Set in Stone

Recently I’ve stumbled onto what seems to be a lovely place to role play. It’s a re-creation of King’s Landing from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series that someone built in Second Life. The books are full of squabbling nobles, political intrigue, and captivating plots, and the Second Life role play in King’s Landing tries to capture the spirit of that. I can’t say yet if it succeeds or not because I haven’t been there long enough to see it, but it got me thinking that there are a few more considerations to be put into a fanfic role play than one set in an independent world.

– Canon – Lore is something you will obviously need to read the books to understand. It is assumed that when you join a role play based on some outside source, you are somewhat familiar with the source material. If you botch the lore, you could ruin the story for everybody else, so read (and re-read if it’s been a while) carefully and tread lightly.

Playing a canon character, especially an important one, is to walk on paper thin ice. Your interpretation of the character may differ wildly from everyone else’s and to ruin a good character is asking to be lynched. If you’re playing with close friends, good writers, and excellent communication it can be done. Outside of that setting I suggest you steer clear of them. In SL, allowing this would likely result in hundreds of Tyrion Lannisters in every shape and size, and twice that many misspelled Daenerys Targaryens (about 40% of which will think her name is Khaleesi). This setting in Second Life forbids playing any character in the books, from Robert I Baratheon to the smallfolk they mention only in passing. Good thought, King’s Landing.
Plot is another thing. In a world like this one where so much of the story and plot depends on the actions of characters, it simply cannot be the same without them. As far as I can tell, the people behind King's Landing gave us all of the setting and lore, but cleaned the slate of characters. People can play members of high noble houses, provided that they have permission from the head of the house. You could even raise your character from lower class to upper class if you're careful and don't get them killed on the way. From these new characters arise new plots and squabbles, which is rather interesting if you've read all the books and want something the same, yet different. This tactic will not work for everything, do if you intend to create your own fanfic RP, think long and hard about how much canon you want to use.

– Read! – Or if you’re basing this off a movie or TV series, then watch! And pay attention! The writers of these things have put a great deal of time and thought into how they would like their worlds to run. This is part of what makes the setting unique and is probably why you like this one in particular instead of something similar, but I’ll bet that most of you have never given that a second thought. What is the general vocabulary used by the characters? Does it vary by region or social class? What is the etiquette like? Which titles go with which social standing? Are there prejudices? Gender inequalities? What do the people wear? Read. Watch. Listen. Pay close attention. Apply what you’ve learned to your characters and watch them fit seamlessly into the world you love so much.

– Do. Not. Write. – The novel has already been written, and probably by someone with better skill and paid editors than either you or I can hope to claim. You are not here to rewrite it, only to experience it from a different perspective. If I had a dollar for every emote I’ve seen that involved some form of precocious narrative, I could pay off my student loans. YOUR ROLE PLAY IS NOT A NOVEL. If you would like to share all your character’s mushy feelings and personal developments, go write a short story – your friends will praise you – but in the middle of a conversation with a half dozen lords about the murder of Lady Whosherface is neither the time nor place to wax poetic about the injust deeds of man via emote. Not only is it pointless and inappropriate, it’s bordering on telepathy, which any decent role player will tell you is a definite taboo. I may write more about that later, but suffice to say that no matter how profound that narrative of yours may be, there is not a character in existance that can actually interact with it, and therefore it is a (rather annoying) waste of space.