Dear Group Leaders:

My name is Stacey Lucht and I am currently the President of the IntraGalactic League of Sims. What we are is an organization of simming groups that come to together in peaceful collaboration on the exchange of simming ideas and marketing. Some of the groups that currently hold membership are Charmed, Star Trek, Star Wars, ect. We are an organization that prides itself on establishing diversity so all forms of role playing groups are welcome. If are organization is something that your group seems to be interested in please visit us at our website. www.leagueofsims.cjb.net

Well, I can tell you one flaw of your site.

5 pages in and I still have no clue what you mean by "Simming"

Is this a fancy word for roleplaying or Larping?

Does this refer to the Sims video game?

Is it a form of hard core chat room role playing?

What exactly do your members do?

Valamir wrote: Well, I can tell you one flaw of your site.

5 pages in and I still have no clue what you mean by "Simming"

Is this a fancy word for roleplaying or Larping?

Does this refer to the Sims video game?

Is it a form of hard core chat room role playing?

What exactly do your members do?

From my experience of the word, "Simming" specifically refers to online roleplaying/storytelling/etc in an established universe (as mentioned in the first post, they're simming Charmed, Star Trek, etc.) and sometimes (though not always) including established characters as well.

Lxndr wrote: From my experience of the word, "Simming" specifically refers to online roleplaying/storytelling/etc in an established universe (as mentioned in the first post, they're simming Charmed, Star Trek, etc.) and sometimes (though not always) including established characters as well.

So...interactive fanfic?

You know, what really worries me is that these folks might outnumber us. :-)

Consider, guys, that we don't have a "what is roleplaying?" FAQ here. We assume that those landing on the site will know what they're talking about. I'm sure their site is no different - made for expert users.


Stacy, welcome to our planet.

How familiar are you with what we do here? I'm really interested in hearing what you know about us. Have you ever played any (tabletop) RPGs? Know people who do?

We have to have somebody here who has some idea of what Stacy's movement is all about. Anyone?

I think that we're going to have to establish a common language for people from other play traditions like this. Note how she says, "all roleplaying". To them I'm guessing that we definitely have to preface the term Roleplaying Game with Tabletop to be clear that we're not about CRPGs or LARPS or something.

(You'll note, Stacy, that we hold the potentially elitist idea that TRPGS represent the advent of all RPG play.)

Hmmm. Should there be a InterCosmos Role-Playing Council that brings together all these disparate forms? :-)

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Consider, guys, that we don't have a "what is roleplaying?" FAQ here. We assume that those landing on the site will know what they're talking about. I'm sure their site is no different - made for expert users.

Basically what the IntraGalactic League of Sims is: We have observer and full members. Some of the benefits of having membership within the league is receiving assistance with web-design from the Web Assistance Bureau, A chance to join different gaming simulations with our Open LAVA (League Administered Volunteer Activities) and a chance to get involved in the inner workings of the League government.

As far as the government goes...it is a two branch system at this point. We have the Legislative and Judicial. The Legislature is the Senate, which is lead by the Senate President, who is often refered to as the League President. He/She is elected to six month terms every March 19 and September 19. I'm working on my second election at the moment.
The Judicial area is the Supreme Court, which is staffed by a number of Court Justices, led by a Chief Justice. Currently there are a total of three including the Chief Justice.

To clarify, when I say that the league accepts all Roleplaying as potential members, I mean those groups that meet online, play online and communicate online. The requirements for a club to become a full member is that the club has to have at least 30 members and they have been an active group for at least 6 months and successfully pass a senate vote. Or if the club has been in existance for 1 year, they must have 20 members. If clubs don't fall under either two, they may join as an observer club.

However, there is a bill in the senate to reduce member requirements to: Clubs must have 15 members and been active for 9 months and pass a senate vote. Or have been active for 16 months and have 5 active members.

If anyone has questions please let me know.

I'm having trouble getting a handle on this. It is an online community where online communities can chat. And you have a senate to pass bills. I think I am missing the point here, please feel free to point it out to me!

Alright...The IntraGalactic League of Sims is an Online Community for it's members to get together and hang out, exchange roleplaying ideas, voice their concerns and participate community activities.

Communities don't participate inside the community. people of member groups participate.

It sounds like Indie Netgaming would certainly qualify for membership...

Stacey, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the ILS is performing a similar service to the Forge - encouraging, promoting, and assisting in a roleplaying-related activity. In your case, it's online play. In the Forge's case, it's publishing creator-owned tabletop RPG games.

Cool.

Stacy, again so we're clear, the sorts of games that we create and discuss here are mostly for "face to face" use. The Forge, isn't used to organize play at all - well, as a side effect of talking here play happens, but it's not the objective of the site. As Ethan points out, we're about creating and publishing games here.

Now, that doesn't mean that the games we create can't be used online; in fact this happens a lot. See my sig for a link to Indie Netgaming which Ethan mentions. There we play a lot of the games that are designed here online. But even when we play them online, the individual groups are small - 6 people is considered a large group, and some people (like myself), prefer no more than 4 in a game. So, even Indie Netgaming (see link in my sig) might not qualify in that reagard. Moreover, games tend to come and go a lot. That is, you don't set up a game and expect it to run in perpetuity, at some point these game have an end of some sort (the players "win", or there's an end to their story, or the characters end up dead, etc, etc.)

Have you been to www.rpg.net. If you've not been, beware that it's a sorta dangerous place in that it's a titanic community, extrememly active (nearing 100,000 threads with nearly 2 million posts), and has folks there who would as soon spit on someone with a different play style as talk to them. OTOH, it's the center of all tabletop activity in many ways. Again, that said however, no play occurs on that site (that I'm aware of, but who knows about Tangency). The site is about discussing play, and play doesn't occur in the fora there. And, again, what play is organized and discussed there isn't of the "multiplayer" sort that you describe, but small groups like I've described.

This is all to say that I'm not sure if anyone here meets your criteria for membership or not. We certainly have enough members (2000+) - the question is do they have to be involved in a single game? If not, does the whole site get one senator, or one from each of the maybe hundreds of games associated with this site, or the thousands associated with RPG.net? Seems unlikely. So how would our participation occur?

Forgive me if I'm telling you things that you know, I'm just trying to get a scope of your experience outside simming, so that we have a framwork for discussion. Do you know what D&D is? :-)

Mike

This conversation is intriguing in a strange way, like two ships passing each other in the dark... I went to their website, but the entire site seems to be in some in-character code or something. If the point is awakening my curiousity, I'd say it's wildly successful. I just fear that no real communication has happened yet.

So, Stacy dear, please, answer Mike's questions. And do it out of character if you please, this talk about senators and simming is confusing me :)

And while you're at it, do tell us more about simming. How you do it, what are some good sims, is there rules, how to learn more? And, even more interestingly, tell us about the demographics: What kind of people, in what countries, do it? Evidently we have here the rare kind of beast which uses web routinely but doesn't know what tabletop roleplaying is, doesn't seem to have the slightest hint about it. What other hobbies people in simming usually have, what do you chat about when not simming? Who are your idols, what kind of insider stories are told, what is the history of simming? Where does it originate? I have a feeling that we might be witnessing an indigenous form of roleplaying not having anything to do with Gary Gygax, if their president doesn't know about what it is we do.

Strange thing is, I've been marginally aware about there being a scene like this, I just haven't thought to contrast and compare to learn about the social implications of roleplaying. This might be, now that I think of it, a great way to prove/disprove Ron's theory about primacy of GN to S, for example, assuming there's no cultural connection to tabletop play like there is in virtually all other variant forms. Study of local tribes, as it were.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: This conversation is intriguing in a strange way, like two ships passing each other in the dark... I went to their website, but the entire site seems to be in some in-character code or something. If the point is awakening my curiousity, I'd say it's wildly successful. I just fear that no real communication has happened yet.

So, Stacy dear, please, answer Mike's questions. And do it out of character if you please, this talk about senators and simming is confusing me :)

And while you're at it, do tell us more about simming. How you do it, what are some good sims, is there rules, how to learn more? And, even more interestingly, tell us about the demographics: What kind of people, in what countries, do it? Evidently we have here the rare kind of beast which uses web routinely but doesn't know what tabletop roleplaying is, doesn't seem to have the slightest hint about it. What other hobbies people in simming usually have, what do you chat about when not simming? Who are your idols, what kind of insider stories are told, what is the history of simming? Where does it originate? I have a feeling that we might be witnessing an indigenous form of roleplaying not having anything to do with Gary Gygax, if their president doesn't know about what it is we do.

Strange thing is, I've been marginally aware about there being a scene like this, I just haven't thought to contrast and compare to learn about the social implications of roleplaying. This might be, now that I think of it, a great way to prove/disprove Ron's theory about primacy of GN to S, for example, assuming there's no cultural connection to tabletop play like there is in virtually all other variant forms. Study of local tribes, as it were.

Stacey,

What is your goal here?

It seems that people keep hitting you up for information and you choose not to provide it. If you're too busy or something, then OK, but why post at all? If you're being deliberately obfuscatory, why?

At appears that many of us really have no idea what you, as a human being, do when you "sim." I think we get that you're logged into some service on the net -- even if it's as simple as exchanging emails, and that you're pretending something. Beyond that, who knows? What are you pretending? Do you have rules? Who is involved? Do you want us to know? If so, why won't you tell us? If not, why are you here?

You wrote that people "get together and hang out, exchange roleplaying ideas, voice their concerns and participate in community activities." Could you maybe present a few "roleplaying ideas," "concerns" of the nature that simmers might discuss, and the kind of "community activities" that you host?

I think part of the confusion, is that you present kind of a bizarre face with this ultra-formal governmental policy to regulate (or something) a bunch of people getting together to make believe. Presidents and Chief Justices and legislators and what not makes you sound really serious, but I'm not seeing what serious work you're accomplishing. Is there a tremendous about of coordination taking place among these "simmers?"

Chris (who asked twelve questions, not just one)

Now, now. Let's keep this as friendly and understanding as possible. Communication across disciplines can be very tricky. Some frustration is inevitable, but let's assume that all sides are trying their best.

Stacey, most of the questions raised here could be answered quite easily, I believe, if you could point us to any Web links where anyone has posted a log or transcript of a session of simming that you would consider representative of your craft. I looked for a while on your site and on the sites of some of your member groups, and I didn't find one, but if simming sessions are conducted by IRC chat or e-mail then surely such logs must exist.

If you're curious in return, here's a link to a thread here on the forge of a session of a role playing game that's representative of the type of gaming we discuss at the Forge: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9442. The game was played face to face, so there is no verbatim transcript. What's posted in a summary of what happened in the imagined story during the course of play. There were four players, one playing each of the "minons" described, and one playing the role of the Master. Each "scene" was narrated in turn by one or more of the players. The players were following fairly precise rules (which unfortunately are not specified in the account) governing what each scene would be about, and they sometimes used dice to determine how a scene would end or what effect a character's action would have next. Within the framework required by the rules and by the die rolls, the players improvised all the details as they went. The game system is called "My Life with Master" by Paul Czege, and the game session was conducted the same inquisitive gentleman who posted the previous post (I assume he played the Master).

The other main area of curiosity is the nature of the needs that your organization fulfills. I gather that all that about the judges and legislators are your group's equivalent of bylaws. As such, they're not bizarre at all; all membership organizations have them. (The Forge, by the way, is not a memebership organization and has no such bylaws; you can read about how the Forge works in the "Ettiquette at the Forge" sticky thread, fifth from the top in this Site Discussion forum.) But it's a little unusual to have the main pages of your site be all about that, because while bylaws tell how a group makes decisions, resolves disputes, and conducts its business, what most visitors to your site are more likely to want to know is what that business is -- that is, what the group actually does as a group, what services it provides, what privileges its members enjoy, how the members use the group to help each other out. We'd like to know more about that.

Best regards,

Walt

I'd also like to say that as President, with all that governmental structure, perhaps Stacey could delegate someone to answer our questions if she doesn't have time to answer them herself.

xiombarg wrote: I'd also like to say that as President, with all that governmental structure, perhaps Stacey could delegate someone to answer our questions if she doesn't have time to answer them herself.

By prodding a few links, I found Stacey is also from this group, http://www.sfcommand.com/ .

From that site,

Starfleet Command is a Free-Form Star Trek Play-by-(e)Mail Role-Playing Organization, spanning the world. Created in 1987, Starfleet Command is more than just your typical Star Trek fan club. Our goal is to appeal to the Writer, Actor, and/or Gamer within everyone.

I think that we're getting that picture, Hunter, but I think that it's only part of the picture. For example, it seems to me that these games are also "multiplayer" meaning that everyone is somewhat on their own. That is, they don't so much make up stories together (though that's probably allowed) as making up stories in the same Shared Imagined Space. That is, I can narrate a planet blowing up over here, and that's happening in the same universe as the one you're playing in, but it may be that the event in question is irrellevant to the stuff I'm writing. Or it may be critical to what I'm writing, it's just that there's no requirement for interaction (see the recent post on VoiInd play).

Not that it really much matters. Because Stacey's doing outreach to other forms, it seems to me. So it doesn't so much matter what the current groups are, but whether or not our group is a potential member group to hers. Given that The Forge doesn't constitute a playing body involved in one (or officially any) game, I think that perhaps we don't qualify. On the other hand, I could see us assigning a "diplomat" or something in the name of exploring relations with their body.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I think that we're getting that picture, Hunter, but I think that it's only part of the picture. For example, it seems to me that these games are also "multiplayer" meaning that everyone is somewhat on their own. That is, they don't so much make up stories together (though that's probably allowed) as making up stories in the same Shared Imagined Space. That is, I can narrate a planet blowing up over here, and that's happening in the same universe as the one you're playing in, but it may be that the event in question is irrellevant to the stuff I'm writing. Or it may be critical to what I'm writing, it's just that there's no requirement for interaction (see the recent post on VoiInd play).

Not that it really much matters. Because Stacey's doing outreach to other forms, it seems to me. So it doesn't so much matter what the current groups are, but whether or not our group is a potential member group to hers. Given that The Forge doesn't constitute a playing body involved in one (or officially any) game, I think that perhaps we don't qualify. On the other hand, I could see us assigning a "diplomat" or something in the name of exploring relations with their body.

Mike

Stacey,

I skimmed the website a bit, and I'm still confused about one thing in particular. The site seems to be largely a forum for discussion, presumably of different "sim" groups discussing their games, trolling for players, etc.

So what are the benefits of joining? I mean, you suggest that the Forge, or various groups with members here, might want to apply. Why? What do we gain by doing so? You mention that observers do not get the power to vote on things. Such as? I mean, what do you actually do on this board?

Furthermore, insofar as it appears to be a discussion forum, what makes it different and special? By definition, everyone here is already a member of an online RPG discussion forum. What will we gain by joining another?

Please understand, I'm not saying that your group doesn't have value. I just don't yet see clearly what its particular role is.

Chris Lehrich

Hey, Stacey mentioned she would try to answer all our already posted questions on Monday, or shortly thereafter. Let's all shut-up and wait politely for that information. If we have any questions or commentary after that, let's post it then, as her forthcoming answers may illuminate your questions.

Otherwise, we're all kind of stumbling around in the dark asking "Where's the lightswitch?" hearing the answer "Just a second, I'll turn it on." and then asking again "Where's the lightswitch?" Give the lady some time to breathe, gentlemen.

Christopher Weeks wrote: Stacey,

What is your goal here?

It seems that people keep hitting you up for information and you choose not to provide it. If you're too busy or something, then OK, but why post at all? If you're being deliberately obfuscatory, why?

At appears that many of us really have no idea what you, as a human being, do when you "sim." I think we get that you're logged into some service on the net -- even if it's as simple as exchanging emails, and that you're pretending something. Beyond that, who knows? What are you pretending? Do you have rules? Who is involved? Do you want us to know? If so, why won't you tell us? If not, why are you here?

You wrote that people "get together and hang out, exchange roleplaying ideas, voice their concerns and participate in community activities." Could you maybe present a few "roleplaying ideas," "concerns" of the nature that simmers might discuss, and the kind of "community activities" that you host?

I think part of the confusion, is that you present kind of a bizarre face with this ultra-formal governmental policy to regulate (or something) a bunch of people getting together to make believe. Presidents and Chief Justices and legislators and what not makes you sound really serious, but I'm not seeing what serious work you're accomplishing. Is there a tremendous about of coordination taking place among these "simmers?"

Chris (who asked twelve questions, not just one)

Walt Freitag wrote: Now, now. Let's keep this as friendly and understanding as possible. Communication across disciplines can be very tricky. Some frustration is inevitable, but let's assume that all sides are trying their best.

Stacey, most of the questions raised here could be answered quite easily, I believe, if you could point us to any Web links where anyone has posted a log or transcript of a session of simming that you would consider representative of your craft. I looked for a while on your site and on the sites of some of your member groups, and I didn't find one, but if simming sessions are conducted by IRC chat or e-mail then surely such logs must exist.

If you're curious in return, here's a link to a thread here on the forge of a session of a role playing game that's representative of the type of gaming we discuss at the Forge: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9442. The game was played face to face, so there is no verbatim transcript. What's posted in a summary of what happened in the imagined story during the course of play. There were four players, one playing each of the "minons" described, and one playing the role of the Master. Each "scene" was narrated in turn by one or more of the players. The players were following fairly precise rules (which unfortunately are not specified in the account) governing what each scene would be about, and they sometimes used dice to determine how a scene would end or what effect a character's action would have next. Within the framework required by the rules and by the die rolls, the players improvised all the details as they went. The game system is called "My Life with Master" by Paul Czege, and the game session was conducted the same inquisitive gentleman who posted the previous post (I assume he played the Master).

The other main area of curiosity is the nature of the needs that your organization fulfills. I gather that all that about the judges and legislators are your group's equivalent of bylaws. As such, they're not bizarre at all; all membership organizations have them. (The Forge, by the way, is not a memebership organization and has no such bylaws; you can read about how the Forge works in the "Ettiquette at the Forge" sticky thread, fifth from the top in this Site Discussion forum.) But it's a little unusual to have the main pages of your site be all about that, because while bylaws tell how a group makes decisions, resolves disputes, and conducts its business, what most visitors to your site are more likely to want to know is what that business is -- that is, what the group actually does as a group, what services it provides, what privileges its members enjoy, how the members use the group to help each other out. We'd like to know more about that.

Best regards,

Walt

xiombarg wrote: I'd also like to say that as President, with all that governmental structure, perhaps Stacey could delegate someone to answer our questions if she doesn't have time to answer them herself.

Hunter Logan wrote: By prodding a few links, I found Stacey is also from this group, http://www.sfcommand.com/ .

From that site,

Starfleet Command Website wrote: Starfleet Command is a Free-Form Star Trek Play-by-(e)Mail Role-Playing Organization, spanning the world. Created in 1987, Starfleet Command is more than just your typical Star Trek fan club. Our goal is to appeal to the Writer, Actor, and/or Gamer within everyone.

These simmers are freeform roleplayers in pbem games.

This Intergalactic League is some sort of voluntary government for a group of clubs like SFC.

Does that help?

edit: Softer is better.

Mike Holmes wrote: I think that we're getting that picture, Hunter, but I think that it's only part of the picture. For example, it seems to me that these games are also "multiplayer" meaning that everyone is somewhat on their own. That is, they don't so much make up stories together (though that's probably allowed) as making up stories in the same Shared Imagined Space. That is, I can narrate a planet blowing up over here, and that's happening in the same universe as the one you're playing in, but it may be that the event in question is irrellevant to the stuff I'm writing. Or it may be critical to what I'm writing, it's just that there's no requirement for interaction (see the recent post on VoiInd play).

Not that it really much matters. Because Stacey's doing outreach to other forms, it seems to me. So it doesn't so much matter what the current groups are, but whether or not our group is a potential member group to hers. Given that The Forge doesn't constitute a playing body involved in one (or officially any) game, I think that perhaps we don't qualify. On the other hand, I could see us assigning a "diplomat" or something in the name of exploring relations with their body.

Mike
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clehrich wrote: Stacey,

I skimmed the website a bit, and I'm still confused about one thing in particular. The site seems to be largely a forum for discussion, presumably of different "sim" groups discussing their games, trolling for players, etc.

So what are the benefits of joining? I mean, you suggest that the Forge, or various groups with members here, might want to apply. Why? What do we gain by doing so? You mention that observers do not get the power to vote on things. Such as? I mean, what do you actually do on this board?

Furthermore, insofar as it appears to be a discussion forum, what makes it different and special? By definition, everyone here is already a member of an online RPG discussion forum. What will we gain by joining another?

Please understand, I'm not saying that your group doesn't have value. I just don't yet see clearly what its particular role is.

Chris Lehrich

greyorm wrote: Hey, Stacey mentioned she would try to answer all our already posted questions on Monday, or shortly thereafter. Let's all shut-up and wait politely for that information. If we have any questions or commentary after that, let's post it then, as her forthcoming answers may illuminate your questions.

Otherwise, we're all kind of stumbling around in the dark asking "Where's the lightswitch?" hearing the answer "Just a second, I'll turn it on." and then asking again "Where's the lightswitch?" Give the lady some time to breathe, gentlemen.

Following Stacey's link, here's a further link to a concrete example of play-in-progress:

http://togrc.com/forums/showthread.php?ID=charmedone&t=97725

Coming to this without knowing anything about "Charmed" (a TV show, from the info on the site), a "GM" (not called such necessarily) sets a scene, that appears to link to prior events - it isn't clear if those events are in the show or in a prior game. The players post up their actions onto the BBS, acting and reacting to each other.

It looks to me, at first blush, as if this is certainly what the Forge would call an RPG, and the players are Exploring Setting.


Stacey: I think there are two levels of confusion that people are asking you about.

First is, "What are your games like?" You've provided a good answer to that in the above link, I think.

The second is, "What does your League do?" You haven't really explained that; let me try to explain why I, at least, am not grasping your explanation.

Suppose I came up to you with an automatic can opener, and explained all the neato cool workings of it - but you'd never seen a can before, and I assumed that cans were so obvious I had no need to explain their existence.

Essentially, the same is happening. I'm not grasping what problem your Senate and Judges and so on are intended to solve. In terms of the above example, I've never seen a can, so I can only nod in bemusement while you explain how gearbox of the can-opener works. Tell me about the can. :)

Thinking this over, part of my confusion stems from thinking that "facilitating discussion of our games" by setting up what sounds like a major administrative structure seems like opening an egg by hitting it with a jackhammer. Facilitating discussion is a perfectly reasonable goal, but the methods described seem ill-suited to the task, leading me to suspect I don't really understand the goal.

James, I think I get it. Let my do a hypothetical, and Stacey can correct me where I'll inevitably be wrong.

Let's say that I'm the senator from one Star Trek game that plays in the classic Trek era, and there's another that plays in the post DS9 era. Now, with time travel, we can theorize about players hopping from one game to the next, and decide we want to do it. But in one of the games they play GM-less, and in another they have a GM who sets scenes. The senate could be used as a forum to decide what way to go in terms of how "inter-game players" would be allowed to handle play. Would the players from the GM-less game be allowed to do their own scene framing, or not?

The game in question would pass the matter to the senate who would debate and vote on it.

Now, that's probably a terrible example, but does it give an idea of a sort of issue that their Senate might be able to address? Also, looking at the overall membership of three groups right now, they're new, and probably don't really have all that much of an idea themselves about what uses the group could be put to. That is, I'm guessing that they're hoping to develop synergies that they don't forsee yet by the application of the senate.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: James, I think I get it. Let my do a hypothetical, and Stacey can correct me where I'll inevitably be wrong.

Let's say that I'm the senator from one Star Trek game that plays in the classic Trek era, and there's another that plays in the post DS9 era. Now, with time travel, we can theorize about players hopping from one game to the next, and decide we want to do it. But in one of the games they play GM-less, and in another they have a GM who sets scenes. The senate could be used as a forum to decide what way to go in terms of how "inter-game players" would be allowed to handle play. Would the players from the GM-less game be allowed to do their own scene framing, or not?

The game in question would pass the matter to the senate who would debate and vote on it.

Now, that's probably a terrible example, but does it give an idea of a sort of issue that their Senate might be able to address? Also, looking at the overall membership of three groups right now, they're new, and probably don't really have all that much of an idea themselves about what uses the group could be put to. That is, I'm guessing that they're hoping to develop synergies that they don't forsee yet by the application of the senate.

Mike

Stacey Lucht wrote: To clarify, the senate is for senators to vote on league issues like new members, ratifying the constitution, expelling members, suspending members. The duties of the senate and what they can and can't do are listed on the constitution - www.leagueofsims.cjb.net

clehrich wrote:

Stacey Lucht wrote: To clarify, the senate is for senators to vote on league issues like new members, ratifying the constitution, expelling members, suspending members. The duties of the senate and what they can and can't do are listed on the constitution - www.leagueofsims.cjb.net

Okay, let me ask this sidelong. Hypothetically, suppose I run a gaming club, and we decide to join the League and so forth. Now we do something really terrible, and we have to be expelled or suspended, which will clearly call for the Senate.

What, for example, might I and my group have done? Is it simply using totally inappropriate language on a League board (hate speech, etc.)? Or is there more to it than that?

Like James, I'm just not getting why I want to sign on to an additional government. I mean, the Forge is pretty tightly moderated, by most online standards, and we all have to kiss our golden ikons of Ron daily <g>, but I sure don't see the need for more government than that. Whatever for?

Chris Lehrich

P.S. I should note that the constitution at that link is exceedingly nonspecific.

Stacey, you still don't seem to grasp the extent of our ignorance about the stuff you do. Explain it like you would explain it to a twelve year old, that is: don't quote the official documents at us, or use diplomatic speech. Use plain English. And provide examples, lots of.
Thanks. And now, could you please explain what "crimes against simming" are and what – in your particular context – is considered a "war crime".
If you can find the time, I'd also like to ask you to answer Chris' question concerning the purpose of your League again. Preferably by saying stuff like "We organise X. We're taking action against Y, when condition Z occurs.". It might be helpful, if you could remember – or find out – why the League was originally formed, what specific concerns it was created to address.
Again, thanks for your patience.

edit: Aaargh, forget that, Stacey's answered that already:

As far as what services we provide, it's simple enough. To members of the league we offer: Free Web Hosting, Assistance in Web Design from the Web Development Bureau, Assistance with organization for their club, Opportunities to get involved with the political government of the league, bi-annual presidential elections every March 19 and September 19 and of course the Simming Academy to train newbi simmers in the ways of simming (Once approved by the Senate).

Folks, this is really simple. Those are the League's bylaws. Every club has them. They're just like the bylaws of your local historical society or bird watchers club. Think of them as the outside-the-game portion of the social contract, in legalese. They govern how the organization runs, such as what the membership requirements are, who gets voting rights, what disciplinary measures (such as loss of voting rights or revocation of memberships) can be imposed and how, the time and location of meetings and their format, and so forth. Usually they have very little directly to do with the actual purpose of the organization. For instance, the bylaws of a bird watcher's club will probably say little or nothing about how bird watching activities will be conducted. Corporate bylaws (all corporations have them) usually say little or nothing about what the corporation will actually sell, or how it will do so. What bylaws do say is how the organization will appoint, elect, or otherwise designate the people who decide such things.

The only unusual thing about the League's bylaws is that they make such a big deal out of them, posting them prominently on the main pages of the Web site. It's kind of like the bird watchers club handing out flyers to prospective members that, instead of describing how cool bird watching is or how the club can make your bird watching better, it's telling you how the balloting is carried out when the club secretary is elected and how to file a complaint with its grievance committee. Because the League is new, its own bylaws are much on its mind. This happens sometimes. It will pass.

I don't see additional government being an issue. The League's rules cannot have any influence on the Forge or its individual contributors except to affect their participation in the League itself. For instance, if the League decided to ban naughty words on all member organization's public Web sites, and the Forge owners don't want to comply with that, the most that could happen is that the League could revoke the Forge's membership. Only if the membership carried value that the Forge couldn't afford to do without, which is clearly not the case here, would that threat carry any clout.

- Walt

Walt Freitag wrote: Folks, this is really simple. Those are the League's bylaws. Every club has them. They're just like the bylaws of your local historical society or bird watchers club. Think of them as the outside-the-game portion of the social contract, in legalese. They govern how the organization runs, such as what the membership requirements are, who gets voting rights, what disciplinary measures (such as loss of voting rights or revocation of memberships) can be imposed and how, the time and location of meetings and their format, and so forth. Usually they have very little directly to do with the actual purpose of the organization. For instance, the bylaws of a bird watcher's club will probably say little or nothing about how bird watching activities will be conducted. Corporate bylaws (all corporations have them) usually say little or nothing about what the corporation will actually sell, or how it will do so. What bylaws do say is how the organization will appoint, elect, or otherwise designate the people who decide such things.

The only unusual thing about the League's bylaws is that they make such a big deal out of them, posting them prominently on the main pages of the Web site. It's kind of like the bird watchers club handing out flyers to prospective members that, instead of describing how cool bird watching is or how the club can make your bird watching better, it's telling you how the balloting is carried out when the club secretary is elected and how to file a complaint with its grievance committee. Because the League is new, its own bylaws are much on its mind. This happens sometimes. It will pass.

I don't see additional government being an issue. The League's rules cannot have any influence on the Forge or its individual contributors except to affect their participation in the League itself. For instance, if the League decided to ban naughty words on all member organization's public Web sites, and the Forge owners don't want to comply with that, the most that could happen is that the League could revoke the Forge's membership. Only if the membership carried value that the Forge couldn't afford to do without, which is clearly not the case here, would that threat carry any clout.

- Walt

Stacey Lucht wrote: My only question is that will the Forge be considering joining the League.

M. J. Young wrote:

Stacey Lucht wrote: My only question is that will the Forge be considering joining the League.

Well, we have taken up a great deal of Stacy's time, and caused her great frustration in our efforts to understand what this was all about. Thank you so much, Stacy, for your efforts to clarify what you're doing.

Now for the really awkward apology.

No one who has posted to this thread has any power to make that decision. Quite a few of us are pillars of the community here--but The Forge quite specifically is the property of Ron Edwards and Clinton Nixon. It is actually entirely up to them to decide whether they want to participate in this umbrella organization.

I could guess the answer, but my guess is not going to be helpful.

Thank you for explaining so patiently what you're all about, as well as you were able. Please except our apology that we aren't able to give you an answer. It may be that Ron and Clinton are already discussing this somewhere behind the scenes and will let you know what they think. I trust you can be patient at least a little longer as they consider the matter.

--M. J. Young

Hello,

Stacey, I appreciate the time you've spent clarifying things for us.

Since the Forge is not an organization or even an association - it's just a website, period - it can't "join" anything.

On the other hand, if someone who could join your organization learned about it at the Forge, that would be a fine thing.

Best,
Ron

[Edited to note that I cross posted with Ron]

Stacey,

I just spent some time prowling around your fora for the league. I'm tempted to criticize your format, but I realize that my problems with it are probably not fair, and come largely from a lack of understanding of the form. But the handling of character vs player issues is different from what we're used to here, to say the least. It made reading the fora very difficult.

My point is that I think that we still have a long way to go in understanding each other's forms. We're doing a lot here to try to get a feel for your form, and failing largely due to the fact that you really won't discuss it. Worse, you've made no attempt to discover what it is that we do here. Either you know how we play and haven't let us know that, or you don't know, and don't care.

All of which tempts me to think that you're behaving in a manner that seems typical of your form from the posts that I've read. Which is that you're here "recriuiting" for your games - looking to expand your community at the expense of ours. Now, perhaps I've gotten the wrong idea, and correct me where I'm wrong. But if you're trying to be inclusive of other forms, then you need to indicate just what you know about them, or need to know to incorporate our form into your discussions.

Because if we sent somebody over there today, I can garuntee that they wouldn't know where to start discussing things. It's like you're all speaking Greek. Until you deal with that, I'm guessing that enthusiasm for the idea of us sending a Senator will be slim and none.

I have a funny feeling that the above is somehow Greek to you, because I keep asking questions, and you keep ignoring them. Are you having trouble understanding our posts? Or are you just too busy to respond thoroughly?

Mike

OK, it's time.

Mike, I hope you'll forgive me in essentially blotting out your most recent post. All the information is available on both sites; both sites are the way that their creators want them to be; everyone needs to think and wait ... just to see what useful cross-fertilizations appear, if any.

Debating about it becomes debating about debating about it, and that becomes re-stating and re-clarifying and re-defending the debate about the debate about the debate ...

C'mon, let's all take a breather.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,

Stacey, I appreciate the time you've spent clarifying things for us.

Since the Forge is not an organization or even an association - it's just a website, period - it can't "join" anything.

On the other hand, if someone who could join your organization learned about it at the Forge, that would be a fine thing.

Best,
Ron

Mike Holmes wrote: [Edited to note that I cross posted with Ron]

Stacey,

I just spent some time prowling around your fora for the league. I'm tempted to criticize your format, but I realize that my problems with it are probably not fair, and come largely from a lack of understanding of the form. But the handling of character vs player issues is different from what we're used to here, to say the least. It made reading the fora very difficult.

My point is that I think that we still have a long way to go in understanding each other's forms. We're doing a lot here to try to get a feel for your form, and failing largely due to the fact that you really won't discuss it. Worse, you've made no attempt to discover what it is that we do here. Either you know how we play and haven't let us know that, or you don't know, and don't care.

All of which tempts me to think that you're behaving in a manner that seems typical of your form from the posts that I've read. Which is that you're here "recriuiting" for your games - looking to expand your community at the expense of ours. Now, perhaps I've gotten the wrong idea, and correct me where I'm wrong. But if you're trying to be inclusive of other forms, then you need to indicate just what you know about them, or need to know to incorporate our form into your discussions.

Because if we sent somebody over there today, I can garuntee that they wouldn't know where to start discussing things. It's like you're all speaking Greek. Until you deal with that, I'm guessing that enthusiasm for the idea of us sending a Senator will be slim and none.

I have a funny feeling that the above is somehow Greek to you, because I keep asking questions, and you keep ignoring them. Are you having trouble understanding our posts? Or are you just too busy to respond thoroughly?

Mike

I hearby nominate Mike Holmes to be our ambasador.

Mark Johnson wrote: I hearby nominate Mike Holmes to be our ambasador.

Mark Johnson wrote: I hearby nominate Mike Holmes to be our ambasador.

A website can't join, but similarly a website can't refuse to join either.

I set up a thread at the InterGalactic League of Sims about "What is Simming?" I hope to get some answers either here or there.

Regards,
Mark

This simming link is very informative. If you read enough of the links it becomes very clear why organizations like the Intragalactic League of Sims developed. The history is quite fascinating and seems to have its roots in play by mail fandom. Perhaps we should start a thread on Simming on RPG Theory as the convergence of role playing styles and independent innovations is quite fascinating.

Stacey Lucht wrote:

Mark Johnson wrote: I hearby nominate Mike Holmes to be our ambasador.

Forgive me for stating the obvious...but I'm a little confused.

Mark Johnson wrote: A website can't join, but similarly a website can't refuse to join either.

I set up a thread at the IntraGalactic League of Sims about "What is Simming?" I hope to get some answers either here or there.

Regards,
Mark

Greyorm,

Although there are various media sims, most of simming seems to have arisen through Star Trek due to the confluence of cheap consumer bulleting board access with Prodigy starting in the late 1980s and Star Trek: The Next Generations place in the zeitgeist at that time. And yes, despite the simming history link which is perplexed by this because of a Prodigy document from 1992 which specifically banned role playing, I do recall seeing people engaging in Star Trek freeform roleplaying on Prodigy circa 1989-90 (and it was very popular and like anything on Prodigy that was popular at that time it was promptly banned because of the cost of providing unlimited access at that time)

In my opinion, most of modern day simming (there was a mention of Star Trek play by mail fanzines from the '70s who did something similar) probably arose by Star Trek fans who signed off their Prodigy posts (circa 1989-90) with appropriate naval titles before their names: "Corporal Mark" and "Captain Mike" This led to bits of free-form role-playing as various cliques formed each taking a "ship". This led to an immediate problem of social contract: any newbie could come in and claim to be "Admiral Steve" in a grab for instant protaganism. Because of this clubs were formed to regulate who could have what titles. Now Bob Newbie couldn't come in a claim to be Captain, the title had to be earned by long time participation on the bulletin boards.

As the 90's progressed, the rise of AOL created two new wrinkles in simming: the chat room and the general public. Because AOL at the time required you to pay for each additional hour over a certain amount (5 - 20 hours a month) most people dedicated themself to one sim only which were evidently fairly high quality. However, when AOL went to unlimited billing in 96 it created an explosion in simming and competition was fostered between clubs for members. As the Star Trek franchise has faded in recent years, this has created even further competition between clubs for a limited number of players which has led to the need for judicial bodies to resolve disputes between clubs (however there are now competing judicial bodies of which Stacey's league is just one).

It looks to me like, although in theory simming is a simulationist activity, there are some very competitive elements: who has the best rank, who is on the best ships, which ships have the most active players, which club has the most members, which club recruits the most members. I am not sure I would classify this as gamist though since the competition is not often expressed in play (except rank).

I got the following reply from Seth Curry on Stacey's site regarding simming where he answers some basic questions:

Semator Seth Curry wrote:

Mark Johnson wrote: "What is Simming?"

Simming in question is a synonym (sp.) for role playing. There are plenty of resources out there that define simming. Some of which are:

Center of Simming Research
IntraGalactic League of Sims

Since the majority of the groups that are league members are Star Trek groups, I'll use them as an example. In your basic star trek sim, (which is short for simulation.) the simmer (which is the person participating in the game) chooses and creates a character based on the Television series of Star Trek, the genre depending on the Captain or senior most officer in the simulation. You (the player) creates the background story for the character and then during the sims and the log writing, the character get's developed.

A simulation varies in style, all depending on how the Commanding Officer has the sim setup to their liking. A sim uses either Email, Chat or Message Boards. The majority of simming nowadays is being done in chatrooms and email, very little do you see message boards. As far as chatrooms go, most simming groups use the AOL/AIM style chat rooms for simming. For a chat based sim, it is one hour long.

Mark Johnson wrote: " Is this a fancy word for (tabletop) roleplaying or Larping?"

I have never heard of larping...would appreciate your incite regarding that... But, simming has nothing to do with "tabletop" roleplaying. Althought the league does not prohibit "tabletop" groups to join, there has never been one that applied. Like I mentioned above, simming is a synonym for online roleplaying.

Mark Johnson wrote: "Does this refer to the Sims video game?"

Simming refers to emulating television shows in the form of online role playing. So, no it does not include the Sims video game.

Mark Johnson wrote: "Is it a form of hard core chat room role playing?"

What do you mean by hardcore chat room role playing. Sim groups use either chat rooms, email or message boards. Again it all depends on what the leadership for each group decides to use.

Mark Johnson wrote: "What exactly do your members do?"

This is kind of a broad question, but I'll try to answer it the best I can. I've been in this league since it's inception. My group was one of the founding member clubs. Except for the past 4-8 months, we've been active in the league since the beginning and even when we we're just observers...we still we're very active.

Members of the league can choose to help with organizing league sponsored events like the annual Tournament of Sims or staffing a bureau like the Web development Bureau or the Bureau of Records or Elections. Members as far as representives for member clubs have a duty to report to the league regarding the events of their club or organization and vice versa. They also vote and debate on current bills in the senate.

Mark Johnson wrote: "How you do it, what are some good sims, is there rules, how to learn more? And, even more interestingly, tell us about the demographics: What kind of people, in what countries, do it? Evidently we have here the rare kind of beast which uses web routinely but doesn't know what tabletop roleplaying is, doesn't seem to have the slightest hint about it. What other hobbies people in simming usually have, what do you chat about when not simming? Who are your idols, what kind of insider stories are told, what is the history of simming? Where does it originate? I have a feeling that we might be witnessing an indigenous form of roleplaying not having anything to do with Gary Gygax, if their president doesn't know about what it is we do."

I could go and describe and explain everything about how simming is done, but that would be a futile effort due to that fact that every group is done differently...it all depends on the leadership of each club and how they like to run their group...the league does not intervene in the internal affairs of others...which would violate the member clubs rights.

Again...this is a league that reaches out to online role playing...not "tabletop"

When we're not simming...we'll we don't sim on the league's boards and you pretty much have a good idea what goes on here just from looking at the 300+ posts that are here. Topics on these boards can range anyway from the Community section of the club representative reporting on their club's activity to the Senate, where the senators are voting and debating and the Court where an accused is being placed on trial.

The history of simming and the history of the league is available on the league's website under Resources.

In Feb. 2001 the group, the United Federation of Planets and Imperial Planetary Confederation became a member of the Simming League. It was then that the reasons of strive and war between groups was becomming noticeable by the members of the simming league. Becoming completely discontent with the services that the Simming League offered, the UFP and IPC left the simming league in October and was joined with the Galactic Empire group.

The league originated after representitives from the Galactic Empire, Imperial Planetary Confederation and United Federation of Planets met and sought solutions to the ever-growing problems in the simming league and that was when it was decided to form a new league without corruption.

Mark Johnson wrote: "You wrote that people "get together and hang out, exchange roleplaying ideas, voice their concerns and participate in community activities." Could you maybe present a few "roleplaying ideas," "concerns" of the nature that simmers might discuss, and the kind of "community activities" that you host?"

Roleplaying ideas...one could be a group submitting their group's constitution to the league for any group to use as their own. Another could be a senate proposing the creation of a simming academy in the members area for consideration before sending to the senate.

As far as concerns...it could be if someone if causing trouble in a league group...the group's leader is informing the league of the troublemaker to warn all other groups.

Community Activities....once a year we plan and sponsor the Tournament of Sims and twice a year we sponsor an Open sim in addition to the Simming Academy and the countless department of the league.

Mark Johnson wrote: s this a rival organization. Why the split?

We do not consider the simming league to be a rival organization. We view the simming league to be completely corrupt, which was why my group left them.

The re-election for league President isn't the sole reason that I initiated such a mass-recruiting drive. My goals for president which I announced when I won the prior election last September, we're to expand the league's community and membership base. I just simply haven't gotten around to doing it until now.

There are 3 really interesting points I take out of this Mark

1) very much what I had in mind when I referred to it as a hard core chat room RPG. When I first joing AOL way back in the day, the chat rooms were new and novel and I spent some time looking around (eventually fleeing in fear from the vast time sucking sound that could be heard from them). Alot of these chat groups were engaging in free forming. Rooms like the Red Dragon Inn (which I noted just now is still around) were full of free form play. Don't know what it looks like now, but back then it was very unstructured...it was more of a chat room blog done in character where the characters were a pastiche of what seemed like D&D characters all meeting up in the ubiquitous tavern. Basically humans chatting with each other using lots of thees and thous and and bragging about how many dragons they just slew. Lots of cult of personality pecking order establishment and lots of really pathetic attempts to flirt with any screen name who looked and acted female.

This simming sounds like a much more structured, taken seriously, not putting up with petty social crap, form of that which is why I referred to it as hard core.


2) There seems to be alot more structure and rules applied to how groups interact with other groups and how the people of the groups interact with each other than there are actual rules for how the characters in the sim interact with each other. I get the feeling that the rules are primarily of the nature "whatever the commanding officer says goes and if you don't like it you find another group or start your own" variety. Perhaps this is a misinterpretation based on the fact that this thread focused on the inter group stuff rather than the intra group stuff.

But I'm really curious to know what a typical rules set for regulating who gets to say what and when looks like. Is there one, or is it all personality driven? I also wonder if there's been an attempt to unify the rules sets the way Minds Eye tries to write rules sets for Larping, which some groups adapt and some groups keep using their own rules.


3) I'm really surprised by how little overlap there appears to be between people engaged in what is basically a form of roleplaying. Seth Curry's unfamiliarity with the existance of LARPing. Our own unfamiliarity with the existance of Simming, and what seems like only a minimal acknowledgement from the simmers of table top, primarily just to say "this isn't it". Pretty astonishing, when the core act of what we're all doing is so similiar. Makes me wonder how big the industry might be if we weren't all fragmented and isolated.

I for one had figured this form of chat room roleplaying had largely dwindled after the explosion in MMORPGs, which are essentially for most players nothing more than chat rooms with a 3d graphics engine attached. If you've every played a MMORPG you can go to whereever the "crafter" types hang out and get a feel for what chat room RPing of the form I described above looks like. In my experience since crafting doesn't require changing geographic location often, people who just want to sit and BS in character tend to congregate in a convenient area and become craftsmen, engaging in the actual game world only tangentially with their primary purpose of chat.

There are substantially fewer chat rooms on AOL that I can immediately identify as being RP hangouts. Besides the Red Dragon most seem to be either Trek or Harry Potter rooms, and some of those may actually just be straight fan sites rather than sim or RP sites. Most of the chat rooms on AOL these days are either "I have a problem comisserate with me" rooms, "I'm a minority lets hang out together rooms", or "I'm a fan of some pop star lets gush about how much we love them rooms".

The various simming groups mentioned in this thread all seem to be based on licensed properties, so I wonder if that isn't the primary reason why chat room / email based free form RPing has survived.

Stacey, are all or the majority of your members simming a specific property (like Trek, or Charmed) because that was your organizations original focus, or are most of the sim groups out there property specific.

I wonder if most of the generic fantasy world based chat room RPing didn't dwindle and migrate to Ever Quest et.al. as I speculated above, leaving behind primarily the property specific titles for which there wasn't an appropriate MMORPG. I wonder if Star Wars simming groups experienced a drop in membership from members (even entire groups) migrating to Star Wars Galaxy to have the oportunity to chat in costume.

Interesting stuff.

Valamir wrote: But I'm really curious to know what a typical rules set for regulating who gets to say what and when looks like. Is there one, or is it all personality driven? I also wonder if there's been an attempt to unify the rules sets the way Minds Eye tries to write rules sets for Larping, which some groups adapt and some groups keep using their own rules.

Chas Hammer wrote: In addition to the Fanzine roots, early simming, with its character structure, general styles, and the use of online dice to divine the outcome of events, strongly resembled off line role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, and all of this spilled over into early sims. For example, early sims even used dice, just like the role playing games do. When exactly the use of dice in simming disappeared I do not know, but Admiral Nfo, the second in command of STS, reported to me that early simmers frequently used online dice, and SFOL had provisions in its rule book on how to use online dice in a sim. So, this provides further evidence that fanzines and offline role playing games and their players simply moved online and started to sim in the early 90s.

Most early simmers, myself included, already possessed years of off line role playing experience. This not only helps to explain the high quality and spontaneity of the early simming world, but it also made it such that early simmers already understood the intricacies of role playing. Thus, if people already understood role playing, they could modify it online, by dropping the use of dice for example, and everyone would still be skilled enough to follow what was going on in the sim.

In most places, the use of dice simply disappeared and a general unwritten understanding about how to keep a sim flowing with out an official way to divine the outcome of events went into effect.

STS however, was not comfortable with giving up dice and leaving it to the whims of the simmers to determine, as a group, the outcome of events in a sim. So, they took the concept of the roleplaying Game Master and used it to create the position of Sim Master so that there would be one official person to determine fate in the sims.

The concept of the Sim Master is perhaps STS' greatest contribution to the simming world. It was invented by TrekGuru, who joined STS in 1994, or more accurately, joined AdmTrekker's collection of simming friends who eventually became STS. She loved D&D and thought the free form of simming that had abandoned dice and was being practiced on Trekker's ship and just about everywhere else was "lame." While in 1994 and 1995, myself and others enjoyed the free for all simming style, in retrospect it was only possible because so many people who were simming also had offline role playing experience and knew the boundaries.

TrekGuru could see ahead to a day when that was not the case. She could see ahead to today and the chaos and the dumbing down of simming that would occur when people no longer had that offline experience. An era of sims that are nothing but mindless battles that appeal to an unskilled mass appeal audience. She did not like "Everyone going everywhere with no performed concept of play. So, I talked to Trekker into letting me "DM" a sim with a concept only I would know. I was the computer, the enemies and the universe."

In my own humble opinion, I now find the Sim Master form of simming to be more interesting, more fun, and a whole lot better. It makes the sims more realistic and intriguing. Sadly for simming, TrekGuru did not come along until 1994. By this time, the simming world was already established and expanding in every direction. Had she come along a few years earlier, the Sim Master probably would have become a staple of Trek simming. But by 1994, the Sim Master concept was relegated to a niche of clubs in the cultural influence of STS, TOL being one of them.

Even though the usage of dice disappeared from modern simming, and the adoption of the SM came too late, leaving simming to forever drift in a random free for all style.

GSF Handbook wrote: General Rules
No member of GSF or any of it's affiliates will attack or harass another member.

All guest simmers must ask for the the Co's permission to sim, also write a mail to the group leader indicating that the person was there.

All people while in that sim are to follow the CO's orders.

There is to be no Q or god like powers, all unknown and other races must be approved by the group leader.

There is to be no false information or information left out on the application.

The group leader reserves the right to add rules at any time.

Individual ships and divisions may have additional rules that apply to that ship or divison only, however those rules must not counter a rule in this page (Ie: can't make a rule of you can have a Q powers, because the Main rules state you cannot.)

I do see your point...however, if you dont mind my saying...it never hurts to make an effort.

I'm a little curious about this thread. I thought the forum was for discussion of The Forge, but it currently seems to be about everything but. Am I just smoking crack again, or has this forum taken a serious detour?

Clay--I believe what has happened is that a thread began asking whether The Forge would be interested in becoming a member of a Sims organization, and that led to intense discussion of what that meant. Thus this is on one level about The Forge, although mostly it appears to be about Simming.

Ralph's post is an interesting summary of a lot; I had a couple of comments that sprang from it.

The AOL chatroom connection is predated by Quantum Link. This service for Commodore users was in every way the precursor to AOL--AOL was designed by the same company on the same model, with a strong emphasis on chatrooms and social interaction along with specific areas dedicated to information services. Even the Red Dragon Inn (RDI) began on Q-link and was exported to AOL.

In its early days, RDI was even less structured than you describe. I was there in the early 80's, when AOL was a gleam in someone's eye, and RDI at that point was a place for fantasy play in the broadest sense--aliens, space marines, spies, cowboys, and just about any other genre character you could name made regular appearances in the room, doing everything from chatting to flirting to fighting to composing poetry.

Having attempted to do structured role play in AOL chatrooms, I am not at all surprised that it has faded from view. We were regularly interrupted by people who charged into our game, announced what they were doing to completely alter our shared imaginary space, and then left in a huff when we told them that there were rules and a referee present. However, I'm not sure whether a survey of rooms will give you a real feeling for what is there. As I recall (I avoid chat now) AOL allows you to establish either public or private chatrooms. You cannot view a private chatroom unless you know the name of it. Thus if I were playing an online game on AOL, I would tell my players the name of the room and meet them there. An outside observer would not see our game when they called up room lists, and so would not be able to count us.

Note also that chat rooms are user-driven; if no one is in a room, it ceases to exist. Thus the ratio of types of rooms will shift.

It does appear that there is a tremendous amount of seminal influence from RPGs to Sims; most of the founding players were shifting from the home game to the Internet game, and you'll note that AOL chatrooms still have built-in dice rolling function (anyone can type the command to roll the dice, and the chatroom will return the results).

I wonder to what degree Simmers could be interested in the original version of the role playing hobby. Like many CRPG players, they seem unaware that there is a non-technological origin for what they do, despite the influence that impacts it.

Side question for Stacy:

I run a Multiverser role playing game on the Gaming Outpost forum. At present we have seven active players (including me), but we also have seven others who just haven't posted in a long time (they never said they wouldn't be back, and at least one has been having technical difficulties and other pressures but apparently intends to continue play when she's able). We don't have any organizational structure--just the game rules themselves. As far as a licensed property is concerned, it's just the Multiverser concept (published, and there's a novel), which is rather general. do we qualify? I'm not certain we're exactly interested, but it occurs to me that being part of such an organization might have an advantage in making gamers aware of our existence.

--M. J. Young

simming sounds similar to MUDding, without a program directly supporting the roleplaying element (admittedly in most MUDs the programming is a combat engine, and roleplaying is determined by social contract, eg, is there roleplaying or just PK (player character kiling)? how strictly is roleplaying enforced/how well is it supported?)

stacey, is there interaction between the simming community and the vast MUDding community?

I wonder if The Universalis Arena would count as a sim, it's certainly online roleplaying, but has the non-traditional stance of not relating each player to a particular character

the sentiment for a Grand Unified Roleplaying Community is interesting and deserves a thread of its own; I'm not sure how achievable it will be to promote such a sentiment (personally I'm a dabbler in alternate (non-tabletop) roleplaying forms)

M. J. Young wrote: Side question for Stacy:

I run a Multiverser role playing game on the Gaming Outpost forum. At present we have seven active players (including me), but we also have seven others who just haven't posted in a long time (they never said they wouldn't be back, and at least one has been having technical difficulties and other pressures but apparently intends to continue play when she's able). We don't have any organizational structure--just the game rules themselves. As far as a licensed property is concerned, it's just the Multiverser concept (published, and there's a novel), which is rather general. do we qualify? I'm not certain we're exactly interested, but it occurs to me that being part of such an organization might have an advantage in making gamers aware of our existence.

--M. J. Young

League Constitution - Section 1.1 Membership Requirements wrote: 1) Requirements

Any independent sim, independent sim club, independent sim group or website community of 30 or more active members, which has been active for at least 6 months may join the IntraGalactic League Of Sims as a full member. Any independent sim, independent sim club, independent sim group or website community that has been active for at least 1 year, and has at least 20 active members, may join the IntraGalactic League Of Sims as a full member. Any independent sim, club, group or website community which do not meet these requirements may join as an observer.

I sort of scanned this whole thread and what I don't get is what would be the benefeit of the Forge to join this group. That is, the advantage to joining a federal government is being able to vote on where the tax dollars go. I don't get what the advantage would be for the Forge to join versus being the "Canada-like" friendly neighbor.

(appologies to any Canadians)

Hello,

All right, it's time to lay down some moderation.

There is no value at all in a discussion about "advantage to the Forge." Or "whether the Forge should join." Some members who should know better are forgetting that this site is not a committee or an organization; you have no executive powers.

This thread has provided some fascinating information and I hope everyone will make use of it in a way that's advantageous to them. But it's also run its course, I think. Further discussions belong in approriate forums, as follows (for instance):

- Discussions of actual simming phenomena in games - Actual Play

- Discussions of what simming is and how it might relate to table-top role-playing - RPG Theory

Further discussion here won't serve much purpose, I think. Please respect this and take specific topics to specific places.

Best,
Ron

Jack, that's been answered a couple times already -- at least, what benefits members recieve has been mentioned. However, maybe rephrasing the question more specifically might help, as in what would membership do for the Forge specifically? What specific problem that the Forge is having or might have in the future would membership solve?

Now, I certainly have no problems with sending a rep. over there (rather, someone volunteering their time to be a liason to the League, the Forge's "voice" there -- question/answer/PR-man -- given Ron and Clinton's approval) to help establish and maintain communication between the similar subcultures.

Damned cross-posting ...

Sigh. OK, closed now. Thanks everyone.

Ron

So...

Hello,

"Closed" means that no one is to post again to this thread.

Further discussion should be taken to new threads with specific topics of their own.

If discussions here were ever forced to rely on Locking to preserve their topic-integrity rather than non-software-enforced Closing, that would be a sign to me and Clinton that the Forge is no longer a viable community, and no longer worth preserving.

Best,
Ron