How do I get started roleplaying in Second Life? How do I get started? How do you speak, what’s an emote, what’s the point? Questions that anyone who’s done a bit of roleplay on a medium like the Internet or video games doesn’t ask, but which become far more pressing for the complete beginner who’s never tried it!

And so, let’s talk a little about roleplaying, for complete beginners!

If you want to support me, I’ve got a little gorean brand and art store in Second Life, and you can even make a donation to encourage me, with a tip jar on the spot. A huge thank you and all my gratitude, in advance! SLURL: http: //maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Serendipity%20One/236/47/25

Marketplace : https://marketplace.secondlife.com/fr-FR/stores/130327

1- Basic principles

From a very early age, children try their hand at role-playing, alone or with friends, whether it’s “Police and Thieves”, dinette, family or later imagining themselves in their favorite novel, they create an incredible universe that then belongs to them alone. They are all-powerful and free to do whatever they want, with no limits other than their imagination. As children, we’ve all played at pretending, picking up a stick of wood and becoming a jedi, knight or sorcerer in a world of magic.

Yes, role-playing, at its core, is like combat simulations in military training, or firefighters simulating an evacuation. They play their own role, but in a fictional setting, where they have to act as if everything were real, but without flames or deadly bullets. So we’ve all done role-playing, even as adults!

The principle of role-playing

The very principle of role-playing is to embody a character, to become, in a moment of shared social interaction with other participants, something other than yourself. You can become a disillusioned old Jedi, a glory-loving young warrior, a cunning merchant with a big heart, a stubborn investigator who never changes his coat and takes his old basset hound everywhere, or a fierce, idealistic Amazon discovering the world!

All you have to do is find out which character, which role, you’d like to play, and act as if you were an actor in a film, TV series or play. It couldn’t be simpler…

The main principle of role-playing is that there are no winners or losers: role-playing is about living an adventure together. Participants collaborate with an open and benevolent mind, and the only competition that can exist is between the characters that the players embody! In role-playing, you don’t lose. You win, all together, the same thing: the pleasure of having taken part in an adventure, playing your character.

But now, let’s talk about the rules to follow when playing a character, in a fictional universe, with other participants! To role-play, you need three things:

A game medium:

There are many forms of role-playing, which we’ll briefly describe below.

1- Purely text-based role-playing, which makes do with a writing tool such as a forum or chat room – in the past, people even role-played by writing letters to each other!

2- oral role-playing, where a small group of participants gather in a living room, around a table, and embody their character, describing his or her actions, and playing out an adventure together, entirely by talking. This is the social medium of tabletop role-playing.

3- Live-action roleplaying, also known as life-size role-playing, in which each participant is disguised as the character he or she is playing, and all participants gather in one place to live out an adventure, where they physically simulate their actions.

4- role-playing in a virtual universe, where you take part by creating an avatar, who will perform the physical actions you wish, while you take decisions for your character, and write in the virtual universe chat to make him talk. This is the principle of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).

And it’s the latter, of course, that we’re mainly going to be talking about here, with the virtual universes of Second Life as our medium.

One world, one character:

To play together and take part in an adventure, everyone has to play a character, in the same setting. I’m pretty sure I can’t play a winged demon in the Harry Potter universe (no, I don’t know much about Harry Potter), nor in the Game of Throne universe.

That’s the first rule of role-playing: you have to create a character suited to the universe you’re going to play in and the people you’re going to play with. I’d therefore advise you to know a little about the universe, or to ask other players, but also to ask whether your character idea is compatible with the group you’re going to play it in!

Rules & a referee:

Finally, to play a game, you need rules, and a method for refereeing them. In tabletop role-playing, this particular role is played by the game master, who, as it were, embodies the universe and the protagonists of the adventure the players are about to experience. He or she is responsible for applying the rules of the game, and for arbitrating it, with the players, and in a consensual manner.

In the case of role-playing in a virtual world like Second Life, the rules are those of the medium (such as the Second Life EULA), those of the medium’s technical limits and possibilities, those of the group of players and the sim and, finally, those of fair play and, therefore, of the acceptable limits that each participant must respect.

2- Imagine your role

As you can see, the most important thing to think about is your role. To make it coherent, you need to know the context and rules of the game and the group in which you’ll be taking part. A bit of reading and discussion is therefore necessary. You’ve come to the right place to get some information. Don’t forget to always contact the administrators and moderators of the sim you’re going to play in, who’ll be able to help you, or point you in the right direction.

Once you’ve done that, find out what you’d like to play. A role is not just a visual avatar, but also a personality, a past, a family, goals, fears and loves. Imagining a warrior and turning him into an avatar doesn’t give him consistency, but he’ll quickly gain it if, for example, this warrior has the weakness of loving drink too much, the personal desire to start a family, and to get rich, while being faithful to a strong code of honor and his desire for battles and exploits, which doesn’t make it easy for him.

Create a story for this character, imagining his personality, his character, his good and bad habits. A few lines are all it takes to get you started!

The easiest way to find an interesting role is, when you join a group, to ask what roles are missing, and what roles are in demand. That way, you’ll be able to integrate more quickly into the group’s common role-playing, by filling a vacant spot. You could find a friend or family member for your character, or even a boss or mentor!

3- Interacting with others

Most important of all: how do you do it? Nothing beats showing you by example!

David, who plays the game master in a game of TTRPG, talks to Michel, who plays a not very agile merchant.

David: the horse, distraught at losing its rider, is charging at you! What do you do?

Michel: I jump to the side, towards… er… is there something soft to break my fall?

David: yes, a pile of hay, right next to it!

Michel: perfect, I jump and fall into it to avoid the horse!

David : the rider shouts at you: “my horse, to the thief, it’s your fault!

Michel : What? But I didn’t even touch his horse! I shout back: “your horse almost ran me over, I’m going to lodge a complaint!!!”

In a virtual universe such as an MMORPG, there’s no game master. This role, which allows the universe to play out around the characters, is taken care of, in most cases, by the setting of the virtual world!

In this way, the scene would take place in the same way, but David wouldn’t need to describe anything – the horse, like the pile of straw, would be part of the visual décor. In this case, David wouldn’t be a game master, but rather a simple character – in this case, the disgruntled rider!

Note that the actions and words have not been prepared in advance. There’s an opening scene: a rider is thrown off course and his distraught mount runs into a pedestrian. Everything else is just improvised reactions and words based on the starting point.

How do you describe what your character is doing?

It’s a matter of practice, and a few written codes. On Second Life, the written code is to start your text with “/me”, which creates an emote. An emote is an entry in a text chat that indicates an action in progress. Examples:

/me leans over the cup of tea in front of him, blows on the liquid, then, grabs the cup and begins to taste the tea.

/me takes off, and jumps over the railing with a nimble movement.

In both cases, text chat replaces the /me with the display name you’re using. If your display name is Kara, then the name will be Kara :

Kara takes off, and leaps over the railing with an agile movement.

How to speak:

Very simple. Either you say something that you don’t think needs to be accompanied by an action or a descriptive element (your mood, for example), and simply write down what you’re saying-or you want to add some context.

Or you want to add context or information, and you type /me, to make an emote, adding your phrase, in quotation marks, like this:

/me exclaims, eyebrows furrowed: “I don’t need your help!” and quickly walks away.

Don’t forget that exchanging sentences and emotes between players requires a little patience. Not everyone writes quickly, so it’s polite to wait a while, so that each person in turn can write. And even if you want to leave the stage, perhaps another participant will step in, so be patient before you go,

Simple or complicated?

It’s a matter of taste. You can write a sentence or two to describe an action, or have your character speak, but you can also write a whole speech, with lots of descriptions. It all depends on the context, and your mood!

That said, don’t forget that if you’re writing a long action emote, you need to take into account what other people might want to do in turn. So, in your description, avoid concluding an action, and especially its consequences, if they concern other participants! Give other players time to interact, so that they can participate, taking into account your own actions.

4- the main codes to respect

Playing with others:

Playing with others is the most basic notion of role-playing. There are no winners or losers in this kind of game, and no real competition, since there’s nothing concrete to win or lose. You don’t play against others, you play with them. That’s why, when you play, you have to think about the implications of your actions. In an exchange of written dialogue, where each character explains the actions of his or her character, wait for the other to respond before continuing to describe your actions. Not everyone writes at the same speed. Remember that if you say you hit someone, you’re only trying to do so. An action is not automatically successful against another player because you want it to be. It’s only attempted. It’s your joint play, your interaction and possibly the choice of a result decided in private discussion, or through the use of virtual dice, that decides the outcome. And this result will be all the more fun if it’s accepted by all, in a consensual way. Be fair. Don’t be afraid to work things out in private discussions. Play the game. And if something doesn’t feel right, report it privately via IM.

Be consistent:

Consistency in a character’s actions and reactions is important. Even if a character only dies, ultimately, if the player decides that his character should die, and not otherwise, the fact remains that, consistently, he knows he’s mortal. So he won’t walk through a burning house without coming out burnt and wounded. He will not remain stoic and openly laughing in the face of men ready to kill him while he is unarmed. He won’t recover from violent torture in ten minutes.

By the same token, a city, or even a village, is never really empty, so you can’t pretend to come and go openly without being seen, even less so if you’re an armed enemy of that city. Likewise, a city is never unguarded. Ask yourself what you can do, and what makes sense. And remember, you’re playing with others, not against them.

Playing with the scenery:

Playing with the scenery is another form of coherence, an important one here, because in SL Gor, scenery is just that: inert scenery. But it can become an element of the game! The scenery influences the character’s actions, but also its limits: a vast expanse of water in a frozen setting is a difficult obstacle to cross, and after crossing it, a character is logically freezing to death. A cliff can’t be climbed, beyond a few meters, with just a grappling hook, but will require you to describe a climbing action with crampons, picks, ice axes and rope. The wall of a castle or a solid tavern won’t let you hear the discussions taking place inside, even if the technical limits of SL sets allow it.

The passage of time:

When it comes to consistency and enjoyment of the game, time is of the essence. Here, we’re faced with a consensual approach to the subject. Most often, in my experience, 1 real day = 4 days in SL role-playing. But above all to manage events requiring time measures (injuries, court sentences, long-term work, etc.). This time scale is then highly variable, and elastic, for long journeys for example: sims and cities are geographically distant, but taking account of travel times according to a fixed time scale is difficult to reconcile with the pleasure of the game. Stay reasonable about moving from city to city, but mutual game enjoyment comes before respect for time.

5- Some tips for role-playing on Gor

Always think of the consequences of your actions for the other person:

The great difficulty in Gor’s universe lies in its intrinsic violence. The men are violent with each other, with their wives, with the slaves, the women are not gentle either, and harshness, authority and brutality are commonplace. This of course leads to injustice, as Gor’s novels are full of. But behind the brutalized character, forced to do or suffer what he doesn’t want to, there’s another player, another person, who may be moved, disturbed, even hurt, by what’s happening in the game. Rather than hiding behind the excuse that it’s “just role-playing, don’t take it personally”, it’s better simply to be safe than sorry, and to make sure that the player is ready to assume the consequences of the acts you’re preparing to put him/her through, and that he/she is fully willing. To do this, it’s a good idea to read the player’s profile, which generally indicates his or her limits. Asking him in a private message is another. More simply, don’t do anything to the player in front of you that you wouldn’t want to endure.

Fair play, always fair play:

In role-playing, there are no winners or losers. Unfortunately, we often forget this. So be fair, and expect your fellow players to be fair. Admit to losing a verbal joust, or to being defeated by a duel within the rules. Don’t spit or humiliate the downed character you’ve just captured. Accept that you will lose, and suffer the consequences of your failure. Don’t turn a conflict between characters into a conflict between players. If it seems impossible to escape, then ignore the person you’re in conflict with, or block them, and move on! Remember that while Goreans are violent people, they are neither sadistic nor cruel. So don’t be. Gorean honor also forces them to admit defeat when faced with someone better than them; not necessarily physically stronger, by the way, which is a common mistake. So admit it.

Don’t pull out a gun at the drop of a hat:

Firstly, because by convention, you’ll be asked to write at least one emote to describe that you’re drawing a weapon and preparing to strike. Using a weapon without a bit of role-playing first is often considered cheating, but first and foremost a lack of fair play. Secondly, because Goreans consider life precious. They are quick to anger, but avoid killing each other. Finally, because excessive use of the brutal method is a risk of creating conflicts that quickly spill over the boundaries of the game, and create drama.

Don’t play a role you know nothing about:

That’s what this website is all about, providing you with the information you need to play the role of your choice. The world of Gor is rich, complex and sometimes very complicated. Some roles, castes and professions need to be learned from veterans, from Gor novels or from websites like this one. It’s best to start small. Avoid inventing a complex story and a role you don’t know, if you don’t have enough information about the universe and the setting of the game you’re going to play. For example, the roles of scribe or slaver in Gor’s role-playing game require a great deal of knowledge of the game and the specificities of these roles. And playing them correctly is even more difficult! Start simply. You’ll always have the opportunity to learn enough to eventually take on a whole host of richer, more complex roles.

If you don’t know, ask:

It’s silly, but it’s a tip worth remembering. Many players know the universe well, or will tell you where to look if you can’t find it yourself. Avoid making things up or doing things the way you’ve seen them done, if you’re not sure that’s how they’re done in the universe and context. No one will blame you for asking questions – quite the contrary!

6- Where to learn?

If you’d like to practice and learn role-playing in the world of Gor, in a friendly and supportive environment, I invite you to attend the Gorean University courses and round-table discussions. They are in English, and take place Mondays at 18:30 SLT, Thursdays at noon SLT and 18:30 SLT, and Sundays at 18:30 SLT.

The atmosphere is convivial, friendly and caring. The aim of these courses and round tables is to help people learn more about the world of Gor. Your questions will be welcome, and you’ll be able to experiment in a completely safe environment!

Role-playing principles on Second Life & Gor

Roleplay Advices in Gor SL

Emotional safety in roleplaying