Anyone have any Roleplay Horror stories?

[Sky]

We've all been there, ready to start a new roleplay, ready to receive a starter, and then what comes through is a one liner, or worse, a two or three worder. Or someone starts off well, but degrades as time goes along, and they get lazy.

I think the worst one I've ever received happened two or three months ago, and is what caused me to almost entirely stop roleplaying, for fear or similar things.

Now, this person had a mildly interesting character, Jack of all Trades sort of type, card related. Seemed interesting, grammar was a bit off, but I've dealt with worse.

I asked them for a roleplay, and they agreed. The starter I got?

"*hands u a deck of cards*"

Anyone else have any bad experiences they'd like to recount?

[Sailu]

oh man where do i start there was this one RP with a pretty good premise that looked good so i wrote a paragraph as the first entry to the RP and got hit with a pretty much a one liner, and i was like...ehhhh.... what did i get myself into then tried to work with it for about 10-15 posts then just up and left...i normally don't do that i'm a kind hearted and would tell you if i was leaving but i just didn't have it in me so i just quit it..

[moonshineTheleocat]

I have a few.

The First:

There is a forum on the internet that I frequent and still do. There has been plenty of roleplays that I loved that lasted for half a year, came to an end, and then had a sequel. Well... one of the worst ones isn't just the role-play it's self, but the people that do get involved sometimes. So... on this forum, there are two players who have eventually became so well known, that people will actually curse and cry when they see their application. Not only did they have a habit of creating one liners.... but they had in incredible tendency to completely TURN around an entire story that the creator had intended, and centralize it on themselves. They even had an annoying habit of going off in a completely wrong direction, to go do something completely different that has nothing to do with the story nor the character's background. And when everyone abandons the RP. (I mean literally, they stop posting, even the creator of it) These guys keep going. Now... normally, I am a nice guy, and will let anyone join. But when it comes to really serious and structured rps... I am selective. Really old DnD Dungeon Master trait really after a few burns here and there in a campaign. After these guys... I actually started paying attention to reoccurring trends with players, and denied applications on sight.

The Second One:

This is not a forum, but this was a burn I got as a Dungeon Master for a pathfinder campaign. The group of players I was with is fairly new to roleplaying, and they only got into DnD after watching the gamers. TO make the matters worse, is that these were my closest friends. AND THEY KNOW that if I have to put an incredible amount of my free time, it upsets me greatly when something is ruined. Why they did this I don't know. But... here is what happened.

I was holding a campaign for my friends, I did not put a lot of effort into it's design because A. They were new to roleplaying. And B. They just jacked around. One was kinda serious, and I wouldn't mind holding another campaign for, the other one... acted insane, and for what ever given reason, he'd role a seduction as a fighter... any time a female came around. Regardless if it was a human or a kobold (did happen...).

Then came the fateful day that they both came up to me asked for a real campaign. They have heard stories of my campaigns from other players. Both them being viciously hard, punishing, and entertaining at the same time with a good story. None the wiser, I thought they were ready for one, and went ahead and spent three months... three fricken months designing maps with huge paper, water colors, quills, and ink, designing the lore for the lands (25% of it)and even creating a scale for it (the continent was about 1.5x larger than North America's surface area. And I was pretty excited for this.

Came the day that I saw the character sheets. One... was fine, sorcerer. The other is a druid. The last...... was for some god awful reason a paladin with a wisdom of 3.... and a int of 6. It was dice pool. He did not have to allow it to be like this. So... I just let it slide. Well on the day of the introduction, I could not even get past the first three sentences before I was asked by the player who has the paladin, if the kid had candy or not. I did not answer and continued. The player then proceeded to have his PALADIN assault the stupid kid. Well... I made a note on my pad that the paladin had automatically fallen, and looked back up to the player. The child was brutally knocked out, and searched in front of a screaming crowd. The player asked about candy. (Apparently he decided it would be brilliant after I told him what a low wisdom would output for any character. Insanity, the reason why he let his paladin's wisdom stoop so low.) He didn't find any sweets, and was instead chased by the town guard.

The sorceror now... decided to kill the kid. ROLLED A NAT 20 (which gives thirty for skills.) Normally this wouldn't pass... but who knew the fricken viscani was so OP in the tongue?! It actually amounted later to be a 54 or something... which was enough to make the paladins not fully believe it and go up to the kid to inspect him, thinking he was some sort of demon or something. Sorceror then used a spell that allowed him to control one of the paladins, convince the rest that it was a demon... and they slaughtered him

Few hours later, and me now rubbing my brows in frustration. Paladin is crippled, sorceror is inconspicuous, and the druid is being meek..... the paladin decapitates the king who's announcing the speech... something about not serving waffles... after that I just slammed my hands down on the table, called Dwarf Golem to destroy the campaign, and stormed out.

[Sky]

Wow, that's... One hell of a slap in the face. I applaud your restraint, honestly. I likely would have flipped the table and yelled at them a bit, before walking out and yelling some more. I've always been interested in D&D, yet I've never played it; Even I know how bad that's gotta be. I do hope you've found better players since then, who appreciate your work.

Also, I hope I don't come across either of those users on here.

[moonshineTheleocat]

I know their names, and I know how they type. And I know exactly what avatars they will use. I can identify them pretty quickly. And thanks, I hadn't found any new players yet, so right now I am just working on a throw down dungeon that I had entered into a contest previously, and got second place for it (Thanks to it being unfinished).

It's known as The Unforgiving Trials, a name I reused from a private forum RP I had with another. Dungeon in another plane, owned by a sphinx by the name of Eruduite. He does not look like a normal sphinx (lacks the human face, and instead has the full cat face. Has deep blue eyes with no pupils (possible to look so deep into them that you can find small images. Actually, it's required at some point for you to look through them to get a working hint on one of the eventual puzzles.). And walks on two legs. The dungeon is greatly inspired by Egyptian culture, and some philosophical concepts. The dungeon has fifty different levels, and is as large as downtown dallas on each floor. Puzzles, traps, and riddles are located EVERYWHERE, and logic is also broken to solve some of the puzzles. It's also very possible to go the wrong direction. The best part is the end...

At the begining Erudites voice could be heard,

"Oh, come in my lovely guest.

These trials await your best.

Take a moment and desire your reward,

a tender soul, a lover, or a hoard.

Herald to thy mountains flourish

and over the beacons in the forest.

I know of your quest for evil's bane.

Delectably so, now enter the halls main.

Be sure to come prepared....

for splendor life or decay.

This was a partial riddle made in a lazy poem comment. It gave instructions on what to do. If you did not define your reward... you will get nothing when you complete the dungeon.

For a dungeon this big... there are a few natural gimmicks to it. The first one is, you do not need to explore the entire dungeon to get out. In fact, if you know what you are doing, you would only go through seven floors, and your characters will be out in four days. That's without metagaming, without guessing. If you don't know what you are doing, and you can not get on track... the characters will likely starve if they don't start cooking fallen monsters or harvesting scarce mushrooms and bugs..... they will die in a ingame month and a half. If they do that, then they can probably survive for a little longer. They will not be able to leave till they die, or they complete the dungeon, as the door disappears when they enter.

If they don't have a way to repair their weapons, they better bring spares. And new characters will not be able to enter without a high level teleportation scroll. One way.

[Sky]

Wow, that's pretty deep. I approve of it.

Also, that's amazing level design, I love the idea of searching through such things, solving puzzles, trying to avoid traps... I need to play D&D one day, I really do. Although whenever I do a group roleplay, my friends tell me I'm better suited as the makeshift dungeon master, guiding the story ._.

Anyway, that's awesome. I love the poem, and the meaning behind it. I know that I, or perhaps Sky, would likely think of something inane, like a flower, or a cookie. Sadly, that's all we'd get, I gather.

[moonshineTheleocat]

I don't know... :3 I may bring Erudite into the RP, if they allow for custom villans... and an uncanonical but likely species. After all... discord.... is not really discernable... even though he looks like a dragon. And the Changelings don't look like a typical changeling.