Rules, though. I’d say the biggest one is the same rule as any other type of character relationship, and the same one that was mentioned in the blog post. Talk it out! Especially if something you do has the potential to affect the other character. It’s just like being co-authors on a story. While it might be my character, if what she’s doing is going to affect someone else or the story as a whole, I want to have a word with the other player first.

I think that rule is true for all character relations though, not just the romantic ones. RP stories are shared, and that’s something I try to remember all the time.

That’s just me, though. More power to ya, IC romance players.

As far as dating goes… well. I’ve definitely done a lot of RP centered around the developing relationships, and depending on how liberal your definition of “date” is, my characters do it quite frequently! Boomstick Pub Night has been a regular date night for several of my characters and their significant others (most notably Jenive/Imble and Corise/Tigerlily), and a lot of my characters have attended various RP social events as one half of a couple.

I’ve also done lots of one-on-one RP with my characters and their partners (no, not THAT sort of one-on-one RP, get your mind out of the gutter)… quiet nights at home, picnics on the Tanaris beaches, trips to the Darkmoon Fair, snowball fights in Dun Morogh, wild rides through Nagrand on the back of a chopper, dips in the hot springs in Un’Goro Crater, and many more. Jenive and Imble were probably my most adventurous couple in that regard; their relationship developed during Burning Crusade in part over the course of Imble escorting Jenive to places she was WAY too low-level to go alone.

Of course, quite a few of my characters have what you might call “office romances,” falling in love with folks they frequently adventure alongside… nothing like life or death situations to draw people closer together! So they’ve had their share of “working dates,” as well, stealing intimate moments in between boss fights or taking a short break from questing to enjoy the beauty of the world they’re fighting to save.

Then, of course, there’s Corise. Whose idea of a fun date is getting wasted and starting a bar fight in the Grim Guzzler…

If we look at the Jaina and Arthas story in warcraft 3, for example, then we don’t have a map where we need to set up the perfect date between them. They never have to break character. They can both remain their iconic personalities. And yet, there is no denying the touch of “something special” in the air when they meet again.
That is perhaps the style I prefer above all.

The conflict, I think, arrises from the lack of freedom in “personal initiative”… or its conflict with the dependency on others. If I roll a butler, then I might be having a blast playing that person to a smug noble. But when that noble didn’t log on.. Then what do I do?
I could initiate my own RP then. For example the butler could visit the city to buy things for his Lord, or simply enjoy the end of his shift in a bar. BUT, if that leads to a new plot evolving around the butler that doesn’t include the Lord, then you obtain a conflict. Either the character becomes its own ‘main story character’, and the role of being a butler is diluted. Or you stick to the supportive role, and see lovely RP pass by.
It’s almost the same tragic story you see in Spin-Offs where the sideshow character doesn’t cut it to be a main character without altering the character severely.

My main character is a Light cleric. I was hoping to make a shy, frightened little scribe who pales and faints at the first sight of trouble. I’m often amused by such “supporting roles” in movies and books, and felt like RP’ing one myself.
I daresay it’s the only character in its genre I managed to call a success. There was a problem: such a character would avoid all kinds of trouble.. but without trouble, he can’t play the frightened sideshow. He needed to be placed in adventures that are “unnatural” to him.
The solution was simple, for this one: placing him in a Light order. But it also created an incredible dependency between my character and the guild. Without the guild, he looses a large part of “how he is RP’d”.

Luckily, the scribe and priest concept proved flexible enough to work on something outside the guild. I started adding to his work by working on sermons, rituals and prayers.
I have written small IC books in his name.
I soon learned this was a niche that was lacking in our community. We had many people wanting a marriage or funeral, wanting a prayer session, and even a handful playing priests. But very few people actually took pleasure in writing out detailed works for it.
After about 2 funerals, I had acquired a bit of a reputation in this niche and found myself requested for such events on a regular basis.
Regular enough to make the combination with my guild duties a constant source of RP.

I tried other supportive roles: waiters, courtesans, witch (in service of a noble). But each of them struggled with balancing “their own story” with “their supportive role”.