The original inspiration for this thread was a thread about inbreeding by Swift a few days back. In it, he and others were asking questions like:
Why don't the Miqo'te suffer from inbreeding?
Would the Miqo'te have traditional father figures?
Could my character have a Seeker father and Keeper mother?
Most people just wanted to flesh out a good back story for their characters, despite the lack of lore. We got some good discussion going there, and Swift asked me if he could reuse the information on other forums, so I decided to write a more cohesive thesis and bring all those questions together. There was a lot of good feedback on that thread as well as this one, and it became obvious a lot of people were asking these sorts of questions and valuing the input.
As far as ERP goes, I find it a little far-fetched to say that this discussion is ERP or encouraging ERP. As far as I can tell, character background or lore are not a consideration, and hardcore ERPers (the ones that most roleplayers despise for giving the community at large a dubious reputation) care about two things: how hot is my character and how sexually explicit is the interaction? Looking back at the entire thread, the most sexually explicit posts by far are the flames against it. I'm rather impressed and proud of this community that 95% of the discussion has been intellectual and informative. If it weren't, I would have already petitioned a moderator to lock or delete the thread.
As for the notion of someone using the lore to justify blackmailing others into creepy, unwanted RP, that would likely happen regardless of what the lore is, because that person is a creep. At the very least, it would come out over time. Most people will back down if you send them a tell that you're not comfortable with being pressured into a certain type of roleplay. If they don't, blacklist them and move on. Plenty of better people than that out there to RP with.
Why don't the Miqo'te suffer from inbreeding?
Would the Miqo'te have traditional father figures?
Could my character have a Seeker father and Keeper mother?
Most people just wanted to flesh out a good back story for their characters, despite the lack of lore. We got some good discussion going there, and Swift asked me if he could reuse the information on other forums, so I decided to write a more cohesive thesis and bring all those questions together. There was a lot of good feedback on that thread as well as this one, and it became obvious a lot of people were asking these sorts of questions and valuing the input.
As far as ERP goes, I find it a little far-fetched to say that this discussion is ERP or encouraging ERP. As far as I can tell, character background or lore are not a consideration, and hardcore ERPers (the ones that most roleplayers despise for giving the community at large a dubious reputation) care about two things: how hot is my character and how sexually explicit is the interaction? Looking back at the entire thread, the most sexually explicit posts by far are the flames against it. I'm rather impressed and proud of this community that 95% of the discussion has been intellectual and informative. If it weren't, I would have already petitioned a moderator to lock or delete the thread.
As for the notion of someone using the lore to justify blackmailing others into creepy, unwanted RP, that would likely happen regardless of what the lore is, because that person is a creep. At the very least, it would come out over time. Most people will back down if you send them a tell that you're not comfortable with being pressured into a certain type of roleplay. If they don't, blacklist them and move on. Plenty of better people than that out there to RP with.
I'm a tinker! Tinkerer? Hrm.... I'm an artificer! - Myxie Tryxle | Impressions and Memories
