The 4 dimensions mud reads very much like a history lesson — its text is descriptive out of necessity. In this Wild West mud, users are encouraged to roleplay – and even fight one another. Here is the description when you first enter the Old West mud:

By now “civilization” and science have changed the world considerably. There were horses and carts during the medieval era too of course, but now there are trains driven by steam engines. Robin Hood and his merry men used the longbow, which was a formidable weapon, but the ranged weapons in the Old West are much more powerful firearms, like Winchesters, revolvers and shotguns. And during no time period, before or after, has the horse had such an important role in everyday life as here.

Maddock is a fictional town in the Montana Territory set in the 1870′s. Similarly to Sigil, there has been an attempt to historicize the roleplaying within this virtual world. Their website serves as an incredible resource, documenting the (fictional) history of Maddock, events, and profiles of roleplayers, including Isolde Balcombe.

Although not exactly roleplaying, Virtual Powwow and living museums in Second Life offer a starting point for future discussions of the educational uses of historical roleplaying in virtual worlds. It may also bring together the seemingly disparate topics of this blog, including Wild West and Native American roleplaying in Second Life, visualizing history, and educational roleplaying games. The powwow itself can be contextualized within two pertinent discussions: the shifting of knowledge from experts to amateurs, and innovation vs imitation.

The largest difference between Virtual Powwow and the Native American roleplaying I’ve studied (which includes authentic dance and ritual) deals with ownership and who controls the historical narrative manifested within the simulation. The roleplaying sims I’ve come across are typically created by enthusiasts, who are “playing Indian” (yes, a direct reference to Philip Deloria… more on that in another post) as opposed to the more traditional presentation of historical knowledge by experts. In many cases, the results of this shift are historical inaccuracies, and the emergence of stereotypes within the fragmented knowledge of amateurs. That is not to say that amateurs are incapable of accurately representing history through roleplaying, but instead indicates the necessity of developing new computer-based teaching strategies and augmentative instruction to guide amateurs through their learning.

The group struggled with representing native groups accurately – particularly regarding who participated in the virtual powwow. Their website shared the following:

Initially we were thinking that we could have the learners participate as dancers in the powwow. However, after initial investigation related to this, it was decided it would be a potential problem having non-natives participate as if they were natives. We subsequently changed the design to have the dancers be accepted members of the host group. The host group would consist of Native Americans with knowledge of powwows.

Even though the simulation was intended to engage students and individuals who attended the powwow, the history and culture represented within the simulation was controlled by natives, who themselves were “experts.” Students attending the powwow remained spectators. That distinction hits at the heart another hot topic within the Second Life educators community, “innovation vs imitation.” Although there is an impulse among tech-savvy educators and digital historians alike to use technology for everything, this use of technology seems be nothing more than a recreation of what already happens in real life. While the virtual powwow may be a great way to learn across long-distances, it pales in comparison to physically attending a powwow.

Rather than imitating what happens in real life, my vision of a virtual living museum is innovative. In many ways it’s not a museum at all – but a historical laboratory where students can explore history in the virtual world. Instead of limiting the participation of dance to natives, students could be engaged. In my historical laboratory they would spend time creating the artifacts used within the simulation, and learn about the history of the tribes they represent. Citations are attached to objects and the environment they create is no longer a place they visit to observe others, but one which they have ownership of. Each piece of the simulation and living museum is an assignment, which gradually builds throughout the course of a semester as students learn. If actual tribes were interested in participating, that would be another way of historicizing the content within the sim. Collectively, these students share their ideas and participate as a class together in a powwow, which becomes a celebration of culture and the knowledge they’ve gained.

That ideal scenario outlines the basic thrust of my pedagogical research in Second Life. I’m not wedded to this exact idea, however I see great deal of potential for students to represent ideas and themselves within virtual worlds, particularly through the creation of objects “in-world.” That synthesis alone makes further research worthwhile, but the technology itself also lends itself to a unique form of communication and learning through our own virtual interactions.

When teleporting to the sim, I was given a free visitor’s outfit that’s meant to historicize my character with appropriate clothing. This is a common practice in historical roleplaying sims – however there’s a social stigma associated with this clothing, it instantly identifies you as a newbie. (In a similar vein – in Sigil one of the first things I had to do was purchase a virtual horse. It was a status symbol that, once I had one, allowed me to speak to others more freely.) With tacky pants and paw print tattoos on my chest I explored.

My initial impression of La Tribu (from what I could gather with my limited comprehension of French) was that it has very rigid gender roles. My guide frequently described the activities of virtual natives in terms of gender – men do this, women do that. A first hand account from a citizen historian confirms my reactions by writing:

We are standing on top of a small hill, where a little cascade of waterfalls runs into a few, deep blue pools. This place is for women only. “Men are only allowed up here if the women invite them.” Women are not oppressed in this small French speaking tribe I’ve been invited to visit. They each have their own teepees, with which they are free to do whatever they wish. The teepees are loosely arranged in the vicinity of the common campfire, around which household chores are performed.

I have to brush up on my French, but I hope to explore this further in the near future

Nick Nobel, an undergraduate student at Trinity University recently wrote a paper on Sex in Online Games that begins to introduce this subculture better than most articles I’ve found. He described Gor as the following:

Gor is based on the futuristic science fiction novels of John Norman, and focuses primarily on the psychological relation between the “master” and sexual “slave.” [...] Gor was not sadomasochism, for it does not center on violence, but psychological domination and submission.

When beginning to articulate the relationship between individuals in current historical roleplaying sims, the master/slave relationship is important to keep in mind. I’m still researching the degree to which Gor influences and informs historical roleplaying in Second Life, and learning how many people in these sims identify themselves as Gorean. It offers an interesting twist to already complex power structures within history – for example Native Americans roleplayers and their relationship to Wild West roleplaying cowboys. In this world, does the D&S relationship directly correlate, or is it merely coincidental? Are cowboys dominant and natives submissive?

The Whites. We don’t like them. But we arn’t savages and out of control either. Whites are good for trade and weapons so we have to keep a balance to get guns and supplies. One thing though is we believe in a life for a life and this could be an issue is someone from the tribe gets themselves killed in town. Any Armed Whites coming into our lands is fair game and most likely won’t survive an encounter unless they choose to leave naked and humble. White woman often were playthings for single braves and found their womanhood a bit battered from the encounter but rarely were they killed. Children often were adopted if their parents were dead and made full members of the tribe so no mistreatment of our adopted children. All soldiors entering our lands are killed outright unless there is a treaty made. They travel in groups so once again for safty sakes don’t ever travil alone. Alone and armed is a fast way to die. Don’t expect the white men to talk first if you’re armed. Don’t go into town armed, an armed Indian is fair game in town. Going unarmed means you’re there to trade in peace.

Note: Any grammatical or spelling errors haven’t been changed from the original documents.

I’ve been witnessing the disneyfication of historical roleplaying in Second Life. Since the closing of the first Wild West roleplaying sim, Sigil, a number of new RP sims have been created to take its place. It’s difficult to keep track of these sims – they briefly appear and then, just like Sigil, completely vanish. Their significance is not in the number of simulations that have followed, but the manner which they conduct business. Many of these new environments resemble historical amusement parks or shopping malls more than they do roleplaying environments. A good example of this is Sand Ranch, where the streets are lined with small shops selling “authentic” avatar clothing, as well as stylized clothing that can make you look like a Country singer. The historical accuracy of these environments isn’t necessarily intended nor desired – their goal is to create a profit.

My criticism of disneyfication directly relates to my studies of the Oregon Trail computer game, Second Life historical roleplaying, and the potential use of virtual worlds for educational purposes. I should clarify that not all roleplaying simulations have been simplified into historical amusement parks. What has occurred is a shift in ownership – several successful historical roleplaying sims persist with group ownership. New simulations take advantage of the popularity of these environments and market their products to that community of users. The disneyfication that occurs in these newer roleplaying sims is largely due to an imbalance of ownership. When one person, or only a select few control how ideas are represented within a sim, they are naturally limited.

One of the exciting things about Sigil and other historical roleplaying sims is how collaborate these environments become. For example, Sigil itself had virtual town hall meetings, where virtual citizens would gather together with the mayor to discuss pressing issues. There were a list of roles that citizens could take up, and each person collaborated to affect the sim’s narrative structure. How the West, and history itself was represented within the sim depended on these individual users. The disneyfication that occurs in many newer Wild West sims can be attributed to this lack of community and collaboration. Traditional computer simulations, the Oregon Trail included, were limited by the presentation of ideas. Since all actions are hardcoded into the software, only a few select “experts” could present the West’s narrative, while Second Life as a social space has no such limitations.

The power of Second Life and any type of new social media is that it allows user interaction and the creation of relationships between individuals and environments. When learning history, those elements are critical to the retention of knowledge. Must there be disneyfication of historical roleplaying in Second Life? I would argue no – not more than there is any other process of learning. There is abstraction to some extent – we can only learn so much and most of us will not become experts. But there is the potential for Second Life, as a collaborative and social learning environment, to allow students to reach beyond the limited knowledge presented by experts, and learn through their peers in ways that mean more to them individually – a process of internalization that is the intention of learning.

There was a vogue for simulation gaming at this exact moment much bigger than the wargaming hobby we all think we know. Yeah, there were the wargamers. But there was also, at just this time, a surge of interest in using simulation games, role-plays, and similar exercises in education. A little digging in education libraries turns up literally hundreds of simulation games for use in elementary, high school, and university classrooms—and they all date from the same era.

I have a big heavy tome in front of me. Two tomes, actually: the Handbook of Social Education Simulation Gaming, published 1972. It contains hundreds of games and goes into considerable details about the rules. Some are just “educational” versions of board games: you know, like “Congressopoly” and things of that nature. Some are un-games: free-form roleplays of a sort I associate more with therapy than gaming. But a lot of them and these are clearly the ones the author of this particular handbook was most excited by [what] sound an awful lot like what we would call RPGs.

Educational roleplaying games? Educational simulations? Rob is onto something that I’ve been uncovering in my own research as well – an interest in roleplaying and simulations within education in the very early 70′s. What I find interesting is how he is studying board and “pen and paper” roleplaying games and simulations – while my own research focuses on computer simulations and roleplaying. I’m not sure the medium matters as much as the concept of using this within the classroom. Remember that in my brief outline of the origins of the Oregon Trail computer game, I explained the original version was released in 1971 – right at this same time. Coincidence? Probably not.

The question I’ve been building to the past several weeks combines this early history of roleplaying games, the Oregon Trail computer simulation’s goals of teaching history, and Wild West roleplaying in Second Life. How can history teachers use Second Life and roleplaying within virtual worlds to teach history? As I (and others, such as Rob) uncover a greater-detailed history of educational roleplaying and educational uses of simulations my gut reaction is that the use of Second Life in this manner seems completely logical. Just as the Oregon Trail computer game adapted educational simulations to the teletype machine, we can do the same with Second Life – in an environment that I would argue overcomes many traditional shortcomings of educational computer simulations.

Eric Hotz has assembled an incredible online resource of Wild West Game Rules. The page acts as both a directory of Wild West role-playing and wargames, and also links to rules if they’re available online. There are so many games available that I’ve only begun to read about each one individually – their instructions even offer maps of how towns should be oriented and characters act. Eric owns a store called Whitewash City that sells 3D Wild West Paper/Card-Stock PDF models to use within these games. The image above is a town created using his kits.

The incredible variation in representations of historical architecture parallels the inaccuracies I’ve witnessed within Second Life – an uncompromising tendency to blend ideas of the past with modern-day architecture to create something holding salient historical traits but often out of context.