The Drama

Role players are into drama. Dark role players… now there are some dark corners in those brains. Psychologists have studied role players. The online version of Psychology Today has a number of articles on role play.

I have found that people that want to run a role play game and/or be the game moderators tend to have a particular mindset. So, too do the role players participating. It varies with the type of role play. Dark role play has a bit of a sadistic dominating tent. That mindset is pushed by the demands of running the game. Demands are repetitious, tedious, and players are often insane or at least irrational. It wears on game moderators that have decided to participate in a sadistic dominating role play. How they react is predictable.

I’m not saying the submissive side players are not there. But, I’ve never seen them in a game moderator position. I can’t even imagine how it could work. It seems completely upside down to me. GM’s have to make decisions and be assertive.

In NoR you cannot challenge or debate management, they dominate. That has not changed over the years. I got myself banned from the NoR forum for attempting to debate the illegality of a game exploit that I think puts new players at a significant disadvantage. It was and is a viewer operational thing that gives those that know about it, I think, a significant advantage.

The exploit is used in most metered combat games in Second Life. As it is viewer based and NOT a viewer bug, it has never been nor is it likely to be fixed by the Lab. Most of the experienced players know of it and are aware it gets used in combat. …and no I am not going to tell you about it. I am not going to add to the headaches GM’s already have.

My thinking is it should be explained to new players and allowed as part of normal game play. It is not an easy exploit to use nor does it assure victory. The advantage while significant does not seriously change game play and works the same for all levels. It only gives an advantage to those that know about and use it. So, in a way it is like getting a more powerful spell at some level. It gives you an advantage over those at lower levels.

JD & Nalates – NoR 2009

NoR management had decided that discussion like what I have written here, without explaining how to use the exploit, was unacceptable. Ban. They simply wanted to avoid any public discussion of the fact there was an exploit many people knew about in what I think was a silly attempt to keep more people from learning about it.

So, GM’s will listen for a few seconds. But, debate that challenges a management decision is generally unacceptable. Try it. See how far you get. You’ll get a sense of the limits. Within the limits you are fine. Beyond that, their patience quickly runs out and I now think justifiably. It is the nature of the people and the situation. Don’t piss into the wind.

Toward the end of the NoR meeting we saw LONBot and Candy Obscure losing it. Jce Emoto was much more stable. Impressive.

The words from Jce at the meeting:

ABOUT RESONANCE:
[I’m] in good communication with my network and Biz/Candy [and] I will be taking over the Resonance sim under my name as soon as possible, and guarantee the tier payment, although we will be hosting the Little Britain Mall we will have the whole play area to work with as the mall just will be OOCLY high up in the sky, like it was in Rubicon.

We will continue in the way we were all ready going. Many different places/moods with houses/apartments to rent, the squatters arrangements, and some clan bases will be possible. Several tenants and friends have expressed that they will be back with us and are looking forward to it 🙂

As it looks now the ownership transfer might take like a week, I will be away the whole next week but will try [to] connect daily via some WiFi-spots. On return hopefully all is arranged and I can start [the] restructure of Res, bigger/better:)

All Res (RPG group) Tenants and [Ad-Board] renters have been refunded ALL outstanding days. I have returned as much no-copy objects as I could find one by one, if you have still stuff in Res, you want to check/pick it up ASAP, just few hours left before it goes offline again.

It’s a shitty thing what happened, but I’m sure that we can continue with all the good stuff we learned, and build on all what happened. First most important is to get the sims and that Biz can build Rem and I Res, we still have the UCE [game meter], the ambiance will be alike, many familiar faces. Just be a bit patient until the base is setup. Personally I think it only will get better.

Everybody could quit, Biz too, and I, but instead we work for the survival of what we had. We need all [the] support what we can get. It’s a technical hardcore thing to arrange within a few weeks. [Any] content discussion [is] really premature now, I would trust that it will work out fine.

So, NoR will continue. It will go from 9 regions to about 4. More may get added. But, it looks to be a smaller NoR.

NoR Auction 2009

The thing I like most about RP in NoR is a combination of the RP spontaneity and game tension. Pre-planned RP is present. But, spontaneous RP is predominant and combat secondary. The tension comes from the combat. One never knows if they will be dominating or dominated. Well… if you’re a level 14 and you go up against a level 30… you probably can count on what is going to happen.