I’ve recently become aware of Old West muds and moos that predate the historical roleplaying I’ve observed in Second Life by five years. Moos and muds are text-based virtual worlds that became popular in the early 90’s; Second Life is sometimes referred to as a “graphical mud.” So far I’m aware of two different [...]
Virtual Powwow was a living museum in Second Life, proposed as a final project in Bernie Dodge’s graduate-level Exploratory Learning through Simulation and Games class. By recreating a powwow, the simulation visualized an environment hosted by Native Americans where students could experience Native American culture and dance.
Although not exactly roleplaying, Virtual Powwow and [...]
As previously mentioned, Native American roleplaying in Second Life is a very popular. In order to understand the Sigil Tribe, I’m exploring active Native American RP sims. Last night I visited La Tribu for the first time, a French-speaking Native American roleplaying sim. (Some background: I don’t speak French, so the [...]
Before discussing historical roleplaying sims in Second Life any further, it’s important to introduce a side of Second Life that I’ve failed to acknowledge up to this point – sexual roleplaying. As one of the first subcultures to embrace Second Life, sexual roleplayers have influenced the entire Second Life culture – with BDSM references [...]
The most recent addition to the Sigil Archive introduces Native American roleplaying in Second Life, specifically the Sigil Tribe. There are several Native American roleplaying tribes in Second Life, including one that speaks entirely in French. I’ve uploaded a set of guidelines, as well as tribe rules that were used by the Sigil [...]
In her 2005 presidential address to the American Studies Association, Karen Halttunen delivered a speech that would be published in American Quarterly the following year, entitled “Groundwork: American Studies in Place.” She discussed the “disneyfication” of American place-making; the replacement of reality with an idealized vision that engenders racism and sexism. What occurs [...]
Rob MacDougall recently posted a pre-history of roleplaying games that thoroughly describes its origins in far greater detail than my previous post on early war gaming and Wild West roleplaying. Studying Wild West roleplaying simulations in Second Life I’ve continuously asked myself where this pattern of behavior came from, and why people represent themselves in [...]
Tombstone is a Wild West RP sim in Second Life that popped up shortly after Sigil became a ghost town. Here is a short video I put together (this was my first cinematographic attempt in SL). Take the music with a grain of salt – I thought it would be funny. Unfortunately [...]
In 1913 H.G. Wells published Little Wars, a set of rules for playing with toy soldiers. His book would be the first in a new genre of gaming, commonly referred to as war gaming. In the 70’s, war gaming was adapted by TSR for the popular release of the role-playing game Dungeons & [...]