Tantus wrote:
In principle I agree with what you're saying, a 24H death seems inconsequential against the permanent end. And you can sideline roleplayers you feel are wasting your time, you can even respect the RP Limits of others and try to get along. But why, why should you modify your Gorean experience for others?
Every individual out there(and not only in Gor) has an expectation of how roleplay should be, thanks to an endless list of RP Limits and 'Roleplayer Approved' Regulations, they can enforce their personal-preferences ontop of a Sim's Laws.
[spoil]Want to murder someone?
Sim Laws say Yes. Avatar profile says No.
Fulfil the pre-requisite of a deep and lengthy storyline with my character, over a period no shorter than 2 weeks(RL) and at least 40 hours of paragraph roleplay. All the usual IC info-gathering applies.
I want to kill this person because they're annoying, not because I want to subject myself to 40 fucking hours of roleplaying with them!
I don't kill annoying people, I ignore them. If someone in a scene, just start acting silly, in a way making no IC sense, I will either exit the scene with an IC excuse or just send an IM telling "Sorry the scene doesn't make sense, I can't participate in" And I walk off. I have for principle, now, to check people's profile. It speaks volumes, often, about the kind of RP you can expect. Because I don't break my Gorean experience for silly people. I don't abide by other people's silly limits. I just don't RP them.
Tantus wrote:Want to abduct someone?
Sim Laws say Yes. Avatar profile says No.
This is a Stage 4 Roleplay Scenario, this avatar will not engage in a Stage 4 scene until the pre-requisites of a Stage 1+2 or 3 Roleplay have been achieved within one week prior to advancing to a Stage 4.
Most people accept this kind of RP, especially women (men in SL GOr tend to think that a capture, a collar, are only for women...). The challenge is to keep them. Personnally I will accept to be abducted, but if your sim has shitty rules, if you collar my char then expect she will go spend her time RPing chores, I will simply exit the scene and tell the captor to replace me by a NPC.
Tantus wrote:Want to roleplay X-Rated scenes?
Sim Laws say Yes. Avatar profile says No.
Unless you're planning to get married/companioned, OOC partnered, skype-buddied and commit yourself to a longterm relationship, you're barking up the wrong tree, buddy.
As always... Years ago, some guy, in a street, grabbed my character, dragged her to a corner (in the best godmodding way without attempting anything and give me a chance to react), then, rezzed a pose ball and started emoting the rape... I FTB the scene, he walked off.
Tantus wrote:In pracitice the regulation of roleplay with these fancy pre-requisites intended to enhance the experience have the effect of flushing suspense down the shitter. No one does anything anymore, when I have been on raids I stand aside reading through IMs because even if we lose, thanks to my preoccupation, it doesn't matter. Nothing happens anymore.
Some people abuse with the pre-requisites they impose. You may just ignore those with silly limits, it will save your time and energy. But in the other part, other abuse in killing, capturing, with shitty RP. It works in both senses.
I take all consequences for my character, I accept a permanent collar for my FW char if the RP leds to this situation, I accept the consequences for my IC actions. I even accepted once, a traitor brand on the cheek bone of one of my FW char, prior to her enslavement by her guardian (that was that or being thrown to a sleen....).
But I will likely stop a scene where I am bored. I'm rather a para-rper, I enjoy IC conflict, IC dramas, the harsh aspects of Gor. I like RP with people whose expectations match mine and who have like me, a decent grasp of the Gorean culture. RP is about collaboration, you're not there to serve your RP partner's fun, but to share it.
Tantus wrote:During 2007-08, if we were defending and someone in our group was stood aside roleplaying or IM'ing, I raged and I would tell them to leave the group. Because losing raids had real consequences, you couldn't say 'Hold on lads, I'm a Real Roleplayer and I have these profiled prerequisites before that can happen to my character'. No, you had no protections at all and whatever was roleplayed, you had to respond to it.
Upto 2008, I heard the same story from several women of how they were captured and it was all so messed up they were crying at the keyboard, but still going. At first I was a little sceptical and I'd tell them they should have logged out.
And this is the important point, you couldn't log, you couldn't leave. By entering SL Gor, you were committing yourself to the worst roleplaying environment in SL, you will be tortured, mutilated, collared, randomly killed and that's all in your first month. When you add a layer of laws and regulations, it comes at the cost of immersion as there's nothing to worry about anymore.
I used to emote in ways I haven't managed since, and I'm going to speculate the heightened sense of danger fires up different parts of the brain, your vocabulary, your writing, the tension you weave into an emote is happening on another level.
SL Gor will not change again, it'll never return to the lawless mayhem from a decade ago. Which had its awful aspects too, but people were free to be the character they wanted, they roleplayed whatever came to mind. If I had a captive and threatened to eat her flesh, she responded realistically in the ways her character would, it wan't an IM telling me I'm sick, in violation of her RP Limits and her family are telling her to TP out. These people only made it into Gor after it was tamed by regulation into a family-friendly environment. Funnily enough you didn't have families pre-BTB, there may have been the odd son, or brother, but that was the extent of it. Your group/city was your family, every other week you fought for survival and that builds the bonds people don't have now.
Raiding, combat, have still consequences, just, most raiders want only to win and are not willing, when they lose, to enjoy the RP they may get... Same for political plots... Too many people will sort out a political intrigue in a few days, in order to win (and they will use means that flirt with metagamings, when they don't simply use powergaming because they made their character so powerful, that there is nothing you can do... I experienced it 2 years ago... Godmodding, metagaming, powergaming, from the sim owner... A whole story totally scrapped. In SL Gor, people need to give a chance to the story and accept they can lose, with their consequences. Losing can brought an intensive and emotional RP too, I experienced it quite a few times.
I remember also this 2007/2008 period... You, indeed, never refused a capture... But unlike you were rescued, you could be stuck for hours in a cage, until you paid a ransom in $SL...
As for the family-friendly environment, I deeply dislike it. Just lovey dovey. And these families are so heavily made of a mix of castes and home stones, that it's not even BTB. In the books, an enslaved woman was not freed by her family... She could even be a slave in her own family, endure abuses and scorn until they sell her. It speaks volumes about Goreans and familial love...
But there are still many people who will RP out all consequences happening to their character in the game. Their only limit will be the quality and creativity of the RP you will give them.