(04-14-2014, 03:59 PM)Knahli Wrote: Unless you're a creature that lacks the ability to empathize then I don't see how you could not experience strong or harsh emotions for your characters. I have felt a variety of things through, or on behalf on my characters, even if they themselves didn't. In addition, I have also been through a lot when exposed to other characters even when I was totally uninvolved with the scene taking place or even so much as not even having ever roleplayed with the character. This is what makes RP exciting and interesting. If you couldn't feel anything from it then I don't understand why one would do it in the first place.
D: I'm not a creature that lacks the ability to empathize!
I think the key here is that different people have different things that they enjoy about any given hobby. For me, rp is generally all about the story: I have a sense of accomplishment when things reach a conclusion, I feel like I am part of the story, and I am in it for when other players write something that elicits and emotional response in me -- such as when one of my rp partners once killed the dog of her character so that the character could escape death. All of us who were in that thread had a moment of "Noooo, not the dog, why the dog?!" -- it was a beautiful, heartwrenching scene. And what Tiergan and Ignacious said.
Emotion is there, it just might not be the same way that you experience it. Feeling some sympathy towards a character and feeling their exact emotions are two different things.