wankgate | 239: how does one become popular on dreamwidth rp?

honestly? this is just my experience, but how bad an npc player's experience with wol rpers is depends highly on how much special attention their character gives the wol in canon. aymeric and haurchefant are expected to drop everything and be the wol's perfect elf boyfriend without the wol player considering ways to explore their personal demons or motivations outside of them. who cares if aymeric was tortured by his father or that haurchefant has a terrifyingly violent side to him, they need to cuddle the wol right now! g'raha isn't allowed to to do anything more interesting than gush over the wol, like adventuring with them like he's always dreamed of and seeing what the world has to offer. after all, that might require the wol player to actually be creative. on the villainfucker side, zenos and emet also suffer, and whether they're expected to ravish the wol or be domesticated by them depends entirely on whether or not the wol player has a noncon kink. this is all because these different npc/wol dynamics attract pushy assholes who think they can get away with anything and the npc player has to just take it because their character is supposed to adore their self-insert.

meanwhile, i used to play a couple other npcs alongside one of the wol boyfriends listed above, and my experience rping them was much more pleasant. sure, i had to deal with a one or two weirdos here and there, but just the fact that these characters weren't flanderized by fandom to have their lips surgically attached to the wol's ass cheek filtered out the worst of the worst. but that's just my experience, ymmv and all that.

I play one of the "boyfriend" npcs and it fucking sucks bc of everything you just said. I makes me feel like I'm some oc players cumrag every time they tag me and I don't feel like doing exactly what they want. Ofc I drop those tags, but it happens every time and it's "bad faith" to not tag castmates in games so I don't feel like I can opt out of them.

Playing other NPCs is a little better but I've definitely had weirdo WoLs act this way with my girls too and it also sucks.

It's literally not. You can opt out of any castmate you like, especially WoLs. Nobody will bat an eye who isn't the WoL player, I promise you.

That's a bit disingenuous I think. Plenty of people will absolutely judge someone for opting out of tagging a castmate in game settings, especially if the castmate you opt out of has friends to cry to.

But it's something that people can and should do more often. It's better to not tag someone than it is to force yourself to have CR you don't want or enjoy.

Most moderators will not consider your opting out of CR as a rule breaking offense and the worst your castmates can do is bitch about it to other people, but that can happen with almost anything in DWRP. It's just a matter of learning that sometimes it doesn't matter if other people mind or are upset when you don't want to interact with them.

+1 of course you can opt out of cr with whatever castmates you don't want to play with, but you can't pretend that it won't have consequences for you. however, sometimes the consequences aren't as bad as you fear, and it's worth it to take a risk for the sake of your own enjoyment.

You're totally correct in general principle, but I feel like it's also worth noting that we're not even talking about "in general."

The community is so overwhelmingly frustrated with WoLs these days that I think even people who might be inclined to raise a fuss otherwise wouldn't even bat an eye.

I don't even know the game but I have to admit I've found most WoLs boring? They mostly seem to be walking skillsets.

As other anons have already said, you definitely can opt out but not without consequences. And WoLs are some of the most batshit insane rpers on dw. I've seen other people get turned on by the WoL and their friends and iced out of casts just for not wanting to play with the WoL or not wanting to ship with the WoL. I'd rather enjoy my game and spit out some awkward tags I plan on dropping than go through that, which sounds really insane too I know but it is what it is. :/ I wish WoLs were allowed in games fr.

weren't allowed, I meant... lol rip.

kinda have to agree with everyone else that it'd be weird to join a game with full knowledge that you have no intention of playing with the protagonist of your canon

explain all the FFXIV casts that are split in half over certain NPCs not wanting to tag certain WoLs then

it happens way more often than you'd think

weird things happening doesn't make them not weird

That's what makes it a struggle, anon. The WoL is for all intents and purposes an OC that anyone can play however they want and that's super daunting to tag with a character that has a relationship with that OC in canon. WoLs expect you to read their minds and do what they want which is as far as I know a huge no no in DWRP and yet people "have" to let the WoL OC be the main character who dictates how the story went and how your character was supposed to feel about it. Apping into those games not wanting to tag them is 100% reasonable to me, but the WoL+their friend group will throw a shitfit if you don't. It's not the same and not nearly as simple as "you shouldn't app if you don't plan on tagging the main character."

you guys can justify it all you want but it's still weird. not against the rules, but weird.

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this is the reason i never played any of my dragon age characters in games. i didn't particularly want to play with anyone's warden but i couldn't just say "sorry, i know our characters are important to each other but i don't want to play with you."

i play all sorts of npcs, from boyfriend character to sidequest wonder, and i haven't met a wol who hasn't demanded that i give their precious baby special attention all day, every day. i also have a few non-ffxivs that wols have somehow decided to glom onto, and they still pitched a fit when i turned them down. some wol players just really gotta be the center of the universe, no matter who you play. those ones are the worst.

it's a wol-specific problem, but also it's not: a character you can make look like a fictional, perfect version of your ideal self, who has relationships with likable characters, and who has very little personality or dialogue and can be endlessly projected onto, is always going to be a magnet for the sort of player who wants to be the center of attention and may pitch a fit when they're not. it makes sense to avoid them.

+1 ffxiv wols stand out as the worst example of this phenomenon because of how popular the game is

see: dragon age/mass effect protags

the thing is that those aren't the only games, but the games where player customization/personality depends on the player themselves aren't popular in dwrp. you don't see a lot of bhaalspawn players from the first two baldur's gate games, or someone playing their original character from pillars of eternity, even though those hit a lot of the 'super special protagonist-chan who the plot revolves around them' checkmarks. disco elysium and planescape: torment are similar types where the personality of the protagonist is ultimately all due to player choice, so you could play them as a OP attention grabbing butt baby and it would be considered canon.

it's easier to notice how shit WoLs are because ffxiv is extremely popular and there are so many people are playing from it.

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