Seeds of Fire in Dream

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.

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