Pips Flickr Pics Submission “ Sunkov ” by : Emeline Laks selves to be . It ’ s perhaps , an exploration into another way of thinking , or even of a darker side , a more sensual side , or a funnier side of ourselves . Through role-play , we can learn how better to interact with others while the anonymity of Second Life protects us from the harsh realities of the world around us . But , with all this in mind , it is not difficult at all for some of our own bad habits from the real world , to follow us into our characters and there are some of these habits , that are extremely detrimental to the role-play for not only ourselves , but for everyone around us and for the RP community .
We ’ re in luck though , even though these bad habits happen , and we ’ re all guilty of them at some level or another , at some time or another , we can change it , we can prevent them and we can become better role-players regardless of our pasts .
Name Tags & Profiles
So many players , especially those who are new to RPing in SL , read the name / group tag information hovering over our avatar ’ s heads and role-play as if their character already knew this information . Likewise , they ’ ll do it with information they read in an avatar ’ s profile . It can be so hard to use two different brains when interacting , but so important to remember that while YOU know this information , the character you ’ ve thrust into this make-believe world , whose story you ’ re building with other people live while the on the pixel-mud squishes between your toes , doesn ’ t see a name tag on the character before them . Your character doesn ’ t know this information and you must wait until your character hears this character ’ s name in active role-play before he / she can “ know ” it .
If you use this information you learn through profiles , tags or OOC group chats , during an in-character interaction and its information your character did not learn while role-playing , then you are Meta Gaming and this is one of the worst offenses in role-play . It ’ s so frustrating and destructive to the
58 NU VIBEZ & ROLEPLAY GUIDE MAGAZINE