What would you need, to feel like you had a role in SL?

I _have_ been to Caledon. And even if there aren't formal rules, there are still some builds which are present there and some which are not, and they have a style which reflects on the setting, and there are still de facto social standards based on the fact that certain people tend to hang out there more.. these are inevitable, if they weren't, then a build would mean no more than an empty field. Caledon's atmosphere is kinda quirky and playfully inventive but vaguely technochratic: I can't say much else about somewhere where they sell hats which sprout metal propellors and fly around to take secret photographs. Now, I actually _like_ that as a general style, but not everyone might - some might be interested in a more "punky" Steampunk.

What problem? Desmond provides a place for people to build and role-play in a steampunk setting. He didn't build all the sims, let alone the majority of builds on them. He doesn't have *any* say in the other estates. If his vision gets in the way of people's role-play, they have plenty of other places to go... like Steelhead.
Hold on, so he doesn't have time to impose his vision on people's role-play?
Did you know that everyone generalizes from just one example? I know I do!

Wait, I don't, so that means nobody generalizes from one example!

Oh, I'm so confused.
How do you know there's builds that aren't there. Can you see them? Well, I mean apart from the other places where they are there?
Like what?

PS: We STILL don't know what kind of role-play you were looking for, what kinds of sims drew people away from it, what you have done to try and find new people who fit your vision, and so on. How can we talk about you when YOU won't talk about you?

If all you want is to be treated as your character, then you just play that character whereever you are. If that gains you friends who want to meet with you again and continue withthat then great, if not then you move along and meet other people.
Sometimes you will stay in character, sometimes you will talk about RL, it kind of overlaps a little.

Take the forum hangout for instance, people who go there will play along with your roleplay to a great degree.

If I go along and say to Maureen that I have had a wonderful night of hunting, drank the blood of a couple of victims and recount the details, she will treat it as a story and play along, asking me questions and treating me as my roleplay self.
If I then switch to telling her how I am not looking forward to going back to work after a holiday, she will know that I am talking RL and switch accordingly. Any place an ambiguity can arise and I make it clear if I am in character or not. If she is not sure then she will ask if that is in SL or RL.

Where is the difficulty in that?

If you have been to Caledon then you have totally missed the point and might as well have never been there because you understood nothing.
The buildings, etc. are a setting only, not a roleplay game system with rules etc. It is meant to provoke the imagination only and not confine you.
I am beginning to get the feeling of being played here, surely you cannot be this uninformed about these things.
I think if you understand these things then you ought to stop playing games with people trying to help you.
It is not amusing.

With all due respect to Yumi, I sometimes find Kierkegaard easier to follow than some of her threads.

I'm not playing games. The setting inevitably defines some aspects of the roleplay. What if you wanted to play a gritty steampunk where brass is tarnished and cogs are in rare supply (hey, maybe they're the currency)? You couldn't in Caledon, it wouldn't make any sense, the entire surrounding setting contradicts you.

I generally avoid doing that because others might not want to have me acting that way around them.

Of course you could, you would use your imagination to explain the situation at hand or you would accept that you are working against the visuals thats all - not impossible, nor that hard considering in the past we have only had pencil, paper and our minds to use.

You make do with what you have. Suspension of disbelief. It isn't terribly difficult. I've done RP strictly through IM, where each person is in a different location.

And you would probably have little or no acceptance from the people in Caledon, who are there because they enjoy it based on what it actually is.

I mean seriously, trying to ask someone to RP with you and almost ignore the surroundings? That seems unlikely given the people even I spoke to were "no u join us im playing here now cuz they have a base and u dont".

I've done RP in IM too but as soon as someone had a build it went straight there.

Why assume that without at least asking? In most cases it is not even necessary to ask depending on what circumstances you are referring to - in most cases it is just accepted.

People who do not wish to respect your choice of roleplay in SL will leave or stop talking to you if they do not wish to interact with you. You are doing nothing wrong by acting out your roleplay as long as you respect the wishes others *where those wishes are reasonable*

For example:

* they have the right to ask you not to interact with them if they wish.

* they do not have the right to tell you that you cannot pretend to be a vampire or act as if you are with others around them if those others are happy to do so.

It is interesting to note that I have never run into problems with anyone in general SL with my roleplay. Lots of people say, "Vampire, thats interesting..." and even a few say "I am not really into the whole vamp thing" and in the latter case that is the cue to find either something else to talk about and suspend your roleplay or wrap up the conversation.

Exactly!!!

Probably? So you know? or are you speculating? I ask because I have to tell you that I have taken the roleplay to people in Caledon and been very well accepted.
Not everyone in Caledon is even a resident there nor anything but a visitor - yet all I have ever met have been happy to engage in my roleplay.



Seriously it is this last part and other things you have posted that makes you come across as completely clueless about roleplay at its most basic level.

I assume it to be on the safe side, usually. Although I'm guessing there are some environmental factors involved.

Yes, you are wonderful.



That is something that actually happened to me.

*rolleyes* it was to show that people there are not as you assume them to be.

I have no doubts, it happens a lot because there are many terrible roleplayers of which this was an example. They have little or no interest in roleplaying outside their tiny microcosm. However most of us don't assume that this is the norm, nor indicative of SL roleplayers generally.

You clue should have been the text speak they used for goodness sake.

Probably not. But I suspect they might find you, if you aren't careful...

I make no assumptions about how people treat others, only how they treat me.



The majority of RPers I spoke to talked that way. I took what I could get.

Lol, actually my friends and I are found at Watchman sim or sometimes (though not much recently) at the forum hangout.
Those are publicly available and if Yumi or anyone else comes along and proceeds to act out a role with me and respect mine then roleplay can and does occur unless I am engrossed building or scripting at that time. My friends will mostly treat anyone who comes to my sim the same as they treat me and I know the forum hangout people play along for the most part.

You are looking in the wrong places and at the wrong people then.

If this happened to you at Caledon then it is definitely atypical, as I don't think I have ever heard anyone use text speak there.

No, it wasn't Caledon.

(No disagreement with the statement about assumptions?)

We STILL don't know what kind of role-play you were looking for, what kinds of sims drew people away from it, what you have done to try and find new people who fit your vision, and so on. How can we talk about you when YOU won't talk about you?

No comment does not necessarily mean no disagreement, it just means I don't want to comment on it.

So you either think it's right, of think it's wrong but are happy for me to continue with a wrong assumption? This is exactly why I tend to assume the worst...

No to be honest, I did not quite get what you were driving at and so I decided to let it pass.

Besides there are no indications anything else anyone has said to you has made any difference so why do you expect that people will keep trying indefinitely on all your points?