Long title is long. Anyway, what I'm getting at is, I've noticed after RPing with many, many, MANY different people in different ways that the mass majority of people when a RP begins and their character happens upon a nonthreatening stranger.... these are three key things that they ALWAYS do. They "perk their ears up and watch cautiously," "growl in warning" or "stares at the stranger" EVERY single time. I don't know if its a poor expression of a character but I've seen this EVERYWHERE. Its done regardless of personality, and often regardless of RP ability (although I admit it is more common with the novice RPers but that is beside the point, I still see it VERY frequently in more advanced RPers too). Now I could understand if your character has been, oh I don't know, severely beaten down or is naturally cautious but this EVERY character type doing it. The nice ones. The bad ones. The social ones, the antisocial ones. Its like for the first few minutes of a RP, its like everyone's characters forgets what they would have been doing before they noticed and acts like the world [or in this case, the other character] could potentially be out to get them.
I'm just wondering after hundreds of RPs, both in groups and one on one, why do people let their characters turn into skittish "deer" for the first few minutes of a RP. Does a social person act aggressive to, run away from, or stare at strangers on the street?! No! They go up and say hello [or they dont and wait until you approach them and do the same, but again thats beside the point] I can understand a growl from an aggressive character but even "nice and sweet" characters and even the weak/skittish ones do it too.
A lot of these people RP their characters as if they've /never/ across a stranger before. If you don't think a person would logically do it in real life if it doesnt suite their personality, why would you RP a character with the same personality in that manner at all? Honestly, if we all stopped, stared, yelled profanity at/grumbled at ("growled"), or became cautious/frightened at every person we had never seen walk down the street, we'd never get anything done. So why do so many people's characters do it? I don't understand the reasoning behind it at all and its made the starts of a lot of RP's particularly predictable and boring as of late. ._.;
