Cliché Roleplays and Why They've Become Tedious...

Vanity Evolved · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Vanity Evolved** on Sat Jul 23, 2011 5:21 pm

I assume it's along the same lines of other popular media - Twilight got quite popular, now there's huge hate for. Hater's gonna' hate, and all that.

I can't say I've ever really felt they were tedious, but it's admittedly a bit of a pain. Vampires are one of the big things at the moment, so obviously, they've flared right up. True Blood, Twilight, Vampire Diaries, etc. And there's usually some crossover; 'highschool' has seemingly become a suffix, just like fantasy. You can slap it on anything, and someone will generally buy it (It's highschool, with vampires! It's highschool, but with superpowers! It's highschool, for Witchcraft and Wizardry! It's highschool, but with kung fu reincarnations of Three Kingdom heroes who are also lesbians!)

I don't think theres anything innately wrong with cliches, I think it's simply the -amount-. If you heard about a vampire romance before Twilight, you'd probably shrug it off. But after months of fangirls, flailing about the new box office hit and five hundred roleplays spawn overnight of 'Mortal girl who gets with a dark, broody vampire'? Suddenly, it's horribly tired and easy to get annoyed with. The actual cliches/tropes tend to be what make the genre recognizable as they are, but it's kind of like booze, I like to think. It's nice on occasion. Leaves you feeling a bit irritable after a few more. And eventually, you just want to be ill and go to sleep.

Harlequin Smile · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Harlequin Smile** on Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:45 pm

Sturgeons Law.

Past that, let them be, guys. If this is what people want, then let them do it. Arent hurting anybody. I'm in the same boat after all, sifting through piles of magical vampire high school RPs to find things I might actually want to play. Thing is though, this post has gathered a few like minded people together, so instead of complaining about how you want things to be, go and make it be. (Yay, english.) Advertise it well, draw in some creative and dedicated people, and get rolling.

dealing with it · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **dealing with it** on Mon Aug 15, 2011 12:38 pm

If someone's game is, unbeknownst to them, a cliche, how would they recognize it? And, importantly, how would they fix it?

Mr.Johnapillar · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Mr.Johnapillar** on Wed Aug 17, 2011 8:05 pm

I think the problem is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of work put into roleplays. I agree that this generation is so immensely lazy. We have computers that make writing easier. We have cars that make travel easier. Left and right a new device comes in to our lives to make it easier. Why should writing and making rolaplays be hard? It's not particularly easy to come up with and explain a setting, plot, and rules. And in the case of Fantasy roleplays, sometimes you have to create an entire world for everyone to be a part of.

If there were a way to rouse up the youngsters out of their "lazy coma" then I'm sure this site would be bursting with incredibly well thought-out games for us all to play. Until such a method is created, we're kinda stuck with "Vampires with Magic Academy~!"

Ephemeral Rhapsody · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Ephemeral Rhapsody** on Fri Aug 19, 2011 1:21 pm

I gotta say I agree with pretty much everyone here >.>
We're like a small club that hate the popular kids, lol.

Honestly, though, every site you go on for RPing (Or that I found anyways) was filled with high school, vampires, fandoms, or wild animals (Cats, wolf packs, equines usually) and it's just annoying. Some of them were legitemaly good, I'm sure but I think the problem is the userbase age and their life experiences... They seem to be stuck in a horrible rut.

Vampires used to all be Anne Rice styled or anime but now because of Twilight the threads for it just exploded with additional numbers.

One of the main problems I find is that these people who RP one-liners, simple characters, or have next to no originality are very common while people who look for more 'literate' or novelesque RPs are very few and strewn out over hundreds of RPing sites and you can't easily please us as most have developed standards unique to themselves or became mistrusting of others because of so many bad experiences. And then we have all different desires in setting which makes it harder for us to mesh.

When we do try to create something more to our liking and level, the responses we get are few in the positive and I've received many many "It seems complicated" "You ask for too much." or "Why can't I do this or that? Your world isn't "free" enough." It's very depressing. It's like being in high school again with kids who complain to the teacher that a 500 word essay in grade 12 is too much to ask as they can't write that much...

I did make a guide about this, to show the one-liners or generic RPers a new way to do things but you can't beat them, I think.

LawOfTheLand · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **LawOfTheLand** on Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:19 pm

One major thing to point out about cliches is that they don't appear to be that way once they're deconstructed. Effects are clearly explained, limits are well-defined, the setting is fleshed out, and perhaps most importantly, all of this is presented with a strong command of the language. I mean, consider the difference between these two roleplays. (These are merely presented for the sake of argument.)

One has a group of humans that so happen to be teenagers being chosen to fight a zombie horde because they are curiously immune to the effects of the "Z-Virus", with detailed explanations of the equipment the kids are receiving as well as the abilities of the various sorts of zombies they'll be holding off while the Center for Disease Control tries desperately to find a cure in time. All of this is explained with good grammar, impeccable spelling, and just enough formatting to make the layout pleasing to the eye. This sounds like it has a good plot, with strong characters and a well-defined setting, right?

Now put the shoe on the other foot. The second RP in question involves teenagers fighting a horde of demons with the aid of magic weapons that a mysterious agent gives them. That's all you're given in the introduction, and even then it's a challenge to sift through the all-lowercase post with a minimum of punctuation (if any) and spelling mistakes/text-speak everywhere. It's basically the same RP as the first one, but the GM makes no effort to explain the setting, plot or motivation any further than that.

Now, I ask you, which RP would you rather join and participate in?

Ephemeral Rhapsody · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Ephemeral Rhapsody** on Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:17 pm

QB: Hah, I totally forgot to mention that.

Grammar and proper writing skills make a huge difference in who does and doesn`t join the RP. I know that many more advanced player will entirely stop reading if they see blatant grammar or spelling mistakes every few words or where there is text speak. It automatically puts us in the mode of thinking `This is not what I want.`. It`s like reading someone`s resume and noticing they even misspelled their name... You know something`s wrong there.

If it something is properly written, presented in an organized fashion, and maybe flared up with colors and images in an esthetic way, people are more likely to join because it`s of higher quality than something written in 2 lines with text speak...

I see often RPs being made that I can`t bear to finish reading the intro, and I skim read, just because of the mistakes. They might be some brilliant GM waiting to shine down upon the world but he sure as a red radish won`t attract anyone.

FizzGig · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **FizzGig** on Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:29 pm

Since we're on the subject of proper grammar (although indirectly, it's fair to mention that I'm pulling the topic out of a myriad of others and expanding upon it), one thing that I've commonly noticed in the Chat is that, when a new user or a young user comes on and attempts to roleplay, they tend to present with the typical symptomatic set of misuse of capitols, bad grammar, unvaried sentence structure, and highly underdeveloped characters. We see this problem, and mostly ignore it, or in other cases the user is bashed for these habits and very few people take the initiative to reach out and attempt to teach the person a few pointers.

Admittedly, some of them don't want help, but I can't tell you how many times I've roleplayed with people of questionable grammatical experience and found that by merely setting an example (and not forcing my writing style/ideas on the other person) I've been able to help improve their writing after the first few posts. It's the Monkey-See-Monkey-Do affect. Have we considered that people don't improve their writing styles because, perhaps, they feel it won't do them any good in the long run? If they're ignored or put down, then they become discouraged, and that only moves a person backwards.

I'm a Mentor, and helping other people improve their writing styles is my job on this site, but that doesn't mean that other users, more experienced ones, can't help pitch in and sort of pick up a noobie too.

VitaminHeart · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **VitaminHeart** on Tue Aug 23, 2011 7:04 am

Personally I don't mind cliche RPs to a degree. Sometimes I want a good, old-fashioned, good-vs-evil punch-up that not too complicated rather than an intricate plot, just like sometimes I want to eat McDonalds for lunch rather than making some healthy pasta.

The trouble for me, I think is that when I do want an RP I can really get my teeth into, I can't find one. They're buried. Buried under about eight RPs about five teenage maids with cat-ears sharing a mansion with five brooding half-demon half-vampire assassins, and that makes me sad. Sad as I really want an RP right now with a strong plot, and something that's not based to a huge degree on romance. There seems to be a big focus on many RPs here, moreso than a lot of other sites I've been on, about hooking characters up, and making the pairing-up integral to the RP itself rather than a side-plot that might happen.

I'd also, however agree that potential cliche topics are very much about how they're handled by the OP, and the people taking part. One of the RPs I'm in now has a big focus on vampires and werewolves, but I've got to say it turned out to be really good fun as the people involves were committed to making an interesting and complex world with lots of plotting, back-stabbing, and fighting for power. It allowed for people to consider the nature of the creatures and de-construct them. How does a vampire cope psychologically with their life? Do they become apathetic, hedonistic or psychopathic? How would someone highly religious cope with being a werewolf? Could they justify their existence as something 'evil' to themselves? It allowed for a bit of exploration that I really find interesting.

I mean, the maids with cat-ears may be some variety of strange, unknown creature and could any moment go all 'Cat People (The 1942 film)' on everyone. Chances are if someone makes an RP like that, they won't though. They'll just have cat ears because they're cat ears.

I guess you could say I have more of a thing against cliches used without any decent grounding or explanation. Things that look like they're there just because the person wanted them there, rather than they thought it would actually contribute to the story as a whole. Sometimes topics just feel like they've had vampire/ninja/pirate/demon/werewolf/wolf/cat/neko/magic/superpowers pasted on. The plot would still be exactly the same without them, but they're there anyway. I think that's where, with me RPs can become tiresome.

Cliché Roleplays and Why They've Become Tedious...

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