Gor? Where are you? Tal? Anyone home?

[Oor]

Yeah, no. Every genre has its issues, but Gor's reputation for being a cringefest full of bad players didn't just pop up out of the ground one day because someone took a pop at it for no reason. The collective groan when someone lands on a new sim wearing GM isn't just prejudice born of nothing.

I played Gor almost exclusively for well over 15 years, through chatrooms and so on first and later in SL. I've played sporadically in other genres, from Star Wars to Modern Urban to Medieval Fantasy. I've played GoT now for about 5 years, almost exclusively. During that five years I've gone back occasionally for a little while, to have a look around the Gorean venues on offer - not because I want to slag them, but because I have a fondness for Gor's themes and keep hoping things will improve, somehow - and it's just a night and day difference when it comes to the way that story, conflict and lore are handled.

I also disagree that you should only have conflict with people you know and like OOC. You should have conflict with people it makes sense for your character to have conflict with. This may be helped along in GoT by existing enmities and alliances when your character begins, but I've had plenty of conflict these last few years, and barely any of it with people I knew or talked to OOC. With very few exceptions, I tend to prefer playing with people who I don't talk to OOC. I think the ability to play conflict with people who aren't your OOC mates - or lack thereof - says a lot about a sim.

And regarding Sasi's point? Sure, a handful of people are in Gor for the themes, but most people, as evidenced by the OOC treatment of women and amount of ever-changing lovey-dovey OOC picks, are there additionally (or exclusively) to get their kink on. And that's fine - but let's not pretend it's not happening, and let's not try to enter some collective delusion where it doesn't have a deleterious effect on role play.

Gor, generally:

- Doesn't have an application process.
- Doesn't have any lore in which to ground your story.
- Doesn't have any intrasim factions to create the conflict necessary for story to even occur.
- Doesn't have an admin population that understands RP norms (let alone a player population).
- Doesn't have any true IC consequence (limbs grow back, death lasts a few days at most).
- Has only a handful of people willing to take IC risk, despite the lack of consequence.
- Has no OOC consequence for poor play, because they can move on to the next Gor sim that's desperate to take them.
- Has such little success with intersim conflict that any war that goes on past a week without an RP ban is a notable and unusual success that has people patting themselves on the back for literal years.

And while I get what you're saying about other genres having issues - these aren't just the usual issues that affect other genres. This isn't just someone being a little bitch about their character's story going awry and committing suicide, or one player in a population metagaming and ending up banned, or a sim story going on for a year or three and becoming more convoluted than it's fair to expect new players to catch up with - those things can be worked into the story or remedied with new lore. The story can be recovered, and play can go on. These issues that Gor has are fatal to any attempt to get a story off the ground in the first place, without even considering what will happen thereafter.

Don't get me wrong, I've had some great stories in Gor - but they've been stories that were far more about internal conflict and personal relationships than anything that was farther-reaching, despite my efforts to expand them. If I weren't successful with that expansion in other genres, GoT and otherwise, I might be willing to concede that me and my wants are the problem. But I'm not.

I've never had anyone in GoT refuse to play with my character because I wasn't DTF, or because I was playing a whore or servant, or IM me to tell me OOC they should kill me for my IC actions instead of doing it, or react negatively OOC to my character being the tiniest bit cross. So that's where I play. Because that shit? Feels bad, man.

[Tantus]

Poor MingMing, trust you to open this can of worms in questioning the Greatness of GoT!

Now you can expect pages of rage, regurgitating everything that's already been posted in 2016 & 2017, brought up from the bowels of this very forum to be splashed over you again! A heady dose of anti-Gor diatribe will always follow(Whether or not you roleplay in Gor is irrelevant). Upon completion of your re-education, should you continue to resist then expect your intelligence to be questioned for not submitting to the Greatness of GoT.

Bury your head in shame, young lady. How dare you.


Once Sasi has played her part in Genre-shaming you, I may post again. For now we shall sit back and be entertained.

[Anarch Allegiere]

Poor MingMing, trust you to open this can of worms in questioning the Greatness of GoT!

I don't expect anyone here to proclaim how great ROIAF is. If people think that is the goal, then they're clearly missing the point.

Do I personally think as a RP community ROIAF is 10x more enjoyable than SL Gor as a whole? Yes. I even am convinced it's the objective truth.

Is that relevant to the issues SL Gor suffers from as RP community? Not necessarily. All it does is show some people that better is possible and that not all RP communities need to be as shite as SL Gor.

Isn't that a good thing? A bit of hope?

Does ROIAF suffer from it's own issues? Certainly. But if someone would ask me to choose between drinking a bowl of diarrhea or drinking a banana flavored milkshake (while i don't like the taste of banana) I'll still go for the milkshake.

[Qingwen]

Players can and will misbehave in every genre. But that aside...

I'm curious what sort of storylines emerge in GoT. I have played in a couple sims in the past (not ROIAF), but I was hanging with the Dornishmen and we mostly brawled with each other, got drunk, then went swimming in the water gardens. It was fun but I can't say it was epic storytelling. From what I heard of the other houses' doings, it was pretty much royal weddings, royal babies, and jousting tourneys.

So, what sort of stories happen? I mean ones that affect the whole sim, and everyone can participate in (if any).

[Anarch Allegiere]

So, what sort of stories happen? I mean ones that affect the whole sim, and everyone can participate in (if any).

Not sure why you're asking for a list of examples of the kind of RP you could have. That usually depends on the creativity of the players, doesn't it?

And this isn't about trying to sell ROIAF to anyone anyhow. It's more about pointing out how low the standards are in SL Gor. So no real point in me in trying to give some of the great examples of RP fun and stories I've had in ROIAF.

To me it seems pretty obvious that getting stories from the ground is pretty impossible in SL Gor to begin with anyhow if it isn't some Master/slave relationship story. It's my main pet peeve, it's the main reason why I can't enjoy SL Gor anymore, ROIAF spoiled me when it came to getting meaningful story and role play from the ground. When I'm in SL Gor I just feel like I can't RP anything more meaningful because the platform isn't there to support it unless I manage it myself leaving every other average Gor RPer wondering wtf is even happening.

[Oor]

So, what sort of stories happen? I mean ones that affect the whole sim, and everyone can participate in (if any).

This is a pretty difficult question to answer without giving a very convoluted retelling of stories, of which I only know one character's perspective. The nature of GoT roleplay is such that large events affect different people and regions in different ways, and of course you depend on other players to take the story wherever it'll go. Not everyone will be involved in a plot to take the throne, just like not everyone will be involved in the murder of a whore in the brothel (who may or may not have been involved in a plot to take the throne).

Right now we're at the beginning of a story arc that starts about 8 years after the end of The Dance of the Dragons, and we're at a tournament in a Crownlands village called Duskendale. The tournament was meant to be a celebration of the heir to the throne becoming the lord of Dragonstone, and he was to select a wife at the end of it, which would have had political ramifications depending who he'd picked. Unfortunately, thanks to a few VERY shitty dice rolls, the heir to the throne was killed when he took part in the joust. Now the story is more focused on who will be the new heir, and whether the Green/Black tensions of the dance will resurface. Each house and region begins with existing enmities and alliances, within their own region and outside it. http://www.KL-SL.com for more info.

Anarch won't plug it, but I will - hit me up if you fancy giving it a go.

[Sasi]

The one thing I disagree with most of all though, is the accusation from Sasi that people RP in Gor because they want a thinly veiled D/S fetish environment. I like Gor because it reminds me of the older and no-longer-politically-correct pulp era of fantasy, from R.E. Howard's Conan and Kull, to E.R. Burrough's Tarzan and Barsoom. It's the throwback to the Harlequin Romance bodice-rippers of a rougher time period. Where Gor gets fucked up is the commonly held but mistaken sim belief that FW have an equal and meaningful role in sim activity, whereas it's pretty much established in the books that they're just waiting for a man to come along and 'tame' them. It's the difference between heroic roleplaying and telling a story. You've got a lot of FW players who want to be the heroes of their stories, not realizing they are the damsels, the prizes to be won within the setting. It's not about D/S, it's about understanding and misunderstanding the genre and setting.

You wrote " I like Gor because it reminds me..." -You-, your personal motivations. Only.

Second, no, FW in the books are not waiting for a man to tame them. They do their best to improve their position in society, they want or not want a companion (some want, others do their best to discourage suitors). Their actions toward men, their schemes seldom end well (pretty constant in the 34 books I read...)
SL-Gor is not fucked up because a mistaken sim belief that FW have an equal and meaningful role in sim activity. It's role play anyway, everyone should be able to have a meaningful role in sim activity. Everyone should be able to be the hero of a story, no matter of the chosen role. In RP, most FW want to meet a companion who will be a sort of dom husband, with whom they will build a loving family, where slaves must know their place in still being part of the family (in their mind, a story of rivalry, jealousy and hatred between their character and the slaves of the house is excluded)

I'm a member of some OOC popular BTB Gor groups and even if I seldom participate in chat in the groups of sims I joined, I still read their discussions. I'm always astonished by the way people of SL Gor fail at distancing themselves from their character (especially in 2018), the way they will consider you following your role, free or slave, their mentality when it comes to real genders. I don't think there is a debate about this last point in another RP environment. But Gor is the only one where you can see recruitment ads claiming that in sim X, men are in charge, as well IC as OOC and idiots being approved when they pretend that women kill Gor when they admin sims... Also, it's still difficult to find a owner for your character when you play a slave, one who will not consider you should as well be his sub in OOC... Epic debate some weeks ago in a chat group.... Not to mention the too frequent annoying (and demeaning for themselves) way that slave players use to address those who play a free, with titles such as master/mistress. It makes impossible to build a real role play community as it creates a pernicious hierarchy amongst players.

I like the Gor genre for its RP potential. For me, Gor has a fantasy lore which can challenge a character, especially when dark and harsh. IC dramas, politics, sex, violence, all that in a themed fantasy environment. But clearly, the first motivation of so many people in SL Gor is not to challenge their creativity and write long plot political stories....

SL Gor is ruined for these reasons and all those listed by Oor and Anarch.

[Qingwen]

So, what sort of stories happen? I mean ones that affect the whole sim, and everyone can participate in (if any).

This is a pretty difficult question to answer without giving a very convoluted retelling of stories, of which I only know one character's perspective. The nature of GoT roleplay is such that large events affect different people and regions in different ways, and of course you depend on other players to take the story wherever it'll go. Not everyone will be involved in a plot to take the throne, just like not everyone will be involved in the murder of a whore in the brothel (who may or may not have been involved in a plot to take the throne).

Right now we're at the beginning of a story arc that starts about 8 years after the end of The Dance of the Dragons, and we're at a tournament in a Crownlands village called Duskendale. The tournament was meant to be a celebration of the heir to the throne becoming the lord of Dragonstone, and he was to select a wife at the end of it, which would have had political ramifications depending who he'd picked. Unfortunately, thanks to a few VERY shitty dice rolls, the heir to the throne was killed when he took part in the joust. Now the story is more focused on who will be the new heir, and whether the Green/Black tensions of the dance will resurface. Each house and region begins with existing enmities and alliances, within their own region and outside it. http://www.KL-SL.com for more info.

Anarch won't plug it, but I will - hit me up if you fancy giving it a go.

Thanks Oor, that's the kind of example I meant. I wanted to see if it's the kind of story and organisation that may interest me, cos if I'm going to devote some time to a sim I like to know if it'll be entertaining and give me some hooks to jump in and RP. Hardest part is always getting up to speed with the story, esp if I have limited RP time. Anyways, I'll take a look at the link!

@Anarch, that's why I asked. Sounds like you have a case of "Gor-scale", as a friend of mine likes to call it

[Tamar Luminos]

Found a new sim, well- new to me anyway, Coal Creek. So far it's ticking off a lot of my boxes for a preferred RP sim:

-nice build, pretty easy to move around in and find things
-people nice and chatty in the OOC chat
-welcoming and encouraging to new peeps
-pretty busy during my limited available RP time (currently 7pm-9pm SLT)
-so far, easy to just tp down and wander around and find someone to RP with out on the street
-rules seem to be pretty common sense, not over complicated but have a pretty good sense of their setting (Laurel K. Hamilton books)
-app process quick and easy
-admins are friendly and helpful so far
-faction leads are happy to see new peeps and eager to get them involved in RP
-decent website and forums

Can't speak to how the actual RP is, the one scene I've had so far my first night in was brief but decent: para RP, non-para-fluff, with a scene partner who was a total stranger and fellow newbie to the sim but had a clear character and picked up on and gave decent character clues in his posts. So far so good- so thought I'd share it in case someone's looking for an urban/supernatural sim. With Convergence and Hollow's End closing up so quickly there was a vacuum Coal Creek might be able to fill if it can stick around long enough to get some good storylines going. I think it's off to a good start, at least.

[Ominiphis]

Tal,

Old gorean here not in age but in mind, philosophy and ways. My kajira and I would like to invite you all to archeage reckoning server. It is a game that has a LOT of things Goreans would like in thier life. Dominions as in wars as well as trade systems. It is quite complex however me and mine would like to welcome any gorean's that would like to get a full rp that is not SL and has a full housing system in which we have built our own homestone. Will be making a seperate post for this.