The Roleplay Forum: It's fun to lose and to pretend

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Persephone Bolero

When I first came to the Amazon back in 2016, I got tangled up in a lot of faction warfare. At the time, one group won almost every fight. I was one of several easy targets who regularly spent time in this group’s holding cells.

While the capture RP became a bit repetitive after several weeks of torture, stripping, and humiliation, it really didn’t bother me OOC. I assumed with enough practice, I’d figure how this whole combat thing works. The day would come when I’d have my chance to RP the captor. I wasn’t interested in getting revenge. I just wanted to play my pretentious city girl character in a different type of scenario. I was going to torture my captives with grammar lessons and poetry readings, which would bring culture to these unruly savages.

The day did finally come when I successfully captured one man in this group. He had many times stripped me down and tormented me — torments I endured with grace in the spirit of mature RP. After leashing him, as I prepared to dress this man in a suit and force him take me on a picnic (like a proper gentleman!), I was shocked to find him hostile, abusive, uncooperative, and just plain unfun. He went OOC and claimed my successful capture was unfair because of lag.

I was hurt he wouldn’t extend me the same courtesy I’d granted him on more occasions than I could count, even when lag was a factor in my loss. Perhaps because I’m not a gamer, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the thought that, for some players, victory is all that matters. They don’t derive personal satisfaction from the collaborative, creative self-expression that comes from roleplay. They’re just gaming.

Roleplay isn’t gaming. It’s art.

I find it puzzling anyone would come to the Amazon in Second Life for a video game experience. I’ve seen videos of modern games. The graphics are vivid, the weapons number in the dozens, and the platform is so much more conducive to just shooting each other for sport. Why come to a platform that’s full of lag and where the scripting limitations make gaming not much better — even with a highly skilled scriptor like Tantrica — than Pac-Man and Donkey Kong?

As most people know, I had an RP where Tantrica viciously assaulted my character in front of a crowd of onlookers. From that incident came a chaotic trial in which Tantrica received a slap on the wrist, as we Americans call light punishments. My character proceeded to try to hunt her down and get revenge. Tantrica is really good in a fight, and I don’t think she suffered more than a scratch before she captured me. After one fight, she cut my character’s tongue in half, and poor Persephone had to go to a witch doctor to get it repaired.

After that, Persephone backed off. I don’t care in the least that my character never bested Tantrica. She remains poor Persephone’s nemesis, and so much rich, varied RP has come from it. My character, who already had a weakness for intoxicants, developed a full-blown cocaine addiction. She now goes around robbing people to pay for her habit, which has led to more roleplay encounters with other characters. She has trouble achieving an orgasm unless she’s in total control, and so she goes around assaulting men and women just so she can get off. And that’s all on top of her being a mother to a feral daughter.

Okay, so my dark roleplay is a bit too exotic for most people’s taste. There’s nothing wrong with that; that’s what limits are for. But unfortunately, most people have trouble seeing a combat defeat for what it is — an incredible opportunity for great character development.

I see people all the time with ranged weapons in their hand, ready for any attack that comes their way. I wouldn’t be surprised if they keep their avatar hitboxes turned on and their minimaps up. I can honestly say the most intense, fulfilling roleplays I’ve had have been in situations where my character was suffering in defeat and frustrated with disadvantages. A lot of great roleplay can come from winning, but it’s not a condition of it.

I had a guy recently who, after capturing me, went into a frantic, desperate run to get me someplace where he wouldn’t be swarmed by people trying to rescue me. All that time he spent getting himself safe from attackers — crossing multiple sims to his compound — was time we could have spent roleplaying the capture. Just so everyone knows, if you capture me, I never call anyone for help. No one will ever come to save me. Just relax and let’s have some fun.

I would estimate at least three-fourths of all Amazon drama stems from disagreements involving combat. This includes people accusing each other of cheating, breaking some imaginary rule, godmodding, power gaming — you name it. There’s no reason for this.

I would encourage everyone to stop viewing combat defeats as a loss. If your goal is great roleplay in this diverse and complex environment, losing a fight is nothing to worry about. Not only should you enjoy being a captive, you should try to make capture fun for your captive. Win or lose, great roleplay can and should always follow combat. When that happens, no one has to argue over the outcome, because the outcome is always fun.

(Bonus points if you got the Nirvana reference in the title.)