Roleplaying Romance: Obsession Emergency?

[FreelanceWizard]

Hey, make that three of us.

 

My SO and I both play XIV (and have been RPing together in MMOs for a long time) and our characters are friends IC, but have no romantic connection. The last time we played characters in a relationship was in CoH, and it was... a complex, multifaceted, and basically open relationship. The two characters in question were quite broken people and ended up gravitating towards each other through the actions of a third party.

 

I have to third the opinion that our characters are not us. My SO and I have a relationship that's sufficiently secure that we can joke about the things our characters do and chat about their proclivities with their paramours. Personally, I also don't like creating "pair characters" who are destined to end up together; I really want that sort of RP to grow organically, or it doesn't ring true to me.

[Faye]

^ What up, me too!

 

Me and my Fiance roleplay and met Roleplaying in FFXI - but have never, EVER been in an RP relationship together, not even when we met! We believe, very firmly, that our characters are our characters and are NOT us. His character, Ellion Goto, is in a long term relationship with another character.

 

A lot of people think this means we have to be jealous or they think it's weird, but our characters are not us. Though me and Ellion click IRL - Armi and Ellion would most definitely not click and trying to force it would be a fool's errand.

 

I absolutely -hate- characters who are specifically rolled to be someone elses love interest simply because they are married or whatever IRL (Baring some exceptions, I've actually seen it very well done recently in my FC), but that's another conversation.

 

I don't know, me and Ellion are pretty secure in our relationship that it doesn't NEED to bleed into roleplay.

 

/internet high-five

 

My boyfriend and I met in real life and eventually found out we're both into role-playing and he talked me into playing MMO's with him. But our characters generally don't click like we do IRL, not in a romantic way, at least. Instead, we tend to make characters who are family or otherwise have some sort of platonic bond. I think that if your relationship is stable and healthy, and if you both understand the line between OOC and IC, there's really no need to shove all your characters together into IC relationships.

 

Once more, I don't mind people who do that, it's cutesy. I just hate people acting like we're weird for not doing it. ;_;

[Val]

I find that it's best to just straight up tell people "So this is purely IC and will never, ever be OOC.  The second it bleeds into OOC is the second we stop RPing with each other." when starting anything remotely resembling an IC romance with someone.

 

Pretty much this. My partner and I are very well aware of our boundaries and we both have had a significant other for a considerable amount of time. I will say that it seems very rare to find someone that's able to keep it strictly IC and RP, but man. It's so incredibly fun, and so incredibly refreshing!

 

The moment things become OOC for someone, I immediately distance myself from them as quickly as possible.

[Yune]

(deleted)

 

Too off topic and unimportant in the end. Bleh.

[ArmachiA]

No ones asking you to apologize, we're just stating our opinions here. Just because I disagree doesn't mean you can't - or shouldn't - do it.

 

But like I said before, that's another conversation and one I won't go into in this thread because it's off topic.

[Tiergan]

Yune, I think it's less animosity towards couples that RP their characters being together - (because let's face it, it makes sense and tons of couples do it.) - and more that it's pretty neat when a RL couple can choose to have their RP characters pair off with different people without folks getting all weird over the idea that a man or woman would want to RP romance with someone other than their real life SO.

[Faye]

Yune, I think it's less animosity towards couples that RP their characters being together - (because let's face it, it makes sense and tons of couples do it.) - and more that it's pretty neat when a RL couple can choose to have their RP characters pair off with different people without folks getting all weird over the idea that a man or woman would want to RP romance with someone other than their real life SO.

 

This! I'm not meaning to put down how anyone else chooses to role-play. But rather... feeling refreshed to see others aren't doing just that by looking at you funny if you're dating someone and your character is dating someone else.

[Yune]

Yune, I think it's less animosity towards couples that RP their characters being together - (because let's face it, it makes sense and tons of couples do it.) - and more that it's pretty neat when a RL couple can choose to have their RP characters pair off with different people without folks getting all weird over the idea that a man or woman would want to RP romance with someone other than their real life SO.

 

This! I'm not meaning to put down how anyone else chooses to role-play. But rather... feeling refreshed to see others aren't doing just that by looking at you funny if you're dating someone and your character is dating someone else.

 

 

I can understand. Personally, I've never really found the opportunity to attempt romance RP with someone I happened to meet. I'd like to think I'm open minded about it. I'm friends with a few people who do as you prefer by allowing things to happen beyond the scope of their RL relationship. I always tell them kudos, because I know it's a very foreign concept to a lot of people, and they get hammered by those who don't understand and want to lord their own personal...morals? onto them because they choose to do something different.

 

I apologize for allowing the topic to deviate from its original intent. My last post was likely a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, finding myself in perhaps a similar situation to those who are questioned for their preference to romance someone other than their SO, and momentarily wondering why my preference seemed so strange as well.

[Naunet]

Honestly, I wouldn't trust romantic threads in RP with someone who I haven't known for many years. Which pretty much rules out almost everyone but my husband and two or three friends. And it definitely nixes it for anyone else in any RP community I've been involved in.

 

But, it's not really something I seek out. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes our characters don't click like that. Sometimes there's a sordid love quadrilateral between all of us. It's never the entire focus of RP though. Subsidiary and part of character development, and it influences broader plots to be sure, but... it's not a plot in and of itself.

[TheLastCandle]

I have, in the past, had a couple of players push romance on my characters quite heavily - not this character, because have you seen him? - and in at least one instance, the person was explicitly doing so because they were lacking a specific kind of emotional connection outside of the game, and said as much. It's not fun, it can lead to quite a bit of guilt and hurt feelings, and the OP shouldn't just wait for the stalker to leave her alone, but actively discourage it.

 

That said, I think all RP romance is "pushed" to some degree. I'm actually highly suspicious of the notion that it can happen naturally.  *snip for brevity's sake*

"Naturally," at least in the context I meant it, means actually meeting a character through RP, getting a feel for their character, becoming acquainted and then seeing where the story takes them. Obviously people have to "click" OOC for it to work, and of course it's going to be driven in part by whether or not you like the potential IC partner's writing style and so on and so forth. I don't think that's an issue.

 

However, when I say I prefer any of my character's romances not to be "pushed," I mean literally. Example: not too long ago a friend of mine, almost as soon as she joined this forum and created a wiki page for her character, received a PM out of the blue asking if she'd like to roleplay a relationship with the sender. Just like that. Harmless? Maybe. Maybe not. But for me, personally, that's not the type of flow I would like to have for an IC partnership, and is a behavior of which I am highly suspicious.

 

I may be fairly new to RP here on FFXIV, but overall I've been at this for a long time - close to 20 years counting all the MUDs I roleplayed on in my teens - and I guess you could say I'm fairly set in my ways by now. There are just certain things I avoid based upon those past experiences; OOC pre-planning of that sort happens to be one of 'em.

[Nebbs]

Hmmm tricky.

 

I have had some experiences that started out exactly like this of late. When I mentioned IC I was very much in a relationship they did some IC moan about soul mates and then basically went off and no longer RPed. Ah well.. next?

 

I tend to throw RP out there and see what it brings back, and accept people have different ideas. So long as it does not grate against my own RP I'm happy. Sometimes (often) there is an initial flirting as I think some want that "fix" and it is easier to press the "flirt" buttons than others. Sometimes you get someone who is a bit more obsessive about it.

 

My approach at that point is to IC make it very clear where the lines are, and then OOC make it clear if they continue. After that, it is harassment, so blacklist.

 

I will also say that I found some very nice RP friends through this same approach and am very lucky with my current RP romance partner. I never plan where my RP goes, but am open to them growing.

 

Keep RPing, just develop good filters and saying No!

 

Also.. their obsession is not your fault!

[Verad]

 

 

"Naturally," at least in the context I meant it, means actually meeting a character through RP, getting a feel for their character, becoming acquainted and then seeing where the story takes them. Obviously people have to "click" OOC for it to work, and of course it's going to be driven in part by whether or not you like the potential IC partner's writing style and so on and so forth. I don't think that's an issue.

 

 

I did say the point was a pedantic one, but I have known people who took the philosophy of IC over all to place themselves into some very unpleasant romantic situations in which they, on an OOC level, were having no fun, yet felt compelled to continue out of the sense that the IC connection was more "natural." So perhaps it's not as much an obvious matter as one might think.

 

However, when I say I prefer any of my character's romances not to be "pushed," I mean literally. Example: not too long ago a friend of mine, almost as soon as she joined this forum and created a wiki page for her character, received a PM out of the blue asking if she'd like to roleplay a relationship with the sender. Just like that. Harmless? Maybe. Maybe not. But for me, personally, that's not the type of flow I would like to have for an IC partnership, and is a behavior of which I am highly suspicious. 

 

I may be fairly new to RP here on FFXIV, but overall I've been at this for a long time - close to 20 years counting all the MUDs I roleplayed on in my teens - and I guess you could say I'm fairly set in my ways by now. There are just certain things I avoid based upon those past experiences; OOC pre-planning of that sort happens to be one of 'em.

 

This gets more into the issue of whether RP in general should happen spontaneously or if OOC communication in the form of pre-planning is a more desirable goal. I can't really say I have a clear answer for that beyond "sometimes." I can say, however, that for as much as suspicion may be warranted based on what you described above, that's because of the element of the request coming from a stranger, not that there was an OOC request at all.

[LiveVoltage]

Ah, I am really, really late to this thread so what can I say here that hasn't already been said but im not angst-ing on.

 

Most of my RP experiences come from forums, and I had to learn the hard way at one point that powerplaying and forcing stuff on other players or fellow RPers is generally not cool.

 

With that being said, does anybody here really bother to ask how much experience the other person has at role playing? I mean, you can often find these things out easily by checking things, such as if they has a good wiki or something of their character, or you carefully examine their typing for spelling and grammar. Granted that master role players do make mistakes in typing just like all other RPers, but consistent typing mistakes signals that they are probably fairly new to RP so if they are acting weird or erratic, its a good idea just to talk to them in OOC. Ask them basic questions such as how long they have been RPing or do they have a character wiki. Asking these simple things, just communicating OOCly goes to so much length to clear tension and misunderstandings. Just taking the time to explain to them goes a long way and shows that youre not wanting to shut them out of RPing with you, you just want a standard, totally platonic relationship and if they dont agree with you then part with them, be it IC or OOC. If you cant reason with them then its best to just ignore.

 

As for the topic of Sexual encounter RP's, they are extremely easy and conventional things to RP and relationships are the easiest thing too talk about. I wish the creators of FFXIV would just sit down for two months and write us a damned book of lore so that way we can do stuff other than talk about sex in a tavern but until then, thats all thats ever going to be talked about in a tavern is sex, because a tavern is a bar and people go to bars to get drunk with their friends or bed men/women. It goes without saying that if people are romance RPing with you in a tavern then its because of the environmental factors and the fact that you yourself are there. Its not just one party's fault but both, one for enabling the enviorment and the other for initiating the advances. Now im not saying you are at fault, if you reject the advances of another player but they wont stop then you have a right to be angry and blacklist them or whatever, im just making this fair by pointing out both sides of the picture.

 

I personally have NEVER, EVER, EVER, even under the pain of my own distraught mortality, ever attempt a romance or accept one which is too aggressive. Relationships form naturally in two ways: the first is through time and commitment to seeing both characters form a bond with each other, the other happens spontaneously and can turn out great but most of the time does not.

 

I love talking about shipping characters OOCly. Its fun. What person in their right mind wouldn't think about it to at least some extent, but when people force the ships is where the line is drawn. Ships are only cool and funny when everyone doesn't take it seriously and laughs about it but when someone gets serious then everyone needs to drop that hot mess because it can turn ugly quickly when someone brings a ship and forces it in OOC.

 

This next part I admit at my own peril but as an example IRL, im extremely platonic with relationships of the other gender. I dont much care for sex, I dont care about being in a relationship. I enjoy platonic relationships because nothing changes. If people go beyond the stage of being platonic then they risk upsetting the entire fundamental boundary as to which that friendship exists. Potentially getting in a relationship IRL and in a game can completely destroy if not outright alienate players from each other as well as in real life between people.

 

Romance both in-game and IRL, despite its popularity and how easy it is to talk about this stuff, is extremely hot and destructive by its very nature and tears people apart. I think its just our primal instincts or thousands of years worth of genetic coding running though our blood, dictating not only what we think and say, but what we want to do or the way we think and do things.

 

I hope this is constructive enough of a post to talk about. I spent forty minutes typing it and ten minutes trying to spell it at 2:30 am in the morning.   ._.

[ArmachiA]

I love talking about shipping characters OOCly. Its fun. What person in their right mind wouldn't think about it to at least some extent, but when people force the ships is where the line is drawn. Ships are only cool and funny when everyone doesn't take it seriously and laughs about it but when someone gets serious then everyone needs to drop that hot mess because it can turn ugly quickly when someone brings a ship and forces it in OOC.

 

I talk about shipping constantly, my fc thinks I have a problem.

[LiadansWhisper]

Truth be told, I've somehow managed to dodge the creepers and stalkers I keep hearing about.  The only online stalker I've ever had was actually a female member of my first "semi-serious" raiding guild I joined in WoW.  When I left and publicly stated that I was leaving, in part, because of how she treated people in raid, she lost her shit.  Next thing I know, there are alts being made on other servers where I play, whispering me obscene things and basically verbally abusing me on several different level 1 characters - sometimes while I was in raids!

 

But it wasn't anything sexual in terms of her fixation.  She was just nuts.

 

I believe in using my Blacklist/Ignore function early and often, and reporting people who step over the line (she ended up banned for the harassment she did against me both on the forums and in-game).

 

That said, when I was RPing in SecondLife, I repeatedly ran into situations where people simply could not separate OOC and IC interactions.  No matter how many notices I put in my profile that I was not, in any way, interested in an OOC relationship, people still pushed me in private messages.  And that was the semi-decent players.  The really terrible ones would just send what amounted to gibberish that resembled a really awkward 13 year old trying to ask a girl out.  ¯\(°_o)/¯

 

I personally don't see anything wrong with romantic/sexual/erotic RP.  What people do in the privacy of their IMs is none of my damn business, and, quite honestly, sex is a big part of a lot of people's lives, so it's no surprise that would show up in RP.  But I do understand that sometimes emotions get squished on by what happens in-game, even though it's never been an issue for me personally (when I dated an RPer, our characters had relationships with other characters, and it never bothered me, because it was RP).

 

But, of course, there are people who just aren't really stable.  There are people who are using RP to make up for their own issues in their real life.  And there are people who simply aren't living in reality, and are using RP as an escape.  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.  What I do in character has no bearing on who I am in real life.  And what I do out of character should have no bearing on what my character does/reacts/feels/whatever.  When the two are mixing, nothing good comes from it.  Just bad, bad, bad juju.

 

And since this entire situation seems to fall into the crazy category, OP, I'm gonna give you a side of advice:

 

1) Put the creeper on your Blacklist.  No, go do it.  It doesn't matter if they don't understand why - you need to understand that you don't owe them (or anyone else) an explanation.

 

2) If they try to contact you by circumventing the blacklist, report them.  Report them every time they do this.  Keep records. Build a case.

 

3) Be persistent.  If the harassment is ongoing, make sure you keep reporting it until someone listens.

 

4) In the future, try very hard to be more up-front about your comfort level.  The moment you start feeling uncomfortable with something, you should really speak up.  I know that it can be extremely tough to say, "Hey, I'm really not comfortable with this" when you don't want to piss someone off or are worried about hurting their feelings.  But, if your RP partner at the time gets upset that you're bringing up something that's bothering you, or telling them that you're uncomfortable with what's going on, they're not the RP partner for you.

 

Just my $0.02

[K'nahli]

I'm not overly fond of those types that seem to have a predetermined decision that they want to romance someone's/anyone's character. In most cases, especially games like FF where you are mostly dealing with randoms, it seems like you are stripping your own character's free will and preferences and altering them(even if only minutely) just for the sake of engaging in something that frankly isn't necessary or all that interesting(at least not in every single case).

 

Don't get me wrong, romance is undoubtedly a great thing to RP but it's not the centre of the universe when it comes to having fun while RP'ing or getting some interesting plot. People like that should really try to see how interesting they can make their RP without resorting to a cheap move like "and then they fall in love" just for the sake of spicing up the story or shipping their character. Not everyone is built for romance and frankly those that prove to play the exception interest me more personally, in general anyways.

[Gaspard]

 

But, of course, there are people who just aren't really stable.  There are people who are using RP to make up for their own issues in their real life.  And there are people who simply aren't living in reality, and are using RP as an escape.  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.  What I do in character has no bearing on who I am in real life.  And what I do out of character should have no bearing on what my character does/reacts/feels/whatever.  When the two are mixing, nothing good comes from it.  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. 

 

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  you have a pretty decent display on the level of attachment people share with their creations)

 

Moreso, I often like to compare Roleplaying to Acting aswell. Given you're actively presenting a different character, you're essentially acting imaginatively through text. And that's where you get camp standard actor, who simply acts without feeling/experiencing, and then you get camp method actor, who has a need to immerse himself for that moment in his characters mindset, emotional world, etc.

 

At last, I'd like to make a mention of a point a handful of us may be omitting. Age. Many roleplayers start young, at the age of 12-13, and for them it's just about experiencing that sandbox feeling of 'YAY IM A FUCKING DRAGOON, AWESOME!'. It's often about heroism, being the center stage of your own story, so on so forth. It's an empowering experience the first few times you do it, the first few times you get to be 'the hero' in something.

 

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.

[LiveVoltage]

I would actually like to raise a point about that though. Most RPers on average, are extremely young, mostly in their mid-late teens. Possibly early adulthood, which is 19-23 years old.

 

And im sorry ahead of time if this next part is biased but its truth not only on the internet but in real life as well.

 

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.

 

I think the general idea is that if an aggressive romance RPer can realize the difference between IC and OOC interactions and just changes the way they think of feel about something and get a grip on their emotional urges OOC then they can get over the lack of a relationship IRL and drastically improve their ability as a whole, but most tend to learn this the hard way like I did, though I wasnt an aggressive romance RPer. I was a powerplayer.

 

Really, its just being more honest to one's self. The more you can distinguish between youre feelings OOC and the characters feelings IC then the more drastically all RP interaction can improve.

[FreelanceWizard]

I would actually like to raise a point about that though. Most RPers on average, are extremely young, mostly in their mid-late teens. Possibly early adulthood, which is 19-23 years old.

 

And im sorry ahead of time if this next part is biased but its truth not only on the internet but in real life as well.

 

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.

 

I don't know if that's true. Most of the players in Mysterium are over 30. Many of us have fairly active social lives and certainly haven't withdrawn from the real world. You could say, "sure, but you're the exception to the rule," but that's been the case in most of the games I've RPed in, so... YMMV, of course, but I wouldn't be so quick to make these sorts of assumptions.

 

EDIT: On the topic of RL relationships versus IC ones, I definitely wasn't trying to say that that's the only way to RP, and I certainly wasn't meaning to imply that people who do like to do that are insecure in their relationships or anything like that. Sorry!

[Enteris]

My wife and I often make "pair characters" as they've been labeled here simply to offer each other that easy IC out when the stalkers arrive. Granted, I've yet to run into any stalkers personally on FFXIV, but my wife apparently has made the hottest character alive as she quite often gets stopped by someone seeking out some sort of romantic RP. I dare say it's gotten to the point of at least once a week.

 

My wife's character is always fully clothed, in a robe most of the time in fact... so it's not like the whole "she's asking for it" argument applies here. She's not walking around in the coliseum gear set, in other words, showing every bit of skin possible.  And she's always open to random RP, so if someone stops her, she will actually stand/sit there and RP with them. Then it gets to the point of (paraphrasing) "So, are you single?" To which her character's response is "I'm actually married." The other RPer usually gives an "Oh..." and then awkward silence follows.

 

I, generally, have no problem with my wife RPing romantically with other people. We've just personally had too many experiences similar to the OP where the romance becomes a "real" thing for the other person and we have to call it off.

 

That being said, my wife and I do have other characters that are not romantically involved and/or have very open relationships.

[LiveVoltage]

@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]

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

[LiadansWhisper]

 

But, of course, there are people who just aren't really stable.  There are people who are using RP to make up for their own issues in their real life.  And there are people who simply aren't living in reality, and are using RP as an escape.  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.  What I do in character has no bearing on who I am in real life.  And what I do out of character should have no bearing on what my character does/reacts/feels/whatever.  When the two are mixing, nothing good comes from it.  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. 

 

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  you have a pretty decent display on the level of attachment people share with their creations)

 

I never said it was easy.  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.  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.

 

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.  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]

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? 

 

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. 

 

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. 

 

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.  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]

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

 

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