(08-31-2015, 02:00 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: Personally, I think there's a time and place for Sad RP. It certainly can't be all the time, as that would diminish the feelings associated with it.I think this is a really interesting point. There is a fine line between having a sad story, and a character who is just constantly 'woe is me'. Laike is in a bad circumstance, but the struggle I tried to make with him is whether or not his innocence and sunshine will degrade in the face of trouble. So while the story around him might be extremely sad, it doesn't mean that every scene with him is him being sad.
Now, there's got to be a balance to it, as with scenes are good/bad/whatever, just like life. My views on RP in general is that they should be as varied as life. But here's the catch, not everyone is looking for that or feels the same way. I have seen people who have consistently wanted to be surrounded by happy-only things. The same way I've seen people who have gotten into these enormous spirals of "but then it gets worse!" moments that seem to never end. Happy things are happy because we have unhappy events to balance them. Sad things are sad because the situation had been something else beforehand.
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Now, the questions.
So what do you believe the proper way to approach a sad story is?
It depends on the people you're RPing with. If it's a group of people you trust, or perhaps a group of people you've planned a story with, they may be more open to having an ending that isn't just simply "a happy ending". Perhaps it's bittersweet, sad, or downright awful.
Is it polite to warn someone it might not be happy in the end?
I personally like to warn people if I think they might be affected by a bad ending. While having happy endings 100% would get boring for me, if all my interactions with a given person were just about them trying to make my character feel better or my character trying to make their character feel better, I think it would make the RP go a little stale. Take it too far and someone could get frustrated that all of their effort to change/affect a situation isn't getting anywhere.
Is it best just to tell the story and what happens happens?
As cool as it is to have completely pure "organic" (as some call it) RP with no ending planned, a little OOC communication can go a long way. Now this doesn't mean I'm gonna go out and spoil all my sad/bad plot ideas with the people I'm going to RP with, but it does mean that I'll let them know if there's something they simply cannot change about my character, rather than watching them potentially struggle and try without saying anything.
If it's not going to happen, and it looks like a pattern where the person keeps trying, letting them in on it can be helpful. Maybe they'll look at the reasons the character is sad to work on those, instead of endless "cheering up" RP. Or perhaps it'll drive character development with a newfound conflict.
I think that if you have a character that is only ever sad, and there is no evolution or change.. it might not be the best rp for those around them. I guess it's a balance in that respect.
