Week Sixteen

What game cultures am I part of? I'm part of two major ones, I think. One is (embarrassingly) the internet petsim culture. There are hundreds of different petsims on the internet, specialising in almost every animal you could think of, as well as different aspects of care. They're normally well known for being home to a very specific kind of person – the young, idealistic, animal loving girl. This is actually quite a misconception, I memorably was having an in depth discussion with someone who apologised for disappearing during a previous conversation. It turned out the staff at his nursing home had delivered his lunch. I seriously want to end up in a nursing home with the kind of internet access this guy has.

The second would be the online text RP culture. This one is massive. There is a vast array of forums and groups, email rings and purpose built websites. The main difference between text based rather than graphics based role playing it that the you can basically do anything that you can describe with words. This is an easily abused system, and requires a good group of moderators to work effectively. The subjects cover a massive range, but most popular games, movies and fictional books will have a collection of these websites dedicated to them. Its not hard to find somewhere to go and imitate your favourite character. Its harder to find a good original concept game that holds people's attention for long enough to last, but it does happen.

These online cultures are a good way to connect with like minded people who also enjoy talking about or playing the same games that you do. Think how hard it would be to start a pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons game now, finding people who have the time or inclination to actually play. Much easier to go online and find a group to play with over the internet. Its not the same, it slower and lacks the same interaction, but at the end of the day its a much brighter alternative to not playing at all.

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