Blogs - Newcomer Friendly

Secondlife is rich in content, though it’s hard to find sometimes for the new Avatar who may or may not realize in those first few days that in SL, dreams really do come true. Climb Everest, be a Jedi or a Pretty Princess… subhuman, inhuman, uberhuman. In this series of articles we’ll cover the broadest strokes of Role Play, and the finer details as well as look at some of the great member created Sims around SL.

What is Role Play (RP for short)?

Remember when you were kids and you would go, “Ok, you be the cop, and I’ll be the robber, and you chase me and…” the next thing you knew, you were running around going Ka pow! Ka pow! That’s role play at its most basic: Agreed interactive story telling. There is the “I’ll be the doctor and you be the nurse” kind of role play, and there are the broad sweeping grand immersive storytelling and how to RP in general. (Immersive being that everything around you from the buildings, clothes, speech reflects the RP). There are both kinds in SL, but I’ll be slanting to the grand scheme Rps.

Talk the Talk!

There are some basic terms that all RPs use, and knowing them will save you some time and effort getting attuned to the culture:
IC (or ICly) - In Character: When you do or say something as the person you are pretending to be
OCC - (Out of Character): When you do or say something that is not something your character would do or say.
When you say something OCC common rule of them is to use brackets ((like this)) to show that it’s not to be taken in the RP context.
Example: Two figures on the street wearing Victorian clothes.
Johan tips his hat. Johan: Top of the morn, to you, lass!
Ann: Thank you kind sir, and you as well
Johan: ((Do you realize that only the prim parts of your outfit are rezzed?))
Ann: (OMG, I thought it was just me!))
Even the most battle driven Sims have rules re: grieving. When you take personal attacks to a OCC level rather than a legitimate character to character interaction can cause you to be banned from a Sim.
Example: Johan: You killed my sister and raped my dog, you panty-waisted idjit! Prepare to die!
Fuax: ((Listen, you *****, **** **** and die!))
Johan is acting in character, and we assume that either Fuax did those things, or Johan has a cause of mistaken identity. However, rather than respond character to character, Fuax verbally attacked the other player, not his character. BIG no no. Metagaming is a MetaNoNO Maybe Johan’s character DIDN’T know Fuax did those things, but Johan’s player did. His character had no way of knowing who Fuax was, or what he did. No one told his character, he found no clues, he saw no crime… his dog told him nothing. But due to OCC discussions or peeking on Fuax’s profile he knew Fuax was the guy. This is a no no as well. If your character doesn’t know something, he can’t act like he does, even if the player him/her self knows. He can be curious, investigate, but until something is provable via role play interactions… he can’t KNOW what his player knows.

Godmodding isn’t Godlike

Godmodding is taking over an entire scene without allowing the other person any RP on their side, allowing little interaction.
Example: Fuax gets tired of listening to Johan whine about his sister, draws a gun, shoots him in the chest and hides the body before walking away with a smile on his face.
This allows Johan no interactions at all other than either accept his fate, or call the entire thing invalid which may lead to a disagreement, or ignore it.
Better: Faux gets tired of listening to Johan whine about his sister and pulls his gun.
Faux: Shuddup you, or I’ll shut you up!
Depending on Johan’s character he can run, plead, duck, attack… you get the idea. I hope you found this helpful so far!

Next article: Basics of character building!