One of the Wild West Roleplaying simulations I’ve studied, Tombstone, now has a web presence. It’s interesting to step back and compare their online community to several others I’ve discussed in previous entries. One of the most surprising things to me is how ambivalent members of these roleplaying communities are of other communities. Yet, they all develop in similar ways. What does this say about online roleplaying? How do members of these communities view the American West? Why is history represented similarly in all of these roleplaying sims? Why is history misrepresented in similar ways as well?
A concerted effort is made on the part of roleplayers to historicize the environment they engage in, and establish a timeline of events that define the activities of the town. In the case of the Wild West MUD Maddock, their website lists a series of “historical events” in the town that are archived roleplaying logs. Additionally, they have a page of town news and current events. These establish the historical narrative that user interactions are based-upon. Both Tombstone and Sigil started town newspapers (the Tombstone Epitaph, and the Sigil Tribune) to achieve similar objectives. With that said, my interviews of participants in these communities indicate that there is practically no knowledge of other Wild West roleplaying communities. The historicizing of events within these virtual worlds is foundational to the growth of these communities, and a feature of historical roleplaying.
Accurately and consistently presenting one’s character is extremely important in these communities. The Maddock website includes a “Who’s Who” of notable “citizens” where you can learn more about members of this “varied population.” The Tombstone website encourages users to join one of three character groups - Outlaws, Natives, and the Army (as if, historically, those were the only three groups that you could be a member of). Sigil would give new citizens, upon arrival, a roleplaying guide to help situation their character within a larger historical framework. What’s interesting is how idealized, homogenous, and “Hollywood” many of the descriptions and representations are. This is a portion of the Sigil Roleplaying Guide that describes the town and frames the interactions of users within the simulation:
You are in the Wild West arriving in a frontier town the setting is the period of 1860-1890. History of this period will assist you. Arizona was not yet a state but a territory of the United States. It was taken firstly in a war with Mexico and then the rest of the land purchased. Thus an old Adobe style church remains. The US Civil war has just taken place and the Union has won. If you are arriving in Sigil you have just lived through this historic moment. Mining is an important industry in this area of Arizona at this stage in time Gold was becoming harder to obtain and Silver becomes the principle product. Copper later takes over later in the period. The Railroad Industry is expanding West towards the pacific causing some parts to boom where the railroad passes through.
I hope to investigate other historical roleplaying simulations in the future (not limited to the Wild West) to see if they follow similar patterns of behavior.
Next month CBS premiers a primetime reality television show called “Kid Nation“, blending references to the frontier with what amounts to a social experiment – letting 40 kids (or as CBS refers to them, pioneers..) fend for themselves for 40 days without adults. Today’s New York Times reported that that CBS producers possibly violated child safety and labor laws while filming the series. Controversy aside, it offers an interesting lens into history, and another example of how the frontier is evoked in marketing. CBS describes the show as follows:
These Kids, ages 8-15, will turn a ghost town into their new home. They will cook their own meals, clean their own outhouses, haul their own water and even run their own businesses including the old town saloon (root beer only). Through it all, they’ll cope with regular childhood emotions and situations: homesickness, peer pressure and the urge to break every rule they’ve ever known. Will they stick it out? In the end, will these Kids prove to everyone, including their parents, they have the vision to build a better world than the pioneers who came before them?
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 & Dragons. TSR’s second role-playing game, Boot Hill, was a Wild West RPG released the following year. While the Old West role-playing I witnessed in Second Life’s Sigil seemed very random at first glance, it proceeded a 30-year tradition of Wild West role-playing.
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.
In 2004 – two years before Sigil or any other Western role playing simulations appeared in Second Life there was a game being developed and aptly called “Wild West Sim.” To my knowledge this was a failed attempt, but it sounds incredibly ambitious including the ability to support tens-of-thousands of players. Online there are a few interviews with the development team that reveal how bad this was going to be.. which is likely why it never got out of beta.
“WWS is not meant to be 100% accurate to actual history, but rather 100% accurate to the romanticized version of the era, which is fairly close, but makes for better game play. Of course, prostitution was a very integral and accepted part of society in those days, so it will be included in WWS,” commented Anastasia.
The notion that a romanticized version of the era is even remotely close to the reality of the West is ludicrous. The best way to illustrate this is by seeing the only screen capture I’ve found of the game.
I can only imagine what Patricia Limerick or Richard White would say. To WWS’ credit, the game did include many ethnic groups, however they only seem to have been included to intentionally create conflict.
There may be an alternate version with modified elements that will be available for younger players, and possibly even geared for educational purposes in the classroom. ([It would be] a sort of multiplayer “Oregon Trail” where students could interact with other students around the world.)
Great. They wanted to teach a romanticized version of the West to children, and expose them to prostitution when they’re in the 4th grade. It doesn’t surprise me this never took off.
