I'll start by saying I treat romantic and sexual RP like I do any other RP which means I communicate very openly about it. I tend to be an OOC chatterbox that likes to discuss things like RP goals and desires so we at least know what direction we're heading in scene-wise.
@Arkandel said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:
- If your PC is going to cheat IC on another character do you feel obligated to let your partner's player know?
I think so, yes. For me, this is likely to have come up in the "are there any things you'd like to avoid during our RP" parts of the conversation. For some people, cheating can be a very sensitive topic with OOC repercussions. If I'm playing a character who may not be the most loyal I let my partner know that and if they say they'd rather not have that happen in the relationship I work around it. I never want my IC actions to affect someone negatively OOCly and that's where communication comes in.
- Do you think you are responsible for a character whose roleplay is related to yours if your paths are to separate? In other words do you feel guilty someone else's PC might become quote/unquote unplayable because of your IC choices?
I would say no, not generally. I think this falls back on communication again. If you're open and honest about the RP and you give people a chance to opt-out then I think you've done your job.
For example, on my semi-private game Blood Falls we explore a lot of horror tropes but we are always very clear on what topics the RP might involve and give people a chance to either opt-out or discuss things with the scene runner to see if they can modify the content so that it's digestible for them. Everyone has been very cool with either reworking the scene or understanding that, unfortunately, the scene just isn't for them this time around and finding another scene to take part in.
- Very closely related to the above, what if the choice that takes a PC mostly off the table is OOC? For instance if you stop being active on my PC's spouse to play an alt with Theno's PC. Do I have the moral high ground to get pissed off?
Maybe? Did I just leave and not tell you? Did I not give you a reason for why I was leaving that character? Did I not give you a chance to find closure for your character and give them a way to move on? Then, yeah, I can see someone being a little pissed off at that.
- When it comes to TS what's the correct way to suggest it? Do you let the RP become more explicit until the big words come out or you get told no? Do you page the other player first and explicitly ask if they want to do it? Something else?
I think it depends on the person you're playing with. I've been with some partners who were very clear about their intent and desire for how a scene goes(once when I was playing Batman opposite a Zatanna she was very clear about it and even offered to cast a sex spell on Bruce if ICly he wasn't into her). Other times, I've RPed with people who came across very much like they were not interested in RPing the sex part of the RP and I've paged them with something like "Fade to black" and they've either responded with "Yes, please!" or "Uh, not unless you want to..." This is also a good example of when previous communication could have helped(knowing where RP can possibly lead) and having a +prefs system.
- Assuming OOC consent between adult players is there anything in an IC relationship, including TS, that you consider unethical? No, I'm not going to give examples since I'm keeping this classy! But you can.
Providing there is OOC consent between all parties involved then, no, there is nothing I consider unethical in RP.
- Any other choices not found in this short list. I'm sure it's far from complete.
I'll throw one out that got me once on a game. The characters are in a relationship, have slept together multiple times, and then I get OOCly informed that the character is pregnant with his child. I was not comfortable with that. To be fair, I never said "no kids" because the topic of getting pregnant never came up. That was a situation where playing my character became very difficult because of the IC and OOC drama related to that RP.