How to manage role-playing principles

Here, we’re going to go back over all the pitfalls associated with being a human being with the vagaries of his private life, playing a role that isn’t him, and playing a role that interacts with other roles, who are also, behind the screen, human beings with the vagaries of their private lives. All this is presented here in the form of tips, mainly for role-playing in the world of Gor.

1- Your role is a character

Let’s start by exploring the subject of the character you play on Gor SL, and what he or she can and can’t do, if we take the idea of a simple individual in a fictional world:

Your character refers to novels from the world of Gor

Or any other reference from the universe you’re playing in. A succubus or a cyborg in the Harry Potter universe just doesn’t cut it. It’s the same for the world of Gor: a militant feminist revolutionary in arms, or a cowardly, cowardly, vile man like Alfrid in The Hobbit, just doesn’t cut it. Discover the universe you’re going to play in, and choose a role from among those offered or adapted. Don’t invent without basing yourself on solid references from that universe. The originality of the characters lies in their details, not in some far-fetched idea.

Your character doesn’t have the power to read SL profiles.

This is obvious, but it can be moderated. Some information about the character, in the player’s profile you’re viewing, is designed to take this into account, for example in visual details, such as features, ethnic origin, etc., which aren’t necessarily visible on the character’s avatar, due to the various SL limits. But otherwise, a profile contains information aimed at the person, the player, not the character. Invariably keep things separate, and don’t exploit what your character couldn’t possibly know, even if you’ve just read it.

Your character cannot use radar and other location tools

Okay, everyone does it; including me. It helps to meet people, find friends, etc. But it’s a tool for the player, not the character. But it’s a tool for the player, not the character. For example, during an attack, someone is hiding at the back of a house, and your character can only find him with his eyes, i.e. the game screen and what you see directly. The radar can tell you, the player, where he is, but your character has no reason to know, ever. In fact, using radar under these conditions is a pretty big form of cheating. And this example applies to all similar situations!

Your character can never act in the place of others

Let’s use a very concrete example. Your character looks like a very strong guy, like a big brute warrior who doesn’t take any crap. He slaps another character in the face for some reason (we hope it’s a good reason, though). You can describe the power of the slap, the momentum, your bulging muscles and bulging bicep veins, the terrific speed of the blow… But you can’t decide what’s going to happen to the person targeted by the slap. Whether or not you actually hit them is beyond your control. In this case, the best and most neutral solution is to use a random system, like a hud for rolling dice: the slapper only succeeds in hitting if he/she scores the highest on the dice. In all cases, it’s up to the target to decide how to react to what our slapper describes. The player playing the latter has no right to decide for the other player. Of course, fair play recommends taking into account what everyone else is doing, with consistency and good spirit. But each player is the master of his or her character, so no character can decide how the other reacts. Even if he doesn’t like the reaction. That said, once again, consistency and fair play avoid any misunderstandings.

Your character has the moral values of the world of Gor, not the Earth of the 21^e century.

The moral principles of a universe depend on its social, ethical and religious values. What works in our Judeo-Christian civilization, marked by humanism and atheism, would no more work in the empire of Rome than in that of Charlemagne or the China of the Warring Kingdoms. Even less so on Gor, about which Norman spoke at length. Gor is a patriarchal world, macho to the extreme, which advocates the law of the strongest and respect for individual honor. Paradoxically, the strongest is not the strongest, but the most competent, the most suited to a rank or function, often regardless of gender. It’s a civilized world, but one whose customs are cruel and barbaric in our eyes. A world where our notions of right and wrong are meaningless. Finally, a world where women, kidnapped and enslaved, are considered valuable goods and commodities, and where slavery is such an institution that it maintains codes, concepts and practices that would easily frighten us. In short, to play in this universe, first familiarize yourself with these codes.

2- Your life is not a role

Yes, to sum up: what you are, who you are, is not and never will be your character. And you’re human, a player, like everyone else, which means you have to respect social conventions, even on SL!

The rules of politeness in life do not change on SL

While relationships between characters can include being rude, boorish or downright obnoxious, the rules of decorum, fair play and politeness between players have never disappeared just because you’re on an Internet medium. Greet other players, introduce yourself to your fellow players, say hello, be respectful of the people, behind their characters, who surround you, don’t use insults or threats believing yourself legitimate to do so, act in a fair-play manner with other players, i.e. be fair, cordial, fair, a good player, a good winner, a good loser if need be, admit your mistakes when the facts confirm that you have made one, apologize so that you can discuss things calmly, discuss and listen before judging – these are the most essential standards of human relations in everyday life. On SL, nothing changes. You have to respect these standards with others, if you want them to be respected with you. This doesn’t mean you have to tolerate a person you don’t like, or a type of game you don’t like. There’s a difference between disagreeing and expressing it, and disagreeing and feeling obliged to say so with disrespect, aggression and insult. The solution to avoid making mistakes? Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you. Don’t judge without knowing the facts and having heard each side. And don’t think that name-calling or rudeness settles everything and is without consequence.

It’s best to read the sims and groups rules and profiles before playing.

To play, you need to know the rules. In Second Life role-playing, there are 4 kinds of rules: The Second Life ToS, which you must respect at all times or risk being kicked out of the game. The rules of fair play, which I define here: Fair play means being honest with any participant, anywhere and under any circumstances. It means respecting every participant, regardless of gender, sexuality or origin. Fair play means being self-controlled, dignified, friendly and respectful in all circumstances. In role-playing, we admire the legendary codes of courtly chivalry, the rules of the warrior’s honor. Fair play is its modern incarnation. Then there are the rules of the sim you’re going to play, which you must read before taking part. They tell you what kind of game you’re playing, what’s allowed and what isn’t, and what the limits are, and so on. If you don’t read them, you run the risk of being completely out of the game, and thus denied access to the sim. Finally, there’s the profile of each player with whom you’ll be playing as your character: this sometimes contains indications of the limits the player doesn’t wish to cross in a role-playing interaction. It can also contain game information intended to be read.

You can have several characters (even play them at the same time).

I’m going against a common idea, which often dictates that you can’t play more than one character in a role-playing setting and on a sim. Nothing forbids this, nor should it. What is inadvisable is to use a character you’re playing to use that character’s knowledge to alter a story in progress by using another character. For example, using one character to save another you’re playing, when logic indicates that there is no valid or coherent reason for this action. This last point is often nicknamed metagaming: “metagaming” is the role-playing term for the action of acting on information or context known outside your character (OOC), exploiting this data in your role-playing interpretation and actions. In other words, when your character uses information or an object that he or she couldn’t possibly know or have at his or her disposal. If you avoid this pitfall – which is cheating, a total lack of fair play, and will get you into trouble you can’t complain about – there’s no reason why you can’t play several characters in the same location, even at the same time! As far as the latter is concerned, however, the main limitation is that it’s complicated to play several roles at once. Believe me, it’s happened to me. It’s great fun, but not over the long term!

You are free to dislike other players and refuse to interact with them.

It’s an obvious statement, but no one has the authority to force you to play with anyone you don’t want to. I’ve seen sims impose rules such as the ban on ignoring players and the obligation to interact in-game with their characters. These rules make no sense and contravene SL’s ToS rules, which allow you, under any circumstances, to block/ignore a player in order to cease all forms of interaction. These ToS rules have been established to enable everyone to avoid heated interactions, harassment and any other reason why one player might wish not to interact with another. So, whatever your role and whatever the circumstances, you can never be forced to play with anyone you don’t want to. It’s possible to talk things over and find a compromise or common ground. But you can never be forced to play with someone you don’t want to play with.

You can go wherever you want on SL

Another right that cannot suffer any restriction or reproach is that you can come and go throughout SL, including on other game sims, at your own convenience and in any way you please. This is a point that is often criticized, as every role-playing sim wants to keep its players; this concern is legitimate, but then, it’s the responsibility of the sim’s animators and owners to make their players want to stay, not to reproach them for coming and going or deciding to go elsewhere. No player can have the power to impose this restriction on another player. On this subject, I would advise extreme caution to players using RLV, a tool designed to simulate the power of doms over their submissives in a BDSM relationship. In a BDSM relationship, the dom’s power exists because the submissive decides to grant him this power. The dom can take it away at any time. Entrusting the use of RLV to someone else, without first retaining control of it yourself, means giving up all your rights as a player, rights which are inalienable according to the principles of Second Life ToS.

What happens outside your character role stays outside your character role

Your private life not only belongs to you, it’s nobody’s business but your own. Your personal troubles, your doubts, your anxieties and stresses, you can’t get rid of when you come to play. But they don’t have to be embodied in your role and your character. The whole point of this hobby is to escape from your private life! Try to leave your worries and stresses behind, and concentrate solely on having fun with your fellow players. And if you anticipate that your worries will reflect on your acting and your character, simply warn your fellow players to ask for their concern, so as not to add to your personal tensions with other people’s interpretations. And if the tension is really too great to allow you to play serenely: don’t play. Relax in a different way, to regain a little calm, rather than insisting and, in the end, only adding to the tension, at the risk of creating an argument, a disagreement or a drama.

Your life is more important than the game

This is one last obvious point, but it serves as a reminder: nothing and nobody can force you to be present and participate in the game, when you have something to do in your life. Whether it’s watching a movie or looking after your sick child, there’s no compulsion to stay in the game, for whatever reason. You may have responsibilities on a game (you’re an administrator, a moderator) or responsibilities through your character (you’re a leader, or a high dignitary), but this in no way constitutes the slightest reason or excuse for anyone to insist on asking you to be present. Once again, it’s all about finding common ground where necessary (replacements in the event of a position of responsibility, for example) and making arrangements that satisfy everyone. But the game must never be played to the detriment of your private life, and no one has the slightest power or legitimacy to demand this of you.

3- What must be banned!

What follows is what should never be done or agreed to in role-playing, and what should be clearly outlawed and clearly stated in all the rules of a role-playing sim, as a reminder that all this constitutes cheating, harassment or a blatant lack of fair play.

Godmodding

Basically, it’s a matter of deciding to ignore the actions of other characters when playing your character, or to impose your actions on others without giving them the opportunity to decide for their character. More broadly, it’s also a matter of deciding to ignore the simple laws of coherence in a universe, or the laws of physics, in order to achieve one’s ends, to the detriment of all verisimilitude. Here are just a few examples:

• Control how another character acts or reacts, instead of the player.
• Ignore another character’s actions and decide that they have no effect.
• Ignore the description of a character defending, dodging or fleeing.
• Invent knowledge, means and objects to help your situation. For example, invent the talent to pick any lock with a rod hidden in your hair (or elsewhere).
• Ignoring the physical consequences of an action, e.g. jumping from the top of a rampart to run away, when the fall should at least cause some damage.
• Killing a character without consulting the player’s opinion.

Attacks without interpretation

It’s very simple: you hit a character using in-game combat tools, without first describing your action or attack – in short, without any interpretation. If this is tolerated during a raid, since it’s a combat scene and animation, and sometimes admitted in duels settled with these tools, it’s totally inappropriate outside these two cases, under any conditions whatsoever. We can also add:

• Decide on the death of another player’s character, by killing him on the spot, without taking into account either the context or the opinion of the player concerned, and without agreement between the two parties or the approval of the sim administrators.

Metagaming

Metagaming” is the role-playing term used to describe the action of acting on information or context known outside your character (OOC), exploiting this data in your role-playing interpretation and actions. In other words, when your character uses information or an object that he or she couldn’t possibly know or have at his or her disposal. This is clearly cheating, the most blatant form of cheating along with Godmodding. Here are a few other examples:

• Publicly disclose private information about a player, through his character.
• Use or invent information about a player or information that is off-game to induce others to make decisions about their character (e.g. spread rumors, reveal or invent private information, etc. so that the targeted player is removed from the game).
• Assault or denounce a character based on relationships between players.

Mixing: player/character confusion

Basically, forget that the player is not the character, and vice versa. In other words, forget for others that their character isn’t them: for example, the submissive, docile little Kajira doesn’t represent the person who plays her. And forgetting for yourself that your role is not you and that, consequently, what happens to your character shouldn’t affect you, and isn’t aimed at you, the player. A few other examples:

• Mixing your real life with that of your game character
• Considering another player based solely on the role or interpretation of their character
• Request or demand real privileges or access outside the character’s role (right to locate the player, edit his/her items, request exclusive or privileged access to an RLV, request RL photo, private information, etc.) following an interaction or link between characters.

Powerplay

Powerplay is basically the desire to dominate others through the game and its tools, for some illusory victory or the feeling of being the strongest. It’s a behavior that tends to disregard the wishes and choices of other players, in order to impose one’s authority or vision of things, in a selfish way. Here are a few examples:

• Use brutality or gratuitous/unjustified violence in character.
• Use your supposedly extensive gaming experience or personal skills to dominate, intimidate or bully another player.
• Impose your own wishes and rules on other players, without consulting their opinions.
• Ignore other players’ limitations and wishes regarding their character.
• Abusing source citations (like Gor’s novels), or even better, inventing them, to justify game-destroying behavior.

4- Conclusion

The angle chosen to write all these game tips is that of role-playing in sims based on the world of Gor. But it turns out that in any case, these tips are perfectly transferable to any role-playing context. It’s important to understand them and try to follow, apply and pass them on. Many role-playing groups and sims have exploded in dramatic human conflicts due to disrespect or lack of knowledge of these principles. The third point, above all, covers all the harmful behaviours to be prohibited from one’s own way of playing, and never to be tolerated by any other player.

These tips and rules are often completely ignored in second life sim game rules: either because the sim’s creators ignore them, or because, much more often, they think it’s just common sense. Experience proves that this is not the case at all. Game groups have all had to deal, and more than once, with Powerplay players, or Mixers, and even more often with Metagamers. I hope this article helps and advises you. Don’t hesitate to use it to inform and advise your players!