More Online Roleplaying Woes

As a followup to my last post, let me talk about the things I don't get with online gaming.

Simming: I do not want to play a canon character from some established television show, movie, or comic. I like Nightwing or Spike, but I don't want to play them. I will play in the world established in the original material, but I do not want to be those characters. Nor do I want to run into or mingle with canon characters. Let me make my own character and do my own thing along with the other players.

The GM Character: I avoid all games that appear to be "the GM's character and her hangers-on." Some game descriptions give me the distinct sense that the GM really wants to play a particular character and write a story about her (most of the time, these GM characters are female, it seems). The worst of these want other players and PCs to boss around and show off to. I belong the to "PCs are the protagonists of the story" camp and all NPCs should be secondary characters.

Excessive Posting: Less obvious than the player who posts only occassionally, slowing the game, is the player who posts more often than anyone else, dominating the action, doing things before others have even logged onto their computers, and in the worst cases, complaining in-character about how slow everyone else is. Private threads that happen outside the context of the main storyline can proceed at any pace, but main threads need to involve everyone and the same rules for sharing and giving everyone a chance apply just as much to online games as face-to-face games.