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Why I hate text-based rps now
8 years ago
"If you're falling down, I'll be right there to catch you. If you feel alone, you know I got you...
This all started in my sophomore year of high school. I had just gotten through my first year of nothing I would consider bullying against me. I've met some of the most amazing people who've made me smile harder than I thought was possible. Life was good, and I started making friends again. New friends I was acquiring re-introduced me to chat-based rp (my sister taught me it years and years ago shortly into middle school for a short while). With these new friends of mine, we made story after story after story of seemingly endless rps. I was loving it so freaking much. One by one, we got a couple other people to join in.
Then, halfway through my Senior year, I took priority of other things. I was on the rp stuff less and less. Then it all stopped before the February I graduated. Now, I don't rp at all anymore. I even go so far as to say rps sap my energy. I want to explain how I see why that is.
1.) Rps were the main reasons how I made and kept friends. Or, at least a select group of them. And the things is, I knew these people in real life. I could visit them regularly, as they could me. Once I had made my friends... that was it. I was finding more and more ways to bond with people rather than just role-play out characters we create. RPs were no longer needed to make and keep friends.
2.) Going along with that, I was able to keep a healthy balance between physical interaction and technical interaction. These were people I could, a majority of the time, see the next day and say face-to-face how much fun we're having, and talk about other things in the meantime. Now I'm out of high school, half a country away from those people, and facing more pressing matters like getting a job and being able to drive.
3.) Now that I'm more mature and able to understand the world around me in bigger context, rps do not provide a discussion I want out of a conversation. Rps are little more than childish games that no longer provide the same meaning it had when I first began. I want to have serious conversations and not get all wrapped-up in confusing impressions going back and forth between real and fantasy feelings. Which brings me to-
4.) Inside the furry community especially, the people in my age group put waaaaaaaaaay too much emphasis on rping "true feelings" through characters that don't exist outside their minds. They're too damn quick to say "I... I love you! *snuggles* Do you... love me back?" and role-play a relationship out of that as if they're dating the actual character they're reading about. They LOVE the character/per/fur/whatever-sona, but they haven't the faintest idea who the other person is on the other side of the screen. It's just not for me. They get wrapped-up in emotions on identities that don't exist. In my mind, that's little more than talking to a mannequin. (Some people actually prefer talking to mannequins. In that case, more power to ya, buddy. It's just not for me.) And to claims made that fursonas represent the user entirely, I'm just gonna leave this here; fursonas are more or less the *ideal* characterization of the user. Otherwise, the user would be using their own body type, their own attitudes, their own thoughts, their own backstory, etc. It's much easier to love a character in a book when you can imagine how they look and sound, rather than a real-life person who also fits the same character description.
And those are my main 4 points why I do not care for rps. Now, I'll say this now, I love role-playing games like D&D and other similar tabletop games, the Elder Scrolls series, possibly Dragon Age, so on and so forth. That is NOT the same as rping with someone via text-based messaging. In the games I mentioned, you're role-playing with a simulation. Something that has little to no personal ties with role-playing in the first place. In fact, that would be the actual rping I was doing with my friends back in school. Simulating an entire fantasy world and playing a clearly defined character that does not represent the user in their entirety- or at least what they want their entirety to be.
Then, halfway through my Senior year, I took priority of other things. I was on the rp stuff less and less. Then it all stopped before the February I graduated. Now, I don't rp at all anymore. I even go so far as to say rps sap my energy. I want to explain how I see why that is.
1.) Rps were the main reasons how I made and kept friends. Or, at least a select group of them. And the things is, I knew these people in real life. I could visit them regularly, as they could me. Once I had made my friends... that was it. I was finding more and more ways to bond with people rather than just role-play out characters we create. RPs were no longer needed to make and keep friends.
2.) Going along with that, I was able to keep a healthy balance between physical interaction and technical interaction. These were people I could, a majority of the time, see the next day and say face-to-face how much fun we're having, and talk about other things in the meantime. Now I'm out of high school, half a country away from those people, and facing more pressing matters like getting a job and being able to drive.
3.) Now that I'm more mature and able to understand the world around me in bigger context, rps do not provide a discussion I want out of a conversation. Rps are little more than childish games that no longer provide the same meaning it had when I first began. I want to have serious conversations and not get all wrapped-up in confusing impressions going back and forth between real and fantasy feelings. Which brings me to-
4.) Inside the furry community especially, the people in my age group put waaaaaaaaaay too much emphasis on rping "true feelings" through characters that don't exist outside their minds. They're too damn quick to say "I... I love you! *snuggles* Do you... love me back?" and role-play a relationship out of that as if they're dating the actual character they're reading about. They LOVE the character/per/fur/whatever-sona, but they haven't the faintest idea who the other person is on the other side of the screen. It's just not for me. They get wrapped-up in emotions on identities that don't exist. In my mind, that's little more than talking to a mannequin. (Some people actually prefer talking to mannequins. In that case, more power to ya, buddy. It's just not for me.) And to claims made that fursonas represent the user entirely, I'm just gonna leave this here; fursonas are more or less the *ideal* characterization of the user. Otherwise, the user would be using their own body type, their own attitudes, their own thoughts, their own backstory, etc. It's much easier to love a character in a book when you can imagine how they look and sound, rather than a real-life person who also fits the same character description.
And those are my main 4 points why I do not care for rps. Now, I'll say this now, I love role-playing games like D&D and other similar tabletop games, the Elder Scrolls series, possibly Dragon Age, so on and so forth. That is NOT the same as rping with someone via text-based messaging. In the games I mentioned, you're role-playing with a simulation. Something that has little to no personal ties with role-playing in the first place. In fact, that would be the actual rping I was doing with my friends back in school. Simulating an entire fantasy world and playing a clearly defined character that does not represent the user in their entirety- or at least what they want their entirety to be.
