extremely weak, or extremely mysterious. as well as usually being demonic.......
Pomkeki

Edit: Forget it
KansasVenomoth Topic Starter

Pomkeki wrote:
- I love OOC.
I used to roleplay in a place that had a very active OOC chat attached to the IC chat. Ever since then I find it very hard to roleplay in dead silence - I like to chat between posts, especially when roleplaying in groups. When I wasn't in the mood to roleplay I'd stay in OOC and watch IC so I can keep up with what's going on in the RP while I socialize. I only consider this a flaw because it's incredibly hard for me to find people who are equally social during RP... I can't help but feel lonely or like my partners dislike me when there isn't any OOC.

- I try to avoid combat.
And not for the reasons you probably expect. I love combat, I love writing it, I love giving my characters unique and complex fighting styles, and I spend an enormous amount of time figuring out my characters skills and weaknesses in the realm of combat... But I hate senseless or unnecessary conflict. I'm a hardcore pacifist in the real world, so sometimes it's hard for me to fight when I'm thinking "why can't we just talk about this?" and it's proven to be a weakness of mine whenever I play in a high crime setting or when I play as a villain.

- I'm a pervert.
I thoroughly enjoy stupid ecchi anime humor and crap like that, but I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority and nobody else cares for that stuff in roleplay. Oh well. I'll just sit in my corner of shame and pretend that I'm not a complete weirdo.

- I have a weakness for a certain archetype.
My characters vary quite a bit in personality and all of that, but... I have absolutely no self control around a particular archetype. Regardless of who I'm playing, I'm drawn to them. I want to tease them and hug them and make them feel all kinds of flustered!


I'm sure I have plenty of writing flaws too, but I don't care to pick them out. If I think about all of my flaws too much I'll put myself in a bad mood. </3

This one speaks to me on so many levels, it's not even funny.
Dreamsthefox

My flaws include
Shy, Troubled, or much to quick intros
Sudden reactions
Mentioning things that haven't happened yet
Mentioning things that have already happened
Getting on people's nerves
Overpowered
Getting to pervy
Not enough paragraphs

You are on: Forums » Smalltalk » Roleplaying Flaws

Moderators: Mina, Keke, Cass, Auberon, Claine, Ilmarinen, Ben, Darth_Angelus