I was just playing with Angrybeth Shortbread’s new soundspace in Second Life.
It’s wonderful!
How many instruments can you become involved with that respond to whether you’re a teddy bear or not?
I found I preferred the music my smaller tiny-bear made rather than the large Alex av.
I also created a little shiny soccer-style ball to kick around and it made extra noise. And I silenced a bow by ripping out its sound file and used that to make noise - that was interesting too.
Now, RP ideas:
Wouldn’t it be cool to do a huge dune-style Emperor of the fading Suns sim / roleplay where there was a soundspace like this being played - and lithe dancing people moving through the cube, making beautiful melodies at the same time they impress the court with the grace and cunning of their movements?
Wouldn’t it be neat to have a music-keyed lock somewhere, so you must do movements in a specific order in order to unlock an ancient mystic gateway?
The possibilities are endless. Here are the pictures:
What happens when someone claims they have a “new innovative direction” for you follow and they want to “cut you in on a stake in the company” on Second Life? And strangely enough they just want your signature on an NDA before they can talk to you about what this “new innovative direction” is.
Note: Folks, be careful whom you send your digital signature to. Even your fax signature. This fellow made a big deal out of sending an NDA to him. Now, normally I don’t have a problem with most NDAs, but in truth I didn’t know this guy from Adam’s housecat. He sends me an email out of the blue and then he starts asking for my signature on a document for him. He really is insistent upon it.
Here’s a transcript of our chat. I have changed his name and identifying information. But I want other folks to know that there is someone out there trying to pull something - and I have reason to believe it’s not entirely on the up and up.
Join me at the end of the transcript for some thoughts on this.
Unknown: hello sam
me: Hello Jason
Unknown: i can understand you do not want somebody to own your dig sig
1:39 PM me: nods
Unknown: however, we have to find a way to talk “freely” as well
have you got a fax
me: I’m unwilling to fax, scan, or otherwise provide you with my signature Jason.
1:40 PM However, if you would like I will agree verbally to the terms of your NDA
1:41 PM Unknown: sam, that wouldn’t work, we are working practically along the same lines but with significant differences. I believe, if we work together we can build something big
1:42 PM me: nods Well, I’m all about Open Source, Jason. And I want the project that I am working on to be Open Source.
That’s a high value for me.
1:43 PM Unknown: well some aspects of our project is /can be open source
1:44 PM me: nods I doubt very seriously you have any IP that is not already sufficiently covered by copyright or patent law.
Unknown: yes we do,
1:45 PM me: So…either you just accept my gentleman’s agreement, without any sort of signed documents, or we can just say farewell and I’ll be glad to do a full interview and article on your work when you bring it out.
Ultimately, none of this is worth breaking basic security practices for.
And I respect your need to protect your ideas
1:46 PM Unknown: what’s you motivation?
1:47 PM me: My motivation is to create an Open Source RP system for Second Life that can empower individual content creators / storytellers / RP event coordinators to run episodic or serial RP sessions for themselves.
1:48 PM They are free to charge for participation in the RP, but not for the Open Source System
Just as I am free to charge folks at a science fiction and fantasy convention for playing in my LARP, but I am not free to re-sell the LARP rules to someone if they are Open Source.
1:50 PM Unknown: okay, so you want to build something without any commercial benefit to yourself?
me: No, that’s not what I said.
I said that I want to create the basic system as an open source project.
Thereafter, I will be able to charge for admission to Second Life RP sessions based on the fact that I am running a story, people know I’m a good storyteller, and so on.
1:51 PM But the basic system will be free.
The system doesn’t cost, just the RP events. And if you want to take the system yourself and run your own game with it, then go ahead.
It’s just like this: you can take Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which is an open source play right now - it’s copy-free
you could perform it on the streetcorner for free
1:52 PM OR you could charge $50 a seat in a fancy theatre
but the basic play - Hamlet - is free
Same thing here.
1:53 PM Unknown: our business model is not really different from this.I love linux,mysql etc… some aspects of our system is open as well
me: nods
1:54 PM I think it’s important to be totally Open Source, for me, because I want people to continue to develop the basic system, upgrading it, keeping it from breaking in light of new SL changes, etc.
1:55 PM The proprietary Intellectual Property in my games will be the setting, story, and charactes that are created by the content creator
characters, rather
1:56 PM Unknown: thats fine. So far, I do not see any conflicts but you neeed to see the direction we have taken, which I believes plugs signficant gaps in what you are proposing
1:58 PM i am willing to offer you a stalk in the venture but can for some reason you do not have sympaty with our need to protect our idea until we go public
2:00 PM me: I do have sympathy with your need to protect your IP, as I said before. However, I will not be able to fax or send you a digital scan of my signature. If you can’t accept my word of honor on it, then we’ve got nowhere to go.
2:01 PM Unknown: hmm, okay sam, it is a big pity. I would have loved working with you. We think alike in so many respects
me: So, you like gaming, what’s your background in gaming?
2:02 PM Do you have any favorite game designers?
2:03 PM It is regrettable that the day and age we live in has made this a necessity, yes. There are so many Nigerian scams, for example, out there, that cause problems with people.
Unknown: I love gaming like the next guy, not as involved as you are, but I am very innovative and think outside the box alot
me: Excellent.
Unknown: it not really the scam that bothers me, it is respect for other peoples ideas
me: Well, I wish you well in your endeavor.
2:04 PM nods Right, I understand.
Well, I do think you’ll go far if your IP is so unique and exciting. I’ll just have to smile and say, “I knew him when!”
2:05 PM Unknown: I once send a sms game to be played with (TV show), we couldn’t reach an agreement on licensing and two months later, i saw the game on tv
that’s what I am worried about
2:06 PM me: nods Understood. I am sure you will go far. Thank you for the opportunity, and maybe in the future there will be a safe way to legally authenticate such documents without bringing risk.
Farewell, now Mr. Yount
Unknown: bye for now, sam
First of all, this guy was unwilling completely to even begin to talk about RPGs or any kind of roleplaying situation, and his questions never belied any knowledge of the gaming industry. Secondly, he is very insistent on getting that signature, when I know for a fact that 1.) ideas aren’t protected under copyright and 2.) international Patent law is dicey at best.
The NDA was very vague, as well. I can find no reference to this guy or his project on the Internet, and as I said, I don’t know this guy at all.
I really do hope that my suspicions are false and that he’s not a Scammer, but I really feel at this point like the rest of the Second Life community needs to be aware of people like this.
I have been thinking a lot lately about this topic, so I thought I’d bring these topics to this forum.
Roleplaying is not killing things and getting treasure.
(Roleplaying is about telling a story, with a plot, and characters, theme, mood, and all those other literary conventions you may have heard about.)
Roleplaying is not a freeform wahoo “I shot you, no you didn’t” experience.
(Roleplaying is a cooperative, consent-driven activity.)
Roleplaying is not improv.
(The point of most improv is to make other people laugh. Improv is for other people. Roleplaying is both for you, and the other people with whom you roleplay.)
Roleplaying is not wargaming.
(The slower conflict resolution is, the harder it is to fit in those snippets of character and story that make roleplaying great.)
Roleplaying is not Second Life, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, or City of Heroes.
(Second Life is a virtual world platform. WoW, DaoC, and CoH are all engines for playing a computer wargame.)
Roleplaying is not a euphemism for kinky sex.
(Although folks play roles for sexual purposes, a roleplaying game is more story-focused and character-centric, and may include sexual situations among adults, but that is not their purpose.)
Roleplaying is not automatically about fantasy or science fiction.
(Roleplaying can be modern day, horror, romance, or even true crime-related too.)
Roleplaying is not a Mary Sue platform for acting out your fantasies.
(Roleplaying is a shared participatory experience, not someone’s opportunity to be a little tin god.)
Roleplaying is not an industry.
(Roleplaying is what the RPG industry should serve, not the other way around.)
Roleplaying is not just child’s play.
(Although children should be encouraged to enjoy it)
Roleplaying is not exclusive.
(Roleplaying is something anyone can do. In fact, we do it every day. In fact, you’re probably doing it right now.)
Roleplaying is not expensive.
(Especially not compared to other activities / pastimes, it’s downright cheap on an hour-per-dollar-spent scale.)
Guess what?
I’m playing host to one of the first in-world Bookstores on Second Life.
Come by and see us!
Edit: Actually, the bookstore is elsewhere now. Look for Falk Bergman in-world, he should know where it is.Â
Check out the Metaverse’s answer to “One Red Paperclip”, “One Orange Cube.”
I spent some time in Haven last night, checking the place out, and had a conversation with Griffyn Barnave, who is one of the originators of RP in Haven.
She let me know that the Haven RP started out with just Griffyn and a friend RP’ing in borrowed areas and rented land. It quickly grew to what is now a community of over 40 residents. Haven is a RP environment dedicated to stories inspired by two series of books by Laurell Hamilton. Hamilton has a gothic, sensual, and gritty style of urban fantasy that has netted her a lot of die-hard fans. But fans of the series are not the only ones you’ll find in Haven because her books have cross appeal with other goth / urban fantasy RP platforms like Vampire: the Masquerade.
I interviewed Griffyn to get a better idea of what is going on in Haven.
Alex: I’m interested in how you came to get this RP off the ground, in what sort of social contract you have, and what challenges, if any, you’ve faced. So, when did you get started?
Griffyn: we started in… February I think it was now… it was mostly a friend of mine and I wanted to RP, we grabbed up our friends and were working off rented land and parcels
Alex: So you already had something of a core group already when you started
Alex: This sounds like something that reached a tipping point pretty quickly…?
Griffyn: yes, there were a couple in each group, moving here let us explode out and let others in
Alex: *nods* makes sense
Griffyn: so we went from being able to rp once a week if we could find space to any time we wanted to
Alex: Did y’all have much in the way of RP experience prior to this? Say, on a 2d space like Yahoo, IRC, or MUSHes / MUDs?
Alex: or even tabletop
Griffyn: I’ve been rping tabletop, and Mush as well as in chatrooms and fantasygrounds for years, most of the people here as leaders do
Griffyn: we get players that have decades of experience as well as people who’ve never tried before
Alex: What do you have to do to get a newbie RP’r involved?
Griffyn: We try to hold a RP class once a week
Alex: And you cover in general what in those classes?
Griffyn: Currently the basic class talks about IC vs OOC how to pose, emote and not use ooc info, as well as how to start a character. The more advanced class talks about character development and history creation
Alex: So do you have plots running throughout your RP, or is it bring-your-own-plot, or how does that work?
Griffyn: There are some general plots in the town, but its a regular town, so people develop their own little stories. Group leaders fill new players in on the overarching themes
Alex: And some of that is taken from the stuff in the Hamilton novels, so it does have some narrative backbone
Griffyn: Yes, like the fact that the wereanimals and vampires don’t really get along
Alex: Indeed. So how do you handle conflict resolution, then?
Griffyn: Well, the mayor has ruled that Haven is a place of safety, so warfare isn’t allowed. And fights that do spring up have to be coordinated in IM with the people involved
Alex: So it’s more consent-based?
Griffyn: Yes, its a character development base, if people could just kill your character it would kind of suck
Alex: Like, OK, I’m a werewolf hopped up on speed, you’re a vampire, you’re not a warrior type, I would probably take you, but you’re fast and can probably eventually get a way?
Alex: Sort of a negotiation in IMs?
Griffyn: Well, no there could very well be a play by play fight, but in IM we would decide how much we each got hurt and who won
Alex: And do you have the leaders break ties or resolve disputes?
Griffyn: Yeah, the leaders are there to keep tabs and help out, and keep order
Griffyn: They are the leaders cause they can squash people ~grins~ Thats actually why we require character sheets, so no-one walks in and tries to take on a leader
Alex: Is there anything you want to tell my readers about how you’d like for them to get involved? Any special events coming up I should tell them about?
Griffyn: We have a barbeque on Saturday… and the RP classes should be starting back up….aside from the part about needing guys.
Alex: You need guys?
Griffyn: honestly, I would love for there to be people on this sim rping all the time, thats my goal
Griffyn: Well, this sim attracts alot of girls for some reason, its an ongoing joke that we need more guys
Alex: *nods* Have you done much in the way of marketing your RP, do you get the word out in podcasts, websites, etc?
Griffyn: I haven’t even thought about it yet, some of our newer players have started… I’ve gotten caught up in keeping things running
Alex: *nods* That’s how it is in most groups, really - you get caught up in running it and you can’t really do a lot of recruitment
Griffyn: Yeah, I loved it to start with, for about the first month I knew everyone on sim
Griffyn: Now, I’m lost, we have over 40 residents right now
Alex: Wow, that’s pretty cool!
Alex: I really appreciate you spending time with me
Storm Spectre: The only issue you didn’t really cover is the disparity in times. We have a few people who are here daily that get almost no interaction simply due to the time they are on. We actually need more day time people to help beef up the sim interaction
Griffyn: Well, I’m glad you came by. It’s great that people are interested
Alex: Thank you so much - I’ll show myself out - and maybe I’ll have time soon to come by and RP with you
Griffyn: Definitely, look forward to seeing you
One of “big white piece of paper” aspects of roleplaying in Second Life is that there’s no set structure for anything, so everything you do with others has to first be structured in some fashion. Part of this is the Social Contract (see my last entry about that), and in that Social Contract is the idea of how long the RP is going to last, its duration.
Something like a Gorean sim will be a well-nigh continuous RP. If they are anything like the Goreans I’ve met in 2d cyberspace (Yahoo, IRC), they do not break character, ever.
My in-world friend Ludo Merit is creating a RP that is an overlay on the SL experience, a continuous, long-running RP that incorporates events and aspects of SL and makes them part of the narrative.
I suspect that Haven is like that too, although I’m not sure, will be doing more Haven-investigation very soon.
Seems like the Firefly RP at Washtown is also a continuous RP, but it’s definitely location-centric.
(Idea for future blog entry: Location as an aspect of RP: scenery, etc.)
My focus, when I finally get my ducks in a row, is to have a RP event and to have it be a specific time and place in world. Folks who participate will need to agree to meet in-world just like people do in World of Warcraft to go on raids.
Does this limit my audience? I think it does. However, I really want for people to get a sense of occasion, and also I want everyone involved to have a good time and to get some good RP interaction. It will make for a smaller, more intense, more personal-seeming game.
At first, my story-games will be episodic; that is to say, each individual game session will be one episode, or complete story from start to finish. The subsequent game sessions will perhaps build on the story elements from the first story, but 100% participation in every episode will not be required to understand what is going on.
I will do that until I get to a point where a serialized story becomes more appropriate - where I have a core group of players I can count on to be there every time, and I can do a story that has a longer story arc, that other people can join or not and be worked in, but that is more stable.
So, think about it. If you’re going to RP, what are the time-related aspects of the RP? What are the upsides and downsides of each one?
Continuous RP means that play is nearly always available, but the focus of the RP to be had in that situation is going to be a bit scattered. You can’t run a plot in a continuous RP that demands individual players be there, or that involves some outside event happening or not happening.
There also must be a reputation-based vetting-period for each player as everybody gets to feeling comfortable with RPing with that player - a kind of “friend or foe” recognition that says “OK, are you going to be a jerk and break character and cause problems, or are you cool and are going to be fun to RP with?”
Of course, on the other hand, it’s possible for more people to make a commitment to a continuous RP than it is for people to agree to show up to a episodic or serialized RP session.
Even though most of us grew up scheduling our lives around television shows, those days are over with the advent of digital TV recording; and I think that points to a real truth about time in our modern lives: for whatever reason, it is very difficult for people to schedule a time slice for a virtual event, even if it is one they enjoy.
The virtual world doesn’t have the same immediacy as the real world does, and as a result, it’s hard to say to someone “Um, I can’t go to that party, I’ve got a roleplay session on Second Life scheduled.”
The upside to a session-based RP is that you can be certain that you will get good RP, that you will have a storyteller who focuses things and keeps action going, that you will have a story that will provide context and meaning, that you will be able to enjoy playing a character that is automatically accepted by the other players rather than having to go through a long reputation-building period.
In other words, it takes less time to get into it and get up to speed, everybody is starting at the same point, and there is a structure to hang everything on.
And that’s the kind of thing that makes me interested in playing a session-based RP, but I can definitely see the value of continuous RP. I think that best of both worlds would involve a continuous RP that had session-based episodes blended into it, much as they do already on MUSHes, text-based 2d worlds.
I just realized this morning that many folks probably won’t know what I mean when I talk about “social contracts.” And so forth. So this post is meant to be something of a glossary post.
“social contract” is the mutual social agreements that people make when they undertake to begin roleplaying together. These agreements can be as specific or as vague as you like, but the most important factor is how comfortable they make the players and how much they support play.
Examples of social contracts below:
“We’re all in character here - you be in character too. That means if you want to be here, you need to have a character, even if it’s just an Innocent Bystander.”
or, like in Gorean sims,
“We’re all participating in this society. It’s a very detailed culture. By being here, you either agree to participate in this culture, or you agree to wear an Observer tag and be treated like a ghost.”
or in a sim like Haven, it could be (I’m not sure yet, but I’m gonna find out),
“We’re all vampires, werewolves, faeries…so we have innate magical abilities. You can claim your share of magical abilities, but you can’t be all-powerful. No one is. So when you’re choosing that set of abilities, realize that there will always be someone in the game that will be your rival or your better. Nobody gets to play a Vampire Elder or the Queen of the Sidhe just yet. We pull from the Laurell Hamilton books, so read them and get to know them for your cultural information.”
Or like in sandboxes,
“You’re here, we’re here, we get to watch you build things, you get to be watched. If someone griefs you, you may have someone protect you, or not. Everyone is pretty much on their own.”
Kind of vague, but it seems to be true.
Anyway, in the real world, social contract would also contain things like whether or not you bring food to a game or help clean up, etc., etc. But in Second Life it’s limited to just how you look, what you do, what you talk about and when.
I think it’s very important for RP groups to establish a social contract with their players and for the players to self-enforce this contract.