The Fall of Modern Role Playing

We all have our pasts when it comes to writing and when we started. Yet I wonder how many people started Role Playing on some known or unknown website before they got their start in hardcore writing? I started on some unknown board way back in 2005 and it was pretty basic asterisk for action and talking without quotation marks. You know...the basic illiterate Rp. After a year or two I stumbled across Gaia Online. Now it was there that I started getting into a more series, well back in those days it was more literate, RP style and my old asterisk habits ended. Yet it still wasn't enough. I had the pleasure of playing Fire Emblem for the GBA and found a very literate RP site for Fire Emblem called Fire Emblem RPG. I was tested and forced to think more creatively and push my imagination to the limit. I was enthralled, taking what I learned there to all kinds of boards of Rpers who felt my passion for whatever game/anime it may have been. It was the satisfaction of creating a story with others, melding your thoughts and stories into one great tale of epic proportions. Then slowly...I started noticing, that things were changing ever so slightly. This wasn't just an internet fad that was for the intellectual and literate up and coming writers who wanted to get insight and experience. This was spreading all over the world to people who wanted to give a shot at their creative alter ego. "Great! Now everyone can experience the same things I have over the past two years." is what I thought at first. Only, in a sense that may have been a bad thing...

We're going to skip ahead to the present, four years after my initial immersion into the world of Role Playing. I had made many friends, fought many battles, loved, lost, died, revived, etc. But the world I first entered, felt different. I took a break from Rping to do other things and seek other sources of inspiration or creative muse. I came back not to recently only to find that everything has changed. Places I used to hold in high regard for their strict literate and meaningful Rp's had their standards drastically dropped and was reduced to a myriad of Rp threads that were so far over used and dry that it was even pointless to read the "plot" summary because a five year old who has watched five minutes of a Lord of the Rings movie could come up with the same recycled junk. I was almost sickened thinking that these are the people that are leading the way for future Role Players. Are these really the best role models for the future?

Despite the obvious lack of creativity in most Rp's some of the trends I've seen are as follows:

1. Lack of story progression...or any movement for that matter. I used to travel all over, see many things, fight and adventure it up. Yet I see none of that in most of these Rp's. They are rooted in one place or another fighting each other in some moody or overly optimistic setting. All of them a wide variety of random races and/or super powered and apparently are all love starved. No one put a barrier over that forest you are in you overly depressing, super powered, moron. Go out and see the world, maybe you'll find out that the world isn't as dark as you would think.

2. Did someone say Plot? I think you misheard. If anyone thinks those Vampire Mansion Rp's or most of the action/war Rp's have a plot then you are obviously delusional or you misheard something. Alongside the ties with #1 the rp's I've seen recently have no real plot besides a vague description and sometimes a "what side will you choose?" added in for extra spice. It is good because that allows for a more open character creation process but when the description is so vague that all I know is that there is a war, some sides, and some bias sounding description of the sides then I have my own extremely vague perception of the war, as does everyone else who has joined. Yet there is a huge difference between creating a story with others and fusing thoughts and ideas into one beautiful outcome when we are all on the same page as to what happens when we are not on the same page do to the "plot" summary of the RP.

3. Vampires and other overused Races. There are too many bodily fluids of way too many people seeping out of these races to even want to begin to talk about them. Humans ftw!

4. These titles seem to remind me of something. If you thought the Plot of these Rp's are bad. The titles of them vary from shit-ton worse or on par with. Also the fact that after scrolling through thirteen pages of two different rp boards hoping to find one thread amidst the overwhelming amount of junk that reminded me of what I used to expect from an Rp I noticed that most of the titles sounded like they could be second rate Eroge games. That turned me off more from them than I already was.

5. These characters have the personality of a wet cardboard box. I feel like most of the characters I see are bland and empty. Either trying to hard to be cool and end up being annoying, Trying to be mysterious and charming but end up being depressing and just stupid altogether. It takes time to develop a character seriously with a personality, strengths, weaknesses, back story, etc. In order to jump right in people make shells of characters who are hollow and convenient for what's needed at the time. Actually I'd rather Rp with a wet cardboard box than some of these characters.

6. Fights are meant to end buddy. Last time I checked Rp's aren't Shōnen anime. There is no need to drag fights on more than a few posts depending on circumstance and how many people are involved in the fight. But the point is someone has to end the fight, but the pride of the creators won't allow their creations to be beaten. In the end it always ends in some form of stalemate. And later on they always come back for seconds 10x stronger than before...with new powers and skills that appeared over a short period of time. It becomes a never-ending proverbial penis measuring competition.

7. Ummm...Romance is supposed to be you know...Romantic. If by chance your Rp involves or allows Romance to be a theme then please if you decide to get close to another character make it romantic and not the major underlying theme of your characters progression. If you are fighting a war and are a soldier then be a soldier first and slowly work toward the romance part, not side-track from the story to get some alone time with the princess. The romance in most of these Rp's are too quick and once again seem to progress like that of an Eroge game. Oh...one more thing. "An all girls/boys school of [enter race name here....most likely will be vampire] and a bus filled with human boys/girls breaks down in front of it" Rp is not Romantic. Those do not make your heart skip a beat when you read it. Things like those belong on fan-fic websites.

There was a time where my friend and I would adventure all across the land fighting and adventuring our way through enemies, finding defeat and victory time and time again. Experiencing new things, people, places, all with their own story to tell, personality that you could relate with and who weren't there for "shits-n-giggles". We had witty and meaningful dialogue, trained when we had free time, healed when we lost, and we could do it in a post or two without dragging it on and on for two pages. We advanced the storyline with little to no filler and everything had a purpose. We gained new powers but not until we progressed and trained to do so. Or obtained a certain spell or weapon after saving someone. Romance was subtle or not at all. The Characters had personality and had a wide variety of emotions. Those were the Good ol' Days back when Seno and Mahtan roamed the world in search of adventure.

I still have hope for the world of Role Playing, a small amount of the respect I once had for it still remains when I stumble across a good thread or find a good site, whether it be big or small and refuse to submit to the ways of the vampire mansion or the "gifted" school rpers. It'll be a big war, but those of us who stand up for originality or feel the same as I do will one day bring back the guidance that was lost in all the background noise and light of the present day Internet.