Beyond Para?

[AmandaKeen 1,903]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ok. Here's an example: You show up as a visitor on a sim. The first person who speaks to you (or responds to you) speaks OOC in parentheses. Do you assume that's the "rule"? Do you ask back parentheses to be "nice"? Or, if you are clueless just keep talking normally?  The clueless can't help but be clueless. The person speaking OOC in parentheses should in my opinion say first thing, "(please use parentheses when speaking out of character on this sim)".  I've been embarassed before by not knowing "the rules of the sim".

I would agree :-)  I try to -welcome- new Residents into the community, not run them off by enforcing standards that can't be aware of and therefore not responsible for.

One of the great drawbacks of SL in general and the RP community in particular is that sometimes, people whose social skills are a little "different" gravitate to it. Somehow, those same people seem to sometimes self-appoint themselves as 'voice of the community" too.... They don't take into account that "new" people don't appear already steeped in the lore of freeform RP, and when they interact OOC - it comes across as bossy or authoritarian. Kind of like that old thing where l33t players in MMORPGS make fun of n00bz who just don't know whats going on.....because they commit the crime of being new.

I can actually relate to the folks who are a little socially-challenged; I was the stereotypical science/math geekette from a sheltered childhood - and I really didn't "get" people until I ran off to the military (enraging my family) and was lucky enough to make a lifelong best friend who dragged me out into "real life". "People" were a "learned skill" for me, so I can understand how others like me might manage to be "dickish" (from an earlier post) without not really meaning to be.

That's why I try to be the one who explains and deciphers the world of RP to new people who show an interest......someone invested some time in me when I was the "new/odd kid" and it makes me feel like I'm paying that back just a little.

[AmandaKeen 1,903]

4 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I never did much RP before SL, so I was the clueless when I first got here and found myself in a Gor sim.  I had no clue what OOC even was.  I was eventually asked to use parens for OOC (they did not say 'out of character'), but then I had to ask (without parens, because I was still clueless), what OOC was. 

I have always avoided Gor for several reasons but I do understand that it still has a following :-) YKINMKBYKIOK:-)

[LittleMe Jewell 20,348]

7 minutes ago, AmandaKeen said:

I have always avoided Gor for several reasons but I do understand that it still has a following :-) YKINMKBYKIOK:-)

Heck, when I landed there many years ago, I had no clue what Gor was any more than I knew what RP or OOC was - I think I ended up there looking for a store of some sort.

SL was a vast shock to me back then - I was so naive in many, many ways.

[Lillith Hapmouche 1,324]

Give and take... if a "veteran" RPer on a specific sim meets a new face and eventually gets the slightest hint that said new one doesn't know any roleplay at all, the player should be fit and friendly enough to explain in a little more detail how a guest should behave. Or where they might find more info on the overall plot and rules and such. 

[LiyahDeloncroix 324]

On 7/23/2017 at 9:14 AM, AmandaKeen said:

05..I'm evidently a weirdo; I adapt my style to the audience.

 

Chiming in. I go with who I am Rping with. If its quick moving and flowing nicely, I am not going to make someone wait twenty minutes for a paragraph post. 5 lines well done is just as precious as 20 lines quickly typed. I can do 1 liners to the Novella. My thing is going with the audience.