I've always been a big role player having ranged from D&D, GURPs, play by post RPs, User created RP servers, Second life RP sims and other such places but lately regarding RP I've had quite a few bad experiences and gripes with certain groups I've been involved with, but the less said about those the better.

When it comes down to it, some DM/GMs can be quite insane, making silly or oppressive rules that can ruin the experience for other players, or servers that go down the toilet and into the sewers due to corrupt staff members who treat the RP like there own personal banana republic or build cults of personality around the admin/GM staff...yeah some places are that bad drama wise.

While rule heavy and structured RPs can be restrictive, outright chaos can be just as bad as people just do what they want and mess the plot up for the others, hell once I was on a megaman sim on Second life and we had a bunch of guys RPing sonic characters and complete random bullshit that ruined the session for everyone else(Not the fault of the owner of course, but rather lack of transparency) but it goes to show that any extreme can ruin a good RP, so balance is needed in some cases.

Even recently I attempted to join a play by post  RP(IM/chatroom based I would guess). on DA, that had some restrictive rules on joining, that I feel isolates a ton of potentional players, granted its up to the owners of said RPs on how they run it end of the day, but insanely high standards like I said can alienate certain people.

Is there such a thing as a perfect RP? Or at least somewhere with a good sense of balance? I doubt it, that or I just have rotten luck when it comes to role playing communities or groups.

Spoony ones countermonkey series is a very good take on Role playing cliches, gripes and even shows the good and bad sides of different games, well worth a watch [link]

Problems that can kill a good RP (Mostly applies to large communities at best, rather small RP groups) I'd also like to credit a good friend of mine for this list.
-ooc cliques/coming into power
--masturbatory RP
-assholes gaining power
-ic becoming too dependent on OOC intervention
--ic obstructed by ooc
--ooc expectation for ic events
-reduction in or elimination of consequences
-attitude of non-receptiveness on the part of the GMs/admins
-too many admins/gms
-OOC couping
-lack of things to do/boredom
-old bloods/elitism
-lack of transparency
--lack of communication
-ooc drama
-ooc interactions becoming as/more deep than IC ones

Also when it comes to chaotic RPs, this is an amusing read
[link]

So anyone had some terrible RP experences?