Romance and Goonstation RP

[Solenoid]

Honestly, I feel like people are missing the point with this one.  I don't like the fact goon is 13+ either, but the original driving point behind this post was very clearly meant to be the exclusionary behaviour that some folks who do romance RP on goon tend to trend towards  --  It's real, it happens A Lot, and it's annoying as hell.  I played nearly exclusively on Sylvester for nearly a year, which is where you can see the worst of it.  Not because Sylvester is Inherently Clique-y and Bad, but because the lower pop levels make exclusionary behaviour EXTREMELY visible.  I've seen people take command roles and disappear with their honeybuns for the rest of the round, for multiple rounds, and have both of them refuse to engage or participate beyond the occasional radio response of "NO we're not dead to antags, but NO we're not going to come play the game with the rest of you ".  This isn't a one-off, this is a frankly relatively common occurrence, and one that merits having a more explicitly written "cut this shit out" descriptor like in the OP that folks can point to to say, well, "cut this shit out".  I've tried to engage in RP with people who refused to stop carrying each other around and whispering sweet nothings to each other (SO awkward), I've been the only person in a department of 3 for 90 minutes straight while the other two were doing the carry each other around station and do nothing else all round gambit, with multiple different couples, in multiple different rounds.  Romance RP =/= inherently bad.  But romance RP is, by nature, something that trends towards exclusion: by definition it's putting a special bond between your character and One Other Character (or more if you're polyam, respect) which also isn't Inherently Bad, but it's really hard when you're the one doing it to see when you've crossed the line.  If you think you or someone else has been banned out of nowhere for metafriending and exclusionary behaviour that you don't think exists, consider that.  It's more obvious to the people who are trying to play the game with you than it is for you on the inside. 

Sorry if this stream of consciousness is barely legible, I just woke up, backread, and wanted to get my thoughts out before work.  People who consistently treat the public goon servers as a private RP environment should be banned.

JOEL, from one 4 player to another, I think you hit the nail on the head with what's been happening lately and I'm glad you wrote this post. I have genuinely been feeling uninterested in the game since the sort of "carry people around, go on dates, be all lovey" thing became more common in shifts on 4 and I'm personally upset with the trend of exclusionary RP and behavior shown by some players. I think we need to have more welcoming faces on 4 which build friendships with new players, not more cliques which push them away and get more. 

I've had times as a doctor where I was the only or one of only 2 doctors actually doing work in a medbay of 5-6 people during stationwide crises. Arguably some of this is metacliquing between friends, but some of it was romantic as well. The consequences of this exclusionary and isolatory behavior are not just social, but mechanical as well and put extra stress on players which are not participating in it by making them pick up the slack. Romantic behavior can also be awkward to roleplay around, as you mentioned, especially for new players(both new to the game, and new to the server as well). Nobody wants to try to make a name for themselves and meet new people only to be met with two lovebirds sweet talking one another as their only coworkers.

I would just like to say thank you for your post and thank you for bringing up what's been affecting 4 when the majority of the RP community is none the wiser and I really do feel everything you said in my soul.