Second Life Role-play 101
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You've stumbled over to the sim and have no idea what roleplay is about but curious to learn?
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SL Role-play is essentially a lot like impromptu acting with other actors to create a story together. It's great game for creative minds who love getting lost in a good story whilst socialising with others at the same time. The closest real life version of this game is called Dungeons & Dragons (which uses a board, maps, dice and a 'game master' who acts as the narrator of the story for the rest of the players).
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The main idea is that you, are 'pretending' to be a character that you carefully 'made up' and developed and with a different set of beliefs, personality and traits, you interact with other 'made up' characters with their own unique personality/traits and see how the story unfolds.
It can get confusing as you may think..."Wait isn't SL already full of people role-playing and pretending?" The answer is yes and no. SL in general is a creative platform where avatars can do what they want. Some people you meet on SL are more authentic, others prefer to show an alter ego and just interact with others playfully in pretend mode. But as an avatar in a second-life roleplay sim, there are extra guidelines and rules on top of this. Dwarka is a medieval-fantasy, aquatic themed sim therefore, your character could be the following for example...
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Perhaps you are a evil pirate captain who gets drunk every day, treats their crew horribly but deep down is seeking love.
Or a wood elf who was travelling the seas as a break from their hated job as a carpenter, but got washed up on the shore as the ship caught caught in a storm. Finding the perfect excuse to start a new life.
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(You wouldn't find a star wars themed character or a modern super-hero characters here as it does not fit with the lore/culture or time space).
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How to role-play
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1) Create your character
This process can take many days as you carefully read the roleplay sims's lore, rules, approved races to make a character that is allowed. The more you develop in terms of personality, beliefs, history, intentions, desires, goals, appearance, the better quality character you will have. This is partly why we have a character application process. It ensures you have a well developed character and have read the rules.
Strong characters make role-play far more enjoyable for everyone.
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2) Interact with other characters
Once your character has been approved, go on sim and interact with other characters. This is done via writing in 3rd person using the '/me' function. (The '/me' function gets rid of the colon ':' after your name so you can write an action instead.
E.g. You could type the following ....
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'/me approaches the other merfolk and bows her head politely, showing that she means no harm to them. She then raises her head and meets their gaze with her own. "Tala, I am new to these waters... Could you tell me what they are called?" She asked politely in Aquan, the well-known tongue spoken by most merfolk. Then awaited their response patiently.'
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Upon pressing enter, would turn into...
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'Alice approaches the other merfolk and bows her head politely, showing that she means no harm to them. She then raises her head and meets their gaze with her own. "Tala, I am new to these waters... Could you tell me what they are called?" She asked politely in Aquan, the well-known tongue spoken by most merfolk. Then awaited their response patiently.'
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That would be one post.
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You can only post once before it is the other persons go. Then you wait for the other character to reply with their post. If there are more than 3+ characters in a scene, it may be easier to set up a RP post order so everyone knows whos turn it is after who.
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e.g.
' RP post order: Alice, Drakos, Indigo, Tidas, Caspia'
So then you would wait for everyone to post once before you post again.
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The RP HUD
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The RP HUD (small square at the mid bottom of the screen) represents the functions that you'll need within certain situations.
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Titler - It allows you to inform other players of what your character is about and what they may need to know about the state of the character that you can't visibly see e.g. Huge wound dripping with blood or a particular smell that your character would react to. It also tell you what your characters general health state is (HP) and magic ability if any (MP).
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For more info on the HUD click here.
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IC: Refers to In-Character / Your made up character
OOC: Refers tot Out-Of-Character / You, yourself as the typist
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For more information made sure you read the following pages:
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