Welcome to the wonderful, frustrating, complex, beautiful, intricate, enigmatic world of...
Reason for starting this guide: Being as this is a game that has an entire race (miqo'te) dedicated to a nontraditional romantic structure as well as a player fanbase (RP wise) being of a far more accepting sort, I see polyamorous relationships sprout up all over in this RP community. Thought perhaps it might be nice to start on a guide adding a little real life experience to a concept that can open up a lot of interesting doors in roleplay!
Some links for funsies:
^^^^ This topic is related to a lesser extent to polyamory. I did a research paper on it in college and has also been applied to human males (and to a lesser extent females).
Credentials on the subject itself
- Polyamorous in real life.
- Been in multiple polyamorous relationships over the last few years both long distance based and local.
- Done multiple scenarios of polyamory in roleplay over the last 6-ish years.
- Studied the topic extensively as part of a Human Sexuality course with supervising sexologist Dr. Lindsey Doe at the University of Montana.
- Partook in various activities as part of above course, including attending sex positive seminars, watched this little gem for extra credit, polyamory meet groups of BDSM and non-BDSM varieties, and more.
- Interviewed long practicing polygroups and polyfamilies both for personal knowledge as well for a term paper.
Obligatory Disclaimers
This guide is not meant in any way, shape, or form to tell any one person or party how they should or shouldn't RP this sort of dynamic. It's just as it's claimed, a guide. People can glean what knowledge what they would like from this or ignore it all together.Â
This guide is also not meant to start a hot topic debate on the subject itself. If that is something you would like to do, by all means make a separate thread for it here on the forums. Just not here on the guide, please.
Also, I am very aware that this is a fantasy world and that real world schematics shouldn't apply blah blah blah. However, for this topic itself, certain basics should at least be acknowledged and advised. Just like monogamy has some basic 'rules' (like no cheating, only one partner at a time, etc.), polyamory has much of the same.
With these said, onward with the guide!
