I've pre-arranged dysfunctional romance (can't get enough of it) and close platonic relationships. Most of the time these are with people I've rped with for a couple years, but occasionally someone comes along who surprises me.
I think something to keep in mind with any sort of pre-arranged rp is that there's a difference between tightly controlled micro-managed rp and loosely controlled macro rp. I think a lot of people are thinking about micro-managed rp in this thread, where you plan out every little detail (where the idea of things feeling forced or like you're stuck on a track even if it falls to pieces) and try to sort of correct for any changes that occur outside of the plans.
To me, when I pre-arrange dysfunctional relationships or those tightly knit platonic relationships, I only focus the micro attention to the stuff that happens before the rp occurs. Once that's out of the way, whatever happens in the rp happens. If things don't go the way I'd hoped, oh well. I don't feel disappointed, and I've never had anything crash and burn in a way that felt bad to me (though keep in mind I usually enjoy the crashes and burns in rp, haha). What I like most about rp is that sometimes it surprises, and no matter what the theme of the rp was supposed to be, unexpected directions are always a delight to work with, not something I frown on.
As to the why -- well, usually I have certain things I wanna write about, and I create characters that allow me to do this, and sometimes contact people about their characters to allow me to work with them on specific themes or plots. I don't see how romance would be any different to that kind of arranging. I only have a limited amount of free time, you know? I wanna spend it doing stuff I think is fun.
And sometimes putting two people in a sappy sweet relationship and then watching it slowly fall apart in a magnificent burst of awfulness is fun!
I think something to keep in mind with any sort of pre-arranged rp is that there's a difference between tightly controlled micro-managed rp and loosely controlled macro rp. I think a lot of people are thinking about micro-managed rp in this thread, where you plan out every little detail (where the idea of things feeling forced or like you're stuck on a track even if it falls to pieces) and try to sort of correct for any changes that occur outside of the plans.
To me, when I pre-arrange dysfunctional relationships or those tightly knit platonic relationships, I only focus the micro attention to the stuff that happens before the rp occurs. Once that's out of the way, whatever happens in the rp happens. If things don't go the way I'd hoped, oh well. I don't feel disappointed, and I've never had anything crash and burn in a way that felt bad to me (though keep in mind I usually enjoy the crashes and burns in rp, haha). What I like most about rp is that sometimes it surprises, and no matter what the theme of the rp was supposed to be, unexpected directions are always a delight to work with, not something I frown on.
As to the why -- well, usually I have certain things I wanna write about, and I create characters that allow me to do this, and sometimes contact people about their characters to allow me to work with them on specific themes or plots. I don't see how romance would be any different to that kind of arranging. I only have a limited amount of free time, you know? I wanna spend it doing stuff I think is fun.
And sometimes putting two people in a sappy sweet relationship and then watching it slowly fall apart in a magnificent burst of awfulness is fun!
