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LiveVoltage · **07-18-2014, 09:12 AM**

@FrelanceWIzard
Of course I know that there are people who are not NEET's but still RP and have a social life. I was referring to the majority of people who RP as a generalization as any single person who RP's spends a large amount on the internet during the process of it.

I personally don't mind being social on the internet and chatting with other people over an internet communication program, such as team speak or Voice talk or whatever.

I think it has to do with anonymity. NEET's have no problem chatting up web boards or with people they don't know but shy away from real life visitation or actually having to communicate with people they know in real life on the web.

EDIT: Generally though, NEET's would be considered social recluses who spend a majority of the time over the internet. They also likely always fall into the MMO or Gaming community so there is that as well.

Really though from a Psychological standpoint, being a NEET is understandable though as its a way of thinking and coping with the real world. Granted its not the healthiest of choices nor is it looked upon in a positive light, but I digress.

There is just alot of different psychological and social influences and subjects that come into play here, as RP is very complex as you assume the role of someone who isn't you, throwing away you're own identity to give life to the one you're role-playing without you're real self influencing the actions of the said character and the said characters don't have an influence on you in real life, a complicated and trying task if one ever needs to say so but that goes without saying.

LiadansWhisper · **07-18-2014, 10:56 AM**

(07-18-2014, 08:25 AM)LiveVoltage Wrote: Most people who RP in the majority are people who have withdrawn from society and have become NEET's. (correct me if I spelled that wrong) A NEET is a term in Japan that is used to refer to someone who has withdrawn from almost all if any social interaction and have taken up effective residence on the internet and NEET's can also likely to be big time Otaku's of some sort or another and NEET's are the people who most common group of Role Players out of all the others. I personally am a NEET myself , since I dont really talk to anyone IRL save for my family and like two other friends and many of my sisters friends, whom are all women I hold healthy platonic relationships with.

Hate to burst your bubble, but there are some large, extremely social in-real-life groups of RPers out there who get together on a regular basis to RP, as well as have active social lives outside of the game. Â I myself work in sales, where I am constantly interacting with people (and, in fact, I get depressed when I'm not around people), and FFXIV is having a Fan Convention in October where a lot of RPers are gonna be getting together in the physical world to get drunk, party, and otherwise socialize with one aother.

I used to be a member of a 6000+ person RP organization that routinely ran conventions every 3 months or so that I attended on a regular basis just to spend 3-5 days doing nothing but socializng with other people.

Well. Â And socializing, but that's another story....

LiadansWhisper · **07-18-2014, 11:01 AM**

(07-18-2014, 07:05 AM)Gaspard Wrote:
(07-18-2014, 04:18 AM)LiadansWhisper Wrote: But, of course, there are people who just aren't really stable. Â There are people who are using RP to make up for their own issues in their real life. Â And there are people who simply aren't living in reality, and are using RP as an escape. Â There are people who simply can't separate what they want in character from what they want out of character, much less realize that what happens in character is no reflection on what exists out of character.

Those people are crazy.

I really don't mean it as an insult, but it IS insanity to mix in character and out of character. Â What I do in character has no bearing on who I am in real life. Â And what I do out of character should have no bearing on what my character does/reacts/feels/whatever. Â When the two are mixing, nothing good comes from it. Â Just bad, bad, bad juju.

While I generally agree, I think that's a bit 'too' generalized. If your character is goal oriented, and you as a player are partially competitive, you 'will' have a congruence between OOC desire to succeed/win/progress, and your characters personal drive to succeed/win/progress. The difference therein lies whether you consider roleplaying a 'game', or a sort of interactive novel writing which makes all the difference. I've seen people opt for both routes. Some Consider Roleplay like an elaborate, more immersive RPG game, others consider it an actual effort in writing/creating a history, omitting any form of mechanics whatsoever (Game/Dice/etc,) Opting for pure storywriting.Â

So in essence, IC/OOC seperation to hundred percent is nigh impossible unless you don't give a single thing about your character or what happens to him, and we all know that is never the case (Just see how many people are willing to have their character die, or suffer severe injury, and Â you have a pretty decent display on the level of attachment people share with their creations)

I never said it was easy. Â I said that mixing of the two is something that you should avoid if at all possible, and that it's the people who mix In Character and Out of Character on a regular basis who are the ones you really need to watch out for.

I didn't mean it as an insult, but if someone gets mad at me because of something my character does, there's a problem. Â By the same token, if someone expects something of me Out of Character because my character is romantically involved with theirs, there's a problem.

Quote:Either way, i'm rambling at this point. I generally agree with what you wrote, just that strict OOC/IC seperation would go with strict lack of attachment.

I am simply saying that people should be at least attempting to keep things separate. Â Nothing wrong with being friends, but my character fucking yours doesn't mean I want to have a romantic relationship with you, the player.

Miza · **07-18-2014, 11:50 AM**

Welp I'm sorta late to this thread, but this topic is something I've been through a couple times so I'll drop my two gil.

I'll start by saying I don't think you can ever truly separate IC/OOC 100 percent completely as I believe our characters are, at the very least, a fraction of our greater psyche as individuals. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I'm under the belief that we can't ever escape ourselves completely. At the end of the day, it is still you making those choices for your character. To say that we can all create a completely different persona a la Tyler Durden would make us all crazy, right? Or maybe I'm just crazy. So with some RP topics, such as romance, there will always be a little spillage from OOC to IC or vice-versa. Like other people have stated in this thread, some of us make the conscious decision to reach out to someone and deny them OOC'ly. Others try to make up for their lacking lives IC'ly by seeking out relationships and situations they couldn't find elsewhere. This doesn't excuse people who actively seek to manipulate and destroy relationships, but I think those cases are in the minority with this particular topic. There's always two sides to a coin and I think it's a bit silly to expect someone to be able to have a 100 percent distinction between IC and OOC. Honestly, I didn't always hold these opinions. In fact, what changed my perspective was my experience with someone who became my RP partner.

I used to think you could have IC and OOC completely separated. And that's not to say that I don't think you can step back and say "I'm not my character." Because we're not our characters. But we all are humans - a lesson I learned the hard way. In the MMO I previously RPed in, I had two characters who I RPed quite frequently. Very different characters from each other and both went through this type of drama from opposite ends. One character, I'll call her Annie for the sake of privacy and yada yada, found herself one day in a relationship that had happened very "organically" (quotes because we talked about the possibility a couple of times in guild chat) over the course of 4 months with a guildmate. We were good friends OOC wise and I knew that my guildie was married happily to his wife IRL. At this time, I had the believe that my IC actions would have no consequence in the OOC side of things but boy was I ever wrong.

So Annie more or less had the mind of a child in an adult body as that's how her race worked in the game. She didn't have any sort of grasp on the social complexities of human culture and courtship. Playing into this, I had Annie cheat on her boyfriend with someone else who started coming on to her. And by cheat, I mean just an embraced kiss. Lo and behold when my gulidie found out OOC'ly and then IC'ly, he was miffed to put it lightly. He felt like I was throwing all the development Annie and his character had been through out the window. That was not my intention. The fact of the matter was Annie, the character, didn't understand what being a "girlfriend" really meant. I, the OOC Annie, didn't have a child-mind in reality and tried telling him that I wasn't trying to throw away the relationship. He didn't really like my answer and him and his wife ended up never talking to me again and leaving the guild.

Now, who was in the wrong there? My guildie who felt like I betrayed him and effectively put a dent in the relationship we had built? Or me for making that naive decision for the sake of my character OOC'ly even though I had an inkling deep down that it might have repercussions? Aren't IC and OOC supposed to be completely separate?Â

While all this Annie craziness was happening, my other character, let's call him Paul, was in the midst of a relationship with a character played by someone who had become my closest friend in that game. I met her out of the blue one day and we started RPing. I invited her to my guild and from there, our relationship grew both IC and OOC-wise. The IC relationship had evolved from a mercenary partnership to Paul finally popping the question several months down the road some time after the Annie Incident went down. Little did I know that Paul's fiance had taken a liking to me OOC. In retrospect, I should have saw the signs earlier. There was a period of time where we did everything together - from lvling to sitting around in town idling to even doing AH stuff together. She had also reached out to me outside the game with MSN (back when that was a thing) and we would talk for long periods of time. But much like an anime protag or video game character, my whole life I have been quite oblivious to romantic advances people make toward me. So it wasn't until one day when she got mad at me for giving her space (something that she herself had asked me to do like a week before) that I started to realize something was off. Finally, a mutual friend of ours revealed to me one day that she was deeply in love with me - something that dumbfounded me because she had told me plenty of times about her girlfriend she had IRL. To this day, I still don't know how I really felt about her. What happened was it turned out that IRL-wise, she was a savant with severe bipolar and depression mental ailments. Our last conversation was her confessing to me that she always thought her character and Paul represented the IRL version of us in-game and that she thought I knew that. She then was committed to a home a few days after we talked last.Â

Was I supposed to reciprocate her feelings? Did I make the mistake of doing everything together with her? I would like to think the answer is no to those questions, but I did sort of enable her in a way. I could have made the effort to keep ourselves more distanced, but I did genuinely enjoy her company.

I had tried to keep IC/OOC separate and by maintaining that mindset, I feel like it destroyed these relationships I had. Maybe my stories are extreme examples. I mean, Paul's fiance was literally crazy. However, Annie's boyfriend was very sound of mind and happily married. IC and OOC had managed to leak into each other with both scenarios. We're not our characters, that completely true. But what I realized is that we are still humans and despite how hard we try to not let IC decisions to affect the OOC side of things, you can't completely wall it off. Otherwise, we would readily let all of our characters have permission to be killed and die off.Â

Despite all of the above, I haven't written off RP romance. But I'm definitely much more...selective and cautious about it now. It is not one of my goals and it wasn't back then with those characters either as I use RP as practice for my own writing. But I think if I learned anything, it's that RP romance is like reaching into one of those hats with lots of pieces of paper. You don't know what you're going to pull out, but for whatever reason, you hope it's something good.Â RP isn't supposed to be a dating service. The people who RP just for relationships, I don't think they realize that it won't fill that void in their hearts. Your character will most likely end up very one-dimensional and the relationship, if they get one, will not last. Sorry for the long-winded rant and thanks for reading. Blush

Kage · **07-18-2014, 11:53 AM**

I don't want to get into this but..

A NEET is a termÂ coined in the UK butÂ used pretty much globally nowÂ for "Not inÂ Education, Employment, or Training". It isÂ not a term that is made for how people deal with each other socially and behaviorally. I believe you are thinking of "hikikomori."

LiveVoltage · **07-18-2014, 11:54 AM**

(07-18-2014, 10:56 AM)LiadansWhisper Wrote: Hate to burst your bubble, but there are some large, extremely social in-real-life groups of RPers out there who get together on a regular basis to RP, as well as have active social lives outside of the game. Â I myself work in sales, where I am constantly interacting with people (and, in fact, I get depressed when I'm not around people), and FFXIV is having a Fan Convention in October where a lot of RPers are gonna be getting together in the physical world to get drunk, party, and otherwise socialize with one aother.

I used to be a member of a 6000+ person RP organization that routinely ran conventions every 3 months or so that I attended on a regular basis just to spend 3-5 days doing nothing but socializng with other people.

Well. Â And socializing, but that's another story....

You're not bursting any bubbles, but my scope of view and knowledge of what you refer too is different from youre's. As I have previously mentioned, I used to RP forum alot before coming to FFXIV and oh boy, there were a whole lot of NEET's that RPed wherever I went.

I know that there are social RPers out there, but to my experience, the majority are on the internet as NEET's. Now that we have clarified that, I would digress as to avoid any further arguments.

Crisiet · **07-18-2014, 11:59 AM**

The reasons behind this person's behaviour don't matter. I hope Blue is able to deal with it without any more stress than has already been caused.

Mercurias · **07-18-2014, 12:05 PM**

Like a lot of you nerds, I've been roleplaying for a while. MMO roleplay for about ten years and chatroom/forum roleplay since I was around eleven and mary-sueing it up. During that time, I've come into this problem over and over again, both happening to my own characters and then seeing it happen to others. I find it frustrating at times, not because I feel that every character I've ever made has to fall into a romantic subplot, but because having someone stalk you or someone you know online takes swiftly takes the fun of the game and sends it into unsettling territory.

On a personal note, I've had online stalking even end up at the point where some characters of mine ended up being retired exclusively due to being stalked, and having to report one person who took the stalking out of character, off the game, and ended up sending wildly inappropriate pictures to my personal email which was set up on the game's forums (always use PMs, guys. Don't list your email, even if it's a gaming email account).

Because of that, I've come up with a wee process that I tend to follow when it comes to roleplay in general and romance RP in specific.

First off, always look for red flags in behavior or in how the person interacts, either the character or the player OOCly. I find that I'm a fairly good judge of people, and if something clicks as wrong, strange, or even "sorta boring" to me, I'll tend to put the kibosh on deep relationships or plotlines fast. "Sorta boring" as a worry category came into the list because that was where the person with the inappropriate pictures happened, by the way. I'm not really much of a snob.

Secondly, I look for flags that the person is a bad drama factory. You can have friends who you like and enjoy talking to, and drama is what DRIVES good roleplay, but fabricating GOOD drama as opposed to hopping onto the lame, forced, or disturbing drama train and never getting off can be a sign that not everything is going well with the person and that they should be reaching out for help in the real world. At that point, it's time to set the IC relationship DOWN. Weird or creepy plotlines aren't always an indicator of someone who has something wrong going on, but you'd be surprised how often it can be a cry for help.

Thirdly, constant appeals for attention are a bad, obvious sign. Saying hello when someone logs in most days is one thing. Clamoring for that person or characters attention to the exclusion of any and all others? That's weird, dangerous territory, especially if the person begins to get openly upset or take things to tells in appeal to you OOC in an attempt to manipulate you into spending time with him or her. I've got people I enjoy roleplaying with, sure, but normally I'll sit down and jam with just about anybody. I can find something to do. I don't need to camp one person and get furious if their eyes wander. I won't even PRETEND I think that my characters are that fascinating (this is a good thing, considering that one of the biggest running jokes in my FC is how badly everybody wants to punch my current main character...Often including myself).

Fourth, I never, ever plan out a romance out of character. It'll either happen organically as a result of roleplay or it won't happen at all.

Fifth, if an IC relationship ends up taking a foray into romantic territory, I'll normally talk to the player about it OOCly and confirm that everything is alright. For example, I actually prefer roleplaying out romances with players who are already in HAPPY relationships for a whole lot of reasons that eventually boil down to the fact that I can really count on them not fantasizing about the relationship going out of character. That being said, I also will obviously make sure to respect any rules or boundaries that someone will put in place because, well, this is all a big game and we're here to have fun, not cause trouble for other people.

Sicth and most importantly? If I end up getting a stalker that disrupts my time on the game then he or she is blacklisted. Immediately. If they continue to harass me on alts or by running up to me and trying to engage through something that can go through the blacklist filter (/emotes, for example, used to go that in Guild Wars 2), then I'll immediately report that person for harassment to a GM.

To Blue, I say that I understand why you choose not to engage in romantic roleplay. There are a lot of reasons it can be worrisome, and navigating it at all can end up a landmine. I'm not at all belittling you for it.

But I believe you should have taken one of the gilsellers off of your blacklist and stuck that person on a long, long time before it reached this point. This is why the blacklist exists, and you could have ended the interaction a long time ago. I'm not going to say something like "It's your fault", because you weren't the person who started it, but you let it all go on way, way too long and you interacted with the other player long enough for him or her to get attached and that is BAD.
What you're dealing with right now if the fallout from that.

In the future, remember the Blacklist exists, and that it's there to protect you and help you enjoy the game before things get this bad.

*drops mic*

*signs*

And I'm out.

McBeefâ„¢ · **07-18-2014, 12:09 PM**

How about just don't be a creep.

Aerghwab · **07-18-2014, 12:11 PM**

(07-18-2014, 12:09 PM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote: How about just don't be a creep.

Crisp. Clear. Concise. Other adjectives starting with C. I like it.

LiveVoltage · **07-18-2014, 12:16 PM**

(07-18-2014, 11:53 AM)ExKage Wrote: I don't want to get into this but..

A NEET is a termÂ coined in the UK butÂ used pretty much globally nowÂ for "Not inÂ Education, Employment, or Training". It isÂ not a term that is made for how people deal with each other socially and behaviorally. I believe you are thinking of "hikikomori."

Oh, ok, thanks. I feel like an idiot for using NEET instead of Hikimori.Â @_@

My point still stands at any relevant rate.

Naunet · **07-18-2014, 12:23 PM**

(07-18-2014, 12:16 PM)LiveVoltage Wrote:
(07-18-2014, 11:53 AM)ExKage Wrote: I don't want to get into this but..

A NEET is a termÂ coined in the UK butÂ used pretty much globally nowÂ for "Not inÂ Education, Employment, or Training". It isÂ not a term that is made for how people deal with each other socially and behaviorally. I believe you are thinking of "hikikomori."
Oh, ok, thanks. I feel like an idiot for using NEET instead of Hikimori.Â @_@

My point still stands at any relevant rate.

The point that has zero data to back it up? :p

Kallan · **07-18-2014, 01:31 PM**

I'm finding it difficult to articulate the response I'd like to make, so please try not to read too terribly far into what I say.

I myself enjoy a good romance RP, but I feel that the other party's response to whatever approach I choose is most likely going to dictate how the relationship - romantic or not - will end up developing. I have played characters that fall hard and fast, and I have played characters that are much more reserved. It seems like most of the issue comes from those who play the 'hard and fast' type - whichÂ I can certainly understand. When I've played that type, if it's met with resistance, I've never gone the 'guilt' route ICly, because that's just..wrong?

Having said that, however, my current main character has low self-esteem and does in fact feel that the whole of womankind would find him less than desirable - but that's not a hook for me to try and guilt a possible RP partner, it's an outgrowth of the backstory I've chosen. I think the thing to keep in mind is that phrase I just used; "possible RP partner". Being rebuffed should be seen as an opportunity to grow the character - isn't that the whole point of what we're doing? Yes, there are people that play characters that flit from relationship to relationship, but if that's how the character develops, great. If it's to satisfy a need that someone is not getting OOC, then I think that's a problem, and I think that's where we have obsessions and 'stalking' occuring.

If I were going to ever play a character that would become obsessed with another (i haven't yet because it kind of creeps me out just thinking about it), I would approach the other party both IC and OOC and say something along the lines of, 'hey, I have this idea for this character based on this, this, and this, would you be interested in playing a character development storyline based on xyz?'. If someone can't give an OOC reason for their character's obsession/guilt trippingÂ and/or can't describe how such a thing is going to develop or grow the character, then I don't think the person is RPing, I think they're trying to get themselves off on making someone uncomfortable, or just hoping that the "target" will choose to throw them a bone (so to speak).

Granted, that's just my lowly, lowly opinion. If you disagree with me, it must mean you hate me and I'm terrible, and I should just go back under my rock because no one ever likes me and I'm so lonely.

Wink

Blue · **07-18-2014, 01:37 PM**

Wow so many answers during my sleep. That was a long but interesting read.

I really thank everyone for the support. A big part of my problem with this person is my own character, whose personality is very subdued, and aggressive upfront outbursts are very rare if not impossible from him/her. This sort of locked me between the two metaphorical fires, one being my will to not give this RPer what they wanted from me, and the other being the risk to break character by acting how they wouldn't. That resulted in my denials to always be polite, calm, and seemingly not effective for this roleplayer.

I don't know, maybe they think that until the day I openly tell them to fuck off and get lost, insisting is fair game.

Should they come and find me again, I will try and bring the rejection to the OOC level again, where I can be a little more straight (although I am also a very mild person, and making others angry/dislike me is always a throb in the chest for me, which is why I'm reluctant to block people). I really hope we can part ways in friendly terms, but it sounds like I'll have to cope with it, should this not be the case.

Val · **07-18-2014, 01:47 PM**

(07-18-2014, 01:37 PM)Blue Wrote: Wow so many answers during my sleep. That was a long but interesting read.

I really thank everyone for the support. A big part of my problem with this person is my own character, whose personality is very subdued, and aggressive upfront outbursts are very rare if not impossible from him/her. This sort of locked me between the two metaphorical fires, one being my will to not give this RPer what they wanted from me, and the other being the risk to break character by acting how they wouldn't. That resulted in my denials to always be polite, calm, and seemingly not effective for this roleplayer.

I don't know, maybe they think that until the day I openly tell them to fuck off and get lost, insisting is fair game.

Should they come and find me again, I will try and bring the rejection to the OOC level again, where I can be a little more straight (although I am also a very mild person, and making others angry/dislike me is always a throb in the chest for me, which is why I'm reluctant to block people). I really hope we can part ways in friendly terms, but it sounds like I'll have to cope with it, should this not be the case.

Personally, I think it's entirely okay to break character and just walk away if something is making you OOCly uncomfortable. In the end, you're the one paying to play this game and you should be having fun. If someone is encroaching on that fun, you have every right to tell them to please stop and, barring that, remove yourself from them entirely. As I've told someone else before, you're not going to make everyone like you. We all have different beliefs/personalities/ideas of what we like, but subjecting yourself to this is only going to make things far more uncomfortable and unpleasant for you in the long run.

I hope this helped at least a little. If the person isn't willing to back off after speaking to them OOCly about it and informing them that it makes you uncomfortable or that you aren't interested, I would strongly suggest blocking them.

An afterthought: I recently had to do this, actually. Someone was creeping on my character hard and would simply not stop. After some drama unfolded, I politely asked them to not contact me again. They insisted and I blocked them. Now all is well Smile

I don't generally like blocking people either, but I have no problems doing it if the person refuses to take a hint.

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Roleplaying Romance: Obsession Emergency?

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