One of the core tenants of roleplaying is dividing In Character and Out of Character acts and feelings. What a character does IC does not, and should not reflect, on one's OOC feelings and perceptions towards that player.
Character interactions that are strongly romantic or strongly negative/violent/unsettling are the two most common - and dangerous - pitfalls where this falls apart for some players, and I would urge you not to fall into the same trap.
When one builds a good RP rapport with a player, that very often leads to forming OOC friendships and getting to know one another as players rather than characters. In the above comments, some of these friendships have evolved further into OOC relationships, but these are very likely from building up a long term friendship that just happened to blossom into something else due to a host of reasons.
I am confident there are many, many, many players out there for whom this is not the case: (read: they may have characters that are very much in love, but OOC they are either friends or perhaps even the very best of friends, but nothing more).
Absolute nail on the head. It takes a long time to get to know anyone: be it in real life or online to the point where one can even remotely entertain the notion of 'love'. Please, please, please do not let the artificial highs of fictional romance sway OOC perceptions of someone.
(And the same goes for IC negative interactions, should they arise! I've had a character recently go through some terrible things/terrible interactions with other characters, but I know OOCly that the players involved are right upstanding folks, and always ground myself in that if things seem very intense.)
[Full Disclosure: I met my husband in an RP LS in FFXI, but it was a very, very long road OOC to get to that point - as most relationships are.]
Character interactions that are strongly romantic or strongly negative/violent/unsettling are the two most common - and dangerous - pitfalls where this falls apart for some players, and I would urge you not to fall into the same trap.
When one builds a good RP rapport with a player, that very often leads to forming OOC friendships and getting to know one another as players rather than characters. In the above comments, some of these friendships have evolved further into OOC relationships, but these are very likely from building up a long term friendship that just happened to blossom into something else due to a host of reasons.
I am confident there are many, many, many players out there for whom this is not the case: (read: they may have characters that are very much in love, but OOC they are either friends or perhaps even the very best of friends, but nothing more).
(10-26-2015, 03:25 AM)Calliope Cloverbloom Wrote: I'll echo what the others have said, in different wording: The character and the player are separate entities. One is Captain Jack Sparrow, the other is Johnny Depp. For all his zaniness, Johnny Depp is not Jack, his life isn't like Jack's, his personality isn't Jack's.
Absolute nail on the head. It takes a long time to get to know anyone: be it in real life or online to the point where one can even remotely entertain the notion of 'love'. Please, please, please do not let the artificial highs of fictional romance sway OOC perceptions of someone.
(And the same goes for IC negative interactions, should they arise! I've had a character recently go through some terrible things/terrible interactions with other characters, but I know OOCly that the players involved are right upstanding folks, and always ground myself in that if things seem very intense.)
[Full Disclosure: I met my husband in an RP LS in FFXI, but it was a very, very long road OOC to get to that point - as most relationships are.]
