Some good points made so far, many of which I agree with.
For my part, I'll say that there's nothing inherently wrong with ERP, provided:
Eventually we're going to have to accept that the anti-RP crowd are going to keep crying about how all RP is ERP no matter what we do, because that's the stereotype they've attached to us and like most stereotypes, they have very little basis in reality and are incredibly stubborn to shift. It's best not to try.
For my part, I am an adult role-playing adult characters who possess sexualities. I want the characters I RP to be believable, well-rounded individuals and so I'm not going to shy away from portraying one whole facet of their identity because of some Victorian prudishness foisted upon the RP community by people who aren't even involved in it. Seriously, these people will judge us no matter what we do, and we shouldn't concern ourselves with pandering to their precious sensibilities.
For my part, I'll say that there's nothing inherently wrong with ERP, provided:
- Consent of both (or all! kinky.) parties is firmly established before hand.
- It's kept out of public chat channels, because of complications involving rule #1; not everyone wants to see it.
- OOC communication is strong and respectful.
- There aren't minors involved OOCly.
- The IC/OOC divide is kept firmly in place.
Eventually we're going to have to accept that the anti-RP crowd are going to keep crying about how all RP is ERP no matter what we do, because that's the stereotype they've attached to us and like most stereotypes, they have very little basis in reality and are incredibly stubborn to shift. It's best not to try.
For my part, I am an adult role-playing adult characters who possess sexualities. I want the characters I RP to be believable, well-rounded individuals and so I'm not going to shy away from portraying one whole facet of their identity because of some Victorian prudishness foisted upon the RP community by people who aren't even involved in it. Seriously, these people will judge us no matter what we do, and we shouldn't concern ourselves with pandering to their precious sensibilities.
