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Ending an rp

D

dichotomy

Moon
Joined
Jun 19, 2019
How do you do it without hurting your partner?

Do you feel because you accepted an rp you have to go through with it, even if you dont enjoy it?

What are things that make you want to end an rp?

Sometimes all the preparations in the world don't make the rp feel good, and sometimes you just jump into something too fast.

To me its no biggie if an rp ends. Even if I thoroughly enjoyed myself, maybe my partner didnt. I just move on.

I dont even find it alm that horrible if somebody ghosts on me. It happens and usually people dont want to hurt me, they just have no muse for the rp any longer. Sometimes the scene was great, but it gets old when you try to make it something long term. That hapoens as well.

I always let my partners know if something makes me want to stop an rp. But lately I start feeling afraid of doing so.
Its passive aggressive behaviour that really pulls me down. Indicating things like "and another one ditched me". Or telling me how cool I am and what a good friend I am while the rp is going downhill, so that Ill feel guilty ending it.

How do you go about it?
 
If it is something creative I try and express why and see if we can get through it. If I just need a break I tell them so. I am cautious however about getting these things escalating into disputes on these sites due to bad experiences in the past. So I can understand when people get passive aggressive and just ghost.
 
To be honest, this is one of the major things I struggle with. I always worry too much about how the other person will interpret it, and sometimes I roleplay things I don't actually enjoy, but I think people would notice from the way I roleplay, the quality goes down a tremendous amount.

I think it's just like many other things in life, difficult the first few times, but the more you do it, the more you will see and learn the other person doesn't take offense and it's fine to admit you don't feel inspired any more. It's okay, it's happened to everyone at least once, they will be able to relate. And if not, they get upset/angry at you, that's not the worst thing in the world. It's still better than finding out afterwards your partner didn't enjoy the scene at all.
 
Communication, communication, communication. I've always been up front with my partner/s that if it goes somewhere unintended, unappreciated or loses its zeal, that it be discussed with no hard feelings. An agreed upon length helps. Breaks help. The entire reason I'm there is to explore others' writing "techniques" and interests so that I can become a better writer (yes, and the other obvious.) and I enjoy meeting and collaborating with others. A couple of times I've RP'ed in a boring, way too slowly replied thread just to find out we were both miserable only to find out later. Both times, we laughed about it even later and, from then on, just started talking about it as we went along and found a natural ending to stories. So that's my secret - upfront communication about communicating the need to communicate.
I also talk to them about ghosting, what an absolute dick I felt like when I did it once or twice and that I would rather they just tell me up front and not try to spare my feelings because ghosting does NOT spare feelings. For you girls out there that do it because a creepy guy can become even creepier, just tell him you're done. And if he balks at it, that's what the ignore button is for.
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I try my best to communicate with my partner but if they don't respond within a period of time, I simply just delete the rp and remove them from my friend's list if they take long and move on as I have no time to wait when RPing is my source of relaxation. Communication is pretty hard to come by these days, where some people, unfortunately, think ghosting is fine to do. I just dont bother anymore as before, i just stress a lot when I worry too much.
 
Like others have said, communication is really important. There's been multiple occasions when I've started a roleplay with someone and they just kinda drop off. I do make an effort to reach out at least once, but I will drop the RP altogether if I find they're blatantly ignoring me. RPing should be something for everyone involved to enjoy, and if someone doesn't, it's important to let the other person/people know.
 
Depends on the reason. I've had to end many-a-roleplay in my day. I'll usually be pretty direct. If I don't have the time to devote to it anymore I'll say so. If I'm not enjoying it I'll say that I'm having a hard time getting into it, and call it off.

About half the time the response I get back is negative, passive aggressive, or rude. In threads like this people always say that all they want is openness and honesty, but out in the wild, it's not always the case. So, prepare for some bitchy responses, no matter how you end things. Or ghost. ;)
 
You can't guarantee someone won't get hurt. Even despite testament to the contrary, social rejection triggers the same neurons as physical pain. Partners will be a range of chill to irate after that stimuli, but all you can control is your own respect and consideration.

As a general rule, I'll say that the longer you leave it (even if it's out of not wanting to disappoint or hurt someone), it will only get worse, never better. And... tell them. Letting someone wonder is just rude.

I will always favor chat, 1-on-1 and group to forum chat, but I accept it didn't survive the Online RP Extinction Event. It could be disappointing when someone left, but there was not the personal betrayal or sucking vacuum when you were part of a group. While being back into RP for less than a year, I've had partners end playing with me for everything from I wasn't replying the moment I woke up and playing 6 NPCs for their MC to Palestinians were bombing him too often and wifi didn't reach the bomb shelter. I was obviously more accepting of the latter than the former. The one I resent the most is when someone starts up with you even though they have an impending serious schedule disruption. Like a week before they start their medical residence. Then, they act like it's a surprise that they're too busy to play. I consider the the time period between them contacting me without telling me and when the date of their "too busy" arrives as being time to let the resentment ferment (in retrospect).

I've only canceled on 2 partners since I restarted. 1 wildly misrepresented their writing skills, and I felt no guilt after 5 days of no replies. I just politely said that I couldn't get into the story with the level of writing I was seeing, and we'd agreed to chat-style RP, so the lag wasn't something I wanted to engage with. Short, explicit, no emotional accusations. The other, luckily, was before we started, we had a personal relationship break-down, and I tried, but I couldn't get myself wanting to play with them afterwards. I apologized for being the one backing out, but just explained that I no longer had an interest in starting up with them. They deleted me off discord after about 2 weeks, so there was no burning animosity and need for swift revenge or anything. We both acted like mature adults who just didn't get along well enough to share a hobby.

The passive aggressive manipulations are really unhealthy. Others may have thought that was coming from me, but manipulation wasn't my motivation. I've told partners about problems with other partners only because I thought we were on that level of friendship. I don't manipulate friends, and I don't want friends who manipulate me. Bad form, whoever does that. I'm never going to purposely guilt or browbeat someone into playing with me who doesn't want to. Take some meds, people.

I'm reading that others have had bad experienced being honest about not enjoying an RP or wanting to end it. Assuming everyone was tactful and considerate about it, I suspect bad reactions came from people who don't introspect and may have even mislead themselves into thinking they could be calm about it. Unfortunately, there's no way to avoid people who lie to themselves. There will probably always be a risk about a bad reaction when you end an RP, you have the choice of being considerate or a jerk about it. That's all. Any partnership comes with that risk.

Depending on the length and amount of effort on my part, I may have negative sentiment towards someone who ends a RP, but how I treat them will be entirely dependent on how they treated me.

1. After a bad experience, he got me to try again. We world-built for 3 weeks. I did hours of research about something I was unfamiliar with and even interviewed a friend who was very knowledgable in it. We were ready for my partner to do the first post and... suddenly he realized his depression was too intense to do it. He apologized, said he thought he could when he asked, but he didn't realize he couldn't until he actually had to type something IC. I was annoyed as hell, but I'm not going to be mean to someone because of their depression. I told him not to stress about it.

2. Someone recently contacted me and asked to play a storyline I listed in my ad as I'd already planned but been ghosted for. I emphasized that it was kind of a thing to try again because of the bad experience. They assured me they were crazy excited for it. We actively chatted and planned for about 15 hours as well as created 2 main characters and 4 NPCs each. They told me to start. I wrote a long intro. They promised to respond after dinner, then ignored me fo 3 days. After a couple polite inquiries as to what was up, I simply replied "lol" to their second status post about looking for new partners. That finally prompted them to gush about how they thought they wanted to play with me, then they realized they didn't. I have a feeling they told me to post the intro and promised to reply after they realized this. Nah, bro. I told them they were a jerk for not telling me sooner, bumping and requesting new partners before answering me, and Ignored.

When you end something, don't be the jerk. Then, if they get get nasty, that's them being a jerk.
 
I try my best not to end unless there's a real catastrophe (and then I'll be back) OR you do not listen to me.

I would rather be told a lie ('no time anymore') than having someone disappear.
 
I'll end a story for a few reasons:

1) The death knell is happening. It could have been a super long story (in many cases the stories I'm in get to 20+ pages) or a brief one, but if my partner's responses have started to drop off, lag, or seem completely unenthusiastic, I'll typically check in on their interest. Dollars to donuts they have something going in on their life or they've just kind of lost the drive, which happens - in which case, the story will generally mutually end or go on hiatus (always an option, put a pin in it, come back if you like). In some cases I'm the one who has lost the drive, but I'll let them know that and try to brainstorm before ending a story.

2) The partner has engaged in behaviours that aren't appropriate. I had one partner who would utilize the forum in order to track my whereabouts, then they would message me to tell me they had seen me looking at [X Thread] and berate me for doing so, and when I turned off my 'online' status to prevent it, they expressed being upset with me for it, as they wanted to 'see what I was doing'. Another unpleasant case was a writing partner - with whom I had very active stories, rapid back-and-forth, and regular OOC chat with - completely lost it on me when I bumped my request thread, as they felt I shouldn't have stories with anyone else. These are both extreme cases and thankfully rare, and they have been the only times (that I know of, of course) where ending the stories resulted in hurt feelings.

3) A complete lack of communication. If there's no out of character communication, no story discussion, if the writing partner won't give input to the plot's direction, I find it very difficult to keep a story going. I'll always send messages, ask questions, toss ideas back and forth, and I'm patient if people need breaks - if there's an extended (unannounced) absence, I'll typically wait five days to a week before checking in and if there's no OOC response, I assume the story is over. If they return some time later (which does happen, mental or physical illness, life events, straight up exhaustion) I'll generally be happy to continue a story, with a little mental refreshing.
 
dichotomy said:
Its passive aggressive behaviour that really pulls me down. Indicating things like "and another one ditched me"
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There is nothing I can get in response (usually) that will cement my decision more than stupid shit like this. Buddy, be glad I didn't just poof on you. If all you've got to a partner's ebb in an interest-driven hobby is something like this, you deserve a good ghosting instead. Basically I fuel my reaction into indignation and call it evidence I made the right call regardless. The latter you mention is a bit more tricky... but in that case, I try to keep someone on OOC at least, because as a two way street, if I can't motivate, I'm just going to have to disappoint.

I have some really picky, difficult to explain signs I work from. OOC literacy and style gives me cues that a request thread doesn't, or the partner really emphasizes things that tells me I'm not going to be able to keep up the common ground. That's the only field that I struggle in a good bit, because I'm basically telling people "I liked you, but now I kinda don't". It's not even about liking. It's just experience telling me 'you're going to regret this, stop now'. If I don't get any of those cues, typically I expect to never hit the conditions below. Sometimes I ignore them because if I vetted by every little gut feeling I woudn't have any partners. And... then that sometimes goes to my conditions of dropping where I do have less trouble saying why.

- Possessiveness. I'm not your girl. I was never your girl. I will play other roleplays. I will have other hobbies. I work. If you are naturally inclined to a faster speed, are respectful about expressing that, but we try it out anyways, this could either work or we cordially agree we don't really fit. But I mean when someone's fundamentally just missed the point and gets demanding in the ways mentioned one post up.

- Forcing a real life dynamic. Connected to the above, but different. I have a partner right now who's trailing the edge. While I fully empathize with people who think it's rude to be told about their sexual status in relation to posts and ideas shared, I'm fine with it. I'm probably going to be off handed about it, but I don't mind. It's even something of a compliment. It's trying to make it real, poking for real life stuff, any hint that you are demanding that makes me nope out instantly. The partner I mean has made it because I have pushed back at my borders and there's an instant 'sorry, lets move on' understanding.

- Bad communication. If we don't have chemistry or the OOC feels really flat, I'm probably going to call in citing dwindling interest.

- Ghosting. Now, I have a system for this. On the first week of play/interest I'm a bit more stringent; I'm probably going to put a game on the shelf if you leave me hanging a week after I post an intro without so much as an OOC 'by your leave'. I get IC being something hard to keep a fast pace on over time; that's literally me in a nutshell. But the beginning matters to me. Later on I give a full month if I see you're offline and a couple weeks if you're active elsewhere before I consider shelving the game. In the former case, I get you might have run into an emergency. No hard feelings. I can't promise a restart, but I can say I'll give you a good chance when you return (but massive leniency and kudos to the people that note they will be absent unusually long for the dynamic we're working with. A week delay on a week-by-week game isn't going to stall me, but if it's every other day we post, I feel obliged to say something when I'm having a slow period). It's when you're doing all sorts of other shit in the meantime and I can't even get something of substance out of you in the OOC that I'm going to, again, shelve it, but also close the door on another game. I'm a little hardcore. If I feel truly ghosted and I don't have reasonable doubt, I'm not going to play with you again.

Those are the big ones I think would apply around here.
 
I tend to be up-front in a lot of things when I'm chatting about putting a story together. It can make things easier, I find, for when things go south.

* I'm not a quick poster. I have a life, and not a lot of free time for writing. Currently I wake at 0415 so my working day can begin, I start work at 0700, I get about 40-ish minutes of time during my lunch break when I can push out one reply (maybe two if they're both small and quick), I can sometimes write a second reply on the way home if the need to sleep isn't greater, I get home and get into cooking dinner and doing family time, and I get about an hour to myself before I have to get ready for bed and be lights-out around 2200 so the next day can begin. I tend to not write much on weekends. I point all this out to a prospective partner (not in such great detail, though) so that they're aware I'm likely to not respond quickly. That way if it's been a few days without a response from me and they get shirty, I can point them back and say "I did tell you, now put up or shut up" (but a bit more diplomatically). Your repeated requests for posts from me will instead get a "Yeah...No" from me.

* Blurring OOC and IC. I hate this. I'm writing a story between my character and yours. I'm NOT writing a story between me and you. I find it intensely uncomfortable to write an erotic story when I know you're envisaging yourself as the character I'm interacting with. Instant Game Over from me.

* If I don't feel that we'll work well as writing partners - writing style, story ideas, desired kinks, or even just gut feeling - I'll likely call it. I don't expect everyone here's going to be an English Major (I'm not), but if you struggle with even basic grammar and comprehension...it can wreck my immersion if I have to spend half of my time working out what you were getting at. No point in writing a story if I'm not enjoying it.

* Ghosting. You take a while to respond to our story, especially after I ask you (and it can take me a while to get around to doing this, because you have a life too), but I can see you're bumping your Request Thread every other day looking for new partners? That puts you on my shit list. Sorry. I won't even tell you I'm gone, 'cause at that point I already know I'm not likely to get anything out of you.
 
Usually I try to address whatever I think is causing problems in the RP first. If that isn't enough and problems continue I tell them why I'm leaving or what my issue is before I leave.
 
One of the things that will guarantee me to Ghost is when they start the stalking. Example, I tell them I will be a little delayed due to whatever real life situation. Ok so a few days maybe even a week passes without me responding. It's just the way it is, life happens. They send me a PM asking if I am ok but it's really about whether or not I still want to do the RP. Or you get the RP bumped! Or both, I even had one partner delete their last post and re-post it so it would appear in my alerts!

Just settle the fuck down, I had every intention of resuming the RP but that shit just killed it for them.

Then you see them complain about losing partners on their profile.
 
dichotomy said:
How do you do it without hurting your partner?
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I don't get hung up on hurting others with rejection. It is more harmful in the long run to not say anything or pretend things are going well. I try to look at it as we're both trying to find someone we're compatible with, and those stories that'll bring out our best. So, I'm not depriving them of something but giving them the opportunity to not waste time on someone/thing that isn't working(me) and to find what will be a more fulfilling experience for them with someone else better fitted.

That being said, I keep it very short and very bland so that the intent is clear yet there's nothing blaming or overtly hurtful in my words. A "thank you" and a "I'm sorry" go a long way because after all, you're not trying to hurt this person by ending things and you at least want to express gratitude for the time put in.

I can't tell you how many times I've been told that I owe it to a failed partnership to tell them what they did wrong or how they can improve. And you give them that and they act snippy, snooty, and as if they don't deserve your critical advice. It's gotten to the point now where I don't answer the question "why?" anymore. I am polite, I tell them straight, "No thank you, I am not interested." But I refuse to give them a review of my personal standards for rping because they're never grateful for the criticism and they always take it as a personal attack. It wouldn't help them anyway since they're not going to be writing with me.

"In order to rp with me, you should improve this and this and this. Bye." :ROFLMAO:

That's if I'm ending a partnership. If I like writing with someone but I'm not feeling the rp, I talk to them about it and see what we/I can do differently to bring the magic back. If it really is just "dead" then I ask if we can do an entirely new story.
 
The Goodman said:
I don't get hung up on hurting others with rejection. It is more harmful in the long run to not say anything or pretend things are going well. I try to look at it as we're both trying to find someone we're compatible with, and those stories that'll bring out our best. So, I'm not depriving them of something but giving them the opportunity to not waste time on someone/thing that isn't working(me) and to find what will be a more fulfilling experience for them with someone else better fitted.

That being said, I keep it very short and very bland so that the intent is clear yet there's nothing blaming or overtly hurtful in my words. A "thank you" and a "I'm sorry" go a long way because after all, you're not trying to hurt this person by ending things and you at least want to express gratitude for the time put in.

I can't tell you how many times I've been told that I owe it to a failed partnership to tell them what they did wrong or how they can improve. And you give them that and they act snippy, snooty, and as if they don't deserve your critical advice. It's gotten to the point now where I don't answer the question "why?" anymore. I am polite, I tell them straight, "No thank you, I am not interested." But I refuse to give them a review of my personal standards for rping because they're never grateful for the criticism and they always take it as a personal attack. It wouldn't help them anyway since they're not going to be writing with me.

"In order to rp with me, you should improve this and this and this. Bye." :ROFLMAO:

That's if I'm ending a partnership. If I like writing with someone but I'm not feeling the rp, I talk to them about it and see what we/I can do differently to bring the magic back. If it really is just "dead" then I ask if we can do an entirely new story.
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That's why a lot of people prefer to ghost. You should be able to just say that's it's not working out and leave it at that.

A lot of people can't get the hint though or want answers. For me it's easy if I haven't heard from a partner after a week I assume the Rp is over.

If there are creative issues that make me want to end it I might try and chat about it but it depends on the chemistry I have with that person.
 
Dirty Fingers said:
That's why a lot of people prefer to ghost. You should be able to just say that's it's not working out and leave it at that.

A lot of people can't get the hint though or want answers. For me it's easy if I haven't heard from a partner after a week I assume the Rp is over.

If there are creative issues that make me want to end it I might try and chat about it but it depends on the chemistry I have with that person.
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Agreed. It should just be a clean break. It doesn't need to be about what someone did wrong or needing to fix something. It's really not that personal. I believe lack of compatibility to be a sufficient and blameless reason to stop rping with someone. Even folks who write one liners can find someone who also writes one liners that they can enjoy that sort of story with. I would never hold myself up as the paragon of how things should be done in order for you(general) to enjoy an rp. So, I wouldn't want to give an answer like, "Well, you're rping wrong." It is merely a matter of "I personally did not enjoy this. I hope you find someone else who will. đź‘Ť"

I'm the same way with "waiting." I used to hang onto slots and rps and get really irritable the longer I waited for a partner to show up or respond to OOC messages. Now, I no longer give that control away. I know I am impatient. I like to post at least once a day to keep the flow going. Barring exigent circumstances, I will wait a week, possibly two before I cut life support on an rp. If the person comes back later and we had good chemistry, I might start something else up. But after two weeks that particular story is dead. *shrugs*
 
I most of the time just ghosted them, but I'm not the one who usually ends an RP. When I did, I would give a message telling them that something came up, and i'd be pretty busy in the upcoming weeks, and then just never contact them again. Plus point for forums that shows your last login, because I once ghosted someone by just never visiting the site again.

I do feel that I need to finish an RP, but it's not out of obligation or anything, but because most of the time, I already thought about what to do with the story, and where the story would go, so once it started, I tend to see it through, and make up new plot candies to refresh the mood if i feel that my partner started to feel stale with the current topic. It's more of an investment towards my own character in that world, rather than the obligation to continue itself.

I usually settle the forbidden kinks and no-gos before the RP start, so most of the time, the things that made me want to end an RP is my partner's loss of drive, which i usually interpret when they stopped giving contribution to the story, and just made a reply simply to just reply to my character, or when their posting details starts getting less and less. I'd still continue the RP if i still have the time, and this is probably why I'm the one who usually got ghosted.
 
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