My Roleplay Problem: I Suck at Clubbing

[Paragon Vanguard]

I don't know if anyone pointed this out, but the club scene may not be for you (you as anyone who reads this, not just OP). I don't get into them much, though I have no anxieties or social problems. My brother got into one of the clubs for a while, asked me to join them a couple of times, but it wasn't what I wanted to do (even though in other games I ran clubs). It's okay for it to not be your scene, and it's okay for you to pop in and pop out if you aren't finding what you are looking for. You may still want to visit them now and again, without committing your character to anything. I just have not found the rp value in the clubs of CoH, and that is more of a personal thing, not a knock on the clubs. If you do not like it, then you are not missing out on anything, because you do not enjoy yourself in it. It's okay not to force it. 🙂 

[chase]

14 minutes ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

I don't know if anyone pointed this out, but the club scene may not be for you (you as anyone who reads this, not just OP). I don't get into them much, though I have no anxieties or social problems. My brother got into one of the clubs for a while, asked me to join them a couple of times, but it wasn't what I wanted to do (even though in other games I ran clubs). It's okay for it to not be your scene, and it's okay for you to pop in and pop out if you aren't finding what you are looking for. You may still want to visit them now and again, without committing your character to anything. I just have not found the rp value in the clubs of CoH, and that is more of a personal thing, not a knock on the clubs. If you do not like it, then you are not missing out on anything, because you do not enjoy yourself in it. It's okay not to force it. 🙂 

Yep.  Strangely, although the club scene isn't for me at all,  base building is something I love, so I'd love showing support for those people making their own nightclubs and events.  When time permits (it often doesn't) I try to show just to see the production they put together and show some support.   It's an incredible undertaking to host such things and while I don't fit the social setting, I'm often in awe of what the hosts accomplish.

[GraspingVileTerror]

Oh, certainly, @Paragon Vanguard; I don't need to.  Like I said in the original post, though:  I would like to branch out and try to overcome something that has been challenging me for a long while now.

Buuuuuuut . . . you're probably still right.  At a certain point, all the effort and different attempts hit a threshold, and the theoretical pay-off can't possibly be worth the actual stress and wasted time.  Just have to personally evaluate where that line gets drawn.

[Siouxsie]

Would it help BaRP if you go with a friend or small group?  It won't entirely remove the possibility of a random person taking things where you don't want, which seems to be a big concern.  On the other hand it might let you either stage the scene a bit or at least be with RPers you're comfortable interacting with while encouraging something of an improv session if others join you.

[GraspingVileTerror]

After seeing and receiving a few messages from various sources, I get the impression that a number of folks misread my intent with some amusing misconceptions (probably of my own fault, since I try to remain fairly neutral in my posts and therefore introduce an easy "in" for tabula rasa projection).  In particular, my intent in this particular thread.  Often, it seems, that different people even misread my messages in completely opposite directions.
 
I realize the clubs and baRP scene carry a heavy insinuation of sexualization, but that's neither the source of my fear nor my specific motivation here.  Mainly because that's not my particular "playground," as it were.  
 
I don't generally receive any unwanted advances, and when I do, I feel confident enough to turn people down or ignore them as appropriate.  Hell, in public spaces on Everlasting, wanted or not, I've probably only received ten or less since April of 2019.  That, or I'm blitheringly blind to flirting (yeah, probably that).
Despite that, I understand how other players have regular negative experiences with unwanted advances and wish for them to stop.  I endorse and advocate for mutually informed consent, so I support other players' efforts to diminish the unwanted advances (particularly the graphic or pushy ones).  Albeit, only to the extent that it doesn't harm consenting players' fun in private.  I take exception to aggressive and invasive "ERP narc'ing."
 
On the other end of this tangled web of tentacles, I am quite comfortable with my own sexuality, and I feel I have a sufficiently robust network of current and potential partners through other channels to never need to "cruise for randoms," particularly at the club scene.  I welcome new people who may be compatible with me, but I don't think I ever need to be hitting on other players who have no explicit signs of interest in ERP.
People who seem to have the misguided impression that I'm one of "those creeps" . . . well.  I won't discount the reality that my presence is potentially enough to be upsetting to some people, my frank and earnest support of sexual liberation is vehemently and vocally opposed by some, and I'm sure I've been put on ignore by certain folks; I've had exactly one sit-down conversation about a time I made someone seriously uncomfortable, and changed a character biography to accommodate.  And I welcome players to contact me, or even report me to GMs, if they ever feel I cross any lines.  I may have concerns with how some aspects of Homecoming is run, but all of my experiences with GMs have been encouragingly even-handed and reflective of the official Code of Conduct.
 
I'm just genuinely interested in exploring the clubs as a roleplayer who likes to try many different roles on for size.  It's a "learning, exploring, and experiencing" thing for me.  And it bugs me that I have so much trouble with it.  It means there are whole narrative threads that I'm just not tapping in to.  I have over 200 characters, a dozen or so of which are -meant- to be "clubber types."  I can't even find a convincing shorthand for these characters, other than to narratively declare that "they like going to clubs."  I like to avoid narrative declarations and third-person exposition, if I can manage it, which means getting in to those characters as clubbers.

That's my challenge.

And, hey!  Meeting players who I might not otherwise interact with, and finding they're people who I enjoy the company of is a big draw for all kinds of game content and roleplay scenarios.  It's one of my major motivators for playing this game.  So, naturally, it also bugs me that I'm missing out on baRP on that angle as well.
 
 
I've been watching a lot of the Bones series with my spouse lately.  I'm feeling an awful lot of appreciation for and connection to the representation of Dr. Brennan in the first two seasons (so far).  Anyone familiar with the show might want to consider framing my topical posts in the context of a person like her, if someone is looking to project any particular model of characterization in to my messages on this subject in the future.
Granted, sometimes she's inconsistently written as having bizarrely incongruous views on sex and gender identities, but that's the nature of fictional characters like that.  Different writers on different episodes sometimes have that effect.

But whatever.  We can have a discussion on the merits of that series in the Off-Topic board, if anyone's interested.

[Crazyleo]

As an update. About a month or so ago I joined a VG that are heavily into the club scene. It was because of them that I was drawn into the clubbing scene and now it's the primary focus for me playing this game.

[Latex]

Club RP for me - at least in D - is picking out the outliers, the characters that mostly just watch what's going on. I read their character bio, check their costume and if they have some interesting traits I bring them up while displaying my characters own traits so that they have plenty to work off and collab with.

 

Non-public invite only Clubs are dreadful in my experience, they can be the most extreme clique of any place where even if you make any and all attempts to integrate characters would rather gravitate toward other characters they already know and those that attempt to rope outliers into the clique so to speak are quickly reeled in by people they know. It's not much different to the real Club scene, if you go out you take a friend and form your own group in a group.

[RickmanUK]

I love Walk-up and "Meet and Greet" RP and I love open world RP where yeah we're traveling and fighting etc... and not just to go to the next scene.

 

Club and Pub RP I have found isn't my strong suit or even something I enjoy too much... I can handle it, but.. It's just not something I can do all the time.

[Ukase]

On 7/9/2021 at 9:17 PM, GraspingVileTerror said:

Does anyone have any insights that they may be willing to share?  Any ideas on how to potentially work around this issue I have without dragging down or disrupting the scene for anyone else?

I'm happy to learn!

Let me preface this by saying I am not a role player - at least, not in game for more than a corny comment or two. And I give this answer in the context of my experience as a bartender in a club. 

In my early days of youth, I learned many things at the clubs. Most of which is beyond the scope of your question. But one takeaway is that people "club", to use that as a verb if I may in this instance, for different reasons. The ladies/girls I knew went specifically because they liked to dance, and bouncers and bartenders were likely encouraged by club owners/managers to treat ladies with favor, as the more women you have, the more men that will show up. So, they are treated with essentially free drink, music they enjoyed and the company of their friends to help them feel safer than they otherwise might be if they were alone. 

Very few men ever attend a club for the music or the drinks. They go for the women. Even the fellows who lack "game", as it were. I'm sure there are some men who like to dance, but I can candidly state none of my friends has ever expressed this to me. Some of my friends might suggest that women dance, so men might do well to also embrace this as a skill or even a tactic. I've always said it would be disingenuous on my part, as I take no joy in dancing. This is why I don't trust men who would dance. Because I'm certain they don't genuinely like to do so. Of course, I could be wrong. But I don't think so. But I digress..the whole point of this reply is to perhaps provide a character that may be difficult to embrace: 

The Competent Womanizer - or perhaps more likely, the Incompetent Womanizer. 
Obviously, neither of these characters are admirable on the surface. They may be painful to portray. 

Another option might be an employee of the club - someone who's there for a purpose, as opposed to being there to take advantage of some opportunity to socialize. Someone who sees what the place looks like in the stark daylight hours, as opposed to the dim lights in the evening. 

I could see where some might have fun with it - using very corny lines that would never be used in real life. But you'd have to use your common sense and not cross lines and offend fellow players. (one could make the case the character in itself is a bit offensive - but if we can't risk being offensive, we'll never know what's funny and what's not.

[GraspingVileTerror]

That's an interesting perspective, @Ukase, and oddly . . . it helps!

The characters who I wanted to bring to the clubs don't actually fit the paradigms you suggest, even if I think they're rather reductionist and narrow personally.  But then, I don't "get" clubbing in real life, so maybe that's all related.

 

So, seems some of my characters might fit in at the clubs better if they had friends to go with them, OR they were predatory creepers.  Since I don't want to subject random players I don't know very well to any extra creepiness (I'm plenty creepy already, thanks for asking!), I suppose this means friends are a necessity.

 

Granted . . . many of the clubs on Everlasting are not heteronormative as I understand it, so there's a chance these paradigms aren't necessarily appropriate here.