Just an RP Pro Tip from someone who has either been an officer of or leading RP guilds/groups for the past 10+ years:
“IC does not equal OOC” does NOT translate to “OOC feelings don’t matter.”
It also does not mean if someone is upset about something that’s going on in an RP OOC that they “need to grow a spine.”
OOC feelings absolutely do matter when you are playing with other people and not just writing your own stories. Other players are not your NPCs. They are people who are going to have–I know this sounds weird–actual feelings about the things that go on during RP.
OOC feelings about what’s going on during a plot arc, RP session, etc…absolutely do matter, and if you’re leading an event, are a guild officer, or a guild leader, it’s absolutely part of your responsibility to make sure everyone involved in the RP that’s happening is having a good time OOC.
That doesn’t mean nothing bad can happen to characters IC, it means part of the responsibility of leading events or plot arcs is to make sure your players are having fun OOC regardless of what is going on IC.
If your players end up in situations where they feel their character can’t do anything right, can’t ‘advance’, can’t ever succeed no matter what they do, or is always getting in trouble even when they’re trying to avoid it (and that is not part of what they want to be happening), your players are not going to enjoy the RP.
YOU might be enjoying it, especially if your character is one in a position of power, but if all you ever focus on is whether the people in control of the situation are having fun you’re going to find that you run out of people to play with after awhile and will get a reputation you might not necessarily want.
Yes, this applies even in settings where there are strict social rules/norms or strict hierarchies of power.
Yes, this means your military leader, high ranking Sith, pact commander, squad leader, or whatever a ‘high rank’ is in the game you’re playing can’t just walk all over players who have characters of a lower rank unless that’s the scenario that’s been agreed upon and, even if that is the agreed upon scenario, you still do regular check-ins with those players to make sure they’re still having a good time.
If they’re not, that’s when you pause the RP and figure out what can be tweaked so everyone involved is having a good time and enjoying the RP OOC.
It is not appropriate for you to ever brush aside one of your players saying they’re not enjoying the RP scenario with, “It’s lore/canon, keep IC and OOC separate.”
Doing that means you’re doing a very poor job at event/scenario leading.
