Is SL a RPG??

SL isn't a piece of paper and pencil. It's not a blank slate, a 3d space devoid of context. SL is a set of rules, encoded in software rather than charts and tables, and under those rules people who are not deliberately role-playing adopt the language and behaviour of role-playing, and internalise it at such a deep level that even when arguing against it being "a role playing game" they find themselves engaging in clumsy circumlocutions to avoid it.

Now, I'm not saying that anyone's actively role-playing when they do this, just that the fact that they do is the result of the way the game is structured.
Me too, though only back in the text era.
Sure you can. There's any number of ways of doing it from simply wearing a title with your game-name (which people do, and which is similar to what people do in LARPs or in face-to-face tabletop roleplaying), to spending $10 on another agent.
Those abilities *are* your stats. Everyone's the same. There's RPGs with very minimal stats, ones where stats-based interactions are the exception. I designed my own minimal system (the rules fit on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet), back in the early '80s, and used it for years... and we would often go for a couple of sessions without anyone rolling dice. There are role-playing games in non-fantasy genres, like mystery, which have no combat system or stats at all.
Which is, again, the way a lot of RPG campaigns are run.
If you're taking part as a character in the play, that's role-playing, in the original pre-computer sense.

That's just playing games with words.
I have never said anything even vaguely like that. You're putting words into my mouth.
An RPG, even the combat-specific computer "role playing games" like WoW and Doom CAN BE and ARE used for other things. Machinema was developed in these "can't be used for anything but RP" role playing games, and people are using WoW for business contacts and networking.
I've said the same thing. All I'm trying to get across is that has nothing to do with whether SL is an RPG or not. NOTHING.

All RPGs are platforms. Virtually all RPGs have the characteristics you're arguing are somehow unique to this one.

If I meet you in WoW and you're talking to a client about a new project and I come up to you and expect you to treat me as lord narfnarf etcetera you'd be just as justified in ignoring me as you would in SL. If I'm building a simulation of a Lyfstrom-loop launch system in a MUD and you come up and start trying to get me to deal with your in-character role, I'll just /gag you. And yet these are both by design role-playing games.

No, it's an application.
I can take the same logic and start with a C compiler and end up with Doom. By that logic no RPGs are RPGs.

If your Maya-based system has the features of a game, it's a game. If it has features that encourage role-playing, it's a role-playing game. How it got there is irrelevant, and the fact that you can decide to ignore those features is irrelevant.

So why are you insisting on that?

All I've ever insisted on is that all perspectives and uses (rp or the many examples offered of non-rp uses) are valid in SL by design and intent, because as you say SL isn't exclusively a rpg. If it isn't exclusively a rpg then it is a platform. The term platform is the definition of all inclusive, to all the purposes and potentials and current uses of SL. The term RPG however is exclusive (likely exactly why LL chose not to use it in their definition of SL being a platform) and as you've handily ignored are exactly what some are proponents of, and whom I was addressing (i.e. Jonas et al).


One more time, if SL isn't exclusively a rpg (which you've admitted it isn't exclusively) then it is a all inclusive platform to be used freely with any purpose or desire in mind, without need or want of 'opt-ing out or in', and without restriction by its userbase and happily that's exactly what it is. Luckily this 'all inclusive' perspective is already nicely summed up with LL's deeming SL a platform to begin with, which is, as before, good enough for me.

Now having spent more minutes of my life on this thread running in rhetorical circles and playing with semantics of phrase than I ought've, and having my s.o. give me the 'look' for bashing my head against the wall here, I'll bow out and let the inevitable one line dismissive replies carry on. ^.^

Why bother replying? You'll never agree to disagree.

When you finally do agree to disagree on our opinions of what the base of Second Lif eis, then good for you. As for me, I'll just keep trucking in my immersive RPG.

"It's a platform" is meaningless without context. Any sufficiently complex application with even the most primitive programmability is a "platform". Excel is a platform, in the context of a spreadsheet. You can also implement Pac-man, Tetris, and an AI psychologist in Excel, but the context is a spreadsheet. Oracle is a platform, and its context is databases. SL is a platform, and its context is Role Playing Games. It's very flexible, and can be used for all kinds of other things, but role-play pervades everything you do in it just as the grid of cells pervades everything in Excel.

For example:

If you want to use an avatar that doesn't carry ANY role-playing context at all, such as a simple cube with your name on it, you need to use several hundred lines of very careful code to force you avatar to fit in the box, to allow your avatar to move around hovering without being forced to swoop majestically over the land, and so on. I've done that, and it really drives home just how hard you have to work to get away from identifying with your avatar and playing the part Linden Labs has created.

I'm going with no, because as a roleplaying game, the roleplaying needs to be integral to the game, otherwise ANYTHING can be a roleplaying game, and thats just not true.

That means that there has to be some benefit in the game from the view of playing a role, i.e a functioning political system, or the ability in someway to actually effect those you play with.

Since the game is very hands off in that regards, you can't arbitrarily do anything to effect anyone, you need their permission, and they yours, that limits that sort of "meaning". Arbitrarily assuming a personae that has no bearing or effect on a game doesn't make it roleplaying. Space Invaders could be called a role playing game because I assume the role of a space ship captain protecting the world.

The problem with this is that most people wouldn't want to give anyone carte blanche to be able to effect them, their property, or their land. They want to be removed from those sorts of worries because they're too real. They fear they'll be the target of random destruction, etc.

Until a game is willing to step up and be created in that manner, nothing can claim the crown of being a roleplaying game. It might be interesting if someone created a private island that featured these types of rules and enforced them, just to see what kind of behaviour would be born of it. Like any free land there would be laws to be followed, those to enforce them and they would have the power to do so. I personally think it would be a rather interesting way to play Second Life and an interesting experiment.

Interesting take on the concept of Roleplaying game, and i'd have to agree that there is no game as of yet that features roleplay as an integral and necessary part of playing the game to win. (though I know Jonas, Argent, and Yumi would disagree in terms of SL).

And there are a few places in SL that force RP, the Gorean sims will ban you if you don't RP based on their rules or wear a titler that says you're just observing.

Which is a step in the right direction. Its not just about playing the game to win either. A roleplaying game is hopefully one that can never be won. It should be one you constantly get to experience and take part in. A roleplaying game also isn't a game that forces you to play in character. That seems wrong, but what if you want to play yourself? SL could be a roleplaying game with some fundamental changes. Players would need to be able to effect the world as a whole, including each other. Anarchy would likely reign for a bit, but hopefully a working society would spring out of it.

Players also have to have a reason to work together. This is another crux of creating a real roleplaying game. Since players can effectively do everything on their own (create unlimited prims, etc) they have little need to actually interact with the outside world if they don't really want to. They don't need supplies or resources from anyone. Were the game changed in such a way to create a functional exchange of goods and services in a meaningful way, that would go along way towards expanding the need for roleplaying in the game. People might have to acquire some sort of building material before making prims, or selling copies of items, etc. If they run out, their shop may still feature their items, but be unable to sell any until they acquire more of this resource. If you want to encourage roleplaying so that its meaningful and has an actual impact on the game, you need to create a living, breathing world. What we have is a persistent stale world. There is no cohesion to anything. It could be done, but at this point it might almost be a job for SL2.

I did a little bit of surfing and came up with these definitions. According to what I found SL is NOT an RPG. At least not in the sense that most people think of RPG. It can be used for such purpose but was not intended to be an RPG.



Computer role-playing games (CRPGs), often shortened to simply role-playing games (RPGs), are a type of video or computer game that traditionally use gameplay elements found in paper-and-pencil role-playing games. Modern RPG games encompass a wide range of styles and types of engines and have significantly branched out.
RPG gameplay elements can be found in real-time strategy games, first-person shooters, third-person shooters, and some other types such as massively multiplayer online games. However, games that are actually called just 'RPG', are usually limited to top-down perspective point-and-click and some third-person perspective types.


A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. The term video game generally does not differ in meaning.



A game is a recreational activity involving one or more players, defined by a) a goal that the players try to reach, and b) some set of rules that determines what the players can do.



http://www.wordiq.com/


You have to ask yourself... is SL a game that either has a goal set for the players to reach or a set of rules that determines what players can do? I find the answer to be no. There is no set goal nor are there any rules other than the TOS (which is definately NOT a set of game rules) that any of us has to abide by.

So even though many people say they are not role-playing, you insist that you secretly know what's going on, that they're all wrong, and that they're actually role-playing.

Congratulations, your arrogance makes me look humble. But it doesn't convince.

Second Life has basic system mechanics and physics, but it does not establish any kind of game rules. Thus, it is not a game. It has no tools to enable role-playing. Thus, it would not be a role-playing game even if it was a game. First Life has physics and space, too, but is not a role-playing game, either.



No, role-playing in the non-computer sense has vastly more tools than SL provides built-in. My reductio ad absurdum joke SIX WORD RPG! is more of an RPG than SL, because it establishes three key elements of RPGs: character description, a means of resolving events, and conflict, if only that the player may not agree with the gamemaster on a decision. SL is totally lacking in all three of those. The "sourcebooks" add settings and more interesting conflicts. Anything less role-playish or gamey than SIX WORD RPG! is not an RPG.

It's interesting that you cut out the exact sentences in my post that made it obvious where the holes in your rebuttal are. Certainly I wouldn't want to imply that you're just trolling, though, which is why you'll acknowledge this and try to respond to the actual points.

"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."

"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."

If a system does not have capabilities built already, but you can build them in it, that's the very definition of a "platform", not of a working "game".

A 3D renderer is not a game. It can be used to make a game. The difference between IS-A and HAS-A relationships like that should not be particularly complex logic to understand.

Aye even game engines dont have to turn out to be games, ive seen DOOM3 running a virtual tour, Games by definition (no matter what genra) have some key points

Objectives
Mechanics
Story

for a few to start with,
does SL have objectives? you may have an objective in SL but linden labs didnt biuld any in to the system, there no goal for topping out level, or finding the blue key

Gameplay mechanics? linden labs provided us with the basics of charater movement, if you want to do a tripple summersalt above a lake of fire while whipping out your dual .45's you have to make it.. just like you would on any other creation system

Does SL have a story, even Asherons Call (the MMORPG about nothing) had a story line, why was it important to do this quest free the queen (or kill the olthoi queen)

Do i think SL is a RPG, no, but it could be used to make one, rather it be a mud or a paper game with ppl comunicating tru chat, or a full on 3d enviroment.

its a TOOL, that happens to have some entertaining software made in it