What things are taboo to you in roleplaying?

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LogicfromLogic

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Everybody has something that they don't like doing right? Maybe wrong, I don't know. Anyway, there are some subjects that people just can't get themselves over to doing. Like maybe you can't pull yourself into roleplaying a teenager no matter what their stance is, maybe you can't play animals, maybe it's something else, but you just can't bring yourself to do it. It just feels weird, awkward or wrong to you.

For me, I can't play as people who are exist in real life. I can make references to real life people but I cannot play them, that includes cannon characters well known actors play. Because I don't know them, I don't think I can play them properly and for me I get creeped out. It's not to say people who can play as real life people in roleplays are bad, I just can't do it myself and I can't do a roleplay with them as a character. To me, it invades that person's life, and I can't ever bring myself to pull it off.


What about you? Got anything that you just cannot do in a roleplay?
 
I also do not care for playing real life people. ._. Like, I wouldn't play Selena Gomez. But I WOULD totally play a character based on her though. It would just be too weird trying to be actual her. I always wondered how actors felt about doing biography movies and shows, especially about people that are still alive. O__O


I actually have a hard time playing anything that isn't human. Even if it's human-ish races like elves or an alien species that has unique but mostly human features. @____@ I dunno what it is. I guess because it's harder for me to "step in to" that kind of body and mindframe.
 
But I WOULD totally play a character based on her though
Ditto. I have a couple characters very, very mildly based on real life people. To me, especially in mature roleplays (good gawd), I can't even do based. I feel so dirty doing it.
 
  • Real life people
    I will not play real life people. o_o It just seems weird to do. I can do a 'Disney modification' on a real life person from history. With other words, take something/someone from history, choose a few bits and pieces that I want the plot to involve and then change everything else so it kind of has to do with a real life person/historical event, but at the same time so much has been changed so you can't look at it as the real person. Do a Pocahontas! Currently living people are completely off the table though. That would feel so awkward...
  • Animals
    I can play humans that can transform into animals, but I can't play animals. I don't even like to watch movies that has animals as the main characters o_o (There are exceptions. The rescuers down under is a great movie and the lion king is decent as well. But when it comes to roleplaying I wouldn't want to play as an animal.) It just seems weird to give animals human traits, and straight up trying to play an animal without the human traits wouldn't be that interesting.
  • Kids
    I can't stand kids in real life, and I know I wouldn't be able to portray a kid well if I played one. Now a days I mainly play characters that are between 18 and 25, but I can go as low as 16 or up to 30, preferably not lower or higher (this is only for main characters. Side characters that doesn't play a big part can be of pretty much any age as I don't try to get into their psyche in the same way as the MC).
  • Sci-fi
    You will never get me to play sci-fi, except if it's in a time traveling setting with a minimum amount of sci-fi. Though I do tend to do my time travel through the fantasy genre with mysterious portals and magic. *Throws away the sci-fi tag*
  • Sex scenes
    Yeeaaah... They are just awkward. I have nothing against our characters getting a bit hot and going to bed, but I don't want to write it out. Ever. I tried it a few times, and I just laughed until I started to cry cause it was so hilariously bad. DON'T LET AN ASEXUAL WRITE SEX SCENES! I can however write about sexual teasing and small amounts of foreplay if it's with the right partner and we have the right characters and it's more for the comedic aspect xD I have had some really fun roleplays in which my or my partner's character has tried soooo hard to get the other person's character into bed by turning them on in the most hilarious way possible. Then we fade to black when the other person finally gives in and drags them to bed. :9

I think that's all. There are always a few loopholes, some exceptions to the rules. While sex scenes, sci-fi and historical figures has come up in my roleplays, it tends to be extremely rare and in very small amounts. Kids as main characters (and so far even as NPCs or secondary characters) has never come up and neither have animals, and they probably never will.
 
Real life people or fandoms that used actual actors instead of something animated or what not. I can' explain why either it just felt too weird to do.

Eye gore, usually gore is something I'm squeamish about despite looking up really messed up things but generally I can write it decently, aside from eye gore I can't even get vague into it. Just makes me sick and nearly puke every time. Can't even take eye drops.

That's all I got right now, short list is short.
 
  • Already existing people/character/anything sentinel or thinks its sentinel that once existed someway at some point in time is a no. Very rarely will I make an exception.
  • Rape. The "rape culture" going around doesn't need any encouragement. Nope. Not even as a plot device, which is just as wrong as wanting my character to force themselves onto yours. Just. Nope. No exception.
  • Depicting Hetero and Lesbian smut. Sorry, but I have my reasons.
  • Historic or Modern Slice of Life roleplays. Most historic roleplays are pretty much recounting events that already happened and if dying is involved and/or requires Shakespearean level of writing to properly portray I don't want anything to do with it. As for Modern Slice of Life: I'm living it! Unless of course it follows an anime's prospective of slice of life cimplete with quirky characters and absurd events that couldn't possibly happen than I'd consider it. Besides, everything nowadays seems dark and edgy; even adults could use a little more quirkiness in their lives :3
  • Playing a damsel in distress o.o I'm so terrible at this it's not even funny. Oh, I'm held captive? This is the part where my perfectly pedicures nails come in! I got blood on my skirt? That's what bleach is for!
 
I'm on the same page as many people about not roleplaying people that exist. I also extend it to existing characters that aren't mine, period. I wouldn't be able to make a fandom roleplay and use an actual character from the series. I don't feel like I know them enough, and that a lot of things that I put them to do would be out of character, so I'm uncomfortable with it.

Also, I don't like roleplaying using female characters, or with my partner using female characters, specially if it's romance. I feel like those characters always end up being boring, two-dimensional or too similar between each other. A lot of the time too, they are so passive. I just don't like them. I'm a woman myself, I guess, and I know lots of women, yet for some reason female characters feel extremely different from actual women I know. Like they aren't women, and just a different species entirely.
 
My role playing taboos are as follows

Will never do.

Rape: This is just utterly repugnant to me, never do this, I would never accept this in an RP, even as a plot device.

Existing official characters: These are not my characters and I don't know them, I would never be the slightest bit comfortable portraying them. This extends to real and historical figures as well.

Fairly strong dislike.

Gratuitous smut/porn: I am of the mind that while romance and sex can feature in role playing and games, it should not be gratuitous. What I mean by his is that a sex scene should probably not be written unless its important and even then you need to be careful because such scenes are easy to get wrong. Additionally this dislike of mine extends to nonsensical fan service and sex appeal that isn't direct sex, some works of fiction out there really contrive their erotica, and i don't like that.

Grimdark: A term borrowed form warhammer 40.000, it refers to works of fiction in which all the struggles of the protagonists are ultimately in vain because the setting is terrible and there is no long lasting hope for things to get better.
 
Curiously enough, I always felt repulsed by the concept of typing out romance in any form. I suppose it is the romantic in me, but any relationship that surpasses platonic boundaries involving my characters always frightened me. It's the idea that, all of a sudden, I'm made aware that someone is replicating feelings of love towards a fake persona, using a fake persona, over the internet.

It's like two robots having sex. It's utterly fake and mildly disturbing.
 
I've always struggled to play happy people. This probably sounds very normal considering the edgyness of my name but I genuinely struggle to keep interest in a character I have whose demeanor involves being an eternal optimist and generally satisfied/happy most facets of their lives.

Other than that, I'm in the bandwagon of real people, rape, and such.
 
I never liked playing canon characters. Was never my strong suit and it had always felt sort of lazy. Why play as someone else's legend when you can forge your own? Of course, I do take a lot of influences from fictional characters and real people, my main character being partly inspired by Boudicca and more than a few figures from Celtic folklore, amongst a menagerie of other things.

I'm also quite bad at romance, though I find it an interesting plot device. Just not my talent, I believe. It's still fun to write the immortal conqueror awkwardly stumbling through a date, though.
 
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Pre-built characters. A actual person, a canon character, or a sheet handed to me, I just can't do it, it feels like being given to stiff a role. I can work around a general idea, but not a actual premade sheet or set of traits.

Characters with few or no weaknesses. To me, every action must have a equal and opposite reaction. Sure my character might be able to blow up planets or something comparably silly, but the same must happen to their body or mind, or it must require enough time/preparation/resources, whatever to make it at least fair. Wheres the fun in being invincible?
 
I can't play as actual people. It doesn't seem right, unless it's myself. I also cannot play as animals.
 
No no for me:

Real life people
Canon characters
Smut over plot
Animals, beasts, whatever sexual encounters with humans->this is just a no for me.
Female that attracts danger just by sneezing ultimately needing to be saved every second.
 
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Okay, here are a few of my taboos. They may match some of the other people's.

No real-life people. I don't play real people, especially those still living. I might play fictitious people based on them, but not the actual real persons. I wouldn't know how to play them, as I can't really know just what they're thinking or doing. At best, all I could do is a parody of a celebrity's public persona, and I don't think I could pull that off. Plus, should anything happen later on (a big scandal or something) then looking back at an RP featuring that real person being portrayed might be a little bit uncomfortable.

I'm okay with fictional characters, and fandom roleplays. But real life people I will NEVER play.

No in-depth sex scenes: As redblood said above, NEVER LET AN ASEXUAL WRITE SEX SCENES. Not every character I play is going to be played as asexual, but I consider sex to be a private thing, like going to the bathroom. The few such scenes my characters have been involved in have always quickly 'faded to black'. I'm not good at writing such things out, nor do I think it's even necessary since it just slows down the story and distracts rather than adds to it.

No rape: It's just a repugnant, disgusting device that's difficult to handle well with sensitivity. This sort of thing has its place, in shows like Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, but it just doesn't belong in an RP. Anyone caught doing it in a game I am hosting will have their characters unceremoniously removed from the setting -- and it won't be pretty.

No overly grimdark scenarios without real hope: Bittersweet endings are okay, but overly grim stuff where it's clear everything's going to end crappily because the world is crap ... just not my cup of tea. I go into RPs to escape from really depressing stuff, and to have fun. I don't want to be in a scenario where it's too obvious that the deck is stacked against the protagonist and there's no real hope for their situation to improve.

No super-powerful flawless omnipotent types: The characters I play are going to be human (or at least human-like: unlike others, I'm not ruling out animals), and have flaws. They're not going to be godlike beings like Marvel's Celestials or Star Trek's Q Continuum, or anything like that. It's easier to relate to a character who has limitations, faults, and so on. I can relate to Rogue, Storm, Cyclops, and Colossus. But I can't relate easily to Master Order, the In-Betweener, or other 'cosmic entity' types.

No playing helpless damsels in distress: The female characters I play are ones that are quite capable of taking care of themselves, and shouldn't need some strong male hero to help them cross the street. I will never, ever, play this type of character straight.
 
I tend to not shy away from dark themes of any nature, but pedophilia is deeply disturbing to me. It does its job well as a plot device, which is to chill the audience and display a character's depravity/evil, but personally it gets a little too upsetting for me to handle.

On a lighter note, I really don't like interactions between canon characters and OCs. I've never liked it in fics, and I especially don't like it in roleplay. Minor, plot-necessary OCs are just fine (Bruce Wayne needs a pizza delivery guy too), but as soon as those OCs become a canon character's primary source of plot/character development, it chafes me. I didn't go into XYZ canon RP only for Scruffy McSue to jump in and ruin Batman's birthday party. I understand that people want to show off their OCs, but they seriously can't expect them to get just as much attention and interaction from every single character they come across. This might sound mean, but I almost always avoid being the first to interact with an OC if I'm playing a canon character. Like I said, there's a time and a place, and I am a big supporter of original content and canon content saving 8 inches for Jesus.
 
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Well, people went over a bunch I was gonna do. So let me go over the less common ones I guess, as a hopeless romantic myself. Here's some creepy, fucked up standards I see all over the role playing world.

Fucked Up Romance Standards: Think along the lines of the following.
  • Love at first sight: Your character might get horny at first sight, I suppose. But outright love? Nah. No. Get out of here, you don't even know my character's first name. Unless they're painfully naive, they'll find it creepy.
  • "I saved you now you must love me:" If you can't see what's deranged in this sentence, you need to reevaluate your life.
  • Pre-planned destiny love: I actually find it creepy to have my character be forced to fall in love with yours because it was planned out in advance. I don't mind romantic attempts, and flirtations, but half of the fun of romance to me is the drama, the suspense. The "will they or won't they" being a legitimate plot twist, and not something planned fifty pages ago. Earn the love, let's see if the characters have any chemistry. Hey, it might turn out they don't, but scorned love is just as interesting an angle to explore as fulfilled love. If your answer to this is "but I can't fail because it would hurt me too much", you need something far more fulfilling than a role play is ever going to give you, mate. :ferret:
  • Love to the level of psychotic obsession: If your character (or, worse, you) loves one of my characters to the point of becoming a possessively obsessive lunatic who would kill in their name? Yeah, that's probably going to lose you points. Which brings me to the last one of these five points of fucked up romance standards.
  • Love as an unlockable reward: Yes, my characters might just fall in love with yours. It will probably take a while, but they just might. They might even get hitched, pregnant, or god knows what else. However, keep in mind, that if they fell in love with your character, they fell in love with who they thought your character was. If it turns out your character is a brooding, malevolent, psychotic monster, who murders people out of fits of rage and then hides their bodies? My character is not going to continue to love that person. They will leave. Now, granted, I'm not gonna be a bastard about this: If a relationship actually triggers as a result of several pages of development time between the two, there will likely be some loyalty there. So, my character might try to convince yours to change their ways and be a better person. If they refuse, though, don't expect my characters to stay. It is a bizarre and weird idea that my character should eternally love yours, even if they turn into an abusive, malevolent, violent person. I know Bioware writes their romances like this (because their romances are fucking creepy), but it's genuinely unsettling to me to have a character's entire personal motif, ideas, desires, and dreams, suddenly become irrelevant because they fell in love with someone else. To have their entire life and individuality subsumed by someone else is creepy. Don't ask this of me.
Seriously. I can deal with rape as a plot device or whatever, because that's just pure, fucked up violence. So long as it's portrayed as the horrifying thing that it is, I won't take issue with it. It's all the creepy fucks that treat love like some sort of permanent magical voodoo connection that deletes all of a character's morals, or who demand that their character's love be instantly reciprocated by mine--that's so much more fucked up when you think about it. That's basically demanding that your character capitulate to theirs because "no" is not an option.

Do you know what the definition of "no not being an option for romantic and sexual encounters" is?

Because I do.

And portraying that shit in a positive light? That's fucked up man. Please don't.
 
The concept of 'seme/uke' (and whatever the hell the equivalent is for lesbian romances) or that characters have to fall into the category of 'dominant' and 'submissive' at all times. Excuse me, the only dom/sub relationship I'm cool with is one that takes place in the bedroom. This has always skeeved me the hell out, and I tend to avoid engaging in role-plays with folks who subscribe to this line of thought. Plus, talk about boring! What fun is a character that falls over each time you blow on them? What fun is a character that always gets what they want because they're so dominant and scary? Not fun.
 
Self-insertion is probably my greatest peeve.

This falls under the category of "real life" I suppose, but more specifically when someone is RPing as themselves. This skieves me out to no end and I am thankful it is rare here. In general I suppose it has to do with individuals who have difficulty separating reality from fantasy; Who mistakingly think that your characters romantic connection also exists between the writers. Hell no.

I am happily taken and did not come here looking for some nonfiction adultery. I understand some people who do RP are actually looking for that sort of thing (Usually in the form of cybering or some such smut themed plot) but sometimes I am RPing a character that isisnt my gender or sexuality, so what makes them think I must be asking for advances? Playful flirting among friends is one thing, thinking something is actually coming from our fictional co-written story is another entirely.

TL;DR: Trying to get with a partner just because you have characters in your RP that are hooked up is the fastest way to lose me.
 
I don't have any 'taboo' things, but I definitely have things that squick me out or make me really uncomfortable!

  • Pregnancy
  • Playing real life people
And also stuff I just really prefer the alternative to

  • Playing canons in a fandom
  • Planned endings
  • Planned relationships
 
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