Ten Top Roleplaying Groups In Second Life: Goth-Cyberpunk, Medieval Fantasy, and Old West Predominate

Last week we took a look at the top twenty Second Life groups by size, as counted by the data gathering bots and analytics of Louis Platini's Metaverse Business.  Here's ten top* roleplaying groups in SL, according to Platini, determined by a bot search for the terms "roleplay" or "RP" in the publicly available description. Based on that metric, the largest is associated with Toxian, above, a beautifully squalid, dark cyberpunk city.  In total, four of the ten are medieval fantasy-themed, three are futuristic goth-cyberpunk, two are old West/American frontier, and one is contemporary gangsta urban. Full list after the break; be sure to read all the qualifications below. 

Website link where available:

1. Toxian City - Main Group  -  Futuristic goth-cyberpunk - 8533 members
2. Crack Den Roleplay - Contemporary gangsta urban - 3450 members
3. Kingdom of Sand - Medieval fantasy - 3031 members
4. TombstoneWild West Arizona - Old West/American frontier - 2681 members
5. Avilion Grove - Medieval fantasy - 2669 members
6. City of Lost Angel's - Futuristic goth-cyberpunk (featured in NWN here)  - 1822 members
7. Council of Wyrmlings - Medieval fantasy - 1793 members
8. The road to Deadwood - Old West/American frontier - 1565 members
9. Elf Circle - Medieval fantast - 1565 members
10. NoR Chatterbugs (NorSim) - Futuristic goth-cyberpunk - 1554 members

* Qualifications: Note that I say "ten top" and not "top ten", because while these groups are large, they are not necessarily the largest roleplaying groups in SL.  Many roleplaying communities in Second Life do not necessarily have the word "roleplay" in their description, and others contain numerous sub-groups affiliated with clans, guilds, etc.  The vampire RPG Bloodlines, for example, has a daunting number of such groups, and an estimated 23K active players.  (This list doesn't include sexually-oriented roleplaying groups, which strike me as an important but separate study.)

All that said, consider this as a sample of Second Life's roleplaying ecosystem.  What other RP groups are as popular, if not more so?

Comments

[Mako Kungfu]

No steampunk??

[Arwyn Quandry]

No Goreans? That's somewhat surprising.

[Marianne McCann]

Kids!

[Hamlet Au]

Yes all, but what are the numbers of those various RP communities?

[Pappy Enoch]

Ain't no hillbillies, neither.

Oh, wait. We ain't playin' it am real.

[Doubledown Tandino]

What i'm suprised about is that there's no roleplay convention in second life. sort of like a comiccon. Each roleplay group is so invested in their own roleplay world, but I would looove to see a bunch of different roleplayers in a room

[Bailey Longcloth]

Midian City has well over 3,000 members.

[Scree Raymaker]

I'd hardly call Bloodlines an RPG. Most of them don't even bother trying to roleplay, instead just sending you an blue pop up box with an invitation to be bitten.

[cube inada]

"What i'm suprised about is that there's no roleplay convention in second life. sort of like a comiccon. Each roleplay group is so invested in their own roleplay world, but I would looove to see a bunch of different roleplayers in a room"

the C3 SKYBAR LOUNGE, the ALIEN FLYING CIRCUS, and the SKY CINEMA were all created as original genre ip locations welcoming all to gather after RPGing...

all tp via cube3 sim. pg-13 activities only...lol geesh.

[Hiri Nurmi]

Oh this is way off in terms of actual roleplayers. All of these are popularity by a small set of sims - three or four at the most.

The current estimate is that there's around 300 gorean sims of one form or another (and growing), many in small continents (such Saleria), actual numbers of players is a bit more tricky but the last estimate I saw was somewhere in excess of 70,000.

The estimate is missing this because there is no single Gorean groups, in fact there's dozen of different ones for different sub groups - Gorean Merchants for example is very active.

Best place to get a handle on this a TP to 'The Gor Hub' sim - if you can get in - traffic on a bad day never seems to drop below 35K.

[Nacklepest Blackbart, Sylvan Gnome General]

Watch out for Sylvhara! They are up and coming! I invite you all to visit and check us out! =)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sylvhara%20Elen/122/167/34

Avilion Grove - Medieval fantasy - 2669 members Ranked at number 5, but those members don't always play and most of them are alts. I know. I used to be Admin there. I was an Ancient of the Mist, but I moved to Sylvhara because it's more member friendly.

[john]

Run a search for Karamoon ,it is a medieval fantasy roleplay group of sims.
The players group has over 1500 members,it is part of a colective of sims known as Ambrea and contains 15 sims in total well worth the look

[Curtis Burner]

Chamber City is a roleplay sim. There are several factions in the sim starting with The Phantoms a mixed race group made up of demons and vampires, its lead by the delicatable Morticia a vampire herself. Then we have the Pack of Morder a pack of werewolfs who at present are allied with the Black Veil another group of vampires lead by the lovely Eingana.

Some of the other Factions are: Realm of the Arcane, confederates of chaos, The Corporation, A.R.M.O.R., Faceless Assassains, and two others coming for the dragons and mermaids.

In terms of races we also have nekos, supernaturals, dragons, mermaids, angels, cybers, vampires, werewolfs, and demons.

Full information is availble in the Welcome area on all the factions and races within the sim, there you will also find a map of the city and a count down to the next full moon for all you werewolfs out there.

The sim is a DCS combat sim and theres plenty to explore. So where is this sim? Well below you'll find a SURL which you can use to TP to the sim, if you want to have a look round:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Chamber%20City/118/5/86/?img=http%3A//www.chambercity.org/images/30_01.gif&title=Chamber%20City%20-%20Dark%20Urban%20Roleplay&msg=Come%20Play%20with%20Us...If%20you%20dare%21%21%21

Not sure about jumping straight into the action? Well no problems theres an observer tag you can pick up for free from the Welcome area, which you can wear so people will know your just looking and you'll be left as a fly on the wall.

If you have any questions when you get in the sim I'm sure there'll be someone around whom you can IM and have a chat to.

[CruisinSL]

Crossroads Roleplay is an 1870's sim that is concentrated fully on RP. It is a beautifully laid out sim that is inhabited by truly dark creatures.

It's motto is "take a walk on the dark side." It truly is dark.

[Ildac Lowell]

Don't even bother with NoR. Sicarius and Mystyka couldn't run a RP sim if their lives depended on it.

[CruisinSL]

No kidding about NoR. Once upon a time they had it great. The Dominion Clan led by an unbreakable angel Ravenal Ashby who is all about rp and the Malkavians vampires who put the dark in dark rp made that sim FANTASTIC but what did Sic do? Ran them out. Yeah when you get ingredients of proper rp run them off. Brilliant!

They all ended up on their feet nicely in CCS.

[Malkavalian Princess Fae]

Crossroads is awesome! You can literally do or be anything you like. Some places take their roleplay too seriously and don't allow the freedom that Crossroads allows to explore so many things. I have been a mermaid princess with vampires that fear me, as well as a little fae with a darker side . You can walk into the bar and mix it up with gargoyles, foxes, crazy vampires (watch out for the preggers vamps - they are cranky) and do just about anything as long as your CCS meter stats are high enough!