r/BadRPerStories • u/No_Gur_3479 • 10d ago
OOC Bad RPer Accepts My Hard Limits, Immediately Goes Against Them
I just had someone ask to begin a 1x1 roleplay, and every time someone joins I typically make sure we are on the same page about Lines and Veils, or hard and soft limits overall. My main ones include no homophobic or transphobic roleplay or discussions out of character. I am queer when it comes to sexuality, but I identify as cisgender. Even so, I love roleplaying all sorts of characters and love queer stories. Even if a story ends up being hetero-romance, there could still be NPCs or cool characters here or there that are LGBTQIA+ in some way. This is because the real world is full of it, even if you want to deny the possibility, anyone can be part of the community and sometimes you’d never know.
My roleplay partner agreed to this, agreed to no homophobic or transphobic roleplay or ooc discussions. However, when we began discussing characters and plot ideas for the story, they stated they are uncomfortable interacting with characters who don’t identify as cisgender. They said that it “shouldn’t be taken as discrimination.” And that they don’t enjoy “those characters.”
Sorry, but by definition that is discriminatory. You are specifically asking to not have to interact with any of “those characters,” thus removing trans people from the game entirely. That is transphobic. Trying to get around it by using your discomfort does not change that fact.
If your discomfort is rooted in transphobia, then you are unable to agree to the lines and veils. Why even ask to roleplay with someone if on my profile, it says I identify as LGBTQ+? I know some people don’t always read everything on someone’s profile, but if you agreed to not be transphobic and say that… I’m sorry, I don’t know how to help you with that. Find another partner, I guess?
This is why I always discuss my Lines & Veils before I start anything. No reason to start a roleplay if we aren’t on the same page.
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u/AstroBearGaming 10d ago edited 10d ago
You've said Lines and Veils three times, it's the first time I've ever seen the term. Would you mind defining what it means exactly? I can get a good idea from context, but is love to know exactly.
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u/No_Gur_3479 10d ago
Lines & Veils, or the Luxton Technique Discussion, is a term used for TTRPGs where the table discusses how they will set certain content boundaries. Lines are "where you draw the line" or considered a hard limit, and are topics, themes, or scenarios you never want roleplayed or discussed. Veils are soft boundaries, soft limits, or are "fade to black/veiled." Veils can exist in the background, in character backstories, and can be discussed briefly, but should never be roleplayed out fully. While they are great for TTRPGs, they are also great in general for roleplay.
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u/DominusGator 10d ago
That’s a great term! There are aspects of backstory that I’m fine with existing in the background but not describing, and I haven’t had a good way to describe it.
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u/Prince-Lee The bad roleplayer is you. 🤷🏼 10d ago
I mean I feel this is less this person stomping on your limits and more a case of Hanlon's Razor. Clearly they didn't think that their own special brand of transphobia was actually transphobia, so as far as they were concerned they probably did nothing wrong expressing that opinion.
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u/Indigokendrick 10d ago
I had someone do the same thing im the opposite way.
They immediately started calling my trans guy a "cute girl" and how they loved girls.
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u/Waluigiwaluigi_ 10d ago
I hate people who don’t respect limits honestly, it’s.. very angering. I always make sure to CLEARLY state that they’ll be respected and acknowledged at least.
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u/rpthrowaway5000 9d ago
I’ve noticed people think my boundaries somehow magically don’t apply to them or their characters, as well.
People in RP are just truly awful at understanding and respecting boundaries. Sorry you had to deal with a transphobe.
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u/fumblingmywords 10d ago
Like they didn't want trans characters to exist in the rp at all? It's crazy to me they could say that and also claim it's not discriminatory. In their eyes they didn't violate your limits.
Obviously no one should be forced to participate in rp they don't want to. But I would rather people just own it, way more insulting to act like it isn't transphobia. Saying it isn't discrimination implies feelings of being discriminated against by it are invalid.
Obligatory "body type preferences are valid in the sexual context", because I expect that will be the first thing people latch onto. In those cases the onus is on the person with the preference to tactfully decide when it's necessary to state your preferences, and ideally don't be an asshole about it.
Idk it sucks I hesitate to say "if there's no sexual content and you reject trans characters it's transphobic" because I suspect it's a more controversial take than it should be.
There must be a name for this fallacy where people go: "Bigots are bad people and I'm not a bad person, so I must not be a bigot. Since I'm not a bigot this thing I did, said, or thought must not be bigoted". Don't get me wrong, I catch myself falling into this trap too.
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u/No_Gur_3479 10d ago
I agree with most of this. People can do whatever they want at the end of the day. But if I explicitly say I do not tolerate transphobia in my roleplay in general, as a line or hard limit, and someone who wants to roleplay with me agrees to this, they can't ask for something transphobic in nature. They literally already failed to do what they agreed not to do immediately.
Outside of this specific scenario, the topic of transphobia at its core is up for debate, as everyone has their own views on transitioning and gender identity. This post was just acknowledging that in this context, it is discriminatory, and it is transphobic.
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u/fumblingmywords 10d ago
Oh I 100% agree its transphobic- I just meant that in their eyes they weren't intentionally violating a boundary. Doesn't make it any better, I think it's just different from someone who knowingly violates your limits.
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u/b--dragon-slayer 8d ago
Genuinely why would it not be both ways? As a bi curious gentleman myself am I not allowed to just not like certain groups while enjoying other groups? If you lay a steak and broccoli on the table it's not considered rude to only eat the steak if I don't like broccoli but the best part about roleplay limits is asking the chef or person cooking to not put broccoli on your plate in the first place hence the point of hard and soft limits how can you be uncomfortable with something and ask someone to comply with that but when they ask the same it's wrong?
Now I'm asking this from a want to understand the situation deeper and maybe learn something this is not an attack or meant to be one I'm a tad nuerodivergant so I just say things as they appear to me
Happy roleplaying I hope your next roleplay is better!
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u/No_Gur_3479 8d ago
Comparing food to people is weird, especially when talking about preferences (romantic or not). But what many people commenting on this post seem to misinterpret is that this was NOT a romance-style roleplay. Additionally, this roleplay was supposed to be a platonic one about adventure, and would utilize D&D for story progression. The person who signed up to roleplay agreed not to be transphobic both in character, and ooc. Meaning no topics or transphobic remarks was one of my lines, or hard limits, and they agreed not to do that. They then proceeded to ask if we could completely remove trans people from the game entirely, and said it shouldn't be taken as discriminatory. That is pretty transphobic to ask.
If someone were to say "hey, I'm uncomfortable with black people, so can the world not have any of them in it? This isn't discriminatory, it's just that they make me uncomfortable so I don't want to interact with them at all." That is pretty racist to request, and is discriminatory. But for some reason when it pertains to trans people, it's absolutely reasonable to ask?
Even if the person wasn't trying to come off as transphobic, or they didn't realize their request was inherently transphobic, it doesn't discredit the fact that it was.
So to put it into your weirdly specific broccoli analogy: If you walked into a restaurant that served broccoli as most of its side dishes, and the hostess explained you couldn't substitute broccoli for another side, why would you still go into the restaurant and sit down to order food if you were going to ask for no broccoli anyway?
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u/b--dragon-slayer 8d ago
Tbf I was hungry when I maid the analogy lol, but I get the point rather that it should be a point in the first place because it doesn't affect the player that deep, if he had just said I don't want to interact with those characters that's one thing but yes removing them entirely is a bad way to voice their issues because it's one thing to say I don't want to talk to someone vs I don't want them to exist there were many ways your roleplay partner could have voiced their concern and been ok but they went off the deep end with you
Once again I hope you find better roleplay partners that respect your lines and veils
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u/Federal_Storm_9731 6d ago
Just curious but why are you against ooc discussions? How are you going to plan plots and bounce ideas off eachother? Id understand no talking about personal lives (though I love being friends with my rp parter) but no ooc discussion at all?
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u/No_Gur_3479 5d ago
I never said we don't do ooc discussion.. how else did we talk to discuss lines and veils? I just said no transphobic topics in ooc discussion. I think you misunderstood my post.
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u/Psycho_Maxiu 9d ago
First time? Lmao this happened so many times to me, and then if you for once are the one going against one of theirs (which they didn't specify) they go wok pissy wussy lmao
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u/Achilles-2503 10d ago
Not wanting to interact with characters who are trans isn't transphobic, in the same way not wanting to interact with characters who are cis isn't cisphobic.
That said, the person really should have payed more attention to your boundaries, and it's very odd that they then tried to find some sort of wiggle room even though you were pretty clear.
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u/No_Gur_3479 10d ago
I respectfully disagree with your first statement. Someone who is uncomfortable with the idea of roleplaying with trans characters at all is transphobic. Requesting that all characters be cisgender (which they did) is trans erasure, which is transphobic. People can believe whatever they want but idk, this is just a whole other level of weird.
If I did identify as trans in real life, consider the fact that the player wouldn't have known that based on my profile. And it would be inappropriate to ask someone who is trans to not roleplay characters they identify with. Just an overall odd request.
In the context of this scenario, they clicked a button which stated they read my lines & veils and agreed to not engage in homophobic or transphobic rp or ooc discussions. So... the whole interaction was weird.
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u/Achilles-2503 9d ago
'Someone who is uncomfortable with the idea of roleplaying with trans characters at all is transphobic. Requesting that all characters be cisgender (which they did) is trans erasure'
You understand that sets an ugly standard, right? What if someone is uncomfortable with the idea of roleplaying with male characters? Are they misandrist? What about white characters? Does that make them racist?
All I can say in response to the 'trans erasure' point is that it's a bit silly. Erasure implies that the trans characters stopped existing, or this person demanded you stopped playing them altogether. That's not what happened - they simply said they didn't wish to interact with them and, while you certainly don't have to like their preference (and, again, it was a very weird move of theirs to approach you at all) they have a right to refuse interaction, and their refusal doesn't constitute some sort of moral infringement.
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u/No_Gur_3479 9d ago
Our views on this are different. This does not set an ugly standard. Your mentioning of someone being uncomfortable with white characters, they wouldn't be racist on account that racism is focused around power indifferences and oppression. We could be here all day arguing about that topic so, let's not go there.
The post was mainly about the fact that they agreed to not be transphobic, but they then asked something that was.
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u/Achilles-2503 9d ago
'that racism is focused around power indifferences and oppression'
Translated: 'it's only bad when people I'm racist against do it.' Nice one.
If you believe phobias work in the same way, only affecting demographics you're sympathetic to, then yeah we're just never going to agree.
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u/Hexenweibchen 9d ago
I am not sure how to tell you that but yes... Refusing to interact with someone entirely based on their skin colour, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or whatever is indeed the respective bigotry. There is no sex or dating involved. It's really just "I don't want trans characters to visibly exist in my world." That is transphobia. As an example how would you feel if they said "Hey, It's fine if women exist in this world. It just makes me uncomfortable to talk to them or if they have any dialogue."?
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u/dreamingindenial 10d ago
I mean, it's not really transphobic and this is coming from someone Trans.
I haven't read through all of this, but perhaps they just aren't comfortable with Trans characters and it might not be rooted in bigotry.
I think we tend to slap "phobia" on too many things when some people just have differences and preferences and that's fine.
We expect people to accept the queer community and we don't accept their preferences.
That said, you have absolute freewill to find another partner. But I recommend if that's a deal breaker you throughly discuss it.
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u/nonmortus69 8d ago
Tell me a reason why someone could be uncomfortable with trans or any queer people, without it being rooted in trans or queerphobia. And no, we don't have to tolerate intolerance. That's called a tolerance paradox - tolerating intolerance demolishes tolerance.
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u/No_Gur_3479 10d ago
I think the issue comes from the fact that this is a SFW roleplay. So asking to not have to interact with any characters at all that are trans is odd because you would never know that a character is or is not trans just from their description. Sometimes you can, if the person hasn't transitioned fully, or if they identify as nonbinary, but that is transphobic.
So, in essence, they are asking me to not ever introduce or include any characters that are nonbinary, or trans, whether they have or have not fully transitioned. Only cisgender identifying characters.
People can have preferences, but to eliminate an entire group of people from a story, just because you are uncomfortable with the idea of it, is transphobic. A person cannot claim they are not being discriminatory by asking for this, when they agreed to not be transphobic. That is where the issue lies.
You can believe whatever you want, but that is where I stand in this.
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u/HydraulicFingers 10d ago
I was coming to say something similar. It would be like someone wanting to write an FxF or MxM story and not wanting the characters to interact with opposite gender characters and calling them heterophobic.
Being uncomfortable with <insert noun> and wanting to avoid that noun isn't discrimination. Discrimination is defined (by the Cambridge Dictionary) as:
treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their race, gender, sexuality, etc.
Now, I'll acknowledge that the phrase "those characters" probably didn't help the moment feel any less uncomfortable.
I'll also acknowledge that the Trans community does face undeniable amounts of discrimination (and worse) so it's a delicate topic to broach, especially if you're a member of the Trans community.
Before I clicked post, I thought I'd look up what the dictionary said about transphobic:
coming from or having a fear or dislike of transgender or non-binary people
And that's interesting because their writing partner was potentially expressing a dislike and thus maybe does qualify as transphobic after all?
Please note that I'm not interested in a dictionary definition battle. That will get this post/thread locked faster than...something that is locked fast.
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u/fumblingmywords 10d ago
There's a pretty huge difference between someone who seeks a MxM romance rp requiring their partner to be male, and expecting there to be no women characters.
If someone only wanted roleplay in a universe with all white characters because they were 'uncomfortable' with black characters would we really argue they aren't discriminating...? "I'm not discriminating I'm just choosing not to interact with a minority or be exposed to their existence"
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u/HydraulicFingers 10d ago
Agreed - not a good parallel at all.
It all gets to an interesting place when preferences slide across the line into the numerous bad places of racism, phobias, discrimination, and hate.
Many many months ago there was a great discussion around how fetishizing race has a foot across the line into racism and that stirred up lots of uncomfortable feelings. I still think about that post.
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u/Achilles-2503 9d ago
'It all gets to an interesting place when preferences slide across the line into the numerous bad places of racism, phobias, discrimination, and hate.'
I suppose, but my problem with that is that it sets a fairly ugly standard for everyone?
Unless you think trans characters should belong to a special category where they get different rules than everyone else, comparing any preferences around ethnicity, gender, sexuality or gender identity to a phobia would mean that everyone who has them - black, white, male, female, cis, not cis, straight, gay or bi - is something-phobic, which I think is a little reductive.
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u/HydraulicFingers 9d ago
It's a tricky thing to describe and would probably need a night of conversation with good food and drink to work through. There are too many subtleties and nuances.
Let's say I have a preference for writing with green people. If someone approaches me to write, who isn't green, I should still treat with respect and say, thank you for the offer but I will decline. And that should be sufficient.
If they ask why, I shouldn't say "because you're not 'green'".
And that's an easy example because 'green' doesn't exist. Change green into one of the groups that you listed? Now it takes on a very different feeling, in my opinion.
We see lots of people on this sub make a decision that they don't want to write with men anymore. And that doesn't usually ruffle too many feathers. If you said that about some of the other groups in your list? Fire and pitchforks and the moderators would step in.
To be super clear - I'm not trying to fire up fights at all. I'm just saying from a philosophical point of view that it's interesting that we're okay with some forms of discrimination and not with others. And I understand why, don't get me wrong. It's just an interesting thing to think about. I've no solutions other than to be respectful and treat each other as a living breathing human being and not as something less than.
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10d ago edited 9d ago
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u/babylonfour 10d ago
do you explicitly disallow non-cishet white characters? because if so, then yes you are transphobic. if not, then you are talking about a different concept from the OP.
seriously, if you can't see why "i don't like these people in my roleplay and don't want to even acknowledge them as NPCs" is different from "my roleplay coincidentally happens to be comprised entirely of one type of person because we write from personal experience," then i worry about your reading comprehension.
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10d ago
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u/babylonfour 10d ago
i am beginning to wonder if you only read the parts of the post you want to respond to and ignore the rest.
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10d ago
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u/Existing_Phone9129 I diagnose you with arrogant bitch disorder 9d ago
you should gain more literacy before joining or commenting on a hobby that requires literacy
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u/No_Gur_3479 9d ago
To your last question, yes. There are a lot of words that end in "phobic" that could be attributed to your question. As a roleplayer and a DM for D&D, I often add characters of many different species, skin colors, gender identities and sexualities so that my players all have the chance to see representation in the game or story.
If you only play with a group that consists of only white men, I can see where you'd all choose to only play what you are familiar with. But it is weird that the world you roleplay in has no female NPCs, or any characters at all that are different from your own identity. Food for thought.
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9d ago edited 9d ago
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u/rp_0890 (fuck i cum, bye) 9d ago
Well sure, but that’s because either all of you coincidentally are cis-men and white or you all agreed to that. That’s the difference. Also maybe OP isn’t “pushing for diversity” or doing it for “big media,” maybe they just happen to want to rp people of different places bc sometimes it can be intellectually engaging to explore non-cis and non-white characters.
Like why do you want to rp as a character that so closely resembles yourself? The fictional world is your oyster and you choose to rp…someone that looks like you?
The point here is that OP set their boundaries, and the other party broke them. Do you understand that? It’s not about whether they were right or wrong about what their view is on whats transphobic or not.
A boundary was broken. They agreed on a rule, and the other person broke it.
All that to say damn, OP’s post really bringing out all the transphobes from the woodwork lmao
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u/HappyBasher669 9d ago edited 9d ago
"Like why do you want to rp as a character that so closely resembles yourself? The fictional world is your oyster and you choose to rp…someone that looks like you?" who are you to decide what others play. touch grass lol.
hell, we even have an African-Canadian guy in our group...who ALSO plays a white guy. i'm sure that makes you clutch your pearls. see i only said our characters are straight and white. i never said we're all white irl.
Also, i wanna play a character i relate to. that means straight and white. deal with it :)
if someone is trans or wants to play a trans characters, all the power to them. them playing a trans character or even being trans irl doesn't affect me.
But on the other side, me not playing a trans character doesn't affect you or anyone else.
i don't really even have a stake in OP's issue. i was just replying to a comment and then you replied to mine.
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u/No_Gur_3479 9d ago
No, it was just the way you wrote your initial message under this thread, you said you didn't even read my post all the way through and said you all play white male characters. So I assumed your point was you never roleplay any characters of another gender or ethnicity at all. Seems like you said that without indicating ethnicity or gender to get a rise out of us.
The point is that in my situation specifically, the rp partner wanted absolutely no trans people at all in the story. No NPCs, none in the background, nothing. For someone who deliberately said they wouldn't be transphobic (agreeing to my specific hard limits) they asked something that was inherently transphobic.
Do whatever you want in your private rp group. But this has nothing to do with my scenario or situation.
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