Does this Caste even exist?

[Erik]

To a Builder, everything you touch and live in is their craft. The world of Gor is the Builders' work, in their eyes. A Warrior kills and takes, but what of the Builder, to whome the Warrior owes the very city he lives in? And then what of the siege engineer, who takes that craft, that magic, to the battlefield and is willing to defend his craft with his sword? Builders are a High Caste for a reason, not the corner store, and I think, though I am obviously very biased, they should be seen and treated with at least a level of deference for that.

And... The most dangerous caste for the Technician/Inventor subclass.

<<<< FFRRAAAPPPPPPPPZZZZZZ (Horrible Blood Curdling Scream) SCREEEEZZZZZZZZ PUFF! >>>>

Signed
~ The Blue Flame of Death

BFD is my friend. I actually made one when I experiemnted as an Initiate once. Works awesome with GM and you can fry a single person or everyone within 96-meters. Want one?

[Ceri the Urt]

I have a builders outfit in my store!

[Sasi]

I can reply for clothes. Yellow is not a color easy to work, first. I made undie for my FW with yellow, and well, to have a beautiful tone, not too shiney, it was not very simple. I make robes of concealment, but I wear myself a builder insigna attached to my belt. And yes, not a lot of builders in SL Gor....

My character is builder caste, raised in this caste by her mother, a Turian lady and builder. First, I made Sasi scribe, with scribe mother, but when I worked on Turia's build, when I relooked the city, when I built myself some parts (the baths, the temple....), I decided to re-write a bit my background. The turian scribe mother became a builder.... Sasi developed her skills in architecture and design.
More recently, I built the big villa, in a roman style, of a Gorean man and I continued to develop my RL skills. But that I enjoy, is rather the design part. Give me a poor build, with some boxes called houses and bad aligned textures, and I transform all that, I retexture, I add embellishments and you won't recognize your buildings. As my taste is rather good, no disappointment.

But as well for Turia and this villa, I integrated this work in my background. Of course, IC, I designed the buildings and I directed their erection, managing the teams of workers, only, I didnt carry any brick myself

The other reason who decided my choice of caste, was the fact that I didnt like to fill notecards for slave papers, FC contracts, etc in RPing a scribe. And run a FC ceremony, I hated (or, in the very BTB way). Also too many scribes in Gor, mostly women.

Currently, I RP in a city where there is no need for a builder, and it's fun, I RP a lazy and spoiled FW, under the guardianship of a commander who wondesr how his lazy and useless ward will find a way to contribute for the service of the city, one day My FW yearns only for a companion, children and comfort, now! (high rank companion, only, she will never FC a Torvi or a low caste man)

But I don't feel any obligation to build something for belonging to this caste, clearly.

[Kaitlin]

LOL...too funny Sasi. The more I read this thread the more I think if I become a builder I will have to do something similar and specialize in shopping and gossip rather than contributing to the caste. I can also spend my time making lots of little babies who will never be able to find clothes to wear or a job...but it beats a slave exam. Just Kidding...maybe.

[Glaucon]

Hmmm, I am not sure this is such a terrible thing, really.

It makes sense for those who actually build OOCly to play the builders caste. If they happen to have some ideas about building and architecture, it would likely be easy for them to use a little of all that in with their RP. And if they happen to be the OOC builder of a sim, they could use that fact to 'do' some of the stuff that they might talk about in RP. An IC builder who isn't an OOC builder might find it hard to make the alteration that he discussed with the healer caste representatives, without aid from the actual builder.

Also, we can all pretend that there is always a 100% seperation between IC and OOC, but when a group of people work on a sim, they will deal with each other OOCly and ICly. There is no need for those roles to have an overlap, but, clearly, you will make a mental connection between the two. The low caste she-urt who is also your genius OOC builder will always be that, in your mind, even if you try to shut that off in your mind when you are in character. And the even-handed respectable IC magistrate will find it hard to play his role if he is also the person who has the most need of IC guidance by the OOC admins because he has a habbit of breaking the sim rules. The ideal is that we should keep all this totally seperate, and that is a nice ideal, but that is hard for many and it can be easier for a group when there is a 'match' between OOC and IC roles. Best example is probably sim-owner and Ubar/administrator.

Of course, this does mean that it is hard for a non-Sl builder to play a builder. But that can be true for many roles. It is hard for someone who isn't OOCly good at flowery language to play a story-teller, I imagine. A person who is not good at appearring dominant will have a hard time as a slaver, maybe. And in a metered combat sim, it is hard for someone with poor hand-eye coordination or a really bad computer to play first sword, or weapons trainer, I'd think.

Is it bad of me to think that it isn't a major issue that some roles can be hard to play if some OOC requirement isn't met? Does each role need to be represented in every sim? There are far more slaves in SL gor than would be proportionate in light of the books. There are far fewer innitiates. (Which is down to that role being fairly hard, potentially unrewarding and apparently, many fail to react to the role in a way that makes sense in light of the books). But this will always be the case in RP sims. There are always going to be more criminals than average joe's playing in urban sims, more jedi than would be realistic playing in Star Wars sims, and so on. Sure, it is good for the RP when there is no badly disproportional role-distribution in a given RP sim, and it is nice when there is a good diversity in roles in a city, as that will make that city more diverse, alive, supply it with more RP variety. But that shouldn't be the end-goal. And some roles not being represented isn't the end of the world.

So, when it comes to builders, I'd advice against playing this role, unless you have some idea of how to make this work and make this fun, if you cannot do the SL build-thing.

[Harlequin]

Does each role need to be represented in every sim?

It'd be nice. Also I think the issue is less that we should shoehorn them in, and more that to really represent a coherent society, it makes sense to -have- those stories. Otherwise you end up with sims where everyone's a warrior, or a free woman, and such. Very focused sims that don't have the life, depth, and breadth of a real RP setting.

I don't think every sim should have a place specificall for Cadence.
But it should have people wanting to do the RP that gives Builders in general RP. Because Builders connect with Merchants connect with scribes, and so forth.

[Thyri]

I think a lot of times the builders caste is told "we dont need you" because they use the "builders" as the OOC sim designers. When the sim is done being built or the doors are finished being scripted or whatever, the builders in that sim tend to languish. And because of this we see less of the guild like or even union like mentality of builders. Or at least the way I see them. If a new building is going to appear on a sim, rather than dropping down that prefab, have a weeklong RP with the builders.

Then there is the aspect that I see SO lost in so many builders. The eccentric inventor. I think that this role when played well is bloody brilliant. But it seems so discouraged because most sim owners or even their "councils" reject builders because their sim is already built or they have no expansion plans. Most builders who want to play the role have had to fight tooth and nail for their positions especially if they dont have a SL building bone in their body and they dont know how to rez a prim.

[Harlequin]

Exactly Thyri. And event hose of us who -do- have related skills, don't always want to make that the center of our RP. I wasn't a Builder because I wanted to script for sims, I can do that as easily as a warrior. I wanted to RP a freaking Builder. The end result was very little RP, or a string of RPs revolving around how I can stand around while something s built. That stuff can be fun, but there has to be a backdrop of -more-.

I know, I know. "You need to make your own RP", but castes generally don't want to it around and RP with just each other. There's got to be -more-. Plus when there's only 2-3 Builders... yeah. I sadly don't see it changing much anytime soon though. It pains me to say, because I love my Caste, by my experiences in Builders has not encouraged me to expect a lot of fantastic RP. Better off just being a warrior, grunting alot, and hitting people.