Is SL a RPG??

"I bought some new outfits for Artemis at a store and he put them on. Then I sent him back to Nexus Prime to talk to my friend."

Do you have kids, or know someone with kids? Can you borrow some? Listen to kids playing with actions figures or dolls some time. There's a difference between their narrative (I got a new dress for Barbie), and a role-player's narrative (I cast magic misile at the gelatinous cube). Kids manage without this "shorthand", naturally... when they start talking about their toys but say "I do this" or "I do that" they're role-playing... the figure is no longer identified as an external personality, it's their role.
The purpose of those commands on the keyboard are the actions the avatar performs. You're not changing outfits to perform a task for the keyboard, you're doing it to perform a task in the game.
Then why aren't you wearing them?

IRC has no simulation of space, and person, and provides no cues to encourage you to identify with a persona. MUDs and MUCKs, however, do. SL has much more in common with them than with IRC, and they are role playing games.

They do? The ones I've used have "avatars" that are as representative as my forum avatar here. Heck, I've already brought that up... people don't talk about "me" and "you" when referring to forum avs, they talk about "your avatar".

Themed chat rooms, profiles, pictures, the ability to pose (ie Memir Quinn goes in for teh win!) All these things can be found in IRC. ^.^

Doesnt make IRC a rpg though, just a platform if its users wish to utilize it as such.

Same with SL, the fact that SL's user base can use it for both Roleplaying and real world endeavors no matter what they happen to be means its a platform, as advertised. If it were exclusively a game, roleplaying or otherwise the option for those same said real world endeavors would be severely mitigated if not eliminated whole cloth.

Semantics of phrase sadly does not a RPG or any sort of game make.

Hmm, dictionary.com defines "role-play" as:

To assume or represent in a drama; act out: “Participants are encouraged to pass on leads about jobs... and to role-play interview situations with each other” (Hatfield MA Valley Advocate).

Therefore the forums are an RPG.

Woo hoo! Noble pink pony here I come! For great justice! ^.^

You know, the concept of Roleplay on this thread has been broadened more and more. Basically every time a concept put on that challenged the concept of roleplaying in Second Life well, (hit a weakspot), someone would expand the definition of roleplay to cover it. So the thread went on, finding more weakspots in the idea of Second Life as a roleplaying game, someone would expand the definition to cover it.

But now, look at what you've made of the definition of roleplay. You've expanded it so much that there's no way not to roleplay in Second Life. So I have to ask now, aren't we talking about the same thing? I say i'm using Second Life as a communicative and artistic medium, you say you're using it to Roleplay. This at the start of the thread meant two very different things. But as this thread has gone on as far as I can tell, we're talking about the same thing now, just calling it different things.

I say I move with my keyboard and this is a real life motion of mine not taking a role, you say I move my character in the world which causes it to be taking on a role. I try on clothes that I made as an art form, treating my avatar like a canvas and showing others is merely displaying art. You say i'm roleplaying wearing clothes and pretending i'm the av to show others.

Frankly, the concept of roleplay has been tooled and changed to the point that it means the exact same thing as not roleplaying.

Basically in trying to prove that Second Life is a roleplaying game, you've sort of proved that it isn't.

Sure there is. There's ways NOT to role play in every role-playing game out there. In fact most so-called computer role-playing games make it hard to role-play even as much as comes natural to SL.

The problem is that what most computer gamers seem to think of as "role playing" (given what they buy and play and call role-playing games) isn't role-playing at all. They're playing a tactical combat game and identifying with their character no more than a chess player identifies with the knight or bishop. It's all strategy and minimaxing and optimising point allocation... there's no actual role-play involved.

With that kind of confusion about the term it's no wonder people are missing what's right in front of them.
No, I'm not saying that. The fact that it's a role-playing game doesn't mean it's restricted to role-playing, nor does it mean that it isn't lots of other things at the same time.

Y'know bottom line Argent I think its not the rest of the world with a skewed definition of what constitutes a role playing game.

I use SL as a platform (and on the rare occasion to omgz roleplay) most of the user base recognizes it as a platform. It is being used by corporations, universities, and private entrepreneurs as a platform.

Finally Linden Labs the authors of SL define it as a platform.

Bottom line, only _the_ most stretched and convoluted definition of what "Roleplaying" is could be applied to SL. There is certainly no game aspect as there is no ultimate goal, score keeping, leveling up, or in fact any recognized set of rules to any game save those we make and chose to follow ourselves and the TOS/CS (of which similar agreements must be 'signed' for LJ or any number of other online community/communication services).

Also in using such a tortured definition of what makes roleplaying or a role playing game you find that definition could be in turn applied to _anything_ where you operate in proxy from your physical self. It'd make AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MS Messenger, ICQ, IRCs, Forums, Livejournal, Blogs, et al RPGs. They aren't Argent, they might be used validly as such, but they aren't.

Nor is SL.I don't believe I'll change your mind on this point because you've apparently had to have gone to some great pains an twists in logic to get to where your opinion on the topic is, but I will say I think you are wrong and as that is just my opinion, so is your opinion of the nature of SL just yours.

Luckily LL gets to decide, not one or even a handful of users and luckily the majority of the userbase gets that. ^.^

But does that make it one? Yes, numerous groups use it as a platform. But those are by far the minority of people involved in SL. LL define SL as a platform (and, do they? I understood they defined SL as a virtual world, but defined its development direction as being towards a platform) - but does that make it one? If I put a wooden block on the ground at the back of my house, in RL or in SL, can I cause that block to become "a stage" simply by announcing my decision that it should be so? That's debatable.



No, because in most of those services it's granted that you're going to be communicating as your real self.

It's difficult to describe: but.. imagine you're using one of these services, and also you can add links to pictures and 3D models to your chat, which the other person can clilck on to view in their web browser. Like "here's a picture of me:".. or "hey, look at this thing someone drew..". Now, imagine the difference between that and SL. That difference is what makes SL into a role-playing experience. (Exactly what has to be involved in role-playing in order to make it a "game" is a hot topic among RPG folks too.)



No, actually they don't. If SL was packed to the brim with role-players, LL saying it was a platform wouldn't mean so much.

Yes, and I'd disagree I don't believe majority view it as anything other than a platform whether they use it for RP or no.





Hey, hey poppet, I'm right with you, but then we're not using _my_ definition of roleplay in the above, but rather the stretched one put forth in this thread and under that you most certainly can call those services RPGs.

Nor is it granted that the individual you are communicating with on any of those services are in fact anything like their RL selves (in name or appearance) or in fact even pretend to be. I've seen many RPing roles on everything from IRCs to Aim to Usenet, playing at being space pirates to elven fay queens. Again simply that those services allow users to use them in such a fashion does not make the service a rpg. Same with SL.





Actually sorry hon, but yes they still do get to make that determination because the potential to use it as a platform would still be there regardless of whether it was used or not, unlike if SL was in fact merely a game. Luckily we don't need to worry about that because again most of SL gets that and LL themselves defined it as a platform.

The majority of non-business people I've talked to (and non-business people are the majority on SL), see SL as either a game, a graphical talker, or a world simulator.



No, the one put forth in this thread - as far as I see it - is that anything that encourages you to suspend disbelief in something you are participating in, and behave as if something that is not real is real, is an RPG.



That's true. Again, the point is that all of the extra features SL offers over such a talker are geared towards that role-playing aspect. You don't have the option of having no avatar, it's far easier and cheaper to make your avatar look like someone else than to look like yourself, and how you are treated by others will vary based on how your avatar looks. You can't avoid your avatar having be in a particular place, and if you are in a particular place, most others will behave towards you as if you really were in that place (eg, if you are in a bar, people will behave towards you as if you were in a bar, even though in fact you're just at your computer). These things don't happen on talkers.



So, for instance, all it takes is a press release by Blizzard - not even any changes to the code - for WoW to become a platform?

Yes and the point is if SL were a exclusively a RPG (in the traditional sense) those afore mentioned talkers/world simulators not to mention corporations, universities and entrepreneurs would be severely mitigated, or in some cases not exist at all. That they do exist and aren't mitigated and that ability to make the cardboard box of SL whatever you wish the cardboard box of SL to be is the truest sign of SL's nature as advertised as being a platform.





And I only experience that if I so chose, just as those students whom utilize SL as part of university programs for classroom activities or presentations are RPing anything other than themselves, or the cooperations or the entrepreneurs, artists, content creators or anyone else.

Its a choice we make and that we have a choice at all means it isn't exclusively a game, or a role playing space at all and if if it isn't exclusively a rpg then it must be a platform. Just a platform where one can chose to rp or play a rpg if that is their want.






The functionality of LSL and the build interfaces, importing of textures and templates for AVs programs and discounts for non-profits and educational institutions and a stated goal of monetize socializing platform are geared to making SL a role playing game? Sorry, I'm afraid you've lost me there.





Ah but then SL code is geared for its status as a platform, LSL scripting, the ability for anyone to build anything they want, the ability to lease server space as much as you can afford from LL, and finally the ability to use all of the above to do with as we will with only the TOS/CS and the bounds of code limiting us. The freedoms and encouragement, all of these features for us (be we individual, university, or corporation) to create and build as we will coupled with LL's definition of SL being a platform is what makes the difference.

Why does this have to be the case? Dungeons & Dragons, the tabletop game, is still an RPG even though there are companies devoted to adding material to it. Neverwinter Nights is still an RPG even though the designers made every effort not to "mitigate" people's ability to create new material for it. The majority of users don't have the ability to make SL what they wish, although for some that may be by choice.



True, but - unless you set up a seperate enclosed clique for yourselves - you will usually be treated as roleplaying even if you aren't, by people who don't know that. If you buy a hamburger from Ronald McDonald, then the person in the Ronald McDonald suit probably really is making hamburgers as a job. That doesn't change the fact that he's still roleplaying being Ronald McDonald, and by buying from him you are role-playing too because in normal circumstances of rational reality you wouldn't try to buy a hamburger from a clown. Furthermore, even if it actually happened that the person wasn't in a suit at all, but was in fact a real Ronald McDonald, you'd still treat him as being role-playing because that's your default expectation of the situation. And the default expectation of most people in SL is that a persons avatar, location and behaviour do not match them in the real world. The fact that in some cases they do does not alter the default.



I'm talking about what SL offers over talkers, not what it offers over traditional MMORPGs. Compared to talkers, it offers a 3D graphical persistent and continuous world and customisable appearances. Those are features used for role-playing.

Jesus.

There aren't words for how much I sometimes hate the forums.

Again, you seem to be speaking with authority as to what the majority of SL users think or have the capacity to do. All I can say is huh? O.o Everyone here has the exact same capacity as everyone else, limited only by their individual knowledge (which can be built upon by hard work and/or study) or fiances (which can be increased with similar efforts).






'Usually', according to your experience. Not mine, but thanks for at least finally admitting it isn't exclusively a rpg and since it isn't exclusively a rpg, again its true nature is revealed as a platform where one may chose to opt into a rp or not.

That some act out of ignorance doesn't change the reality of SL as a platform where rp might occur or that we as a userbase have a choice to opt into their rp or not.


I did notice you didn't respond to the above?

Sorry En, I swear I really do have a job to toddle to, and even a netmeeting with supervisors and co-workers. Using the stretched definition of 'rpg' put forth in this thread I'll pm you later to let you know how many experince points and rare items I collected during the course of said. ^.-

I am baffled by where this assumption comes from. It's like saying that you and Van Gogh can both get paints and an easel, therefore because he could paint the Mona Lisa so can you. And if ever everyone did have the capacity to build well, the subjective meaning of the term "well" would slide until that was no longer the case (" 'Everybody's special.' is just another way of saying no-one is."

The diversity of people is something that in general should be celebrated. Denying it because it has a downside isn't likely to lead anywhere productive.

My "authority" is based on the statistic that 75% of the population never builds anything. This means that either a) the existing resources in SL offer exactly, to the pixel, exactly what is desired by every individual among 75% of the player base, meaning that (approximately) 25000 people have been so productive and had so many ideas and inspirations that they've produced every desire of 75000 people - unlikely; or b) that 75% of the player base either cannot create things or do not want to create them (which is not the same as not wanting to have them, and philosophically bears a stronger relationship to being unable to create them).



No, because if that was the case, WoW wouldn't be an RPG because you can choose to talk OOC to people there, too; in fact in most MMO games it's more common than not. What defines it is the default expectation.



I did respond to it. The extra features that SL adds, compared to talkers, are features related to RPGs. The features you listed were compared to MMORPGs, which wasn't the topic; since a MMORPG is an RPG by definition, you'd have to show that adding one of more of these features actually removed SL from the category of RPGs, rather than just not putting it there.

(And, did you know that WoW has an internal scripting language that players can use to build things? It does! (And after I found out about it I spent most of my game time playing with it, since it was far more interesting than clicking monsters, which is probably why I stopped playing WoW and starting playing SL ) )

Hahahaha.

You have revived my capacity for enduring this nonsense. I thank you.

Now let me open up Outlook, my favorite RPG of all time, and use E-Mail to role play myself reporting crucial information from someone else's inbox.

I am baffled where this assumption comes from:



So your authority is a made up figure?

I don't get it... why be eeyore when it's much more fun being tigger?

Some act out of ignorance and assume SL is anything other than an rpg, and all that doesn't change the reality of its roleplaying nature, whether you opt out of roleplaying or not.

Every argument Yumi posits is predicated on assumptions based upon her limited observations. It's really a fascinating process of extruding tenuously-constructed facts out of a nebulous substrate of preconceptions.

No, it's not the rest of the world. It's just the computer gaming community. Second Life is not the same kind of game as the computer gaming community refers to as a "role playing game". It's much more like what a therapist, traditional role-player, or educator would call a "role playing game".

None of those things are an integral part of a role-playing game. Or even, really, a part at all; having an "ultimate goal" is vanishingly rare in traditional role-playing campaigns.

There's an old story about a Buddhist monk who was trying to explain a point to a novice. He raised his hand to the sky and asked the young man "what is this". And the student, not looking at the glowing orb the monk was pointing to, answered "your finger".

I've provided examples of some of the many ways in which SL encourages role-playing behaviour. These are all part of what makes SL a role-playing game. Turning around and saying "forums have avatars, and IRC has '/me', and I tell my keyboard to do things" is not just silly, it's a double-edged sword, because I could turn it around and enumerate all the ways SL resembles Everquest. That would also be silly, though, after I've argued that Everquest isn't much of a real role-playing game at all.
If LL's actions matched their words, I'd agree with you.

Who said "exclusively"? I didn't say it was "exclusively" anything. I don't think Yumi did either. The only people I see arguing for the exclusion of any aspect of what Second Life is are the people who are arguing that it's not a role-playing game.

Have you ever heard of GURPS? GURPS is a platform, the Grand Unified Role Playing System. It is to tabletop role playing what SL is to computer role playing. GURPS provides a set of meta-rules that a fantasy role playing universe can build on, adding (as SL does with scripting) weapons and trade and social and political rules, species and classes and magic and science. It's as open-ended a role-playing game as you want, with no score or ultimate goal. Much like Second Life.

A piece of paper and a pencil are not a role-playing game.

They can be used to play a role-playing game, along with some kind of randomizer and rules.

They can also be used to perform many other activities.

You don't have to use the pencil; maybe you just want to make origami. That does not make paper and pencil an origami set. You don't have to use the paper; maybe you just want to stab someone in the eye. That does not make paper and pencil an assassination toolkit.

If you express the notion "I am convinced that pencils and paper exist for the purpose of playing RPGs", you will be considered eccentric, at best. Have fun with that, but don't expect anyone else to agree with your argument.

I design pencil-and-paper and computer RPGs semi-professionally. I've thought and written longer and harder about RPG theory than most people ever should. Playing an RPG doesn't expose you much to theory. Designing them does.

SL doesn't even come equipped with the most basic tools you would need to do any serious roleplaying. You can't change your name; without that, you cannot change your identity when your current character dies or you join another game. There's no easy way to store stats and adjust them; without that, you have only the abilities your body actually has. Action LARPs have much the same problem, which is why most LARPs are now the Camarilla-type where you just say what you're doing while standing up instead of sitting down. There's no public randomizer in the chat system. SL has no objective. Just like life, you do what you want to make you happy for yourself.

You can build all these things, and play an RPG with them. I'm working on that, myself. But unless you seek out those tools and activities, what you're doing is not a role-playing game.

What people do most of the time in SL is play-acting. It's the thing you do when you're making stuff with Lego(tm) blocks, or terrorizing the citizens of your nightmarish cyclopean SimCity, or putting on a mask for a masquerade party, or dressing up to go out clubbing.

Point being if you don't take the "Sl is is exclusively a rpg" then it isn't a rpg, both by definition and admission. Its a platform and we continue around in circles.

What 'some' seem to be dead set on deliberately not getting/understanding is a platform can be used (and is in SL in the varied and many examples brought up from the definition of LL itself to universities, corporations, individuals et al) for a variety of different functions up to and including rp or a contained rpg. Whereas in a rpg can not, thats the difference and the break down in our communication. If you aren't insisting on calling SL exclusively a rpg guess what? You're calling it a platform where rp/rpgs may occur.

No one in the 'sl is a platform' camp is claiming anything about whether or not rp can or cannot exist within sl, or that the nature of SL prevents or is fundamentally geared against rp or some sl based rpg. Never have, what we've been saying (and saying and saying and saying to the point of bloody typing fingers) is that SL is _more_ than the potential for rp or rpgs. That it can and does contain rp and rpgs, but isn't exclusively a rpg itself, but a platform for many and varied uses.


Welcome to our camp Argent, tea and biscuits are on the table in the back and you'll be receiving your semiofficial 'I <3 my SL platform' Tee-shirt, ballcap and sports jacket in 3 to 8 weeks.