Sometimes Second Life is more enjoyable when I can forget about photography and blogging for a while.
The next two days I’ll post photos taken at Neva Sky Villi. They were taken several weeks ago but I’ve returned several times since then. The raw shot above was taken there.
I’ve a new roleplay life, having recently been stranded on a tropical island. Fortunately I have my dog with me. I’ll like this during the winter especially and while there’s danger, there are no vampires or werewolves here.
I moved out of my room at the boarding house in Wendigo Lake, having finally caught up with the owner who I suspect is not human. The police seem to need to be called in almost every evening there.
I moved into a small house, also in Wendigo Lake. My roommate is human, like me. I’m now working in a biker bar owned by werewolves (of which I’m not aware yet).
The two pieces of art on the wall behind me are from the Placebo Gallery in Second Life, curated by Seraphim Placebo.
I also have a life in 1850’s London.
Million Happy Endings 
The whole roleplay thing is alien to me. When you say your are unaware of the werewolf nature of the bar owners (yet clearly are aware), how do you become aware? Do you role a dice or something? What determines your actions?
It depends on the roleplay and the situation. In the Wendigo Lake sim, we’re all aware that the play is based on World of Darkness in which supernatural characters exist but they need to hide the fact from humans. If not, they’re in danger from their fellows for ‘outing’ them and putting them all at risk. Reading other players profiles in their picks, their temporary character sheets in the WL forums, and seeing what groups they belong to is a big clue. For example I’m a member of Wendigo Lake humans.
There are words in roleplay: powergaming, metagaming, godmodding and thought statements, the practice of which is wrong, against the rules and causes out-of-character drama.
So Pearl’s character is unaware but her human is. Pearl notices some odd talk and behavior from the werewolves, just as she notices the rather intellectual and obscure talk from some very well dressed,, hot looking avatars who tend to be vampires.
Wendigo is still in beta so we don’t have character generators with a dice system yet. When a vampire does attack Pearl, dice rolls can help determine the steps and results and then we type our responses according to those results.
Many of the players are from a background that used pencil, paper and dice to play these games and they’re really into that aspect of it. My human was working two jobs and care-taking and didn’t read these books or play the games. She doesn’t enjoy the dice aspect but understands the need for dice rolls in conflict situations or what some call “discovery.”
For example, being stranded on the desert island simple dice rolls are used to determine results in Pearl getting a fire started or being able to catch a fish for dinner. I like to keep a balance and tend to avoid using dice as a tool.
Most sim owners have rules and expectations that are enforced to some degree or another and I do my best to adapt.
There’s quite a lot of combat and violence in Second Life roleplay and dice rolls are absolutely necessary because…you know…..big, fat egos. No one really likes to lose.
In the Victorian roleplay, our little group breaks almost every rule. We just wing it and are pretty silly but oddly there’ve been no disagreements. So basically, Pearl ought to only act upon the knowledge that she learns In Character, not from what she reads in OOC chat or gossiping IMs.
Let me know if I need to attempt further clarification. 🙂
I assume the dice throw is electronic/happens in-world, so everyone can verify it?
Yes; you “wear” the dice hud and the results show up in text in local chat. For the stranded island roleplay, we’re agreeing that an even number equals yes and an odd one equals no. There are some numbers involved such as how many casts it takes to land a fish and then your character responds with your style of emoting, attitude and descriptions.
For Legacies 1891, the sim owner Trijin Bade made a very intuitive, sophistcated hud called LaRPs that kept track of all sorts of points earned in various skills and would indicate things such as just how many days you were passed out recovering from that vampire attack.
There are numerous dice huds on the marketplace, many of them free and many with a few add-ons. In the roleplay rules, one particular one is the “official one” and many times a sim owner will commission to have one made for a particular sim. I have about six floating around in my inventory. I just typed “dice huds” in marketplace search and got 54 results. (Maybe half that number would be accurate.)
The Wendigo Lake is still in beta and we’re not using one yet. That whole thing seems very complicated and it’s highly likely that when it’s all up and running I won’t be able to play there.
Some freeform roleplay sims don’t use them, such as Haud Pluvia, but roleplay friends sometimes stay in little groups and take their dice huds with them.
It’s all as I’d imagined it, and all the reasons it’s never interested me, really. I loath games of chance, and anything involving dice is a game of chance. The idea of a parameter within which you behave, but can behave using your own judgement would be more my speed.
Thanks for the explanation (: