3rd person VS. 1st person

[Studio09]

The Second Life environment seems to be a blend of 1st person and 3rd person and I'm not sure when to use one over the other in my interactions with others.

 As far as "game play" it is definitely 1st person, which is part of the reason I had so much trouble with it in the beginning.  If I had played any 1st person shooter or any simulation games then it would have been easier.  Instead all my gaming experience is with "god view" or 3rd person games such as Diablo - Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 and Sims 3.  I kept wanting to see my avatar in her environment.  

Talking via text with other avatars is 1st person, whether in chat or IM.  That each entry is labeled with the name of the avi talking keeps conversations organized and makes them resemble a script rather than a novel.  Using voice is 1st person.  Animations and gestures are 1st person.  The only time 3rd person is used is for emotes, which are vestiges of IIRC and other non-visual RP.  It seems very awkward to me.

I can see when RPing in a group that the doer and receiver of an action needs to be identified for all, but when describing actions in a one-on-one situation via IM or chat how many people use 3rd person emotes rather than 1st person?

The only time I found myself in that situation it just seemed natural to type something like "I begin kissing every inch of your body starting at your mouth and  ..."  rather that "Diane Summers begins kissing every inch of XXXXX's body starting at his mouth and ..." (hope that wasn't too risque for the general forum). 

[Studio09]

The Second Life environment seems to be a blend of 1st person and 3rd person and I'm not sure when to use one over the other in my interactions with others.

 As far as "game play" it is definitely 1st person, which is part of the reason I had so much trouble with it in the beginning.  If I had played any 1st person shooter or any simulation games then it would have been easier.  Instead all my gaming experience is with "god view" or 3rd person games such as Diablo - Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 and Sims 3.  I kept wanting to see my avatar in her environment.  

Talking via text with other avatars is 1st person, whether in chat or IM.  That each entry is labeled with the name of the avi talking keeps conversations organized and makes them resemble a script rather than a novel.  Using voice is 1st person.  Animations and gestures are 1st person.  The only time 3rd person is used is for emotes, which are vestiges of IIRC and other non-visual RP.  It seems very awkward to me.

I can see when RPing in a group that the doer and receiver of an action needs to be identified for all, but when describing actions in a one-on-one situation via IM or chat how many people use 3rd person emotes rather than 1st person?

The only time I found myself in that situation it just seemed natural to type something like "I begin kissing every inch of your body starting at your mouth and  ..."  rather that "Diane Summers begins kissing every inch of XXXXX's body starting at his mouth and ..." (hope that wasn't too risque for the general forum). 

[Extraneousnomenclature]

I'm not into conventional roleplay, with its "/me composes a descriptive paragraph" style, but I do occasionally use the third person.
When I do, it might go something like: "the girl's lips part as the man's mouth meets her own ..."
Seldom do I say "X's lips part ..."
Just my personal quirk; I couldn't tell you why I have that preference.
Mostly I'm just into 1st person dialogue, though.

[Dhuanolil]

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Studio09 wrote:

The Second Life environment seems to be a blend of 1st person and 3rd person and I'm not sure when to use one over the other in my interactions with others.

........

I can see when RPing in a group that the doer and receiver of an action needs to be identified for all, but when describing actions in a one-on-one situation via IM or chat how many people use 3rd person emotes rather than 1st person?

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I always use third-person, even when it is just in one-on-one conversations. There are three reasons why I do: one is that using 'Dhuanolil' or 'the Drow' instead of 'me' 'my' or 'I' helps me feel like I am keeping my RL self extremely separate from what is happening in SL. That might sound stupid and some people will happily point that out, but what matters is what makes -me- comfortable, not what others think. The second reason is that I just think it sounds better, more like a story or a scene that plays out in my mind's eye. The third reason is probably the biggest reason of them all: I have been roleplaying in groups for so long that now it is just a habit to stay in third-person, rather than switch to first when in one-on-one emoting/interaction.

Most of the people I know use third-person, but that is probably just because I hang out with people who like the same things that I do. I do not believe there is a way to determine if most people do it first-person or third-person.

It just depends on what makes people the most comfortable, or what they like the best. If they like third-person emoting one-on-one, then that is what they will do...and if they like first-person emoting one-on-one, then that is what they will do.

So I just suggest that you do what you prefer, regardless of how the other posts or how other people tell you to.

Edited to correct a spelling error.

[Venus Petrov]

I would suggest that you do what seems natural for you to do in any given environment.  I do not RP in SL (in the sense that I go to themed sims and pretend that Venus is a 'character' other than how I have created her.

Just relax and be 'yourself'...whomever you decide that to be.

[Tex Monday]

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Venus Petrov wrote:

I would suggest that you do what seems natural for you to do in any given environment. 

Just relax and be 'yourself'...whomever you decide that to be.

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Can't argue with what others have said, use what you feel comfortable with.

That being said, there was a post a while ago about how to speak in emotes (which turned into some kookie story about stolen linden coins and giant hello kitty robots *). What I do is speak in first person in conversations and third person in emotes...using HIS/HER/THEIR instead of the person's name. The only reason I say this is that it was brought up that your name shows up and it seems silly to say "Tex Monday opens my mouth slowly we move in to kiss" or something like that (since your name shows up during emotes without the semi-colon). More likely, it should look like "Tex Monday opens his mouth slowly as we move in to kiss"

But, as stated plenty of times before...you do what you feel comfortable in. Most people are interested in the basis of the emote or conversation rather than if proper grammer is being used.

 *EDITED TO ADD: FOUND THE STORY....

 http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Role-Play/Need-some-help-with-roleplaying-WIll-pay-you-a-few-lindens-for/td-p/1966517

EDITED FURTHER TO ADD: I'd forgotten how much fun that story was until I read it again...

[Syo Emerald]

I would stop any RP with people who suddenly start using the first person perspective. I think its retarded and dumb. Everytime I saw someone useing the first person perspective the quality of the roleplay was low and/or that person has his/her roleplayexperiance just from cybersex...and only does that kind of roleplay.

I'll explain it a bit: "Me" in a roleplay is the charakter I play. My character refers to herself as "me" when she speaks. The description of her actions are NOT done by my roleplaycharacter, they are written by me, the person behind it and not by my character.

 

[Studio09]

Tex, looks like you guys were having so much fun. :matte-motes-grin:  Thanks for sharing. 

In the last few weeks there was a post on one of these forums that mentioned emotes.  Since I had never heard of that before I did look up several sites that explained/gave examples.  But seeing them used in that thread has helped a lot, even though some were not necessarily "good" examples (at least according to some of those sites). There seemed to be a lot of determining how other participants would react or even act instead of letting them initiate that for themselves. But then it was playing in the forums, not live in world, and directing the actions of others would save some time.

I liked your style especially the use of including actions and expressions surrounded by "*"s and the occasional use of he/she/his/their,etc instead of always using the more stilted full name.  Also the use of a descriptive noun like girl, man, etc as extraneounomenclature mentioned would make using 3rd person not sound so awkward.

[Tex Monday]

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Studio09 wrote:

Tex, looks like you guys were having so much fun. :matte-motes-grin:  Thanks for sharing. 

You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it. I'm disappointed that it never got finished. Hated finding myself being pulled under water in a boat with no method of escape...

In the last few weeks there was a post on one of these forums that mentioned emotes.  Since I had never heard of that before I did look up several sites that explained/gave examples.  But seeing them used in that thread has helped a lot, even though some were not necessarily "good" examples (at least according to some of those sites). There seemed to be a lot of determining how other participants would react or even act instead of letting them initiate that for themselves. But then it was playing in the forums, not live in world, and directing the actions of others would save some time.

The difference here was this was a story. The original idea of the thread was to explain to the OP (original poster) how to talk in IC and OOC. The thing deteriorated from there (as most of our threads do). There's no interaction between characters except within the person's post...otherwise, the story wouldn't have gotten very far. :matte-motes-sunglasses-3:

I liked your style especially the use of including actions and expressions surrounded by "*"s and the occasional use of he/she/his/their,etc instead of always using the more stilted full name.  Also the use of a descriptive noun like girl, man, etc as extraneounomenclature mentioned would make using 3rd person not sound so awkward.

Used the * because I didn't want to type /me all the time. Inworld it's fine..it'll show your name before the action that you're doing, but on the forums I don't think it works very well.

As we've said numerous times, you just need to use what makes you comfortable. As long as your RP isn't blatenly horrible, people are more interested in what you're saying rather than how you're saying it.

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[Studio09]

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Dhuanolil wrote:

I always use third-person, even when it is just in one-on-one conversations. There are three reasons why I do: one is that using 'Dhuanolil' or 'the Drow' instead of 'me' 'my' or 'I' helps me feel like I am keeping my RL self extremely separate from what is happening in SL. That might sound stupid and some people will happily point that out, but what matters is what makes -me- comfortable, not what others think. ...

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That is a very good point and may help in having an avatar do something that the person behind it would not normally do.  So it could be liberating.

[Studio09]

Thanks for the advice.   And you too Tex.

I think I will be able to attempt 3rd person now and not feel too awkward.  For 1-on-1 I will probably do what I did my one attempt and follow the lead of the more experienced player.  Neither of us had RP experience and although he only had a little more experience with cybersex than my none it was probably mostly my ineptitude that turned our romantic interlude into a bedroom farce/comedy.  I never had so much fun playing or laughed so hard in my life.  And although I would not trade our fumbling, awkward encounter for anything I hope I can do better with any 1-on-1 in the future.

 

 Edit:  to correct spelling

[Innula Zenovka]

Just so long as no one says, I put on my robe and wizard hat!

[Studio09]

:smileylol: