Themed RP... Gor can't be the best act in town, can it?

I was thinking of a certain other topic, and it got me to wonder about RPing in Second Life. Is the gorean sims truely the "best act" in second life as far as it goes in immersive roleplay? Or is there other active groups out there who can act out their stories? They don't have to have their own sims, perhaps only to don their gear to "raid" a defended castle, to pretend to be explorers exploring an ancient tomb, or other sorts of scenarios where you are always assumed to be a character and not the man or woman behind the keys.

Yeah there's not a whole lot of RP in SL and none nearly as involved as the Gor sims that have a whopping 14 or so sims with people running around it a lot.

But here's some of the RP communities i've found:

Crimson Falls- a cool sort of Goth/magic RP
Nexus Prime- Cyberpunk roleplay, still developing though
Starfleet- Star trek RPers
Jedi/Sith- Kinda shaky and borderlining on a griefer group rather than RP, but they're still around.

That's about all I can think of at the moment but i'm sure there's more.

There's a fair number of "tabletop" style roleplayers in SL, but like RL tabletop games these tend to be run like the cells of a secret society; a bunch of friends getting together to game and occasionally adding random people they meet, primarily using imagination or limited set-pieces as the SL component as opposed to a big organized hoo-ha to use a sim as a MUSH-style environment.

The one I was involved with - a Shadowrun game run by Samuel Frost - was sadly interrupted by his living in New Orleans.

I'm fairly impressed by the Goreans and what they have done.

Other than perhaps some of the mature content, I'd like to hear what people might do better or differently.

Don't get me wrong - I think it's possible, but I think it's a great harbinger of things to come if we can get that kind of energy, imagination, and community into SL.

Just for the record, I am strongly against any kind of misogyny, however I think it would be an error in judgement to put that label on the gorean community.

I've seen precious little actual roleplay in Second Life, which is a crying shame... avatar customizability, player land ownership, scripting, and building all would contribute to a really interesting RP environment. From what I've heard, the Gorean community has their act together, insofar as organizational skills, membership numbers, builds, etc. I don't care for the source material, though, so Gor doesn't interest me... what little I know of Norman's books seems to be a sort of Barsoom-meets-De Sade pastiche that leaves me cold.

I have a group-mate who's getting involved in a Steampunk/Victorian project that looks potentially very tasty, though. I'll be keeping an eye on that.

Edited to add: The above-mentioned group-mate provided me with some linkage:
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Majority of people are very base animals. How much effort people put into something is normally relative to whether it tickles their loins, boosts their self esteem or makes them richer somehow. The Gor environment just happens to meet the demands of most of those things.

I sorta joined in on some group discussions on role playing games in secondlife, but when they started talking about the best way to make a d20 (no this isn't a joke either) and testing respective multi sided models of dice for weightedness and best random results.. I left in disgust.

Great idea that - make a table top and script dice - I think the entire point and promise was lost on them.

I happen to have a long experience with "traditional", tabletop rpgs (Call of Cthulhu, Traveller etc.)

I, too, have been a bit disappointed by the apparent lack of dedication to this kind of activity in SL, even if this may be caused by my ignorance more than anything else.

Has anyone experimented with using "live RPG" techniques (e.g. Vampire The Masquerade LRP rules) in SL? My opinion is that these would work better than trying to either try to adapt/apply tabletop rules (see previous post about D20) or using SL mecahnics (including combat/damage) only.

While I have played a lot of tabletop RPGs, LRP is not one of my strong points, though, and the little I know comes from articles on the web and in various (long defunct) paper magazines.

I could pull out my Werewolf: the Apocalypse book and start rping that if I wanted (even have a wolf av) but I think the point alot miss.. is to some, SL -itself- is an rpg. While I may aprticipat ein other rp within, the whole of my sl experience is rp to me.

I agree to a point - but I think it could still work. The main problem (IMHO) is that it would be a bit difficult for a GM to coordinate group play, and that RPGs without a GM tend to degenerate pretty fast.

Its hard to control any rp done on sl.. but the rps method is perfect for such an environment, sans auto dice rollers.

Sorry... what is rps? Is it the WoD diceless system?

I enjoy the Gor sims and environment very much. However, another "mythos" I think would lend itself PEFECTLY to SL, is the Fortschen "Lost Regiment" novels....
(American Civil War battalion travel thru a "stargate" to an alternate world, peopled by civilisations from Earth's past...including Romans, Egyptians, etc....and have to find a way to combat the planet's OTHER element, the all powerful Bantag....10 foot tall apelike creatures who use the humans as cattle.) The way they slowly develop their technology and organise a fightback against the existing order is a great read, but also a terrific backdrop for RP....ie ancient civilisations, more modern developing community, technology, and.....tada.....a form of FURRY!!!

Furries are probably the second biggest themed RP thing, Furnation seems to be doing really well. Ok some of them will probably say it's a lifestyle choice but I think it meets the criteria of being themed RP.

I've found that Gorean, and similar styles, tend to have an advantage in online RP because they have defined "submissive" roles which encourages people to cooperate with each other to make the RP work. In a many other RP styles online you get a situation where everyone wants to be a star. If it's a real life gaming group, you can do that because there's only a few people and there's a GM making sure everyone gets a turn, but online it won't happen in that way so there's a kind of underlying conflict.

In SL there's the extra problem that while there's plenty of potential for creativity, spontaneous creativity - which I think, and I think others do too is of the big thrills of RP - is very hard to pull off. Plus the whole business interest thing ("why should I join your RP area when it just means I have to buy your stuff?"

That said, I'd like to have a look at some of the places mentioned above...

To my mind the whole benefit of SL is the opportunity it provides for collaborative, decentralised role-playing. In the traditional pencil-and-paper style, the GM is not only the creator of an interesting scenario to interact with, but one's gateway to the entire world, taking the part of everyone in it and even the laws of physics (some of which are independently stated via a set of rules).

We already *have* a world and laws of physics in SL, and no intermediary is necessary; a more Gnostic style I suppose. There's the possibility for a group of like-minded people to come together and spontaneously play out roles and situations, making their own creations, with all of their ideas interacting by themselves without any sort of central control being required other than the game engine. The overall result is emergent rather than planned.

This does require a level of maturity on the part of the participants, and one does have to modify one's vision on the basis of the decisions of others - particularly on the mainland - but I find the implicit negotiation required interesting and frequently stimulating. Instead of being required to think everything up myself, or give myself over to another, my ideas can affect those of others and theirs mine, bouncing back and forwards.


You would certainly be advised to, sir!

rps = rock paper scissors

so yes

crazy. Which isn't to say I don't think making an actual physical d20 in SL isn't cool in some way, I have a trusty dice-roller I use for actual play in SL.

Why should it be any harder than roleplaying over IRC, or on a MUSH?

I've done a bit more geekery on rules and such, and this isn't strictly true; some sets of rules are more narrative-oriented than simulation-oriented, or (like D&D) are constructed as a sort of game unto itself without particular concern for "reality".

All of which is fine, but I like a planned plot, and a little bit of game in my roleplaying. Not excessively so, but I value the actual rolling 35 dice, hitting the table like a cluster-bomb, for my super-duper attacks in Exalted almost as much as I value describing the improbable martial arts.

I don't want to be taken as crapping all over your point, because - what I'm leading into - is I've personally tried to meld tabletop and LARP using SL. After all, fancy rules aren't such a big problem when you have a computerized system to keep track of things, and at the very least you have dice-bots. But at the same time, the "virtual world" aspect of SL allows one to get a lot done through costumes and pure roleplay, as one does in a LARP.

This is a combination some MUDs and MUSHs and other MU*s have used to great effect, but SL adds a wonderful (to me) visual and aural elements. The cost is a little more setup, but there's a lot of stuff available in SL for use, if you don't mind a little kitbashing and stockpiling props.

This is a reason I have 14k items in my inventory at last count. (I did a little cleaning, so it's actually lower than before...)

I'd like to be able to RP based on certain fantasy novels, the same way folks RP based on the Gor books. It'll be cool to play WoD RP/SL Larps but frankly I won't play if I don't trust the GM or be assured there won't be some kind of power gaming involved. -_-

But the one thing I'd really really REALLY like to RP in SL is a novel by Eddings, in particular the "Belgariad" series. To actually see the cities from those books come alive in SL along with people who can roleplay people from those cities will be in my book, totally awesome. \^o^/

Care to share something more about your experiments? Theme? Type of adventure/scenario? My understanding is that in Gorean sims people mostly interact socially, i.e. chat and move around just like on the rest of SL, but keep all strictly in character.

I wonder how more action-oriented stuff would work. Who provides the opposition so vital to a tabletop rpg (i.e. "NPCs"?

I never thought of SL as a roleplaying place until the last couple months.. and I've been in it over two years.
When I first came to SL, you could build, create, script.. etc. and be whoever you wanted to be. But many people's personas in SL are tied to their RL personas. To me.. my avatar was/is an extension of myself, albeit quite purple and skinnier.

It wasn't until I roleplayed in other games that I did some in SL.

In a way, it is similar in that Aliasi Stonebender is "me". But in RL, I am also "me", yet I get together to roleplay with people. I never saw SL as being different.