Role-players Like to Bitch

Role-players like to bitch, it’s apparently an unsaid rule

Sometimes I come across this thought that “Man, all role-players [online role-players] like to do is bitch about role-playing, rather than actually role-play.” It’s kinda like an unconscious need to ruin all role-playing before it can happen so that they can bitch about it. If not finding fault in someone, they’re complaining about how terrible role-play is in general. But frankly, there was a time in every role-players career when they were happy about their role-play. Why else would they keep coming back for more punishment? They tend to make the objective statement that ALL role-play was better back in the day, but this can’t be true because everyone has different ideas as to when this heyday seems to have been [maybe not everyone… I probably have no idea what I’m talking about on this point, but I’m skeptical none the less]. For each person though, it was before the current time period. You can’t go two RP chats without hearing the statement “Role-play sucks, remember when RP was good?” or something to that effect. I can’t help but wonder why this seems to be so rampant. I however do have a hypothesis. Mind you, this hypothesis might be total crap but it goes a little something like this:

So when most internet role-players come to role-play they are a young teenager or maybe even a bit younger, with very limited capacity for the idea of writing long, detailed, or complex statements about tasks and settings that their characters are doing. This leaves them with “one-liners” where all the characters actions are about one line in length. Most people look down on them, but this is probably some of the most fun the role-player will have in their whole role-playing experience. Everyone is doing it! One liner’s don’t matter because even if the person misunderstands what you were trying to express because 90% [made up statistic] of your detail was just in your head, they can’t write something coherent enough to show you that they’ve misunderstood it. Far-fetched RP suddenly becomes okay and cliche instead of being terrible and gag worthy it’s the very definition of fun. So everyone runs around with ignorance to their own lack of description.

This is NOT a bad thing though, because everyone is having fun. Eventually these early role-players will learn that there are more sophisticated ways to type in what you’re role-playing. They’ll probably meet someone who describes their role-play to a much higher level and think of how cool they are.

It’s kind of like when you’re a kid and you look up to your parents as gods. Once this is set they will, or at least a couple will, slowly start to try and mimic this person’s length description. Through hard times of trying to understand what exactly makes good description good rather than just focusing on length, they eventually reach a state they are happy with. The problem is, is that person they were copying was absolutely unhappy with their role-play experience. The "parent" has already achieved bitching status and started to tell the other role-players about the old days when role-play was great. This new person to the bitching is in its heyday though, because they’ve reached their goals and are still too ignorant to realize that their promise land is really a sea of shit that suffocates any happiness out of you when you breath it in. Like the parent analogy they should realize that this person they mimicked was flawed… but instead they ignore it and think of themselves as the best role-play has to offer. It’s a terrible cycle only kept alive by this idea that role-playing is the two person activity equivalent of writing a book and that what they are doing is a tribute to literature. It’s not of course, but this is their mistake. Regardless, it probably is also fed by the fact that life gets harder when you become an adult and these newly fresh kids and teenagers, once reaching the promise land, also have to deal with the stresses of the real world now that they’ve gotten older.

So was there ever a golden age of role-play? Ya know there probably was. Even though I think most of it is just role-players like to bitch, I do think these things come and go in cycles and maybe it actually is going down the tubes… but if it is I think it’s BECAUSE of the bitching. Not just bitching about role-play being bad now adays, but bitching at each other. I get into a RP chat and it takes the drop of a hat for someone to find fault in me or my role-play either they just disappears without saying anything or blow up on me for doing whatever it was I did wrong. Wanna know why RP sucks? People don’t like being treated this way. No one is gonna want to RP if everyone who is RPing is unhappy and complaining.

So do I think role-play can be salvaged? Yes of course! But not everything is gonna come out perfect! Stop bitching, be nice, smile, and role-play works great. In fact, I found two great role-players recently that I am EXTREMELY happy with. We’ve been kind and enjoyed our RP and so should the rest of y’all. It may seem overwhelmingly hopeless, but it doesn’t have to be. JUST STOP BITCHING!!!!!! ;)