While I agree that it's a kind of silly attitude to have that "omg if I wanna walk-up to anyone ever for the arr peez then I have to ask permission first or they'll be mad at me," I don't think it really has anything to do with American "PC Culture." Nor do I think that there's anything really wrong with "PC Culture," because I think it's a pretty good deal that people try to be inclusive and respectful of one another.
Being afraid to offend people is kind of its own separate issue that is more likely to stem from other things that are more likely to be on a personal level. For example, Balmung has quite a few people who can and will ostracize or even harass you if you don't march in lock-step with them and their opinions, whether they pertain to RP or not.
At that point, I think that the fear is... Kind of natural? RP is a social hobby and MMOs are social games, and no one wants to be bullied. This is to say nothing of cases where people actually do bleed IC into OOC which has ended ugly, or vice-versa.
Anyway, I don't think that there's anything I could say on the matter that Gegenji hasn't already.
A semi-related note, though, is that I don't feel like it's a particularly heinous crime to let someone know, OOC in /tells, that either the scene is closed or I have no interest in RPing with them. Mostly because in crowded places, I find chat scroll to be a bit brain-bendy and I can barely keep up when I'm just RPing with one other person. If a scene is closed, I'll usually take it to /p because I just treat /p like I do /em, regardless of the nametag attached to names. But anything I do in /s is usually fair game even if I'll probably be surprised if anyone actually picks up on my character to interact in the first place.
But if it's just my character being an irritable arse, then the telling-to-buzz-off will probably just be IC. And it'll just be because he's an irritable arse, not because I, OOC, want the scene to be closed. If my character tells someone to buzz off, then they're absolutely free to not buzz off. The results might just be a little interesting depending on how Leon is feeling that day.
Being afraid to offend people is kind of its own separate issue that is more likely to stem from other things that are more likely to be on a personal level. For example, Balmung has quite a few people who can and will ostracize or even harass you if you don't march in lock-step with them and their opinions, whether they pertain to RP or not.
At that point, I think that the fear is... Kind of natural? RP is a social hobby and MMOs are social games, and no one wants to be bullied. This is to say nothing of cases where people actually do bleed IC into OOC which has ended ugly, or vice-versa.
Anyway, I don't think that there's anything I could say on the matter that Gegenji hasn't already.
A semi-related note, though, is that I don't feel like it's a particularly heinous crime to let someone know, OOC in /tells, that either the scene is closed or I have no interest in RPing with them. Mostly because in crowded places, I find chat scroll to be a bit brain-bendy and I can barely keep up when I'm just RPing with one other person. If a scene is closed, I'll usually take it to /p because I just treat /p like I do /em, regardless of the nametag attached to names. But anything I do in /s is usually fair game even if I'll probably be surprised if anyone actually picks up on my character to interact in the first place.
But if it's just my character being an irritable arse, then the telling-to-buzz-off will probably just be IC. And it'll just be because he's an irritable arse, not because I, OOC, want the scene to be closed. If my character tells someone to buzz off, then they're absolutely free to not buzz off. The results might just be a little interesting depending on how Leon is feeling that day.
