Why is monogamy so common?

[Lizzie]

I don't wish we would follow the docs more.

Following game documentation is rule #1 of Armageddon. Acting the way your character would act in the world of Zalanthas is a requirement. You don't get to pick and choose which docs you want to follow based on your own feelings or opinion.

You left off the other half of that statement:

I don't wish we would follow the docs more. I wish we would change the docs, and then follow THOSE docs.

And then I gave an example of possible new docs we could all follow. I don't like the existing docs and wish we could change them. That was my point.

[Armaddict]

I have no problems with existing docs.

I have no problem with people who have no interest in playing out romantic relationships.

I don't think the two are at odds with each other, the holders of each view just have to respect each other.  In terms of game behavior, holding respect for it doesn't mean 'Never bring it up', it means play along.  In the aforementioned scenario, I'd say the problematic part was producing a virtual partner; in terms of game actions, that is someone your character cares about and is influenced by, but is untouchable by means of anyone else in the game.

We have similar constructs, in virtual children, virtual tribes, etc.  But I can see people having issues with it on the OOC level, and on an IC level, wondering if you're putting something past them, so I think it would be better to clearly identify that you character doesn't do relationships, and know that occasionally, someone might try anyway.  It's not any different than the people who don't like relationships in game, or the relationships chosen, and putting them through the same sort of fire for what they're doing.

It is, give and take, a pretty equal tug of war.  But if it crosses into the realm of disrespect for the player who is acting within confines of the game, there and only there do I have a problem.

[Kankfly]

Whether PCs are monogamous or polygamous, I think it comes down to their PCs' choices and personalities and ICness, etcetc.

What strikes me weird is when someone is polygamous or promiscuous, and others treat it like it's scandalous, and they go out of their way to "fix" the problem (aka. jealousy, soap-opera play), when they aren't even directly involved in the relationship.

But since I, as a player, is only witnessing one side of that particular sort of play, there is no saying whether or not that is driven by other IC reasons (whether political gains, acts of self-interest, some sort of weird protectiveness over a certain PC etc). I personally don't enjoy this sort of RP, so my characters tend to treat that side of thinking as odd.

In the aforementioned scenario, I'd say the problematic part was producing a virtual partner; in terms of game actions, that is someone your character cares about and is influenced by, but is untouchable by means of anyone else in the game.

This is interesting though, I've never thought of it this way. My PCs never had a virtual mates themselves, except for virtual kanking partners. Maybe one way to work around that is to send in a report to staff, and see if something can be worked out if you want to hurt the PC in question by harming the PC's virtual mate.

[Grapes]

Yeah really I don't see the big deal, except some players want to RP "General Hospital" or some crud. I'd advocate killing them all and camping outside chargen, but that's even worse than "as the sands run through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives"... um, no thanks.

EDIT: All My Children will continue in a moment. Further proof that god hates you.

[nauta]

1. Monogamy is not against the rules.  You can be monogamous, or not.  Zalanthans would not bat an eye at a monogamous couple any more than they would bat an eye at a polygamist couple.

2. Just because you do not like a certain kind of RP (dinner party RP, romantic plotlines, combat plotlines) does not mean you should dogpile or advocate killing the characters of those who do.  This is one thing that tends to turn others off the game.  If you have a bona fide complaint about someone importing RL values into the game and ignoring the docs, use the player complaint tool.

3. From my perspective, monogamy is actually quite rare in the game among PCs, and polygamy (and its friends) is far more common.  Hence, the premise of the original post is false (from my view): Why is monogamy so common?  It's not: neither in how we portray the docs nor in the docs themselves.  (I have a hunch there is something vaguepost-y in the background.)  In any case, both are acceptable to a Zalanthan since Zalanthans have a broad attitude toward sexuality.

Some reading:

Given that Zalanthas is a place with broad attitudes towards sexuality, it is common to see Zalanthans have multiple sex partners. While your character may be in a monogamous relationship with another character, understand that as a commoner, this does not deserve (and should not get) formalized recognition by the powers that be. Your character also should not expect anything for deciding to limit his or her current sexual focus to one person. Any commoner relationship is not formalized. This means that there are no such things as inheritance laws governing who gets your character's things if they die, nor are there divorce laws concerning who gets which half of things if the couple splits up. Zalanthan commoners are NOT highborn, and this is one area in which that should be very clear.

From: http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Marriage

[tiptoe]

I think it's also important to note that monogamy is not black and white either. It's a widely debated topic in many scientific communities. There are animals that practice genetic monogamy, which means that there are no extramarital copulation, and the genetic identity of offspring is secure and unquestionable. And on the other side, there's social monogamy (which is what most humans are) where extramarital copulation does occur, and genetic identity of offspring is not necessarily known. And there are several gray areas in between those two, where a species may exhibit behaviors associated with monogamy (paternal care, mate guarding, affiliative behaviors), but may not follow the same life style as another species.

Genetic monogamy is extremely scarce in nature outside of birds. Humans actually exhibit more polygamy than genetic monogamy, and more social monogamy than genetic.

In terms of Zalanthas, I think it's important to consider what life style choice would bring the greatest benefit to your character. Mating strategies are not consistent because of the variable nature of one's environment. In closely knit tribes, I would expect polygamy (I use polygamy because I'm speaking in evolutionary terms, where the marital component is a social construct that only applies to humans). In large cities where murder and betrayal are more common amongst the populous, I'd actually expect social monogamy to be more prevalent because trust does not come easily. Unless you have group-living communities that help raise offspring, in which case another strategy would be more beneficial.

tldr; Do what makes sense for your character and the environment they're in. Mating strategies are typically based on offspring survival in nature, and are based on cultural norms in humans.

[satine]

To be clear I'm not arguing that people need to get out there and kank more. It really is just an honest question as to why we don't see more people rping a larger functional family model.


Also, even with birds genetic monogamy is touch and go, and there are even a number of female centered (when the female has multiple partners) polygamy.

I actually expect more social polygamy in cities than in small tribes, but we seem to mostly agree tiptoe.

Really I just thought this would be a fun conversational topic.

[Delirium]

^^ yeah.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Seriously though, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? It’s extremely dire for my emursion.

[Decadent Decisions]

I'd second everything Nauta said. In my experience, true monogamy is very rare in the game. Most of those couples who claim 'mated' have at least one partner, if not both having sexual interactions outside their 'mating'. There's no needing to 'further push' the documents toward this, I think.

[tapas]

I think we might need to change World Discussion to Armchair Zalanthan Anthropology.

[Grapes]

Jealousy plots are dumb. If you're playing a monogamistic character and your character's mate cheates on them, then whatever, let it go, they did your PC a favor by proving themselves untrustworthy by saying one thing and doing another. Meanwhile you can be focusing on your plot to murder Amos for screwing with your order of widgets, as opposed to wasting everyone's time with slobbering over a failed relationship like a toothless dog with a hunk of meat.

[Lizzie]

Jealousy plots are dumb. If you're playing a monogamistic character and your character's mate cheates on them, then whatever, let it go, they did your PC a favor by proving themselves untrustworthy by saying one thing and doing another. Meanwhile you can be focusing on your plot to murder Amos for screwing with your order of widgets, as opposed to wasting everyone's time with slobbering over a failed relationship like a toothless dog with a hunk of meat.

OMG THIS! One experience left such a bad taste in my mouth, and that was a recent attempt at "romantic roleplay." The whole "oh I want you to be only mine, and I promise to change my ways and not run around on you, I want you all to myself" stuff was just so - blech. It was stifling. It was even worse when "you can't sleep with anyone else" became "you can't be close pals with anyone else." I basically said fuck that, and ended up with someone else who had no problem screwing other PCs, and my PC was fine with it because that is the setting of the game. Eventually my PC was murdered, I suspect by the jealous ex (though I never found out who killed her or why).

[valeria]

Jealousy plots are dumb. If you're playing a monogamistic character and your character's mate cheates on them, then whatever, let it go, they did your PC a favor by proving themselves untrustworthy by saying one thing and doing another. Meanwhile you can be focusing on your plot to murder Amos for screwing with your order of widgets, as opposed to wasting everyone's time with slobbering over a failed relationship like a toothless dog with a hunk of meat.

There's no need to roleplay police others, as long as they're playing within the docs and true to their characters.

If you don't want to run a jealousy plot, don't.  If you don't want to be part of one, avoid relationships with people whose lives are drama.  If you don't want to listen to someone bemoan the end of their relationship, change the subject, punch them in the face, leave the tavern, whatever your character would do.  But telling other people how and what to play, just because you don't want to play that, is rude.

[nauta]

Jealousy plots are dumb. If you're playing a monogamistic character and your character's mate cheates on them, then whatever, let it go, they did your PC a favor by proving themselves untrustworthy by saying one thing and doing another. Meanwhile you can be focusing on your plot to murder Amos for screwing with your order of widgets, as opposed to wasting everyone's time with slobbering over a failed relationship like a toothless dog with a hunk of meat.

OMG THIS! One experience left such a bad taste in my mouth, and that was a recent attempt at "romantic roleplay." The whole "oh I want you to be only mine, and I promise to change my ways and not run around on you, I want you all to myself" stuff was just so - blech. It was stifling. It was even worse when "you can't sleep with anyone else" became "you can't be close pals with anyone else." I basically said fuck that, and ended up with someone else who had no problem screwing other PCs, and my PC was fine with it because that is the setting of the game. Eventually my PC was murdered, I suspect by the jealous ex (though I never found out who killed her or why).

As veleria pointed out to Grapes, if you don't like romantic plots or jealousy plots or monogamy plots, you are free to make decisions for your character to avoid them.  However, two things here:

1. Just because you don't like someone's RP, does not mean you should complain about it on the gdb.  If they are breaking a rule or not playing to character or violating the documentation, then you should file a player complaint.

2. Both monogamy and polygamy are within "the setting of the game" -- the docs state that Zalanthans are open-minded about sexual relationships, and kinds of romantic relationships, and so they would not have problems with either variant.  Hence, you don't even have recourse to a player complaint in the situation you stated above: the player you are complaining about was playing a character in Zalanthas.  You just didn't seem to like that character.

In general, complaining about the RP of others on a public forum is exactly the sort of thing that turns players off.

[Refugee]

People like conflict as long as it's just exactly the conflict -they- want.

I suggest a little tolerance toward RP that other people enjoy, even if you don't enjoy it.  Then you have a right to expect tolerance toward RP that you like that others don't.

There's an awful lot of "don't say this, don't do this, everything other than what I do is wrong or stupid" on the GDB these days.  It's really a turnoff.

There are games where everyone playing will play just like you want.  Hundreds of them.  They are called solo games. 

Play what you want.  React how your PC would react to whatever some other player serves to you.  Cooperate with developing the story.  Let your PC live their lives and let other PCs live theirs.  Or not live their lives, however it works out...

[LucildaHunta]

People like conflict as long as it's just exactly the conflict -they- want.

I suggest a little tolerance toward RP that other people enjoy, even if you don't enjoy it.  Then you have a right to expect tolerance toward RP that you like that others don't.

There's an awful lot of "don't say this, don't do this, everything other than what I do is wrong or stupid" on the GDB these days.  It's really a turnoff.

There are games where everyone playing will play just like you want.  Hundreds of them.  They are called solo games. 

Play what you want.  React how your PC would react to whatever some other player serves to you.  Cooperate with developing the story.  Let your PC live their lives and let other PCs live theirs.  Or not live their lives, however it works out...

+1

This “Arm my way” and these passive aggressive pet peeves are really getting old. We should be having fun playing with each other and cooperating on an ooc level that this is a game and everyone brings something different to it.

[Vex]

I'm really, quite happy to see more people taking a stand against the RP police, and the ensuing group nodding.

Good for you.

[The Lonely Hunter]

This has gotten off topic and I apologize for contributing to that but I would like to point out that, without making a specific reference, you can not pick and choose what documentation you would like to follow. Despite the current trend just because you, as the player, don't like something does not permit you to do whatever you want and disregarding documentation is against the rules.

[Armaddict]

edit:  Didn't see another post was already made.

[Synthesis]

This has gotten off topic and I apologize for contributing to that but I would like to point out that, without making a specific reference, you can not pick and choose what documentation you would like to follow. Despite the current trend just because you, as the player, don't like something does not permit you to do whatever you want and disregarding documentation is against the rules.

As far as I'm aware, nobody has made the argument "I don't like it, so I can do whatever I want and disregard documentation."  I'm not sure what the point of introducing that straw man is.

It's usually about differing interpretations of documentation or less frequently, modifying documentation.

[sleepyhead]

Yeah I didn't see anyone saying they didn't want to follow the docs. Saying you don't like the docs and think they should be changed isn't the same as saying you are going to ignore the docs in practice.

[Vex]

My love is exclusive, to my turaal. I won't share, and interlopers, are killed on sight.

What we have, is something special, and no matter how we fight, they always come back to me, so we can fight some more. I hope, we'll be together, forever.

XOXO

[In Dreams]

My PCs have almost always been the type to give people funny looks over and question the reasoning behind monogamy, but I don't think it's supposed to be so weird that no one does it or it's looked down upon.

That said, I find it terribly boring! I do monogamy in real life and it's often boring there, too.

[Molten Heart]

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