Over and Underused Roleplay premises

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Rikisya

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In you're eyes, what are overused RP premises and the underused types of RP?

Are you guilty of making an overused RP? If so, do tell.
 
Probably the most overused group roleplay premise of all time is the generic high school setting with some "unique" twist. "We're all high school students... with super powers!!!" "We're all high school students... but we're vampires!!!" "We're all high school students... but half of us are demons and the other half are angels!!!" It's so overplayed and tedious that at this point if I see terms like 'high school' or 'academy' in the title of a roleplay I pass it by without a second glance. I have never made one, and the only way I would in the future is if it was a parody.

As for underused, ehh... Any premise in a fantasy world other than "X is a problem, let's save the world by doing Y" is rather rare. I enjoy a nice low-key fantasy thing every now and then, with the Tolkien races and some magic but most people are normal people just trying to make their way in the world and solve their own personal problems. Y'know, the kind of material that would be classed as low fantasy in literature.
 
Yeah, pretty much everything High School is done and done and done and done. And yet.... I never get tired of it! XD

What I DO get burned out on hardcore is the whole Angels vs Demons roleplays. They always end up where the demons aren't really evil and the angels are assholes.


UNDER-used? Anything Modern Sci-Fi. O__O You never see modern setting with aliens. Or slightly more advanced sci-fi tech. No androids or robots. Etc. etc. When it's scifi, it's always space travel sci-fii.
 
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I couldn't agree more, there are a lot of _____ High School or Highschool for ______ RP out there which isn't necessarily bad or anything.

As for underused will be Sports RP especially for non fandom ones, such as soccer, or basket which need an immense amount of roleplayer to participate
 
A fairly overused premise I often see is where characters are trapped in a Virtual Reality MMO game. It's not as prominent as the Highschool setting already mentioned thrice before me, but I've noticed it fairly frequently.

As for underused premises, I was always a fan of the Overlord-esque premises, where the characters are the Demon Kings / Dark Lords / Evil Rulers in control of an army of monsters and trying to conquer the world or something similar. They don't happen often enough for me~

I also haven't seen the sword and planet subgenre around Iwaku yet, but granted I probably haven't been around long enough to notice it.
 
Overused? Hmm.. I haven't been around here long at all, but in general- anime style RPG's. Not that it's a negative. I just dont understand when it's all just in writing, anyhow. xD

Underused- like someone stated above. I don't see a lot of low-fantasy, with under-powered characters. This is why, when i get back from my marriage/honeymoon in a week, i'll be posting up a group RP thread garnering interest for some such thing ;).

Also- sword and planet is something i've wanted to do for years!!
 
Overused

-> High School, definitely High School. Though I think I know why.

Most people's experiences of High School tend to be... less than positive.
At least among writers, geeks, nerds etc. Usually the main memories involving having isolate themselves due to bullying or simply not fitting in.
But this is during their Teen's, when they're meant to be young, full of energy.

This leaves a good amount of "I wish it could be like X" in both current high schoolers and adults who are done with it.
This is what I believe spawns all the High School RPs, trying to imagine a better teenage years.

-> Fandom Universes.

Not direct Fandom's where they play characters from the show itself. But Fandom universes. Pokemon universe, Avatar Universe, Game of Thrones universe, Fate Universe etc. There's a ton of great works out there in books, tv, movies and games. It makes sense people want to take part in those universes, but with their own characters and stories.

-> Vampires.

In all honesty, I just blame Twilight for this one. Most 1x1 Libertine/Liberteen style RP's I've seen across RP sites have had vampires.
Most fantasy RP's tend to include Vampires somehow also.

Now to their credit, very few of these actually do the Twilight style of Vampires.
But this spike only seemed to be a thing since Twilight had became a hit.

Maybe older roleplayers than me can correct me on this though.

Underused

-> Stuck in an MMO

Honestly I find this one to be an underused premise. Mainly because this is a premise I love in narratives, and in all my time roleplaying I haven't seen a single RP like this wasn't an SAO Fandom RP.
Closest to one I actually took part in was years ago, and it was really a High School RP but where all the characters also knew each other through an MMO... So clearly they weren't stuck. XD

-> Universe RP's

I've only see two like this, Iwaku's own Illium, and the Star Wars one I admined years ago.

I get why this is rare though, it takes far more effort (and luck) than other RP's to get going.
And once you do get it going you often need your own forum category or website entirely to keep it alive.

Edit: Actually I was really stupid here... Because I'm in two other's at the moment. The Murder Games and The Otherverse. I only joined these two relatively recently though, so I kind of forgot for a moment about the fact there was a giant universe behind it that I personally just haven't taken part in.

-> Parodies

Most RP's seem to be wanting to take themselves seriously. Even if the universe is rather silly and exaggerated the players usually still want to make a narrative behind it with the intention of going somewhere. Rarely do I see an forum RP where the purpose is to tease something, or just be ridiculous. That tends to be more popular in D&D than in forums.
 
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-> Stuck in an MMO

Honestly I find this one to be an underused premise. Mainly because this is a premise I love in narratives, and in all my time roleplaying I haven't seen a single RP like this wasn't an SAO Fandom RP.
Closest to one I actually took part in was years ago, and it was really a High School RP but where all the characters also knew each other through an MMO... So clearly they weren't stuck. XD
You should've started RPing with me earlier, then.

I had a roleplay way back when that was sort of like this -- except that the players weren't really stuck, at least not 100% of the time. They could leave whenever they wanted, except for when their life was in danger, because then, well, what fun would that be, if everyone could avoid getting defeated that easily??

Except, of course, when a player dies in the game, they died in real life,

BUT THE THING WAS,

Most of the players didn't actually know that. It was generally assumed that anyone who died in-game was either banned or forced to get a new character or something. And the few people who did suspect that the game was actually killing people were generally written off as crazy conspiracy theorists, so the notion was rarely taken seriously.

Which means that this game turned people into murderers and none of the players even knew it.

...Thinking about it now kind of makes me want to reboot it someday.

-> Parodies

Most RP's seem to be wanting to take themselves seriously. Even if the universe is rather silly and exaggerated the players usually still want to make a narrative behind it with the intention of going somewhere. Rarely do I see an forum RP where the purpose is to tease something, or just be ridiculous. That tends to be more popular in D&D than in forums.
This might be because players and GM's (especially GM's...) might not want to put so much effort into running an RP that's just supposed to be for a few laughs, which would probably start to get old for a while. I mean, think about how long some group RP's can last, and just how slowly RP-time often moves.

Plus, I feel like it would be harder to get people invested in an actual plot when there's no real tension to motivate their characters.

That's not to say that an RP can't have a lot of humor in it -- but I feel like it would need a balance of other elements to stay afloat. An RP that's purely supposed to be a parody seems like it would be difficult to do. It's also the reason why Fandomstuck spends so much of its time being so serious even though the premise seems so ridiculous on the surface. I like having some of that in my RP's, sue me.
 
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You should've started RPing with me earlier, then.
Eh... :/

My past debate crazy self + my rather cringe-worthy writing?
If we had done that I don't think you have still wanted me in the RP that ended up moving to Iwaku. :P
I had a roleplay way back when that was sort of like this -- except that the players weren't really stuck, at least not 100% of the time. They could leave whenever they wanted, except for when their life was in danger, because then, well, what fun would that be, if everyone could avoid getting defeated that easily??

Except, of course, when a player dies in the game, they died in real life,

BUT THE THING WAS,

Most of the players didn't actually know that. It was generally assumed that anyone who died in-game was either banned or forced to get a new character or something. And the few people who did suspect that the game was actually killing people were generally written off as crazy conspiracy theorists, so the notion was rarely taken seriously.

Which means that this game turned people into murderers and none of the players even knew it.

...Thinking about it now kind of makes me want to reboot it someday.
So essentially they couldn't log off in the middle of combat? :P

Also, wouldn't the real world have caught on going "Oh shit, why are so many people dying while playing this?".
This might be because players and GM's (especially GM's...) might not want to put so much effort into running an RP that's just supposed to be for a few laughs, which would probably start to get old for a while. I mean, think about how long some group RP's can last, and just how slowly RP-time often moves.

Plus, I feel like it would be harder to get people invested in an actual plot when there's no real tension to motivate their characters.

That's not to say that an RP can't have a lot of humor in it -- but I feel like it would need a balance of other elements to stay afloat. An RP that's purely supposed to be a parody seems like it would be difficult to do. It's also the reason why Fandomstuck spends so much of its time being so serious even though the premise seems so ridiculous on the surface. I like having some of that in my RP's, sue me.
That's more or less what I was trying to say.
But you worded it better. :P
 
Also, wouldn't the real world have caught on going "Oh shit, why are so many people dying while playing this?".
Shhhhh this is not the time nor place to discuss my plotholes.
 
'Stuck in an MMO' has only been made popular recently, so I can't say if it's overused or underused. But yeah, I do want a regular MMO experience. No magic super science trapping.

High School Settings are overused, which is why I make 'em Middle Schools. Not that it makes much of a difference. School settings themselves are overused to the point of becoming a staple for settings. It's still fun to play around with though.

All-all crossovers are close to overused. At the end of it all, it's execution.