Damn kids get off my lawn! (Gen-X complaining thread)

[TDK]

A rather large group of people I know (irl) would seem to have similar interests to me (video games, art, internet, etc), but it was only relatively lately I realized that they're, for the most part, idiots. Like, for example, I'll occasionally enjoy a chuck norris joke or lolcat ironically, but they ACTUALLY think that they are funny. = \ They're also, unlike me, mostly obsessed with anime and manga, and japan in general.

But all this I realized a while ago. What was annoying me recently was that, as I discovered, many of them RP. (Some of them call it "R-PL" pronounced "are-pull'. )

You'd think this would be a good thing, but no.

They are abhorrently bad at it. All of them but, like, 2 that I know have a few (or one) set characters (most of which are, of course, stupid and unoriginal mary sues.) that they will use for every setting, every single RP without fail, and they refuse to use any other character, or ever make a new one.

And the characters all act like them but, I don't know, "cooler", stupid ideas of what badass is, like killing people without reason or without a second thought.

Most of them are also just plain bad at writing it, and everything from the perspective at which its written to the way the story flows, to the way it is CONSTRUCTED, is bad.


Who the hell taught these people how to roleplay? I think they're missing the point by a big margin.

They don't even really DO anything half the time...One of them posits a setting, and they just fuck around, each serving as a partial DM and determining in every single way (up to and including controlling the other's character) when its their turn.

(The horribleness and junk of course varies from person to person, and some of them would actually be kind of good at it given a bit of GOOD practice, but I digress. I realize that some of this is a complaint that they aren't doing it the way I was taught, and yeah, but the way I was taught is the way like...The whole internet does it. Third or first person, past tense, GM controls the world, etc. Beyond those complaints, they really are just abhorrently bad at doing it. Some of them are actually good writers, but they've been taught wrong apparently, because they suck at playing a role, constructing an interactive world, playing a character, etc. And all of their ideas are cliche, tending to be fanboy/girl ripoffs of everything from FF7 to Bleach to a hundred other animes.)


But yeah, that's just one thing that was annoying me.

General thread for complaints about this generation, so to speak.

[Tev]

Originally Posted by TDK

They don't even really DO anything half the time...One of them posits a setting, and they just fuck around, each serving as a partial DM and determining in every single way (up to and including controlling the other's character) when its their turn.

Ah the "Forest Clearing" RP. As in "It's a Magical Forest and your character of choice is in it....go!"

Yeah, I hate that, and most online role-playing.

Anyway, a lot of stuff bothers me about my generation. My plan is just to suffer through the years and enjoy my time with people I know aren't idiots.

[Azisien]

Yeah Gran Torino was an okay movie.

[russianreversal]

I've basically told my PCs that I have WoW on my laptop, so if they want to screw about and do nothing for a whole session because "they're just acting in character" (whose personality happens to exactly match your own? Wow), that's fine by me. It got better after that.

On another note, I found that modern campaigns are more fun for the reason that you can actually do a present day campaign with the characters playing themselves. It makes them more reluctant to do things they wouldn't actually do unless they're sure they can get away with it because if you die, you die.

[CelesJessa]

My problem with my generation is I completely don't share everyone else's opinion of "fun". When my close friends and I get together we do all sorts of stuff: having a crazy craft/art day where we just get together and make stuff with clay or draw or paint or do any other sort of craft thing, go to the park and play (which earns us lots of weird looks, apparently adults are only supposed to sit on the benches and watch others have fun), play guitar together, play video games, make up our own version of D&D, write dumb stories/comics, play board games, etc etc etc. Lots of various fun things.

When I get together with anyone else (friends from college, for example) all we do is sit around and watch movies. Or they'd want to go to a party and get drunk off their ass and I really have no interest in that, as I have no problem letting loose and having fun without alcohol. I enjoy spending time with them, but... I suppose I just get used to the kind of stuff my close-knit group of friends and I do.

It's just weird to have anyone look at you like you're the freak if you talk about doing anything other than A. Going and getting smashed or B. Watching a movie or TV. Like it's some sort of novel idea that I read a book, or I spent my night drawing, or that I might pick up a needle and thread and sew myself a plushie just for fun. (I am really surprised by the amount of art students who don't do any sort of art in their free time. I swear it seems like my roommate who is a math/physics major has more of an interest in art).

Maybe I am weird.

[Tev]

Originally Posted by R|Я

I've basically told my PCs that I have WoW on my laptop, so if they want to screw about and do nothing for a whole session because "they're just acting in character" (whose personality happens to exactly match your own? Wow), that's fine by me. It got better after that.

Well to be fair, I don't mind people playing characters that sync up with their personality. As a matter of fact, for new players I encourage it. We all aren't at least B-movie grade actors.

What bugs me are the people who take their fantasy and jump off the deep end; angel wings flared, tails in a tizzy, breathing fire and shooting lightning from their magical moon swords as they chant demonic spells the whole way down.

EDIT: Dammit, now I want fan art of that image......
-Human male with angel wings and like...I don't know, six fox tails, add in some dragon scales on his chest for fun, and having him diving into a deep abyss of rainbows breathing a cone of fire in front of him while his two swords (each a different color, 'cause swords aren't cool unless they are colored) shoot lightning at whatever. He also needs a speech bubble in some demonic runey talk. Yes.

[russianreversal]

Originally Posted by Tev

Well to be fair, I don't mind people playing characters that sync up with their personality. As a matter of fact, for new players I encourage it. We all aren't at least B-movie grade actors.

Well, my problem is that when my PCs act like themselves only without the fear of death, some of them take that as a chance to run into every room and just don't stop, or trip stuff that they know is a trap while they're standing in the middle of it. This causes a ton of conflict between them and the characters (and often the players) who don't want to play their guy like he's replaceable and get really mad when everything the other players do puts them in life threatening danger. This slows gameplay to a crawl and blah blah blah. They like to hide behind the wall of "well that's what my character would do," which isn't true at all. It's what they would do if they knew they reincarnated because they got unlucky or were particularly stupid.

So alternatively, I've also considered a setting where they are themselves, only sent back in time somehow. This also allows them to not have to build an intricate RP if they don't want to while keeping the fear of natural consequences healthy in them.

[POS Industries]

So wait, I'm confused: Is TDK RPing with people in their 30s or something? Because I can guarantee that no one in this thread is Gen-X. Like, not even me, and I'm old as hell and losing my hair already.

Unless one of us is under 14 or something, we're all in the dully-named "Generation Y." Though I prefer the term "Echo Boomers," personally.

[Azisien]

I thought most of us here were Gen-X2: United?

[POS Industries]

Well, some of our newer members might have been Gen-X3. Good god, what a shitty and poorly written generation.

But seriously, I was expecting a thread about Gen-Xers getting old and yelling at TDK with him getting all mad and maybe having some "don't trust anyone over 30" rebellion thing going, which would have been hilarious because I remember when Gen-X was doing the same thing. Instead there's this whole post about D&D that has nothing to do with Gen-X at all, so I am very much lost insofar as the disconnect between the thread's title and the contents within are concerned.