Feedback Dealing with overthinking during roleplay

[Minuteman75]

Hey gang hope you all. I noticed a concerning trait about myself for quite some time as a writer and now feel the need to confess it. I have a bad tendency of overthinking things when roleplaying during a number of major faction events.

That is why I want to sincerely apologize to any of you if I caused any annoyance with my reactions in the ooc channels on discord during all this time. I want to do better about this hence the reason why this feedback thread is posted and I’m willing to listen to advice to you fellow roleplayers.

We‘re all here to have fun after all.

Part of me wonders if I should for the time being focus on private threads and small open threads until I’m ready to get involve in future major event threads again.

 

[Michael Angellus]

Hey gang hope you all. I noticed a concerning trait about myself for quite some time as a writer and now feel the need to confess it. I have a bad tendency of overthinking things when roleplaying during a number of major faction events.

That is why I want to sincerely apologize to any of you if I caused any annoyance with my reactions in the ooc channels on discord during all this time. I want to do better about this hence the reason why this feedback thread is posted and I’m willing to listen to advice to you fellow roleplayers.

We‘re all here to have fun after all.

Part of me wonders if I should for the time being focus on private threads and small open threads until I’m ready to get involve in future major event threads.

You're fine, no worries at all

 

[Kitter Bitters]

Can you give an example of what you mean by overthinking?

Generally though I noticed if I plan with a few writers I feel better in the big threads. I ask what they are doing and tag along so I can get a feel.

 

[Minuteman75]

Can you give an example of what you mean by overthinking?

Generally though I noticed if I plan with a few writers I feel better in the big threads. I ask what they are doing and tag along so I can get a feel.

Mostly overreacting to something drastic that happens in a major thread. I have no excuses for doing that I know since that stuff is supposed to happen to make things interesting. That why I want to do better and not bother folks about it again.

 

[Ninurta Slaabur'r]

This is how I navigate Roleplay:

I keep it simple.

TO ME... RP is communication between one or more writers. This is what I call collaboration. Thats it. Nothing happens without writer permission or communication, especially on Chaos. Every writer has their preferences for story/narrative choices. Some writers are more flexible on their stories than others and others just know what they want. When things cannot be agreed apon then its my job to decide how I wanna shape things after knowing what my writer partners boundaries' more or less are.

I go with the flow. I could "lose" everything in a duel/dominion/invasion [insert any thread type on chaos here] and in the next thread I could have everything again cuz I am the writer and I can do that if I wish. There is no "winning" or "losing" or continuity... Its all pretend.

There is no real consequences to any major faction stuff or character stuff. In Character(IC) stuff dont exist and Out of Character(OOC) is a bunch of nerds and geeks discussing sci-fi. I go with the flow and see everything as a opportunity to collaborate with others. I try my best not to get caught up in number games and who has what compared to...etc. Its a waste of my time.

Do what thou will.
Hope this helps some.

​

 

[Efret Farr]

Minuteman75 ~ it's a learning curve; give yourself more grace about it

not everything has to be a big reaction IC. and not everything has to be reacted to either—of course it's good to react to big events in a story but not all dialogue has to be responded to for example. that goes for smaller, "filler" events too, in my opinion. realizing that has taken a lot of self-expectation off my shoulders so I can much more easily enjoy the process of RP

 

[Srina Talon]

Calm and constructive communication can help navigate any myriad of issues but if you find that you're "overreacting" more than you might want:

Put it down....Put the phone down, close discord, close the website, and do something else for a bit to cleanse the palette and gain perspective.

These small breaks can help you come up for air and often these "huge" RP issues won't seem so bad when you come back to it. This is a hobby - If it's stressing you, there is zero shame in taking a time out. Your future experiences will thank you for it.

 

[Delila Castillon]

I think its easy to get wrapped up in things that happen IC. Best thing to do is step back, take a break, and think about it. Sometimes thats difficult to do in a instantly-connected world.

We're all here to have fun.

 

[Vemric Keldra]

Minuteman75 you and I have had numerous discussions about this in the past and I have to say you have already improved greatly! You should give yourself more credit.

It's a conscious thought to not OOC overthink something happening in a thread. It's normal to wonder "How will my character handle this". What is the conscious bit, is to not let it prevent you from showing up in the thread, unless you really don't see your character being in that situation at all. The trick is to let your character be conflicted about the situation IC. If your character ends up being the only one, then that's absolutely fine - it adds to the character's journey and growth.

I've watched your journey as a writer of quite a few characters. It's great to see you writing their journeys. There's really little you should change.

Tldr: You're doing great, but if you feel that there's still situations where you overthink, force yourself to not overanalyse OOC and to just let your character be themselves. You don't need to force your character to do something they wouldn't do just for the sake of staying in a faction (unless that's part of your character's arc - then it's gucci). Don't worry about the masses. You write your character, not them.

 

[Valery Noble]

A lot of good advice was given, so I mainly want to echo what Vemric Keldra said - you're already doing much better. Just communicate when you get stuck or take a step back and think, and you'll be fine

 

[Caelan Valoren]

Calm and constructive communication can help navigate any myriad of issues but if you find that you're "overreacting" more than you might want:

Put it down....Put the phone down, close discord, close the website, and do something else for a bit to cleanse the palette and gain perspective.

These small breaks can help you come up for air and often these "huge" RP issues won't seem so bad when you come back to it. This is a hobby - If it's stressing you, there is zero shame in taking a time out. Your future experiences will thank you for it.

This. I can't stress enough how small breaks really help.

I am prone to overreaction. It's a product of my personality type. When I recognize this, I try, and usually I get encouragement from my friends on here to do so, to take a step back and breathe. It really does help.

If you aren't sure about something, as in something has upset you and you want some clarification, just talk to the other person in a calm manner. Usually it's just a case of misreading things (not always, but usually).

 

[Lyssara Thrynn]

Personally i slow down when i can, just need enjoy your RP post

but i am a very bad example, i am a explode writer. I like overthinking my head, with rp, rp rp rp. Don't follow my example, just need find a routine, and that's good.

 

[Vazela]

I had a tendency to overreact back in the 2010s. I always took things so personally and felt like people did things that either went against what was best for the story, or were intentionally sandbagging things because it was me writing the character. I got past this awkward stage when the game itself wasn't the most important thing to me in the world.

 

[Everest Vale]

I've been RPing on and off for about 15 years, and struggled with similar experiences to Vazela for a lot of that time. But, eventually I just realised, actually, the reason we're all here is just to have fun, and the only thing stopping me from having fun is my own reservations and projections.

Reiterating what a lot of people here have said, if there is a miscommunication, taking the steps to privately clear that up with people can go a long way, and give you more peace of mind, and regular breaks will absolutely give further clarity on any situation.

Like I said, at the end of the day, we're all just here to have fun. If someone isn't having fun, I like to think we're all mature enough here to find a solution together. It's the beauty of building such a community, imo.

 

[Solan Rarr]

I would echo what a lot of the others have already said. The therapeutic pause is hugely beneficial. If you find yourself getting upset/overwhelmed/frustrated etc... by what's going on IC, I'm a big fan of saying "Okay, I'm getting way too invested right now." and calling it a day/night/evening etc... Your posting can wait a few hours until you've had a chance to decompress and process whatever it is that is that is triggering the reaction. Then you can hopefully come back and be like, "Oh, and then I'll do this amazing thing now!"

 

[Tefka]

honestly you should be freaking out everything you fear people are saying is actually happening the roleplay is actually real and your doubts are real and this isn't a game its real life and if you fail here like where can you succeed

 

[Minuteman75]

I have already gotten over this by now so there need for this thread to continue and is hereby closed. I appreciate the advice but really confused about the last comment. Thank you for your patience with me folks.