RP Horror Stories!

Oh boy, do I have a story for you! Get some popcorn, turn down the lights,
and let me tell you about the time I pissed off staff.

I had joined this Naruto roleplay forum way, way back in the day, when Naruto was still a new thing and ninja roleplays were popping up left and right as a result. It was a big deal! I must have been twelve or thirteen, no older than that, and I decided to sign up for this one site in particular because the people seemed awesome and the rules were pretty laid back. So, I had been active for maybe two or three days, just long enough to acquaint myself with the members but not long enough to really get anything done. Because the plots seemed so fun and engaging, the characters were all unique in their own Naruto-esque way, and the members seemed friendly enough, I told my friend, Vanessa, to join so that we could roleplay together with our OCs.

Unfortunately, a day after she joined, both her and I received a private message from the staff, claiming that they "knew" I had created two separate accounts. They told us that multiple accounts were against the rules and that this was my warning to remove one of my accounts. For whatever reason, the staff thought that Vanesa and I were the same persone and that I had created multiple accounts to... I don't know, mess with people? From what I can remember, there wasn't a limit on the number of characters a member could make and there wasn't a money system in place, so I'm not sure what other reason I would have had for making multiple accounts. But I digress.

Vanessa and I responded by saying that we weren’t the same person; rather, two people who simply knew each other in real life and had similar passions for roleplaying and for Naruto. The staff got really pissed at this, since I guess they thought I was trying to lie to them, and they took to the cbox. They started rallying the other members to pressure me into removing my “second account.” Vanessa and I kept insisting that we weren’t the same person, but after maybe a half an hour of pleading our cases in the chatbox, they banned us from the site. We were heartbroken! This site had seemed so open and welcoming, and it had turned its back on me and my friend because they thought I was lying.

We still had access to the cbox and, being the emotional pre-teens that we were and being even more emotional because of everything that was happening, we kept trying to convince them to unban us and allow us to roleplay with them. Although, in hindsight, I should have just left them alone. The atmosphere was so toxic that even if Vanessa and I had been allowed back on the site, things would have been super awkward and uncomfortable for us. Talk about not being worth it! But I was so convinced that if we proved to them that we were different people, then things would go back to normal. Eventually, the staff got so sick of us spamming their cbox that they restricted non-members from posting.

Of course, being as immature as they were, the staff began posting things like, "Good riddance!" and "Finally, some peace and quiet!" in the cbox, just to rub it in our faces.

I think of that almost every day. Usually, thinking back on negative online experiences, I can recognize that the fault was my own and was entirely due to my own ignorance. But that moment seemed deliberate on the part of the staff. It was almost like they had their own group of friends and they didn't feel comfortable with anyone else joining their site, so they went out of their way to isolate new members to the point where they would leave on their own or - in my and Vanessa's case - were banned. And I think this incident is the reason why I am so anxious about joining new sites... but, MAN, am I glad I joined BC!