The role-play features the adventures and stories of characters, these characters are played by real-life players.
In Second Life players are represented by avatars within the virtual world. A player may use their avatar to portray any number of characters.
Distinctions between Characters / Avatars / Players[]
It's considered of bad form to mix up them all, like to make the avatar fly in a non flying area or talking about football team during a role-play.
| Persona Level Distinctions | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Character | Avatar | Player | |
| Universe | SWRP | Second Life | Real life |
| Speech Level | In-character | Out-of-character | |
| Currency | Credits, Druggats, Peggat, etc. | Linden Dollar (L$) | USD, Euro, Yen, etc. |
| Attributes | Blaster, Cloak, Armor, etc. | Attachments, Prims, etc. | Computer, Internet |
| Transportation | Starship, Swoop, Speeder, etc. | Teleport | Plane, Bike, Car, etc. |
How to create a Character[]
Role-playing is about portraying a character and how the character interacts with the world and others characters, players must have a character to be able to role-play.
In SWRP, the characters are freely made by the player themselves, typically it's expected that the character will have the following:
- A background is made up of past-events the character has been through which have not necessarily been role-played. Their family, species, homeworld are usually good starting points for a characters background.
- Motivation what is this character wanting to do?
- Feelings how he react in certain circumstances. Are they shy, determined, friendly, neutral, hostile with all or certain people, do they place their job, their duty, their friends first?
- Weaknesses the characters, as the real life people, are not perfect
All these elements combine together to help make a character with a personality.
About the background, newcomers may want to play humans or near humans, as they're easier to get and and the player may be more familiar with them. However, many near human have a special personality and many non humanoids may offer an extra interest after an adaptation time.
What to avoid when creating a Character[]
Some characters may be flawed from the start to prevent other players to want to play with durably, this include:
- Playing as yourself
- A character should have a very different personality to the player who portrays them, this helps avoid confusion and prevents adverse reactions when the character is mistreated.
- God-like
- Sending deadly pitches, dodging any attack. It's worse if this character is from a unknown species, or from an unknown planet to justify such godly powers.
- Too "Perfect"
- A character that has none or very few flaws, see Mary Sue. These types of characters tend to be boring, even for those who portray them.
- Serial killer
- Assaulting other player characters without a reason they have a control on.
- Unable to communicate
- A character unable to communicate or interact with others in the long run, whatever the reason.