WIP

If you're reading this, it means it's still in progress, please yell at me if there's shit very wrong!

I joined the Grand Theft Auto role-play community in August 2019 - coinciding with the release of YouTube and Twitch content creator Charborg's video "ken tucky robs the world", a machinima video made in Grand Theft Auto V single-player, using audio and scenarios inspired from playing on a GTAV role-play server.

I had had a passing interest in GTARP for a little while beforehand, but the video made me pull the trigger and apply to a whitelist roleplay server.

Following the Pandemic in 2020, GTA RP saw a massive boom in popularity, along with other primarily social-based games such as Among Us and VRChat, people finding ways to get social interactions in a time where social distancing and lockdown was key.

However, this also led to a decline in roleplay quality. While I hesitate to use elitist terminology like it - there was an increase in self-inserts, players struggling to separate in-character issues from out-of-character issues and a general lack of RP impetus.

By 2022, at least on the server I frequented, it felt like barely anybody was trying to roleplay out stories and characters anymore - rather, they were there to use the mechanics of the server, whether that was robbing banks, working at a mech shop or being a cop.

From a little bit of inquiring and looking around, I've found this isn't a unique problem to that server - a friend of mine who is a long-in-the-tooth Space Station 13 player-and-developer echoed a few of my sentiments when I spoke to him about it, and a few scattered conversations with other GTA roleplayers.

In August 2022, I left TwitchRP following an increasing discontentment with the way the server was being ran from a moderation and community-leading standpoint - running afoul of many classic online community blunders any long-in-the-tooth Internet denizen will be aware of. In addition, I've been thinking about the state of GTA roleplay, at least from my limited perspective.

And, as I always do when I think about things too long, I've written a bloody essay.

I will be breaking this down into several segments - I intend to cover my thoughts on Rules, Community Management, the GTARP Playerbase, Playstyles, Server Ecosystems and more. Will this be completed in a timely manner? No, probably not.


But let me preface all this with one thing. For those as staff - admins, developers, moderators, former or otherwise - and the roleplayers either currently playing or have played on the servers I may speak of. This is not a hate letter. This isn't me spilling over the kettle of tea that's been boiling since early 2022.

This is my attempt at gaining some closure on something that was a large part of my life for three years. This is me putting to rest the demons that scream "blackjack and hookers" in my head everytime I hear about something. I tried to be involved in a server getting off the ground again, but that blew up for vaguepost reasons out of my control.