Staffing IC =/= OOC but my character has to be PC? Why?

[Morrigan 1,826]

Why does my character have to come with disclaimers? Do humans come with disclaimers? Do we wear them on our chests?

 

If it's allowed on the site then it should be allowed in character. Why am I filtering myself to meet some arbitrary form of PC for someone that chooses to be on an unfiltered site? That's like someone complaining about seeing boobs when they go to a porn site because "they didn't know".

[Rhindeer 217]

You don’t have to do anything.

 

I choose to do so to save both myself and my potential partner any issues. And because I personally think it’s a good practice. I don’t want to drop anything in my partner’s lap that they may not want to deal with in their pretendy fun times, because just because someone is cool exploring the nitty gritty things and playing on a mature site, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are comfortable exploring ALL issues. I can be okay playing out a grisly murder and all sorts of mature topics, but I may not be comfortable RPing rape. Same with my partners on various issues. So it’s just a respect thing, because I care about my partners having fun in our threads. And if they won’t find a topic fun, I’d rather pick something they WILL enjoy.

 

basically, I tailor stuff to my individual partners. I don’t see how that’s a radical idea.

Edited August 4, 2018 by Viscount Rhi-Rhi

[Morrigan 1,826]

When you play with 5+ partners it's a pain in the ass to be honest.

 

I have too much in my personal life, my work life and my hobby life to keep up with everyone. I get praised here on the Initiative for how involved I am but that is only because of reminders on the site, personal reminders I set on my phone or computer and more. Understanding or knowing a person I'm RPing with is important but on the scale of 1-10 knowing every partners comfort level rates at a 1 for me. If I comply with site rules than my characters actions shouldn't be a surprise or even outside of what is expected from someone within the setting.

 

I fully understand and appreciate comfort levels, for example, I fade to black on sex. This is mostly because I find it boring but I convey that and I actually convey that any time it comes up with someone that I rarely play with because I don't expect them to remember what I'm comfortable with or what I expect.

 

This doesn't change the fact that comfort levels and being PC are two COMPLETELY different things.

 

Being PC means that I must change my character, what they say and how they act for a player that is uncomfortable. This doesn't mean that the other player is unconformable with me or where our boundaries are, this means they are uncomfortable with my character and blurring the line between OOC and IC.

[Rune 1,099]

I think some sites want characters to be PC to avoid further ooc conflict from the lowest common denominator. Which I can understand. Some admin go into the fray trying to preemptively nip every potential problem.

[Rhindeer 217]

I mean, you do you, and do what works for you and your partners. If that's been working for y'all, great! Then none of this applies to you.

 

But if you (general) keep running into a situation where people keep getting uneasy about you and the characters you play, then that is when open communication comes in handy.

 

Comfort levels and being "PC" can be the same thing. Like, hypothetically speaking, maybe my partner doesn't want to play opposite a character who uses homophobic slurs in every post? Maybe that's super uncomfortable for them and not how they want to spend their pretendy funtimes. Maybe they're cool with all the other mature crap that goes down in their historical RPG, but that just hits too close to home and they'd rather stick to other topics because that is super uncomfortable and not fun? That's valid. It's really easy for me to let my partners (especially a new partner) know if one of my characters is particularly awful and ask if they're cool with threading with them still, and it's also super easy for them to let me know if things are getting too much for them, in which case, I'm happy to find a way to end that thread. (Or find a way for another one of my characters to rescue theirs! <3)

 

Basically, I'm just advocating for communication, which basically solves all woes. Personally, knowing what my partner is and isn't comfortable with is super important to me! My partners who are all, "Hey, don't hold back!" are the ones I know I can just go all out on. xD And for the others, I can tailor things to them. (We have a Wants and Limits form, so if I forget anything, I can always do a quick one minute check which I often do!) But I really, really enjoy learning what things my partners find most fun and then doing those things. And I'm really not interested in doing things my partners won't find fun. If they aren't having fun, what's the point? I'm not in this just for my own enjoyment. I want people to have fun threading with me.

Edited August 4, 2018 by Viscount Rhi-Rhi

[Morrigan 1,826]

So I think an additional misconception here is an actual RP partner versus a player versus player. Not everyone has to be an RP Partner to play against another player and we still come to the same stand still of disagreement here.

 

People need to know their boundaries before accepting a roleplay with someone that may have uncomfortable views for them. Not every character is the cool straight character that accepts transgenders as they are. Not all gay people accept straight people how they are. Hell Not even some gay people accept gay people how they are (Re: Nanette anyone?).

 

Communication solves some woes, but I don't think it solves all woes. Because if it did, then none of us would have a community like the Initiative to talk about any woes.

 

I think Communication is a big step but I also don't think it's the only step. A lot of staff members squash non-PC IC behavior (which I think is what this was originally about) without communicating. Additionally, some members complain to staff before communicating to who they are playing with (which I also think this is what this thread is talking about).

 

Being PC shouldn't be mandatory for playing a character. Additionally it should be a readily available fact whether you allow a character non-PC views. It's not fair for members to try to thread and end up having to half play their character for some people and be able to fully let them go for others.

[Rhindeer 217]

Ohhh. I was using "partner" as a catch-all for everyone I play with, not just the people I am close to. Partner, as I've been using it in this thread, also applies to the person I literally just started playing with for the first time today.

 

If I'm tossing a character I KNOW is -ist/-phobic at someone for the first time, I let them know in advance what to expect. Because I agree, and I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here: I'm not saying people shouldn't play non-PC characters (I've stated several times, for example, that I play such characters and play with people who play such characters and that my games allow such characters). I'm just advocating for communication. Because if someone doesn't want to play opposite such a character, I have other characters I can offer. It gives people the chance to opt out.

 

Like, for example, if I was playing one of my super bigoted characters with someone, someone I had warned about that character, and they still agreed to do the thread...and then suddenly they started to complain about it? I'd just end the thread with them. Because no, I'm not going to change my character and water them down, and I warned them. xD If they want to play with that character, then they get the character as they are, or they don't get that character at all and they can pick a different character.

 

And yeah, you're always gonna have someone who complains even when you DO do your due diligence and communicate with them. You can't prevent that 100%. You can just do your best to cover your bases, and if that doesn't work, well, whatcha gonna do? You can't stop people from having feelings about things. All you can do is cross that bridge when you get to it.

 

But from personal experience, I've never had someone accuse me of being -ist or -phobic for playing such characters, but again, I'm super open and communicative and transparent about everything. That's worked for me. It won't necessarily work for everyone, of course.

[CovertSphinx 710]

My first year of college, I was part of an Improv club, with two of my friends (who were Theater Majors, whereas I was in a hard science). At the end of every session, we'd play what was called "long form": we started with a scene, introduced our characters as we saw fit, but had to stay those characters the whole time and make up a story. Basically we LARPed I guess you could say. Well, one day, we had this skit where Jim's garage kept getting used as a Gym by this "dumb blonde" neighbor, and I was Jim's uber jealous and wrathful wife who had always "just finished cleaning" when this lady makes a mess of my house lol. Except, twist, Jim (played by my friend) was abusive and I was terrified of him. My buddy and I ended up playing this dynamic so well that the group actually stopped the skit because it was TOO Believable.  

 

Essentially, I guess what I'm saying is that once people find that something "hits too close to home", the natural human reaction is to (unfortunately) subconsciously blurr the IC and OOC lines. And for each person this is going to be a different trigger. So I figure to treat my unsavory characters the same way I would treat some good ol' BDSM: being completely upfront with what somebody can expect from them (where necessary), and checking in with my threadmate (obviously more-so for newer threadmates than established partners) to make sure that if they need to "tap out" for personal trigger reasons they can feel comfortable admitting such a thing to me and know that I don't judge them for it.  

[Morrigan 1,826]

No, but to me that's different @CovertSphinx than filtering purely because someone thinks someone will be offended.

 

If my RP partner/counterpart/etc is uncomfortable with something that my character says then at that point then the thread needs to be shut down. Both for ME and for THEM. Not because I'm being filtered but because neither of us are going to be happy moving forward. They won't be happy because they don't like the direction and me because if I tone it down then I'm not being true to my character.

 

I think that is a big difference than staff coming in an filtering that stuff out because they think "someone" could be offended.

 

I think that in the end there are a lot of issues with this and filtering PC content in either manner but it should be down to the site rules and the players involved, not the staff, to monitor that sort of content.

[Dragon 673]

1 hour ago, Morrigan said:

If my RP partner/counterpart/etc is uncomfortable with something that my character says then at that point then the thread needs to be shut down. Both for ME and for THEM. Not because I'm being filtered but because neither of us are going to be happy moving forward. They won't be happy because they don't like the direction and me because if I tone it down then I'm not being true to my character.

 

I think that is a big difference than staff coming in an filtering that stuff out because they think "someone" could be offended.

 

That is pretty much the point @CovertSphinx. The initial post should have been a little more accurate - should probably amend it >>.

Within individual threads, if Player One's character says something non-pc and Player Two becomes too uncomfortable to continue, then that should be the end of the entire thread.

• Player Two has no right to ask Player One to censor their character; and in the same vein Player One has no right to force Player Two to endure it if they do not wish to. 

I meant this topic to address staff and member actions outside of any specific thread. 

 

Example Scenario: 

 

Quote

 

 

Let's say ICly there are a group of friends hanging out. One of the females and one of the males are playfully arguing about who would win a fight. 

A tertiary character comments that Female would be a huge pain in Male's ass. 

The rest goes as follows: 

M: How she weigh's like 50lbs
F: I'll show you if you sign a waiver that you won't sue when you're bleeding out the ass
M: Figures you're a tranny

At this point admin swoops in and puts a stop to it. No player involved in the interaction was uncomfortable. It was just two characters going back and forth. Yet despite the fact that this all clearly took place in character that staff person took a personal offense and closed it all down.

 

The question isn't whether or not any player should be able to opt out. 

The question is why should characters be forced to behave in an entirely PC manner regardless of their background, upbringing etc. 

Example:

A character is in prison. They are blooded into a hardcore racially based gang - is that character's player expected to write them as being all fluffy and flowers and sunshine in a thread with a character from the race that gang hates most? 

[Rhindeer 217]

Hm. I guess I’ve just personally never seen a situation like that. 

 

And in that case, it depends on the rules of the game, and even the setting. 

 

For example, if someone played on RotE, and played a character in Aedolis, they would need a VERY GOOD REASON for why their character is homophobic or transphobic or sexist because it just wouldn’t be believable in that setting. Hell, it wouldn’t be believable in most of the nations there, due to the established lore. So if someone wrote such a character, there would need to be a very good explanation or as an admin, I would be asking a lot of questions. Other types of bigotry, like xenophobia and classism? Oh hell yes. But gender and orientation based bigotry? Not really a thing in that setting.

 

SotE? Gender and orientation-based bigotry is definitely a thing in a lot of nations! So heck yeah there would be bigots. But if they played a character born and raised in the nation of Yoreiq, for example, where the culture is one where they acknowledge and embrace non-binary genders and don’t even really have a concept of sexual orientation, and they had those views, I would call bullshit if they had no explanation. Again, they would need a VERY good reason as to how that character got exposed to values and beliefs that contradict their entire culture, and why they chose to believe those over the truths they would have been raised around? The player may have a good reason.  But they would need to show it, otherwise it’ll just look like they haven’t read the lore, are trolling, or are maybe even leaking their own personal biases into their character.

 

But that’s lore  stuff. If someone is playing a homophobic character in a setting where that’s a thing (in SotE, Connlaoth definitely has those issues!) then that’s not a problem to me. And if they have such a character in an area where those social issues just aren’t a cultural issue, and they have a good reason that shows they’ve put thought into it, then that’s also cool by me. I like exploring those kinds of social issues in my own RP, and my games definitely allow for it. 

 

Can’t really speak for games that allow that content in the rules and lore, but then shut it down when it crops up IC. That’s odd. If the players are okay with it, and it’s IC, and it’s allowed in the setting and rules, then I see no reason not to allow it.

 

Edited August 7, 2018 by Viscount Rhi-Rhi

[CovertSphinx 710]

@Dragon, @Morrigan : As I was reading the thread in its entirety, I saw the conversation going in a completely different direction than the clarification posts you guys just made. Sorry about that. But yes, I agree with both of you 100% - the triggered RPer should be mature enough (ideally) to say "Hey not to insult you, and not to look like an uncool wussy dork, but I don't think I can do this thread with this character. It hits a little close to home for me, sorry". Staff shouldn't have to police the characters themselves trying to stop a problem that hasn't started yet.