The fine line with IC/OOC outside of RP.

[Firon]

Yeah, here's my opinion:

You aren't your fucking character, just like Robert Downey, Jr. isn't actually Tony Stark. I know, shocking.

The line isn't fine. There's you, and then your characters. Things that happen to your characters are not things that happen to you. You can avoid a lot of heartache and miscommunication by keeping yourself completely detached from your characters. It's not a "fine line", it's a massive gap double the size of the Grand Canyon. Don't build any fucking bridges. :U

no wonder you got permabanned from Fchat....ha!

[maraudingmarauder]

As I have many different characters, my standard stance is out of character. I get a little annoyed at those who come to me in character because I like to discuss what the other person likes and dislike and that can get a bit confusing when someone is in character. ( exp: Someone who says he doesn't wanna get digested but actually wants to. ) But its by no mean a deal breaker, just a little annoyance I wanted to share with others.

Basically this. When you're dealing with something like vore and the like, or literally anything else involving playing with the concept of consent, it is absolutely essential that people be able to make their boundaries known without any ambiguity. Tease IC all you like, but this "it's what my character would do" stuff is no excuse for going against someone's prefs and making them uncomfortable.


If I ask someone to clarify OOCly if they're okay with a nonsexual or nonfatal scene, and they give me some IC teasy "well, maybe, try your luck~" nonsense, I walk.

[maraudingmarauder]

I want to be my character all the time when on Eka's, FA, etc., but the little fucjers like FunkyMacT make me too anxious to do so. So gdiaf troll.

He might have made the point in an abrasive manner, but that doesn't invalidate his point.

People who insist on being all in-character all the time are jarring to deal with when you're talking OOCly.

If someone sends me a PM on the forums that's IC right off the bat without asking OOCly if I'm up to play, it's awkward and uncomfortable, it's almost like they're trying to make me go IC to deal with them.

I've had people respond in-character to admin messages in the past when I've been doing that sort of stuff, and my usual response is to start winding up the banhammer because if they don't understand the concept of "time and a place" then my patience for them is practically zero.

Don't call people "troll" just because they don't agree with you.

[Rumor]

For me, personally, I'm OOC the vast majority of the time I'm not in a scene. Particularly with strangers who I'm not sure about yet since I don't know if they're just being cute and casual or are trying to bring me right into a scene upon intro. The former, that's fine and, if I'm in the right mood, might even go semi-IC with them to discuss things and what not (and even tried to approach someone semi-IC since their profile stated they only liked IC-approaches. It sorta worked, but we never ran into each other again after that AFAIK). The latter though... yeah, please no. I kinda want to know what I'm getting into before I start something with someone I don't know yet! After all, I have a few definite "Nos" and most others do as well, so at the very least I want to make sure we at least don't step on each other's toes, even if the scene we plan is just "we meet in Generic Bar #5733 and see where things go."

With friends, it's, of course, a lot more lax, since I'll often approach them semi-IC or react to them as such however the situation demands. On occasion this does lead to an actual scene from right away but... well, with friends we kinda know what we do and don't like and general mood and all of that, so it's fine and it works. And if we mis-guess, no offense taken when an OOC message is shot off saying something like "Not in the mood for X" now.


But yeah, perma-IC people... I want to like you guys, but it just gets a little bit awkward sometimes, especially on first time approaches. It just throws me off since my first response is not to jump into a character. Granted, I don't like the "job application" approach either, but at least I know that the conversation will be useful for whatever we settle on and things (probably) won't be awkward. All I'd ask for them is to just work with me on my mostly OOCness so, in turn, I can try to work with them on their mostly ICness.

[blergle]

I am another who does not think it is a fine line at all, and my background in online RP is why. I started playing in AOL chatrooms back when that first started, when the concept of role-playing chat was still very new and many people were confused about the difference between fantasy role-play and cybersex. People very often assumed that if you mentioned RP in a chat context, you meant cybering. As cybersex is tantamount to phone sex, obviously there is a huge difference between the two. Even if you're engaged in fetish role-play, it's not meant to be a sexual encounter between the *players*. Cybersex, on the other hand, is a dedicated sexual encounter between the people involved. As we had chatrooms for IC text and IMs for OOC text (though of course there were a lot of "OOC bubbles" in chatrooms as well), we wanted a VERY CLEAR definition between Character and Player to make damn sure that we were not dealing with 1) someone thinking we were there for cyber and dragging us unwittingly into an actual sexual encounter; 2) a whackjob that could not tell the difference between reality and fantasy and might feel compelled to stalk us online and come to our house and do bad things to us; 3) a slightly more harmless but still very disturbing stalker that thought that IC sexual activity meant some sort of OOC involvement. We were paranoid in those days. Any sign that someone was confused about the difference between themselves and their character was a red flag that they were unstable. We called it "blending". Those of us that started in an environment like that STILL see any blending between character and player as a red flag, and it means "run away and do not have anything to do with this person again because they are a whacko that can't tell reality from fantasy". That's where a lot of these strong reactions come from--some of us perceive blending as an actual signal of real danger. The last thing we want is to end up being stalked by someone that, for example, thinks that because my character allowed her character to kiss him, *she* somehow has a claim on *me*. Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope!!!

[JacktheRabbit]

I think there's a reason the 'line' is more muddled for some and not others.

It seems to come down to how people approach RP.

There are three primary approaches I've seen:

1.) Create a character with their own personality, backstory, and drive. The player writes for the character based on how that character would react to a given situation.

2.) A character to step into for scenes, fetish focused offen, but not always. Often a 'lesser developed shell' but not always. The personality is more reflective of the player since the character is more 'suit-like', but still not 'the player'.

3.) The player imagined fully as the character. The character is themself in another form; furry, monster, anime etc. Often described as their 'Fursona' but not always. Often their only character but not always.

The three aren't always compatible with each other in chatrooms; particularly in dividing IC/OCC related statements. There's little to no distance between the character and player on #3. Given most play #1 and #2 that can lead to strange occurances in IC/OCC rooms with all interacting.

E.g. Character A is a rabbit character that mentions they hate foxes in scene. The player is a #1 style where the character is just a role and the rabbit hates foxes because foxes commonly eat rabbits.

Character B is a fox character but sees the character as an extension of themself (a #3). They get uneasy about the statement and a passionate non-scene discussion breaks out about foxes being shamed.

Many playing as a 'fursona' directly might not interpret things like that, but that's one of the many confusions I've witnessed from the sidelines.