thread: 2005-03-11 : Love, Friendship, Romance, Sex
On 2005-03-15, TonyLB wrote:
Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that IC to RL bleed happens when the IC play is unsupported by rules.
When I play Dogs, or MLwM, or Capes, I am brutalizing characters, tempting them, coercing them, deceiving them, begging them, seducing them, and all that jazz, constantly. And not the tiniest whiff of it shifts into RL, because we can all see the straightforward game-rules reasons for why and how it's being done.
When there are no such rules, the human animal is constantly wondering "Is this about the game, or about us?" I have, for instance, constantly seen people take IC betrayals personally in Amber. AMBER, for god's sakes! The game where betrayal is normative. But because there's no clear rules motivation, people assume that it was motivated by RL concerns.
So I'm totally unfazed by Emily's second concern. I think that when a rules system is created that supports romantic love in an objective way it will make people comfortable with playing it. Because, like a bunt in baseball, it will clearly be the rules of the game being used to best advantage.
