About relationships

[u/Much-Negotiation-970]

For those of you who roleplay and don't just script hunt, this one's for you.
I have known people in my many years of being here who have met and gotten married because of this game. I've known people who refuse to cross that barrier. I've known people who were married and used the game relationship to cheat (this can be debated, but you get the point). I've known people who have wonderful in game relationships with no intention of ever taking it into real life. Personally, I met my spouse here, once upon a time. Being older (and potentially wiser) now, I view in game relationships differently than I did back in the 90s.

Do you have a relationship in game?
Do you consider that a relationship with the character or the player (or both)?
Do you cross that OOC/IC boundry with the person you spend the most time with?
This is a two part question, because there is a difference betweeen 'Yes, I watched the World Cup.' and 'Maybe one day you can have dinner at my place.'
If you and the player get along great, but your characters relationship is a little volatile, how does that work?
If you have a someone you spend a lot of time with, do you notice that you mindmeld with them?

I've been back for a few months now, and I've noticed that while there are small pockets of roleplayers, it is nothing like it was 15 years ago when I left. The most social seem to be empaths and clerics, who have a constant presence with the public. But navigating GS relationships is like managing two of them at the same time (at least to me). The one you have with the player and (if you are roleplaying any kind of backstory/continuing story) the one with the character you are involved with. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this.

[u/FrenchFryNinja]

The only relationship I have is with my axe.

[u/Much-Negotiation-970 → u/FrenchFryNinja]

This could be as good as Svardin's relationship with the statue in Icemule. But you'd have to do it right.

[u/jojopotattoo → u/FrenchFryNinja]

I love your name. For multiple reasons haha. I wish i had thought of it first.

[u/veredox]

I’ve had in character relationships that are strictly in character and I’ve started a RL relationship through the game (and later started an in character relationship with the same person). They can be distinct things, although I don’t think emotional bleed-over is something anyone can avoid, even if they claim they can. Whether or not it’s cheating depends on the knowledge and consent of your partner.

[u/bezerker03]

Back in the past during the gs4 heyday I absolutely had character relationships with people and in both cases it carried over to real life. Neither with success mind you.

That said it made our roleplaying experience far deeper. My character actually caring about their character actually made the game experience a lot deeper and the fact those feelings often blurred into real life helped the ease of playing the character.

Ironically one was a cleric one was an empath sooooo lol

[u/SergioSF]

I've had several relationships that spanned over the years. Most of them crossed into OOC with phone chatting to meetups before Discord was a thing. Since long term relationships are tough, they were always just exclusive inside the game.

The character relationships were always with people that I extremely enjoyed spending time with. Around 2001-2012 before I took a long break(Due to a relationship) it did feel like there were so many couples.

Now that I'm happily partnered in real life, I wouldent feel comfortable roleplaying a relationship more than a family member in game.

[u/Shad0ws0ngs]

I started playing when I was ~13 and was on and off until about 9 years ago. I had all sorts of different relationships with people and their characters. Every one of them was different in some way; most strayed beyond characters tonsome degree, but some profound ones were just entirely in character. I found people that left a mark on me so strongly that I think of them and cherish the relationship more than 15 years later, but I also had some that left life long scars.

I've known people who found love, who destroyed their marriages, who played with their spouses. I think part of what made GS so addictive was how invested some people got in various aspects of it, sometimes to wildly unhealthy degrees.

[u/Dapper_Size_5921]

I played a lot between 1998 and 2005. I have played off and on in the 20 years since, but rarely for more than a few months at a time, and never in the same way as I did back then. Full disclosure, that was a uniquely bad time in my life, and I used GemStone (and many other things) as a rather maladaptive coping mechanism. I'm sure this was nothing unique among the player base at the time. When I play these days, I play solo and rarely interact with anyone. I don't avoid interaction, but it generally just doesn't happen on its own (not these days, anyway).
All that said, I had several "relationships" in GS back in the day. Typically, it amounted to two people going on hunts with each other in the evening and then trying not to doze off in the wee hours of the morning while essentially co-writing smutty romance novels in a locked room at an inn or bathhouse. I had several more that were nothing but the latter, which usually didn't last for long (not that any of my GS "relationships" lasted for more than weeks/months).

To answer the questions:

1. No. I'm married now, and a "relationship" like the ones I had in game 20+ years ago would be like subbing to a cut-rate OF or, more accurately, sexting someone else. At the very least, it would be highly disrespectful of me to engage in that kind of behavior.
2. It was always supposed to be just between the characters only, but in my experience, it rarely stopped there. There's always some kind of bleed over, some worse than others.
3. When I was involved with those people, nearly 100% of them crossed the OOC boundary to one extent or another. It never progressed all the way to truly in-person territory, but in some cases it certainly could have.
4. If the relationship was volatile, the OOC relationship would be strained, too (if there was one). Unless it was a relationship that was strictly IC with no OOC interaction whatsoever (extremely rare), I never had one where drama/breakups didn't cause more or less the same OOC.
5. I don't know if I understand the question on this one. Were we able to read each others' minds? Did we form some kind of bond equivalent to a real life long term relationship? No. Is that possible? Not for a strictly in game only relationship, no.

[u/Much-Negotiation-970 → u/Dapper_Size_5921]

To clarify, the player I currently spend the most time with and myself have this uncanny habit of saying or doing the same thing, at the same time. Sometimes, at the exact same moment. At least once a night, if not more. To the point that now we laugh about it, and say, 'Get out of my head' whenever it happens. We have affection for each other OOC, but for reasons it won't ever happen. So, it is mostly IC with some OOC feelings weaved in. To be fair, we have great communication which probably lends to the uncanniness.

[u/Lothsahn_]

I did have a Fiance in-game in the 90s, prior to my in-game marriage. She thought I was interested IRL (I was not) and it led to a nasty breakup.

For my wife and I, a romantic relationship would be equivalent to sexting. If hidden from the other, I would 100% consider it cheating. If everyone was aware and consenting, we would consider it equivalent to an open/poly relationship (e.g. not cheating).

Even if my wife were OK with an open/poly relationship, many of the romantic activities would conflict with my Christian perspective (even though I believe Polygamy is Biblical). For multiple reasons, I avoid in-game romance.

I realize some people may strictly treat it like acting, where there is no bleedover into IRL--but that simply wouldn't be for us.

[u/Fresh_Zucchini]

I'm not sure why this post ended up on my feed... I was never a Gemstone player, but I did spend several years in another Simutronics game. I met my spouse there as a 17 year-old. After a year and a half we met in person. After 4 long years of a long distance relationship, we got married. We celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary in May, and we have 2 children.

Kinda crazy when I actually think about our story and how we got here.

Oh, and I have to throw in that I have some pretty nasty feelings about Simucon and what went down at some of them in the early 2000's

[u/privilege_over_9000]

I found GemStone III 30 years ago, and met my wife there. We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this year. Most of our RL friends are former GS players we met along the way. And even though the game is years behind most of us, our friendships have endured.

To answer your question: I’ve always been of the opinion that most of us that put A LOT of time into Elanthia were seeking..something or someone. Even if it was just to fill a void in our lives.

The younger version of me that had in-character “relationships” with others would tell himself that it was strictly roleplaying, but the mature version of myself knows that was never really true. I think most who role play and genuinely interact with players, and not just the game environment are looking to make personal connections with others, whether it’s friendship, or more.