Romance Roleplays: Anyone Else Feeling A Little Left Out?

[Cliffhanger 5]

Hello, dear readers! I'm writing this topic today because reading through a handful of the planning-stage romance roleplays has me feeling a bit left out. Now, I'm going to start off by asserting that I don't think this is anyone's fault. I'm just wondering if their are any other ponies who look through these threads and have similar feelings.

 

The main reason I feel left-out, so to speak, is how hetero-oriented the many romance threads are. This isn't anyone's fault and I understand it would be more difficult to run if you had to account for homo and bi-romantic people, but it just leaves me feeling a little blue when I see "okay guys, this is how many colts and mares we need because we need to make sure it's an even number."

 

Now, I'm actually bi-romantic, heavily leaning towards men, and I'm even sure that it wouldn't be a problem to include me in that fashion if I went out of my way to find someone who was "gay." The issue isn't that they couldn't make exceptions for me, it's that they would have to and at that point it'd be less of entering the roleplay and talking to different people I might be interested in roleplaying with than roleplaying with my designated partner in a group setting. Even if I did join as a colt and ended up picking up another colt anyway, it'd be ruining the roleplay for two fillies since most of the group dating threads I've seen make a point of having a balanced number.

 

I'm not here to complain or say that they should be managing their roleplays differently. I myself am perfectly capable of being content with a female partner in this situation even if I wish I didn't have to ignore my preferred gender. I'm just wondering if anyone else - particularly fully homo-romantic ponies - sees these types of roleplays cropping up and wish it was easier for them to participate.

 

(As a final note, I'd really prefer we didn't go down the "well, then just roleplay as a girl" route. Some people may be okay with that, but I dislike being the other gender in a romantic context and I'm sure I'm not the only one uncomfortable with playing a female role to pick up men.)

[Doctor Shuu 797]

Hmm... While I don't share your problem, I believe that a good solution would be to join RPs while in the planning phase. That way, the leader will know before there is an official roster. And of course, if you believe you have the skill, you could always make your own romance RP.

[JeanHover 326]

I've actually thought about this before. I am also a bisexual, and I think I know how you feel. I haven't had my OC do anything significantly romantic in any roleplays recently, but I do think that every once in a while I would want to be with someone other than a girl. This is why I don't like the whole "equal number of fillies and colts" thing. The thing is, you're actually writing as your OC, not yourself. I would be fine to be portraying a flat out gay pony, even though that's not really me. So, to tell the truth, I think these roleplays should just have whatever amount of guys and gals, and everyone just goes with it. I wouldn't mind my pony with either gender, and other people could just do the same. I mean, it is just online roleplaying. Your not really supposed to be yourself, with the exceptions of ponysonas.

 

By the way, if you ever go through with that idea above poster had, send me a message.

Edited February 2, 2013 by Jverne

[WildCard 1,037]

Neither bi-, nor homosexual myself, but I enjoy homosexual characters in stories, RPs, etc and I think they shouldn't be left out

[Cliffhanger 5]

Thank you for your responses, friends. I hadn't considered the idea of starting my own romance roleplay because even though they do pique my interest, many of them - though certainly not all - come off as either a bit juvenile or sloppy by my personal standards. If I were to make my own in my own style, it would likely be more mature - though not in that sense, I assure you. It would be more structured in some ways and less structured in others. If I was to really get behind the idea of a romance roleplay, I'd want to dissolve the usual rules and reform them into something more suiting to what I think a blind romance roleplay should be like.

 

I wouldn't enforce any post minimum besides that the forum itself enforces. I generally encourage shorter posts, in fact, because it creates more fluid interactions. In my ideal scenerio, everyone would pm their characters to me to create an actually blind experience and roleplayers would be encouraged to use only sensory information in their posts to create the experience of actually having to talk to the different ponies to learn about them instead of being able to pick your partner from the start based on the reader's "mind reading" capabilities. Making sure to be detailed about such sensory information would be key though. Tone of voice, expression, and posture would warrant more description once thoughts were absent.

 

I generally prefer IM clients for this sort of thing, actually. It's a bit more messy with more people, but they suit fluid conversations better for my purposes. Ah, I'm already working on a pen and paper type project right now though so unless my fair ponies found themselves very interested in that concept and were hoping for something of that nature for Valentine's Day I wouldn't start plans for such a project just yet. It is an interesting idea though.

[Castoro Chiaro 181]

I totally get what you mean about romance RPs feeling kinda juvenile. I've considered joining one for OCs I've yet to pair off, but I'm generally really picky about that stuff because I want to be sure the other person is a competent writer and has developed an interesting enough character for me to work with.

 

I'd be interested in an RP like the one you've described though, Cliffhanger.

[MelancholicMemory 2,025]

I've run a couple romance RPs in the past, and they were managed fairly well in my opinion. I didn't make them hetero exclusive and I only used the "we need a minimum # of male and female characters" rule to create a certain amount of diversity and after my quota was filled, anyone could join. I've been wanting to make a new one, but I'm currently involved in so many other RPs that I can't get the time to run a whole new one.

 

I generally encourage shorter posts, in fact, because it creates more fluid interactions.

This is an idea with good intentions, but it causes problems when people have timezone issues or if one person is particularly busy one day. It holds up the whole RP. The only way for this to work would be to set a rule about what timezones people can join from, and I think that's unfair to a lot of people. I suppose in an IM system this would work very well though.

[Cliffhanger 5]

Ah, but an IM system would limit people the most in terms of timezones if that was your concern. More than the alternative it would require everyone to be able to be on at the same time in real time. I think at any level I'd want to screen who entered simply to avoid that "juvenile" atmosphere I mentioned earlier, but it's true that a pony having an incompatible time zone isn't something I'd want to impede their participation. No one knows better than a colt on the grave shift what it feels like to be excluded because of your schedule.

 

I think, if I try to arrange something, I'll see how well the time zones of the potential participants mesh together before fiddling with alternative solutions.