(07-23-2017, 04:00 AM)Lydia Lightfoot Wrote: The times when I've had a character become romantically involved with another and it ended up being a fulfilling and interesting element of their overall story, and it lasted long enough to be meaningful and feel even plausibly realistic, it happened organically.Â
(07-23-2017, 09:02 AM)Kaiverta Wrote: But yes, the organic and realistic way of developing characters together, who learn about each other as you write them, is a really cool feeling. And it makes the relationship more solid.
(07-23-2017, 09:08 AM)Kaiverta Wrote: Now I let things flow as they will, and it's great. Sometimes it ends and it's miserable, but at least it's organic and realistic, and doesn't feel forced.
(07-23-2017, 09:29 AM)AishaHeartfield Wrote:For me personally, so much character development occurs through the complex interactions between my character and those written by other people. To skip all the experiences and interactions that may lead to an organic . . .Â
I feel that a prior arranged romantic roleplay would rob that creative process of its organic value and in turn, result in a character that feels forced or unnatural. It would affect my immersion.
(07-23-2017, 12:18 PM)Lydia Lightfoot Wrote: Sometimes, that result means I don't ever really see that player's character around again, and other times I do, but the characters have a fairly organic evolution of their original "hmm, maybe?" thoughts into "mm, friends is good" instead. Or, sometimes other fun results happen, wherein one of the characters ends up harboring a crush or something like that, and as happens in real life, it just doesn't lead anywhere.Â
In this thread, RP Whole Foods. The best RP is fair-trade, free of pesticides and human rights abuses, and non-GMO.
As for me, I like my RP processed, packed with unholy preservatives, and using monstrous randomizers that ruin everything and are built on the misery and labor of others. The goal of having natural and spontaneous creative outpourings that result from true and natural development between writers is meaningless to me, and I often find those results to be more predictable than if I had just pre-planned things or brought dice into the equation.
There are a number of good OOC reasons why players would choose to engage in pre-planned romances, but since the question is focused on why people would post forum ads looking for pre-arranged romance instead of, say, pre-establishing one with a player the writer already knows and trusts, let's stick with that. And since other people have pointed out the "red flag" issue, let's skip that.
Instead, frame these requests in the context of another type of thread we get with some frequency: "Why won't anybody RP with me when I walk up to them?" or its kissing cousin, "Why can't I get a storyline rolling beyond 'shallow' tavern RP?" For some people, this platonic ideal, this organic state of artisanal free-range cruelty-free romance hasn't happened, and for some it seems like it can't happen, because every time they try to do things "organically" they've failed or been ignored, and it's been that way for a long time. When people post these kinds of threads all they're really told is to keep hammering away at the problem. Some people accept this advice, and some decide to circumvent it and advertise what they're looking for.Â
It seems unfair to disparage the choice when they may well have tried the alternative and not found it to be the immersive utopia it's cracked up to be, either because they couldn't get it at all, or because, as other people have already mentioned, it can get creepy in a hurry when it turns out their partner is looking to develop an organic OOC relationship as well, to the point of becoming outright abusive.
And then there are people who don't really see any aesthetic value in the sentiment that it feels "natural" and "unpredictable" or whatever when the roleplay develops naturally. Certainly, it's great when you stumble upon a writer you didn't know before with whom you have a good rapport, and do so largely by coincidence. But as somebody who doesn't value "organic" RP[sup]1[/sup], that feels less like an ideal form of the hobby and more like a lucky act of networking. I don't romanticize it, or let it inform how I approach my roleplay.
[sup]1[/sup]Those of you who know me reasonably well might ask "But Verad, one of the things you like doing is walking up to strangers and selling them garbage IC, how is that anything but organic roleplay?" The terrible secret: my character's sales-pitches are pretty much scripted at this point, and the responses of the players are pretty much predictable, following down one of about four different response tracks. It's as organic as Spam.
Verad Bellveil's Profile | The Case of the Ransacked Rug | Verad's Fate Sheet
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
