In this fantastic roleplaying community, every player's job is to make sure that they are helping other people create storylines. This is, after all, the only way our own stories are built. Because Hathian is a crime-ridden community, players whose characters are HPD officers shoulder this burden even more than most, as 99% of stories in CD are centred around a character's relation to crime and justice. This means that we need, as individuals, to be creating every opportunity possible to further peoples' storylines. This, of course, doesn't mean doing things our characters wouldn't do, but it does occasionally mean doing things that aren't fun and certainly aren't exciting for us. Those of us just starting out, and those of us who've been around for a while, know that that just goes with the territory. Every role in the CD community, and Hathian, has its downsides.
In particular however, arrests should be events of opportunity. From the initial interaction at a crime scene, through to someone's release, there are myriad possibilities for providing relationship-building opportunities. The crime scene/arrest scene should never be the end of that storyline. When arresting someone, consider whether you, personally, will be able to RP with them in the cells during their stay. Try to find a way to make your character connect with them - either in a good way or a bad way, because it is extremely difficult to create RP for yourself when you're an inmate (i.e. you can't text people, you usually can't really call people, friends may be keeping a low profile and not want to come to the police station, etc) and so the responsibility often falls on us to create those opportunities and prevent people from being bored out of their minds.
If we can see the arrest/crime scene as not the end of an interaction but the beginning of one, imagine how people might feel about the PD. Instead of asking how much time they have left because they want to get out, people may start asking because it doesn't feel long enough! And instead of dreading going to the cells because every time you do someone tries to shank you, you might start wanting to go down there because sometimes non-damaging RP also occurs (the less RP you get, there more dramatic and meaningful you want your RP to be!) and leads to other opportunities for friendships, corruption, etc. I think if each of us took responsibility for the people we arrested, in terms of making sure we try to find them some RP (either with us or with another officer) we could realize this reality.
What do you think?
