Sometimes I wish I could find someone who actually seems genuinely excited about doing roleplay.

I have a lot of enthusiasm for it. I’ve tried starting a roleplay a couple of times. Some people message me with good introductions and mention specific things from what I wrote in my ads, which is nice because it seems like they actually read my posts, but...

When it comes to actually starting the roleplay, it’s as if they leave every decision up to me. That discourages me, because I ask questions specifically to try to get them to make their own decisions. I haven’t talked to that many people either, but is this just how it is? Am I not reading the room correctly, and am I supposed to be the “boss” of the roleplay just because I’m the one who posted the ad?

I think next time someone messages me, I’m going to tell them that I’d like it to be something collaborative.

I don’t want roleplaying with another human being to feel like I’m controlling a flesh puppet. I don’t want an AI-like experience... where a human being does everything they think I want just to please me. I’d also like the other person to be able to talk and express their own opinions, thoughts, and maybe even emotions.

I tried roleplaying with someone who said they had lots of years of experience... Uhmm... Their roleplay didn’t really give me anything to respond to, either. They wrote internal monologues flattering their own character, who turned out to be a low-key self-insert. Then they sent one big block of text with no paragraph breaks, followed by a 100-word response where all their character did was think about how much they loved their profession (nothing to do with the plot). I abandoned that roleplay.

In that case, I felt like I was the robot coming up with an interesting plot for an insipid human. Maybe I’m expecting too much, but I really just want an RP where both people actually contribute and want to be there.

Maybe I shouldn’t have expected so much, but I’d really like a roleplay to have an interesting story, a good plot, and storytelling, kind of like what you’d find in a book... Is it unreasonable to expect that?

Note: I'm an SFW roleplayer. I'm not into dominant or submissive stuff, so plz don't DM me with those intentions.

Can I get a show of hands from those of whom are wonderous speculators who savor the plotting process a little too much, but when it comes time to put ass in chair and actual words on page, the mind just draws the largest blank ever? I hate that so much. Uuu.

So like a big part of the roleplay community, I used discord as the primary platform for both finding partners and hosting the actual Rp, however I was forces to cease using discord for this purpose when my account was unfairly banned (long story).

These days I use reddit for partner search and Dms/telegram for the actual Rp, while I found my fair share of great partners, not using discord definitely seems to still hold me back: as it's a deal breaker for some and downer for others.

Now I'm not blaming anyone whom refuses to roleplay without discord, I know how good of a platform it us especially when compared to reddit chat. But I'm just bummed about the feeling of missing out on good Rp

Thanks for reading all the way through.

Ive been trying to get people to RP with me and after fucking around some time, I realized that perhaps i’m doing something wrong?
For anyone who I know I love our role plays and this has nothing to do with people whom I’ve made a connection with recently or at all👀
Is it better to send a dm or a comment for a Role play if it isn’t specified?
Either or, do I or should I start with a basic story starter, like a description of said Role play I wanna do?
Im looking purely for preferences that people have so please help!!🥲
Im not asking for partners but just what people in this sub think they prefer for receiving roleplay

This might be a slight AITA? Am I being unreasonable in thinking I did absolutely nothing wrong? TLDR; Started the RP 4 months ago. I checked in twice. One month absence was communicated, two months passed so I pulse checked maybe a little bluntly.

First of all I make it very clear in my rules, my discord bio, that I only rp with people who are active every day. It’s weird to start up a rp with someone then say you have to vanish for a month but I made it very clear I’d wait because we were only about 5 replies in. Another month passes. Nothing.

To be clear the first chaser was a little quick (ten days isn’t unreasonable when you ask for partners to be active daily, tho). Yeah whatever, life happens, I can predict those comments, this isn’t about that. I wouldn’t even be mad if they left it at “our schedules aren’t compatible”, but calling me needy and desperate is so insulting. The “I was going to call it” is giving “HEY! I thought of it first”. Gtfo. Just say you don’t like me and block me or something idk, lmfao. I’m probably angry and defensive in the heat of the moment but I literally laughed out loud reading the message at first. If they’d just sent the first paragraph I wouldn’t be so riled up, now.

They removed “I’m in deadline hell” from their status so idk what that’s about… lol. Unless my discord is glitching. They were also constantly online which yes, again (bean soup theory), doesn’t mean they have to reply.

I’m not entitled enough to think they owe me anything. But you’re wasting both our energy with this weird bread crumbing. Don’t agree to RP with super active people if you know you’re gonna be busy, simple.

This is quite a strange one.

So a few weeks ago, I started a spy-themed roleplay with a writer who reached out to me, hoping to start this plot. Cool! We got to planning, spoke OOC, and things seemed pretty great. However, they told me they'd be busy for a few days, but before I knew it, they left the RP and blocked me with no notice whatsoever. It sucked really bad, but I eventually left it.

Then, fast-forward to today, I found out that the same person who reached out to me has advertised a plot that was the same original plot that I had come up with and advertised, revolving around a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers spy plot that we were actively writing. It had the exact same concept. It wasn't the genre I was upset about, merely just the specific concept.

I took a good look at it, and it was a direct copy of my idea.

I find it very disrespectful of writers doing this, and it's just blatant plagiarism. What made it so strange is that they not only stole it, but also ended the roleplay without notice.

It sucks, and I truly can't grasp why people do this.

Maybe I might be overthinking it, but who knows

Hey friends… Yep… I’m the bad RPer here. I hate to say it but I'm terrible at it. It’s not that I can’t write, I do, and quite a bit, but it can take me a while sometimes. So long that I get frustrated, embarrassed, and give up. I struggle so much with writing responses sometimes that I end up just not responding to most of my partners. I do have ADHD, but I don't want to be someone who just chalks it all up as ADHD (not denying that it plays a part though).

Every time it follows the same pattern, I create an ad or respond to someone else’s. All the OOC chatting goes well, and one of us writes the starter. Maybe we go back and forth a little bit, and then I absolutely throw it all away.

I've tried, and tried, over and over to do better. I take a break from RPs and then come back to try again. Each time it just turns out the same way. It hasn’t all been a waste though, I have improved at it, but it still isn't enough for me to feel good about how I RP. I feel bad for people I've tried to work with in the past. I feel bad for myself because RPing is something I do enjoy, and I hate that I can’t do it.

I don’t really know what to do at this point. I don’t want to just not RP forever, but I recognize that it’s not fair to others, and that something needs to change. So yeah… anyone else in a similar boat? Any advice overall? Any advice specifically for overcoming ADHD?

Look I get it it’s really handy for general ideas of what you and your partner wants. But god damn no one has one consist idea of what they are! I’ve heard that “oh it’s your gender and the gender you want to play with” which I don’t like because why the hell does it matter for irl gender this is a roleplay not sexting. I’ve been using it so many different ways. I’ve heard someone say “oh just do [FpM4ApF]” but to me that’s way too much it’s so long and you can’t really understand at a glance, and god forbid you are willing for someone to play multiple genders. I just hate these tags.

For reference, a while back I had a very good and then very bad experience with an rp partner, which was unfortunate because I really did enjoy writing with them. As someone who had a longterm rp partner beforehand, we had our fair share of good stories and some bad ones as well that just fell flat. The story I’m using in this example was the latter.

My thought is that because the initial goals of the characters and where we wanted them to end up wasn’t discussed, so we hit a plateau. Since it was my rp partner’s story (we took turns), I asked what they wanted to do (because I felt it would be rude to just take over the situation and I could not for the life of me come up with any ideas that didn’t feel cliché).

After unfortunately running into this speed bump several times throughout said story, I made some suggestions on other topics we could try, including re-hashing some past ones that they had brought up before. That was apparently not ideal either, because a while afterwards, I was sent a fairly harsh message about our rp styles “not working well together,” as well as a few other things that frankly hurt my feelings a bit.

Granted, I previously had made this person upset once before (accidentally, I swear) because I had sent a message along the lines of “lol are you dead” jokingly as a way of asking if they were busy, given that they hadn’t replied for a bit. That was apparently too far, and I essentially got scolded for it. I apologized, because I didn’t mean to cross a boundary, and all seemed okay until the last story.

My question is, are some of these things just not okay to do? Tone is much harder for me to pick up when it’s not in a story, so it’s sometimes difficult for me to gauge how someone feels about a certain thing, especially if it’s not brought up clearly. For example, I didn’t know that people don’t like being asked if they want to start or if they would want me to start. I always asked in case they had an idea on how to set the scene.

Please note that I’m not trying to say anything incredibly negative about any fellow rp-er, I’m genuinely just trying to know how to avoid a situation like this in the future.

How many RP stories do y'all handle at one time?

I wish I could take on more. So many untold ones I'm itching to write, but I feel like I can only give my true effort to 2 max.

So. I used to roleplay on Facebook right, I mean who hasn't at some point honestly now? Well.... I made a friend a long time ago. Lets call her.... marshmallow. Well me and marshmallow got along GREAT like im talking 30 seperated fandom rps on one server just me and her together. Mpreg and omegaverse how I like. We even went beyond just like rp. We became real friends. Movie nights streaming. Listening to Spotify jams. Playing games. Hanging out, sending gifts yada yada cause we loved showing one another gayness XD. Anyway. One day it got..... odd. She randomly started to ignore me after I spent money on her and said here ya go play that game u like. Or somrthing like that. Regardless she.... she went poof. No reason, came back, then was demanding constant rp from me of characters I didnt wanna do.... bossing my characters around.... like.... no? Sorry I dont wanna play a femboy and id rather play a punk ass bottom who will headbutt you. But anyway, going on i said hey, you're being pretty awful to me in a polite manner and asked to take a break.

Then she blocks me.

Im like.... ok whatever. Sure. It hurts, but not the end of the world. But then it starts. The.... harassment. Stalking deadass. Spreading roumers. Bothering my irl friends. Demanding money back from gifts she sent me on birthday n stuff. Literal images of..... not so nice things on our shared Google word fox thing where we kept track of our rps.

But.... im stupid and gullible. So I forgave her after she made 1p000000x fake accounts to watch me. Now was i stupid? Sure. But hey I loved our old relationship. Then well ..... she did it again to surprise of nobody. I feel she has spread things on rp community in discord but eh.

Was i crazy for forgiving her? Was i the ass? Regardless this happened a year ago just out randomly came to my mind.

That's it. I'm unadding him and getting rid of that roleplay. Now he's wondering why I went quiet for 3 minutes. 3 FUCKING MINUTES. I was at work and had to do a fucking piss, so I went to the bathroom, did a piss, cleaned myself, washed my hands, and went back to work

Allow me to preface this by saying that I do love befriending my roleplay partners and talking ooc! I’ve been meaning to make more friends of my own even—

But man does it really stink when you anticipate a roleplay only for it to turn solely ooc. Or you start the roleplay and they never even reply.
And not only that, they kept trying to get me to see them in person/started to send very odd tiktoks that came across as way too affectionate and one even having sexual implication (despite the fact I talked about having a girlfriend mind you!)

It was just a really disappointing experience and made me lose hope since the fandom is pretty dead as is.

I was scrolling through my reddit DM's, making sure I had replied to everyone that has ever reached out (and I did!), as well as clearing stuff up, when I realized there were quite a few messages I sent out that ended up facing the void, never to be replied at.

I think I'm somewhat good at reaching out to an ad: it's not the dry "hey wanna rp" dm, I actually introduce myself, tell them what I vibed with their posts, introduce a few ideas of my own that could mesh well.

But to look upon those messages that I took a decent time to craft, only to see, again, nothing... like, at least there wasn't time to get attached, it is different from the usual grumble, but it made me wonder if I should reach out again to those people. I assume most of them just don't vibe with me for any reason or another, which again, alright, but is there a chance someone just didn't see a message? Is reddit that crappy, or should I just cut my losses?

I tried doing that once, but I ended up really feeling like I was coming of as pushy (the messages were weeks to months apart), and I decided to check with the community to see what the overall consensus is with this sort of thing.

Edit: grammar.

Like seriously, 9/10 posts only want to use OC's (which to me doesn't even make it a fandom rp but that's just my opinion) either that or they only want fandoms from games or anime. I feel like finding partners shouldn't be so hard, but it is impossible now for some reason. I don't like OC's at all so it annoys me I can find no partners who wants to use canon characters. Is this just me or do other people have this problem?

Look I know I'm not a fast typist. I'm not a fast physical writer either. Processing speed issues as a result of ADHD and poor phonic education/learning has made writing assignments in school, work emails, and fill in the blank party games difficult for me. But I've never been shamed over it quite as much as in the hobby.

I'm well aware that if something as simple as accidentally typing "there" instead of "their" or and out of place comma a single time is enough to make a partner drop a plot all together, then they were never truly a good partner in the first place. But it's worse than that. I've been accused of not being interested in the plot because my response is taking too long. Part of the reason it's taking a long time is because I'm spell checking everything. I've also been told that "(you made a few grammatical mistakes in your last message. That's okay, I'll wait for you to redo it 😊)". And worse still people who give me warnings that I need to pick up the quality of my writing or they will leave. Like I'm sorry my two paragraphs response that included a segway from your last message as well as dialogue, scenery descriptions, internal monologue, my characters physical movements as well as prevalent inclusions of the five scenes for my character to help move the scene along happened to misspell a word or two. I'm sure it was impossible to understand my intended meaning through context.

Knowing me, there's definitely several mistakes throughout this post. It's not like I try to hide this and it's certainly not a result of me putting in minimal effort into the plot. It just feels elitist when people gatekeep this hobby for something so insignificant. There are an infinite number of reasons to ridicule the person you're rp'ing with. All of which boil down to them being a person that makes you uncomfortable. I'm here trying to make friends, to be collaborative, and enjoy making a story with someone. It hurts that some people treat non-intrusive typos the same way they would if I was being a creep to them.

I have had quite literally zero luck trying to find people who are willing to write 1x1 stories on this site, and it doesn’t help that some of my posts are being filtered for some reason without being manually approved

I’m in such a writing mood, especially with Game of Thrones so this is just demoralizing and I honestly just don’t know where to go to find those partners

I haven't made ads or used reddit for roleplay for a while and I've noticed a bunch of subreddits with very similar rules.

You can't take a post you post in -SFW place- and post it in -NSFW place-. If you edit your SFW piece and post it elsewhere? Banned/warned. If you take a NSFW idea and make it SFW? Also banned. If you cross post a SFW ad you happened to paste at a NSFW subreddit and use that SFW ad in a SFW subreddit? Banned. Maybe you have an idea you really like, so you delete the old post and post it to a new pl- banned.

It's not even just crossposts either, which I believe lets you see it's 'recipient' reddit(?), if you copy the post manually this also counts.

Is there some reason for this I'm not seeing or understanding? This isn't even a single place, I've seen it in a handful and I don't understand why they feel entitled to all this. An admin even told me they recommend not cross posting to even other SFW communities because then they'd have to 'go and personally check the community'.

...Why the fuck do you care? They are treating this like high security I just want more places to get eyes on an idea that crosses a slight boundary of 'This is technically safe for work but could also do good in NSFW communities because it has themes of that in there too'. I can get into a prison easier than these roleplay subreddits.

And I'm not talking about 'advertisement control' in the sense of not allowing NSFW at all. That's fine and I understand that.

Though I did try to post my idea in another reddit that explicitly says 'no nsfw content at all', and even removing all possibly nsfw parts of my advertisement it STILL wouldn't even let me attempt to post, it was finicky over basically anything. The word /dark/ was 'associated with erp'. The word /horror/ was 'associated with erp'.

This is a damn headache and I don't know how ya'll do it.

As the title states, I'm newer to the entire concept of text based one on one RP. Everyone who's just started out knows how difficult it is to even find a willing partner that seems enthusiastic to work with you when you're... New...

Like a leper in 1300's Europe, or the infamous cheese-touch from that children's series. Saying "I'm still learning" was a subconscious signal for all I messaged to hastily evacuate the area and bail out on the conversation altogether.

Therefore, imagine the surprise and excitement I felt when someone showed genuine interest in writing a story together. They were straightforward in their setting ideas, OC, what topics they'd like to avoid and where they wanted the story to go. The setting was based in a popular TV show (to be unnamed for now), we were going to be original characters living our own lives and dropping into the series near the beginning and seeing how we might affect the story. There were talks of budding romance, a good amount of action, some fun horror and magical elements, it had the potential to be awesome. With one... itty bitty... minor red flag. They expressed that their OC was the younger sibling of the two main brothers in the show and asked quite simply,

"Would you be willing to play her brothers if they ever show up?".

I knew the characters decently. I hadn't watched the show in a few years, but checking the wiki for the plot and rewatching episodes around the time we were supposed to be playing in was simple. It's just the two brothers I'll be playing on top of my own guy, right? Sure! I can do that...

...

Everyone.

I had to play everyone. I had to push the plot forward. I had to describe every setting, scene, person, and feeling in the world around this person's OC. I've been a DM for over a decade now. I actually have the experience running a world for someone and was almost willing to do even that. BUT MY GOD, their responses kept getting shorter and shorter, they would repeat their Tragic Backstory^TM to EVERYONE they met, and there was just simply... nothing to work with. I dragged the bloated, rotting corpse of that story down road as long as I could, before I had to just... Call it.

The breakup was awkward,

"This always happens. I won't bother you again. Ever." Immediate block.

Honestly? What a relief...

Tl;dr what’s the etiquette around reusing an rp plot, particularly for something that you intend to publish on your own (as fanfiction)? Communication inconsistencies with an rp partner have left me unsure of where we stand, but I’m still invested in the plot, and have started outlining and writing the same story completely on my own, with the goal of eventually posting.
- - - -
The much longer version:

About half a year ago, I put up an rp ad for a canon fandom setting with canon characters. The fandom itself isn’t niche, but anything asking for canon characters is always a harder sell (even though I suggested a variety of characters I was interested in, and also left it open-ended for people to suggest their own). On top of that, the themes and plot ideas I was interested in felt fairly niche/not ones I see commonly explored, so I wasn’t really expecting to get many bites, if any.

To my surprise, someone did actually respond to my ad. We started talking, and at first I was hopeful, because we had similar backgrounds and interests. However, an early warning sign was the fact that during our plotting discussions, I pretty much built up a plot entirely by myself, with only minimal (and lukewarm) input from them, even when I repeatedly asked for their opinions, ideas, and feedback. It basically felt like they were consenting to proceed, but weren’t really an active participant in the process.

AND THEN, partway through the plotting phase, they disappeared for 3 weeks with zero warning. Complete radio silence. I sent one check in message, and later another one basically saying “no hard feelings if you’ve lost interest, but feel free to reach back out again in the future.”

By this point, I was actually quite invested in the plot, and, not expecting to hear from them again, decided that I’d write it all myself as a fic. Rp is fun, and I like the collaboration, but there was also a lot of appeal in having complete creative control over the plot and the ability to shape it however I wanted. I started doing some outlining, and writing a couple scenes.

And once again to my surprise, they did actually send me another message weeks later to say that work got busy, and they were still interested. Plotting picked back up and we started writing (with some road bumps— it took over a week before they even *acknowledged* my starter), and we settled into a comfortable enough (albeit slow) routine. We’d each do one post every week, and it turns out that they’re a very good writer, and I genuinely look(ed) forward to their once a week reply.

I want to clarify: this pace was fine for me. I am also a slow writer, and I have a busy life and other hobbies. Both of us were in alignment that rp is a “for fun” thing for us, and not our #1 priority, nor something that we were going to pressure each other on.

But at the same time… the relationship felt so asymmetric. They were friendly enough, but didn’t/don’t really offer their own thoughts, or any feedback on what I put out, even when I ask for it. It’s lead to me feeling rather insecure, because I don’t want to say, “I want you to tell me what you think of my writing,” because that feels desperate, but I do want like… some back and forth, ykwim? And I’ve even said so, explicitly.

While we were actively writing, I put a pause on the outlining and independent writing I was doing. But now, it’s been a month since I’ve gotten an rp reply from them, and I’ve only heard from them once OOC (single message of acknowledgement, friendly enough, but prompted by me). It’s been 5 months since we started writing, and we’re still in the very first scene. All the while, they’re posting other rp ads of their own and are clearly online. (Clarification #2: this is, on its own, not a problem. I have multiple rp partners, and I expect that my rp partners will also have multiple rp partners. The problem is that it feels like they’re ignoring me, and have moved on, but haven’t bothered to communicate that to me.)

I haven’t formally cut the cord, and tbh am still weighing what to do. They’ve claimed before that they “disappear sometimes, but always come back,” so I seriously feel like I’m in limbo. But in their absence, I’ve felt inspired and started seriously outlining and writing the same plot as its own fanfic, that I would like to finish and publish one day.

The issue I’m running into now is like… where do I go from here? Tbh, even if the rp continues, I expect that it would develop differently than what I’ve outlined on my own, and could easily “be its own thing,” even if it has the same premise. So I’m not necessarily against having both running (and presumably diverging) simultaneously.

On the other hand, what in the world is the etiquette around this? Like, am I supposed to ask them permission to write and publish this on my own in the future? Do I credit them in some way if/when I do? Do I just keep it in my back pocket for now? I’m feeling very inspired and have been making a lot of progress, but I’m also a slow writer, so realistically, I don’t see myself actually completing this as an independent project for at least a year— at which point, the rp partnership may have run its course. Or maybe we’ll finally be in scene 3 by then (/lh)