Wish Fulfillment RP
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I admit that I def have elements of wish fulfillment in my RP. That doesn't mean I am 100 percent seeking wishes granted or that I don't consider how my character being too perfect effects rp, but it does mean I will often play attractive, appealing to me characters who if I was part of the world in question, I wouldn't mind being. I also have played aspects of myself and had characters that share some of my passions. Is that good or bad? I guess it depends....
I would rather be honest with myself about it than go yeah these are completely characters that have nothing to do with the things I like. It helps me to consciously balance things if I am self-honest about it.
There are some things though I like to avoid playing which are like me in real life.
While I make the occasional exception, I generally don't like to play healers, nurses, medics and etc even though I know a lot about that all, I come to games for a break from that. I sometimes even play characters super different than me who are troubled by wounds and etc.
I generally play small boned females and I am a small boned female, but the play bys I pick out are prettier than me as I were playing an idealized version of myself
I been through a lot of life trauma and I generally don't like to play characters who start the game with a lot of past trauma. In fact I will go the opposite on that and often play characters who start innocent and had a happy childhood.
And sometimes my characters are hyper into plants, I am considering making a plant changeling girl and I am hyper into plants.
My characters often reflect my open minded pansexuality as well. Although sometimes they are less right in the center al of the Kinsey scale than me and I have played characters who lean toward preferring women and one's who lean toward prerering men.
I never been able tog et into the mindset of a male character or even a fully straight character as i I don't know how to rp being straight or male!
That being said sometimes wish fulfilling can go to far and be annoying for others and bad rp. Like being annoying perfect without flaws or getting too invested in avatar and too emotional. I have been there, done both of such.
So the question is when is wish fulfilling too far? How to keep it fun for others? Do others here wish fulfill in rp? Can it be positive? Is it sometimes negative?
Like getting to a warrior hero for someone who can't be such in real life, might be a a good experience.
But playing the perfect pretty princess that the player expects everyone to adore could be negative for that player of said princess and those around them.
I def been annoyed at some characters that are over the top seen as perfect and right about everything by their player and who rp unrealistically, doing way more with their time than is human possible and etc.
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@kk Of course it’s ok to do some wish fulfillment! I think it boils down to how that is balanced against other aspects of the RP and how considerate you are of other players. I surely have wish fulfillment going on with all my characters even when I try to make them different from me. They are all hotter and tougher than me.
You can do just about anything if the attitude behind what you are doing is right. People can pick up on that. If you care about others fun you are usually golden.
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I do not like est, most type of rp for that reason!
Smallest, most beautiful, brightest blue eyes one ever seen, biggest, hottest, strongest., kindest, smartest, etc
Because while it might be a fantasy to be most of something - it of infringes on others who are like hey my character is pretty hot too!
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I have seen people pose things like the littlest blonde smiles, the biggest guy in the room grins, she has the kindest smile ever, her eyes are the brightest shade of blue one has ever seen
And I am like just stop hehe...
And even seen such result in ooc arguments into the room. Someone poses they the most tiny and the next person is like oh, yeah my character is only 4'7 so there! Or the opposite someone poses they are tallest present and then two peeps are comparing character heights like they are measuring their dicks.
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An one reason I don't like the appearance stat on wod is that I don't like appearance to be ranked, especially with some world of darkness characters having the ability to increase their appearance over 5 and go I am the most hot, you have to respond!
I prefer a beauty is in the eye of the beholder type of rp. I mostly like wod, but that element is like, I don't love ranking appearance levels.
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I've always tended to think of appearance and striking looks and stuff as an average. Like the vast majority of the world will respond this way.
Doesn't necessarily mean that you will. It just gives them more dice for certain things.
YMMV.
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That is a good way to view it. I have wondered while being on a wod game how to respond to over the top appearance stats/attraction related merits. Maybe to look at as they are gorgeous to most of the world, but pcs still have some agency in how they respond, is a good way to think.
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All I ask from my RP partners is that they give me something to work with in their poses. I hate flat poses or poses where they just respond to what you've done and add nothing to the narrative. So long as you're interactive and not trying to dominate the scene, I'm all for people RPing however they want.
I often ask my partners what they want to get out of a character or scene or plot so that I can be sure to keep those very things in mind as I play opposite them. We all have something we want to get out of RP, be it just a fun night of monkeying around or something more specific and focused. Again, so long as that doesn't lead to you prioritizing your fun over others? I don't see a problem with it at all.
In regards to Striking Looks/Attractive type advantages in a game, I just treat it like any other "striking feature" a character might have. My character may notice that someone is "hot" or whatever their thing is but that doesn't mean that they're attracted to them.
My only real issue with it is that everyone wants to be "the hot one" and when everyone is hot then that becomes the new average. We're RPing on a CW show and every character has the Striking Looks(Hot) merit. I get it, my character will notice, but it's hard to make that character feel special because, as we've said, everyone has that merit.
That's one of the reasons I think it's good to have a circle of people you can trust and rely on for things. I've had a partner come to me and say, "I really want to play a bombshell character who makes someone's nose bleed just by entering the room." So I was like, "Oh, okay. I can make that character for you." Then we can discuss how we see things going, whether it's short or long-term RP, etc and so on. I know what they want to get out of the RP, they trust me to respect whatever boundaries they have, and, hopefully, they have fulfilling RP as a result.
That was a long ramble and I apologize.
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@devrex said in Wish Fulfillment RP:
I think it boils down to how that is balanced against other aspects of the RP and how considerate you are of other players.
I agree with this. If your wish is to be the a badass fighter jock, that's fine, but just be kind to the other players who also want to be a badass fighter jock. You don't have some kind of exclusivity to the idea.
Also since we're making it a separate thread, I should probably clarify my original flippant comment.
I think wish fulfillment imbues a lot of RPG players (both TT and MU) but by no means does that mean it's universal. People RP for all kinds of reasons - escapism, writing challenges, TS, engaging with their favorite fictional world. And even if there is some element of wish fulfillment in your RP, that doesn't mean it affects everything you do. The badass fighter jock player might have no problem with said fighter jock getting their butt kicked on the volleyball field.
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I definitely have wish fulfillment in my RP. Most of them are violent sociopaths. “Little Ball of Hate” is what I aspire to.
But they are more successful at it, with fewer consequences, than I am RL.
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The whole if everyone is exceptional, nobody is exceptional on mushing is def a thing, but it is also hard to mitigate as trying to do so can lead to only staff alts and the alts of staff friends being allowed special things as it is only human nature to make the case-by-case exceptions for one's self and one's friends.
So I played a game where I was told no to taking striking looks as they were trying to limit it. It was a small game and most characters were staff alts and ooc their friends. I get ic and every single female character I ever saw but mine own had striking looks in some kind of hot/beautiful way. So she was the only average looking female character on the game, which make her less average on a game where everyone was strikingly hot.
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I mean, I play characters over 5'5". For me that's pretty much wish fulfillment. But I play a lot of comic games, so.. yeah. I'm just a short little bitch in chronic pain, so I guess all RP for me is?
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hehe, I am 5'6 with long skinny bones which is a bit on the tall side for a female. I love to player shorter characters! But I never play shorter than 5 foot as I don't like to be like I am the smallest ever either.
I also often play characters with curly hair and I have pin straight hair. So sometime there is I would love be short with curly hair behind my character looks.
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@kk said in Wish Fulfillment RP:
The whole if everyone is exceptional, nobody is exceptional on mushing is def a thing
It is, but IMHO it's kind of a petty thing that I have no patience for. Because the people who have a problem with it are (generally) not willing to be the not special person to let others shine. So it's basically just them saying: "Well I want to be special, of course, but I don't want you to be special too because then I won't feel special and I should be the only special one here." That's some nonsense.
It's also a bit illogical - like if you're in a room with Olympic athletes and Oscar-winning actors and somehow "nobody's special" just because everyone there is outstanding.
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I agree with you a lot. I have found when people try to limit the special, they generally do mean they want to limit it for others not themselves or their buddies
The only way to limit special non-toxically is to have the same rules for everyone, like maybe one special alt per player or something. .
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In my experience true "wish fulfillment" RPers don't handle IC conflict, losing, or disappointment very well. Maybe because they do have something aspirational wrapped up in the character.
Not a huge fan of it but it's not a dealbreaker either. Personally I don't want to be any part of my characters, those guys are a hot mess.
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@faraday said in Wish Fulfillment RP:
It's also a bit illogical - like if you're in a room with Olympic athletes and Oscar-winning actors and somehow "nobody's special" just because everyone there is outstanding.
It's not that nobody is special but the baseline average has now been raised considerably. If you're at an Oscar party and someone asks "Who's the best actor here?" you're going to get a lot of different answers. It's more difficult for a single person to stand out in that room because they all have high "acting skills".
If, however, in that same room you have Mike Tyson and the question is "Who is the best fighter in the room?" the answer becomes much more obvious.
Edited to add that while I might argue the above point, I'm not oblivious to the real reason why other players don't acknowledge something special about other player's characters; because it might in some way suggest that their character is somehow less special. Player arrogance is the real problem, of that I am aware.
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@zombiegenesis said in Wish Fulfillment RP:
It's not that nobody is special but the baseline average has now been raised considerably. If you're at an Oscar party and someone asks "Who's the best actor here?" you're going to get a lot of different answers. It's more difficult for a single person to stand out in that room because they all have high "acting skills".
Sure, but my point was that objectively speaking, they're still all Oscar winners. The Oscar equivalent of the MUSH behavior would be like Oscar Winner A throwing a fit because they were invited to a party where they're not the only Oscar winner in the room.
(Saw the edit and realize we're on the same page, but already posted.)
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I agree with you both on this. Pcs are the special, the characters and we should be assuming there are plenty of average npcs around.
That being said it still can be sort of suck when onels character was not allowed to be special/beautiful etc when most other characters are and the average normal expected thing for a pc seems to be to have this special.
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@faraday Spot on.
Haha, I still want to do a 'The Magicians' MU, and that would play with this kinda thing, since part of the theme (at least in the first novel) was that feel when you're the brightest thing in your HS and go to a university where you are distinctly not, and have to reconcile with being the House Red of Genius. (It's really wine and will give you a real headache, but it's nothing to write home about.)