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When I read this discussion, I cannot help but wonder how it comes our perception of cooperations are so very, very different. Obviously the rule so many state, that actually it is for everyone . . . is not entirely true. Many players seem to prefer the clear cut one-on-one cooperation wiith a GM. Some seem to experience trouble, some seem to experience none at all. Some develop characters through this, others consider it a burden. Interesting, isn´t it?

 

So I feel like I should weigh in on this topic, because it's an important topic and I've had some fantastic character interactions in the past, but the truth is all I do is riff off other people.

Sometimes someone will PM me and be all, "hey, maybe our character histories could coincide in this way?" and I'll be all, "Sure!" Or they'll be like, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if our characters were friends/enemies?" and I'll be all, "Sure!" (The only times I've declined are when they suggest a romance storyline and I suspect they only want it for OOC reasons. Ugh. No.)

Or they'll just invent something and tag me, or I'll invent something and tag them, and things will go from there.

Pretty simple really.


NPC-player interactions are a different story, IMO. A player generally interacts with many, many NPCs over the course of a game, and one expects that some NPC or another will try to kill your character at some point. Someone has to be the antagonist, after all.

 

Yeah, I gave this some thought. Xany is right. I never had big problems there, too. Not even the proposed romance plots (for some reasons I always get those) were annoying me. Guys liking girls and girls not liking them back but liking guys they cannot have . . . a bit the story of life before thirty, is it? The whole thing is . . . the first to respond are people who find this easy, obviously. Always the first line of people drawn to such a topic. And actually I hoped this topic would think abotu techniques to make player-investment easy. Instead we all do not really see a problem. For some people there might be one, though.

Niche/Experimental players. Newbies. I mean, sure if I see Saintheart or Xany in a game and I see story potential, I´ll write a PM. Fin? I give a call. Mitth, Sarge? Why not? Maybe I do something new and do not write anything? Yeah, I could try that. But point is I played several games with you guys. I know you. I do not fear rejection and I know you like linking things. If I do not know, I actually do not write such PMs. I never had the idea to do so in 41 ABY, where I knew no player except Mitth (with whom I had a violent rivalry, that turnede into a redemption story for both characters - without a PM if I recall right) and I turned into a lonely kinda character. which fit great. The same was true for ManCubs. Somehow we all knew each other IC and certainly there were fates. But contact other than that? I really did not even feel like it. Again I ended up playing a loner. Very fitting, but . . . you gotta see there is a automatism. It is not a decision, but a process and the less you know people, the less you contact them. Why should you contact a username called GaroXP. Or SirakRomar. Who are they?

So I think the first step of establishing contact is to make it easy for other people to give you a PM. Get to know people, get to interact with them, not force them into your style and not dominate games. And if I am the old blood, I should probably make the first step.

 

Dammit, don't tell me I still have several more years of this to go!

Have to say though, the most surreal romance proposition I got was when I was playing as a sock. Entirely new username, no post history, no profile information whatsoever ... and the first thing I get sent is a PM from some n00b going "Hey uh I was thinking we could have a romance storyline ingame, and maybe we could get e-married?" purely because I was playing a female character. Gah that was creepy. (That sock did not last very long at all, though I still have it around somewhere.)


That's a very good point on how we mainly tend to contact people we know, though. And I guess that's human nature. Nowadays I might have no problem contacting someone or just riffing off their posts, but that was not the case when I first started out, or even necessarily the case 2-3 years ago... it is hard, and there is no magic bullet. You just have to put yourself out there, and hope the GM has created an environment in which that sort of thing can thrive.

 

Oh yeah, a good idea for RPing here for guys Don´t suggest romances in game to girls who had probably a few more of those than you did, both in game and out-of-game. We are all of various different ages around here and there is only one or two ways how to do this, before it get´s embaracing. The idea of a romance with 12, 17, 22, 27, 32 are AGES apart from each other. It usually does not work out too well to make your character a romantic interest, if you understand something completely different when thinking of "romantic interest".

Did we ever had a successful played romance between opposite sex players here? Any? Ever? It is hard to play and almost incredible to set up. And the idea you could have a "dream romance" with a hot character of a player and that would actually be more "easy" than in real life is probably . . . treacherous Really. Be careful with it, see where things go in game and let her suggest it, if it needs to happen.

 

I had a romance in TORR while playing a girl, with a girl playing a dude. I was quite romantic, actually.

Anyway, a good point in there Sirak. If we manage to leave behind our "old boy networks" in whcih we feel so comfortable and contact some new players something might grow out of it. If not we don´t need to be surrpsied when they are gone after a week or two.

 

Uh......I've done this.

Once, waaaaaaaayy back when I was first getting started out here. It's in "A Time of Change" (but that's probably been deleted because it's too old, ha-ha ). I won't name the female player I did this with, but for extra points it was between a Trianii Jedi Master and a Defel assassin. AWKWARD.

 

^This tickles me to no end^ I did a semi-successful romance between a seperate Force tradition using a male Trianii and a custom alien hybrid character. Worked fairly well with PM's until DRL caused the other player to have to leave. I just made sure to base everything about their time together beyond species specific known differences (based on Wookieepedia, which changed bi-weekly at the time) on a married friends relationship. All parties beyond myself will remain nameless, but it did feel. . .AWKWARD.

 

You guys and hair . . . really! We are not that kind of a board, are we?

 

As far as romances go, if you find someone agreeable you can start one without a PM at all. An example would be one I was developing with spycoder in Sarge's Rebellion. Unfortunately, that game didn't take off...

 

Actually . . . I was the True Sith undercover, so it was only half as romantic as you might have thought. No harm in me telling you now, I guess.


Romance in games is actually easy, if you know the player well. Well enough to know for sure it is romance in a game! The thing is, you gotta see it as a plot, not as some sort of bond because hell, it is a ROMANCE IN A GAME. It doesn´t go any farther than "murder in a game".
I always enjoyed playing those, as it is nice to have these very "simple" lives were everything is so clear and the environment is so sorted out. Then again, the great romances of RPing, much like the great romances of movies, are often the asexual and often unspoken ones. The good and the bad. I always felt the strange sexual tension the player of AFAS Emperor had with Mara Jade, without even clearly hinting anything . . . was creepy and therefore very effective. Allies and friends having that "certain" tension can be very interesting and deepen characters. If the plot asks for a more "direct approach" that is obviously fine, too. My relationship to Fin´s Jedi woman would certainly have lead to heart-breaking scenes one day when i betrayed her. Others come to mind and how they worked extremely well. But a lot more were horrible. I´d say it is the king´s discipline of character interaction.

Speaking as a woman: You need to know the other player is doing it for the plot and not for his personal interest or anything. Important. Switching gender roles actually helps there. But good writing IC also does. Especially if the IC posts match a very different persona than yourself.

The one great example of perfectly written romance we had lately and which I enjoyed a lot reading was TORR´s creepy son of the villainess Iliac of Kanz and his teenage romance with JediTEEGirlo´s young and lost Jedi Padawan Ashlae Starchaser. It was perfectly written and for them (the characters) totally romantic, while totally showing how Myrial, the big bad and mom of Iliac, would use anything, ANYTHING to get what she wanted. But maybe love could save the two teenagers one day? There was this little hint it might be something that turned both into better people.

If the nicks are not totally misleading, I think both players invovled JediTEEgirlo and MoK are female, though. but I doubt they did it for any other reason then it making a wonderful story.

Just my two cents on the topic.

 

I honestly find RPing a romance creepy. Sure, it can be done well, but considering those instances seem few and far between? I'm more often than not creeped out by the results when they're not done well.

The biggest issue I have with it is when you've got a guy RPing as a female character and their attempts at romance are either shameless fanservice or incredibly sexist. It's incredibly awkward to read, not to mention offensive.

 

Well, I think if a romance is plot-relevant and probably even coming from the GM or as a foundation of your character it can obviously work. Especially in SW the whole Lightside/Darkside thing is only strong when there is a human connection behind it. So in the sense of deepening two characters connections this can be an option. again, trust is the issue.

Can´t talk about gender switching. I only saw it in TORR where it worked and both were superbly written and deeply rooted in plot. Personally I don´t enjoy doing guys so much, except I do canon characters.

And like in real life a no must be a no. I remember one player (Xany was it you?) once said no in a PM and then the player just "confessed his love" in game. Well, nothing you can do about it, but probably one should play it realistically then. If someone thought he has to make me his romantic interest in the middle of a big, galaxy-changing war, I´d probably tell him what a fool he is to even spend time with something like that.

But again, TSG had it right. The distance between IC and OOC is key. I never felt LordT was hitting on me, when his Thomas and my Laura had a stormy affair before game. Then again, I really think him becoming a serial-killer-stalker of my character was not very romantic. Although it made a good plot that carried a lot of scenes, obviously.

 

I don't have a whole lot of experience on the IC romance front. With two notable exceptions - Evelios D'Rtan, whose significant other is more feat explanation fluff than legitimate desire to explore a romantic subplot, and Marneg Polo, whose wife was more of a barely explained Uncle Ben than an actual character - I've never done anything with it. Granted, I think of most of my characters as being gay. SO. Think we know how that goes.

 

Fun-fact: My most male-besieged character Kira Romar was in the beginning conceptualized as lesbian, too. Then I found out that was actually not a very welcome topic here and I reenvisioned her as marrying a simple farmer and finding a little luck with him . . . it was used by my Gms against me shamelessly. But a romance with players, although a few players suggested that to my GM (and hten boyfriend!) Fin, I could never see happening.

She was in the middle of a joureny into the very heart of darkness and fought for the last bit of remaining innocence of her own soul. What should she do with a young guy who thought she was kinda cute???

 

That would put a killer on teh romance, yeah.

That ... has happened to me, yes. It turned out to be a rather sweet unrequited love storyline, so that was actually fine. What was annoying was the player then tried it again in a different game, only he didn't ask that time - he just had his character corner mine and started hitting on her. Gah.

I had a lot of fun playing Leia opposite HanSolo29's Han in AFAS, though. As Sirak and TSG said, the IC/OOC line is just especially important. The moment OOC overtones come into play, it becomes creepy and awkward and just no.

 

IC romance ugh maybe it is just me but unless two RPers can pull it off it mostly is cheesy and down right wrong. I don't even want to go into the gender switching bit because that is just so weird.

 

This? This is not cool.

(1) There is nothing wrong with a male player playing a female character, or vice versa, because they are characters, not your personal avatar. Your character is not you. See above discussion about the importance of keeping an eye on that IC/OOC divide; that applies to more than just romance storylines.

Yes, this can be done very badly (see Peng's comment earlier on guys being really skeevy about their female characters) but there are many ways to RP badly and this is just one of them.

(2) As Solo said, this is also just a part of writing. Should a male GM have no female NPCs in his game? What a ridiculous assertion.

(3) Whether or not you meant it that way, this statement smacks of transphobia, which is a very very bad thing.

 

EDIT: see Xani's first point.

 

I dated an MTF transexual once. It's not as weird as you'd think.

 

Actually I feel it is easier for me to play romance as a woman. Why? Easy. I am straight. Never had a lot to do with guys who weren´t really. So . . . with how many men have I flirted? Not many. But I flirted with girls, dated girls. I had relationships with girls. I know how they do things, how they play, how they tease you and how they behave and so on. I know a lot more about them than I do about males when it comes to relationships. Never had a relationship with a guy. So I can draw from that experience with women and I can imitate. Especially when you need to get subtle, the only man I can play is me. And I don´t come here at all to play myself. God, I am myself the rest of the time! Hard enough, believe me.

But let it be said once: When I was guilty of such a transgender romance, playing Zariz a young Jedi Knight who fell for her fellow Jedi Consular, because of his strong will, compassion and bravery . . . I did my best to make it a funny, charming, realistic play out of a plot that was relevant to the plot (hell TSG you were the SITH?!?!?) and it wasn´t the least bit sexual. It was drama. It was even comedy sometimes. Actually I don´t think pacifists are very sexy. Zariz did. As a battle-scared woman that was something totally interesting to play out with her. It was playing a role. Gave the one-dimensional Jedi Warrior a good twist.

ROLEplaying. As we call it.

 

I can understand being weirded out by gender switching, and I don't think that a person who is should be told that their beliefs are "a very very bad thing," as long as they're polite about it and don't go making personal attacks.

That being said, from the 3 games I've taken part in around here (not counting Corellia yet, it's just getting started), I've had more of a connection to my female characters (in Darker Tides and Rostu's Renegades) than to my male character in TORR. Well, maybe connection isn't the right word. It feels more like I'm playing someone else, rather than just an idealized version of myself. ROLEplaying, as Fin so eloquently put.

As far as romances/relationships in game go, they're definitely the hardest part for me. Young man with something to prove, person with a war-scarred childhood, shame/guilt/secrets, sibling rivalry, these are all things that I can at least say that I gave it my best shot. But romance is an area where I don't even know where to start.

 

I don't believe there's a "polite" way to say you disapprove of someone's identity or lifestyle. It doesn't matter how broadly your address is, it hurts the people who fall into that group. Deeply. Profoundly. I can't even really begin to describe just how terrible it is to hear that kind of condemnation spoken with sincerity.

But this isn't a discussion of gender identity politics, so if anyone's got further comments on the matter in either direction, I advise you to take it to PMs. Obviously discussion on playing an opposite gendered character is okay for this thread, so that can stay.

 

To add to Ramza's second point there, it's fine to discuss these things in the context of roleplaying; let's try and avoid politicization and heavy personal debate.