What you’re looking at here is an incredibly detailed Second Life region that’s been transformed into a faithful recreation of the Dragon Age world, for SL roleplay inspired by that game:
“Our sim is faithfully built based on the village of Lothering of the game Dragon Age Origins and lots of love is being put on the decoration and ideas,” an SLer named Kitti Swords, who leads a team of fellow Dragon Age fans, in building and maintaining it, tells me. “For example, the tavern keep decorates the tavern, the Revered Mother decorates the Chantry, etc... For that reason we also offer free housing for players interested in taking such important non-combat town roles.”
Click here to see it on the world map, or put this address into the SL viewer of your choice: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Six/39/233/22
As you would probably guess, their in-world group group name is Dragon Age Roleplay and it’s not just improvisational roleplay, but comes with an RPG-style heads-up display:
“The character sheet communicates with the dice roller and calculates everything automatically for the players, as well as keeping track of each player's quests in the campaign,” says Kitty, “and showing an inventory that is linked to in-world objects. All this in a single small, practical window. The HUD will be optional however, as we don't want to keep the focus off the good ol' RP.”
The Dragon Age franchise is famous for exploring issues of sexual orientation and identity, and Kitty says fans are welcome to do that here too: “Our philosophy will be that of trying to keep the world as realistic as possible, so adult themes in general (not only sexual/orientation related but also related to violence) are entirely possible to happen there, depending on the direction the RP goes. Basically, anything that is agreed by two players to happen between their characters, I won't intervene at all; unless there's a player whose focus is solely on such themes and not on the story and setting itself.”
Choosing Dragon Age as a roleplay theme was inspired by Kitty’s longtime love of RPGs -- and dissatisfaction with Second Life’s roleplay areas, which tend toward kinkier sexual extremes:
“I always roleplayed in old-school tabletop RPG games since a kid. Then when internet was around, I roleplayed with folks in several online games such as Ultima Online, Neverwinter Nights, etc... Then I finally came to SL, which I consider the perfect platform for roleplay, but unfortunately the RP environment has been downhill there since the last few years.
“The problem is that more than half of the sims are about extreme fetish sex (Gor/BDSM), and the other half is just too casual roleplay, where every race and type of avatar are allowed, with no cohesive storyline or setting or background whatsoever, and even the ones with a more focused roleplay have no progressive storyline or quests or characters being actively part of a campaign, like in tabletop RPG. All they do is sit in a tavern and chit-chat, so it gets old quickly.”
And yes, we discussed the fact that this project technically infringes on the actual owners of the Dragon Age franchise, but Kitty hopes they’ll see it in the spirit it’s intended: “[W]e don't make any profit on it whatsoever and we don't claim to have created any of the lore used for our setting… basically, we are just promoting Dragon Age to Second Life users, as well as promoting Second Life to Dragon Age fans in a creative, fun way.”
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More photos are available on my flickr album of the Dragon Age sim. I am offering free photos of anyone's avatar who asks! (and is an active roleplayer on the sim.)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/131614348@N08/sets/72157651038282022
Posted by: Lukka Rookswood | Friday, February 27, 2015 at 08:25 AM