For years I’ve been roleplaying on various sites. I started back on the forums of the old beyblade website [sad I know], found the old roleplaying haven forums on roleplayhaven and stayed there for a while as well, made my journey over to neopets where I met furries for the first time, then eventually found my way over to go-gaiaonline, now known as gaiaonline.com. Throughout the years of roleplaying I’ve evolved as a roleplayer. I found ways to not copy characters I had seen, not use the meta in magic/abilities and soon enough create my own stories instead of constantly walking into random walkins. I’ve eveolved from a ** roleplayer to a literate roleplayer. Through all of my time on these sites, I’ve come to the conclusion that good roleplayers are dieing out.
Back on my early days of beyblade and roleplayhaven, people cared about story over their own character. They wanted to see what people could create, and they wanted to be part of it. People made flexible characters and tried to create their stories inside of the new world they were apart of. There was no “my character is better” fighting, because everyone was working towards the overall goal of the story.
Over the last two years I found it extremely hard to keep a story going, whether it’s mine or someone elses, but only when there are over 4 people in the forum. If it’s a small thread between me and my friends, its fine. In a larger forum with multiple people in continously turns into a shitshow of whose character is more OP. If they think you’re writing is better, you’re OP. You’r power is cooler than mine, OP. You know more than my character does, OP. please notice I never said they did any of these things, it’s more of this is how people perceive it. My main character in roleplaying is normally Rena. In most forums I will play her as water mage that can turn into a demon. Apparently water is op sometimes. My muse played a human samurai, no magic, no abilities, but he knew how katana’s worked, typed as such, nope he’s godmodding. My friend played as a character that was pretty much harmless, but since he was an anthro he’s also godmodding. I wish I could say it was one time, I wish I could say it was a string of bad luck, or even if it was my fault. I’ve made new characters, I’ve played just humans, I’ve made new stories that were so plain there was no way ANYONE could be op, and still, the dick size contest began and destroyed the roleplay.
So my sad conclusion is that the ways of roleplaying where everyone wanted to work towards a story is dead, people use roleplaying as another way to boost their ego or get more attention. This is also easy to see with how few people actually read. People don’t care about stories, they don’t want to read, they want explosions, nudity and violence. The age of roleplaying is dead.
