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
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