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rp help: Forced Role Play Forced RP

Most people have heard of roleplay, but for some, the term forced roleplay or forced RP may be a concept that is slightly harder to grasp. This help file will try to explain the concept of forced RP and why it is frowned upon and discouraged on CR.
Simply explained, forced roleplay is Forcing another character to think, feel or act a certain way by some action on your part, or by using words that describe what one would think of the appearance of something or someone without context to explain why.
The 2 most common ways you can force RP upon someone is through emotes and descriptions.
Forced RP via emoting:
Here, we will give an example of how one can force RP through an emote. Let us say Bob is another player.
You type the following: emote kicks Bob in the head, making him cry like a baby.
Why would this be considered to be forced RP?
While there is nothing wrong kicking Bob in the head, who knows, he might have deserved it, but if you force Bob to cry like a baby, you are taking away Bob's chance to emote back and are forcing Bob's response. Everyone should have the chance to decide their own actions or reactions.
Here is a better way to write this kind of emote:
emote kicks Bob in the head, in an attempt at knocking him to the floor.
Here, you still kick Bob in the head for whatever he did and Bob has a chance to react. He could dodge, he could fall, he could actually cry like a baby. the point is to leave the freedom of a reaction open to Bob so the RP is enjoyable by all involved.
Forced roleplay via descriptions:
The most common way to force someone's RP through descriptions is using the word you followed by an action. For example, your character has just entered a room and in the description you see something like:
Living room
This is a small cramped room with dusty cobwebs in every corner. You sneeze as you enter, due to the clouds of dust particles floating in the air. As you glance around, you see small pictures on the walls...
Could you spot the forced RP in that short example?
You sneeze is considered forced RP simply because it forces another player to sneeze. The same can be said about you glance and you see, both of these statements force other characters to do things, taking the RP out of their control.
A better way to write this and avoid forced RP would be:
This is a small cramped room with cobwebs in every corner and dusty pictures on the walls. Clouds of dust particles float in the air...
This is a better description because it allows characters to react to the environment in a way that is more consistent with their own brand of roleplay.
In the case of using adjectives such as beautiful, adorable, elegant, graceful, mezmorizing, enchanting and other similar words, there must be surrounding context to explain why the description would appear as such.
They may or may not be considered force rp depending on the examples below.
Living room
This is a beautiful room with doors leading to other parts of the house. Elegant carpet is visible beneath your feet. There is a sofa and nearby chairs scattered about.
This would be considered force rp because it makes you trust that the place is beautiful and has elegant carpet without really allowing the person to see what's so special about it. It also assumes that any who walk in this room would have feet, when there are other races that may have paws or wheels instead. Here is a better example.
This beautifully-designed room is filled with all kinds of paintings in an array of colors lining the light gray walls. The floor is covered by a sky blue carpet that is soft beneath one's feet, paws and wheels, and the pattern visible within the plush material is an elegantly formed array of stars, the shape embroidered in threads of gold. There is a sofa and nearby chair, as well as a coffee table present.
While one may argue that not everyone would think the appearance of this room is either beautiful or elegant, there is at least some effort in detail that may explain the beauty behind the room, adding more flavor to the viewer's over all experience. Try to keep this in mind when writing descriptions for rooms and other items.
We hope this brief help file helps you understand the concept of forced roleplay better and why it is never a good idea to force RP on someone else. We encourage everyone on CR to have an enjoyable and rewarding RP experience and wish you the best as your characters and their stories grow.
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