Role Models

 Our second destination this week was to Wyldwood Bayou Grid, which is celebrating its 5th anniversary this month. Wyldwood is best known for two activities, the music events at venues like Hot Daddy's, and for its Roleplay, and it was the latter that we went to see. 

The RP hub region is a very beautiful place to visit, and full of information about how the groups here work, the backstories and rules, times and types of activities they do here. We arrived in our usual raggedy piecemeal manner.

Petlove Petshop: ty whoever tp'd me!

Forest Azure: pet, you have clothes!

Nara Nook: skin would be nice but I am happy just to have clothes

Dorena Bree: me too Nara

Forest Azure: well, nara, you were nothing but skin in the caves

The welcoming committee. Our guides were Fitheach, left, and Tessa, center.

Thirza Ember: That green tea diet seems to be working, Xenon

Xenon Darrow: It is! Of course...all those tannins are making me a bit rusty...

Contessa Lacombe: Hi everyone!  The WWB Roleplay Hub was formed to give the Wyldwood Bayou Grid roleplayers a venue to exchange information and set up roleplaying between their groups and other roleplayers on Open Sim grids. Crossgrid roleplay offers the opportunity for roleplayers to connect their stories to those of other groups and gives all of us the whole Hypergrid as a playground.

Contessa Lacombe: You have most of your skin Nara.  :) Oh!  There's the rest of it!

Nara Nook: On safari we are all happy if our hair arrives on our head and not our butt

Thirza Ember: that's a full house, ladies

Fitheach Eun: Welcome to the Wyldwood Bayou Roleplay Hub. October is Wyldwood Bayou Grid’s 5th anniversary, and this is our kickoff event. Please take a look at the event posters here to see all of our special celebration events.

Fitheach Eun: The Hub was built by Fitheach Eun and Contessa Lacombe and is managed by the two active roleplay groups in Wyldwood Bayou: Ravenquest and Brigantia Isles.

Thirza Ember: why are there 2 roleplay groups

 Fitheach Eun:  Because we have both been around for a long time and our roleplay styles are very different Brigantia Isles comprises the regions of Brigantia, Faery, Murkwood, & Shadow Isle. Ravenquest includes the regions of Taibhreamh, The Darklands, Witchweed Woods & The Shire. Both groups offer primarily Medi/Fantasy roleplay

Forest Azure: the Shire as in hobbits?

Fitheach Eun: Yes the Shire is the home for our Hobbit rp

Contessa Lacombe: The WWB Roleplay Hub offers space to meet, learn about roleplay in the planned classes and shop for roleplay freebies at the Renaissance Faire. An open roleplay market is held occasionally. Watch for upcoming notices! The building behind us here is the Hub headquarters; it contains general roleplay information on races and styles of rp. There is also classroom space upstairs. Inside is a sign for our Wyld Hunt, if you want to follow the clues and collect the prizes it will take you to several of our rp regions.

Fitheach Eun: Our roleplay regions also include 1 ocean, Sea of Mist and this Hub giving us 10 total 4x4 regions for roleplay. The region called Ravenwing that you can see on the map is under construction. There is a box of landmarks to locations on all the regions here if you would like to come back and tour. Our only request is that you do not interrupt a live roleplay.

Thirza Ember: I want to know what kinds of roleplay styles there are

Fitheach Eun: Well there are lots of roleplay styles, ours is primarily medi-fantasy, there is dark fantasy, western, vampire, gothic, steampink.... steampunk too ;)

Thirza Ember: oh styles in the sense of genres. I thought you meant different ways of actually doing the roleplay

Fitheach Eun: Tons more; some people do TV shows themed rp You can pretty much rp whatever you want, Ravenquest is more Tolkien based

Dorena Bree: So, do Nara and I  fit into a ME roleplay with our gray skin?

PrayiaDawn.Cooper: No Chronicles of Narnia here

Thirza Ember: yes we went to a game of thrones one; forest ate a horse there, I seem to remember

Petlove Petshop: The Good Place was one

Forest Azure: huh? i did? well, horse steak is delicious

Petlove Petshop: rare?

Forest Azure: medium rare

Tosha Tyran: the whole animal or just a steak, Forest?

Forest Azure: just the steak,  the rest i saved for after the bad bad times

Tosha Tyran: oh, ok... and the rest of the horse still running around?

James Atlloud: lol

Thirza Ember: 5 years of the grid is a long time, but it's true you all know each other much longer than that?

Contessa Lacombe: Forgive me...I'm so lost...lol

Forest Azure: whispers: lol, you are confusing the horseman, Tosha

Fitheach Eun: Tessa and I go back to InWorldZ My rp group has been together for about 12 years; I think Brig is a bit older

Contessa Lacombe: Yes.  We go way back.  Though the cast has changed.

Fitheach Eun

Fitheach Eun: If you will follow me to the South; this lovely building by Marcthur Goosson is the Welcome Center for Ravenquest. You can see pictures of our main characters; and alts, roleplay images and information about Ravenquest. If you want to see how we roleplay you can pick up a few sample roleplay transcripts from the giant book. Ravenquest was formed from the remnants of the Riverlands in the Great Canadian Grid after we moved there from InWorldZ. We went through multiple Opensim grid homes before finding a permanent home in Wyldwood Bayou.

Fitheach Eun: Ravenquest are cross-grid roleplayers. Although our theme is technically Medi/Fantasy, we have roleplayed in ancient Rome and Victorian Steampunk and anywhere else the gates and portals have taken us.

Ashley McKinnon and Taarna Welles among the 'Who's Who' posters

Thirza Ember: what's the usual size for a rp group? Is there a minimum requirement to do it?

Fitheach Eun: We have set roleplays on a number of other OpenSim grids and enjoy fitting their builds into our stories. Any reasonable storyline will be considered. We have completed several epic storylines and always find new ones. Our rp works because we are flexible; we are all willing to play other characters when needed. We consider ourselves storytellers and street theater, our roleplay is never scripted and often surprises us with unexpected changes of direction. It is always fun and potential new players are welcome to come observe! We meet on Thursdays at 4:15PM grid time, observers may watch as long as they do not attempt to join the rp without permission. Contact Fitheach Eun.

Fitheach Eun: Questions?

Alexey Kazarovic: yes, do you use huds?

Fitheach Eun: We have a magic hud that we sometimes use, but not meters

Contessa Lacombe: meters tend to be more about fighting?  And, though we do have battles occasionally, it's more about the story.

Fitheach Eun: Yes we both look at our rp as storytelling

Ashley McKinnon: There are some battles in Brigantia rp but its the story about the battle. There is intrigue, family life, community life....

Lavia LLavine: Battles do get old after a while.

Fitheach Eun: Please follow Tessa North across the garden to Brigantia’s Welcome Center.

Contessa Lacombe: Walk this way please!  lol...I think we lost them Thirza

Thirza Ember: no such luck

Contessa Lacombe: And welcome to Brigantia!  Brigantia roleplay began in SL… a long time ago.  In order to have more room to expand, we relocated to Inworldz, where we really took off and where we met some other roleplayers, including some of the folks from the River Lands.  When Inworldz dissolved, we ended up in Opensim, eventually landing here in WWB, where we expanded into “Brigantia Isles”.

Contessa Lacombe: Brigantia has a long-running and rather complicated backstory, which we’ve created over decades.  The setting is medieval/fantasy but not historically based at all.  The original storyline was loosely based on Mists of Avalon with our own twist and the timeline is… flexible.  We dream up minor and major plots and schemes, which may be part of the main plot or a completely unattached, yet related side plot. We do like a good quest and are all ready to create “alt” characters for our twists and turns in the story.  Someone once told me that Brigantia is a real “soap opera” because it just keeps growing and branching… and it does.  Each week, we have a theme and a direction, then our characters just dive in and make it happen!

Thirza Ember: what are the big 'dos and don'ts' of RP?

Fitheach Eun: The biggest don't is do not god mod.  You cannot tell another character what is happening to them, you can shoot at them but not say you hit. Number 2 is no meta gaming. You do not know things you have learned out of character.

Lavia LLavine: That would be called "crossing" and crossing is a big no no in role play

Ashley McKinnon: Important when you are playing NPCs or filler characters

Fitheach Eun: And you can't use your mini map except for direction

Contessa Lacombe: (Unless you have no sense of direction in rl... and you are always lost.  Just sayin.  Winks.)

Ashley McKinnon: indeed!

Contessa Lacombe: Brigantia meets every Wednesday at 4:15 pm grid time for roleplay, which is open to approved characters.  However, we invite visitors to observe from a reasonable distance, especially if you are considering joining. Please stop by the Brigantia Isles Roleplay group information center at the WWB Roleplay Hub for more visitor's information and landmarks. Contact Contessa Lacombe.

Lavia LLavine: What do you find to be the most rewarding thing about roleplay??

Contessa Lacombe: Hmm.  I just think it's fun!  Isn't that the point?

Fitheach Eun: The fun; we have such a good time

Ashley McKinnon: I love being able to create a story about my character that has an intricate plotline...like a novel

Fitheach Eun: Yes, the storytelling is fun, too. We keep saying we should write a book

James Atlloud: That's really cool

Thirza Ember: is it easy for someone to just jump in to the story? do they take a few attempts to get it right?

Fitheach Eun: Actually no ; it's not easy. Many people don't want to rp and many that do will not mesh well with the existing group

Ashley McKinnon: I can speak from experience and say....not always. integrating into a story can be ...challenging

Contessa Lacombe: Well.  You do have to make an effort to learn about the backstory.  But... I usually recommend that people hang around a bit and observe so they can make up a new character that will fit into a good spot for them.

Fitheach Eun: We usually try to add people at a point where they can jump in and we would fill them in on the story first. I did a whole series a few years ago on 'how to learn to roleplay'; I'd love to do more

 James Atlloud: Where is that how to series Fitheach.

Contessa Lacombe: We meet for once a week rp.  But, in between, we tend to randomly discuss how to accomplish our next "goal". Some people think you should just show up and rp, no discussion at all.  BUT...in my opinion, that just leads to absolute chaos, and if people don't know the storyline, they can really mess things up.  It's hard to say...."Umm....we did or did not do that...."

Fitheach Eun: We all play well together, but we've been together for a long time. I think every group makes its own tribe. Ravenquest has done some rps with other groups; sometimes it works

Petlove Petshop: it must become very comfortable

Contessa Lacombe: Also, we tend to make different characters for different happenings.  You have to make characters with totally different personalities and such.  I LOVE doing that.  Now that is acting!

We took what passes for a Safari group picture, everyone facing in different directions and half the group out of the shot, in front of the eerily blue-blazing fireplace. 

In a moment straight out of H Rider Haggard, James - possibly in an attempt to get back his textures - bathed himself in the flames. 

Thirza Ember: this is kind of perfect to make people think of a fantasy rp....

Petlove Petshop: james is so cool in that blue fire

Forest Azure: is sitting allowed?

James Atlloud: gee, and I thought I was hot

Fitheach Eun: That is one of Luna's greta fireplaces

Contessa Lacombe: This building is sort of a fragment of the Brigantian castle.

down to the waterfront for a short boat ride to the Market Place - more RP there. 

Guess who saw steering...

Forest Azure: /me blows into the sails pffffffffffffffffffffff

Fitheach Eun: This build is open to Hypergrid roleplayers of any persuasion and style. We can give you rez rights if you want your group to rp here. We also hold occasional events here for anyone to come roleplay that they are attending an outdoor market.

Thirza.Ember: ok who is driving this boat XENONNNNNN

Xenon Darrow: looks around and whistles I'M INNOCENT

Petlove Petshop: Nara is the best Pilot!

As we loitered among the stalls, one question came to mind.

Thirza Ember: if you wanted to do all this  back in SL, what do you think would be the biggest problems, and what, if any, could be the upside of RP in SL, do you think?

Fitheach Eun: Well we have 10 4x4 regions here. So the cost would be prohibitive in sl. And I think building is harder in sl

Contessa Lacombe: And did I say...it costs LOTS more?

Ashley McKinnon: It's certainly is. We have sooooo much more freedom here!

Tosha Tyran: very true

Fitheach Eun: Any roleplay group can come use this build. We do open events sometimes; it can be fun. All of our rps are improvised, but this one has no structure at all so it's a hoot.

Thirza Ember: the horses are fleeing from Forest

Fitheach Eun: lol

Ashley McKinnon: I typically love using the opportunity to do something loosely related to my storyline. But I have the freedom to do whatever

Tosha Tyran: Forest... are you a horse now?

Forest Azure: ON. Tosha, ON

Thirza Ember: you are what you eat

Tosha.Tyran: lol, I only see a horse with your name tag

Fitheach Eun: When you are done here; take the TP back over to the Hub to visit our Renaissance Faire with Tessa. Lots of cool, freebies there

Thirza.Ember: it's great that chat works all over the sim

Fitheach Eun: yeah we have it set for 800 meters. We roleplay in chat a lot

Contessa Lacombe: Last, we have our latest addition, the Renaissance Faire. We created the Renaissance Faire to replicate the ones we have attended in real life. There are food vendors, shops and entertainment, including 2 venue stages where we offer occasional events. There are freebie shops with men’s and women’s bodies, medieval and fantasy clothing and jewelry and basic roleplay items. Be sure to get your fortune told and grab some mead and a turkey leg!

Kimm.Starr: This is pretty cool

Fitheach Eun: We have rp clothes, jewelry, bodies, hair, weapons.... 

Fitheach Eun:There is a fortune teller down there

Forest Azure: now who dares to fight?... a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!

Fitheach Eun: /me grins at Forest: " You do not want to fight me, I am a master level Druid." ;)

Forest Azure: ooh fit, i'm very good at distractions

Fortune Telling Table with Fortunes: It's never too late...or maybe it is

Fitheach Eun: That's one of KImm's great animesh characters

Kimm Starr: Thanks Fit

Thirza Ember: what are the plans for celebrating 5 years of WWB grid on this region?

 Fitheach Eun: We have 4 music events planned on October 24, 25, 26 and 27. We have a special Lady Blue event on the 24. Lady Blue is very dirty blues. We dress formal for those.

Lavia Lavine: If I may ask, is there an issue with people role playing the opposite gender?

Ashley McKinnon: Not at all

Contessa Lacombe: Sometimes you need to be one or the other!  It just depends on what we need for the rp.

Fitheach Eun: We even have a Drider and a cat shape shifter

Ashley McKinnon: AND DRAGONS

 Contessa Lacombe: Yes!  I'm a dragon right now!

Saphira Mistwalker: Yay dragons!

Contessa Lacombe: And tonight I'll be...well we really aren't quite sure what my character is....  Half demon, half ????

Thirza Ember: so overall - RP is good for your education, mental health, it's good for your social life and... your sinuses (from the crying laughing)

Contessa Lacombe: lol...true!

Fitheach Eun: We laugh a lot

Ashley McKinnon: LOL I don't know about those sinuses. In Tessa's castle room....it is so full of cats and dogs, even I start to tear up ;p

HG Address: wyldwoodbayou.com:8002:Wyldwood Bayou Roleplay Hub