Hoo boy, I have some strong opinions all over the place on this topic xD.
I’ve never actually role-played a meaningful IC romantic relationship with another RPer. Not because I didn’t want to but because it just never fit my characters to do so. I think romantic relationships in the RP world are very important though and create a ton of stories, both adorable and dramatic.
That said, there are a few issues I do have with them. And I know others will disagree with me vehemently on some of this but it is how I personally feel. First, I very strongly believe that real life couples should -not- RP romantic relationships with each other. Why? Even though real life partners may be extremely comfortable Rping with each other on that level, there are drawbacks they never seem to take into consideration.
One such drawback is the IC/OOC barrier. There really isn’t a big one left when a real life couple also has an IC relationship. OOC paranoia is sometimes heightened over IC actions and so on. My character in FFXI was actually quite flirtatious. He flirted with just about any hume/mithra/elvaan female he encountered. That was just who he was and it was 100% IC. There was a point where I was actually OOCly told to stop IC flirting with someone simply because it made her and her boyfriend uncomfortable (or rather paranoid). I found this very insulting personally. I don’t like being told to stop Rping my character a certain way just because someone else can’t keep IC and OOC divided. And I tend to be very good at keeping IC/OOC completely separate, but apparently some people aren’t as able to. Obviously this doesn’t apply to all IC/OOC mixed couples. But the majority seems to fit in this category.
The biggest drawback though is isolation. Basically, real life couples rarely ever have their characters break up unless they break up in real life. Thus, it’s rather pointless to even try throwing an IC wrench into the RP relationship because you already know it won’t do squat. It’s not fun to RP a third wheel in a predetermined relationship that you know you can‘t do anything about. Thus, the couple unknowingly pushes away a lot of potential RP interactions. And since they tend to do everything together, it becomes even more difficult to get involved with any of their RP stories (as well as getting them into other RP stories outside their own). So yeah…they tend to push away a good chunk of other RPers even though they don’t realize it.
As for ERP…I won’t touch too much on this. I do believe it should be kept COMPLETELY off any kind of public chat though (save maybe little things like kissing, holding hands, etc…but I’m not sure any of that falls into ERP). My biggest issue with it is the fact that some people use RP communities specifically for this. It irks me to no end when people use a community as their own personal Playboy mansion. I understand that there are horny people in real life and it’s only natural that there are also going to be horny people in the RP world. But it really annoys me when people join a group specifically to get cyber laid. I can always recognize these types of people because they very seldom interact with people of the same gender on any IC/OOC level >.>.
I’ve never actually role-played a meaningful IC romantic relationship with another RPer. Not because I didn’t want to but because it just never fit my characters to do so. I think romantic relationships in the RP world are very important though and create a ton of stories, both adorable and dramatic.
That said, there are a few issues I do have with them. And I know others will disagree with me vehemently on some of this but it is how I personally feel. First, I very strongly believe that real life couples should -not- RP romantic relationships with each other. Why? Even though real life partners may be extremely comfortable Rping with each other on that level, there are drawbacks they never seem to take into consideration.
One such drawback is the IC/OOC barrier. There really isn’t a big one left when a real life couple also has an IC relationship. OOC paranoia is sometimes heightened over IC actions and so on. My character in FFXI was actually quite flirtatious. He flirted with just about any hume/mithra/elvaan female he encountered. That was just who he was and it was 100% IC. There was a point where I was actually OOCly told to stop IC flirting with someone simply because it made her and her boyfriend uncomfortable (or rather paranoid). I found this very insulting personally. I don’t like being told to stop Rping my character a certain way just because someone else can’t keep IC and OOC divided. And I tend to be very good at keeping IC/OOC completely separate, but apparently some people aren’t as able to. Obviously this doesn’t apply to all IC/OOC mixed couples. But the majority seems to fit in this category.
The biggest drawback though is isolation. Basically, real life couples rarely ever have their characters break up unless they break up in real life. Thus, it’s rather pointless to even try throwing an IC wrench into the RP relationship because you already know it won’t do squat. It’s not fun to RP a third wheel in a predetermined relationship that you know you can‘t do anything about. Thus, the couple unknowingly pushes away a lot of potential RP interactions. And since they tend to do everything together, it becomes even more difficult to get involved with any of their RP stories (as well as getting them into other RP stories outside their own). So yeah…they tend to push away a good chunk of other RPers even though they don’t realize it.
As for ERP…I won’t touch too much on this. I do believe it should be kept COMPLETELY off any kind of public chat though (save maybe little things like kissing, holding hands, etc…but I’m not sure any of that falls into ERP). My biggest issue with it is the fact that some people use RP communities specifically for this. It irks me to no end when people use a community as their own personal Playboy mansion. I understand that there are horny people in real life and it’s only natural that there are also going to be horny people in the RP world. But it really annoys me when people join a group specifically to get cyber laid. I can always recognize these types of people because they very seldom interact with people of the same gender on any IC/OOC level >.>.
