Hey, I know! Let's Roleplay that We're Roleplaying!

This is a pretty standard, mediocre list that pollutes Digg all the time: "The 13 Best Electronic Versions of Dungeons & Dragons." I would normally browse this kinda list and forget about it in another minute, but one item nearly destroyed my brain when I read about it.

It's the 12th item down, about people who roleplay IN Second Life, the Massively Multi-player Online life simulator. As I understand it, SL prides itself on being as realistic as possible given that it's basically a chatroom inside a 3D universe. There's an internal economy, and users are able to write code for the "metaverse" based on what they want to do/see/buy.

I once read about a woman who had been a member for six years and had programmed jewelry that she sold in the game. Quite literally, she was selling merchandise in SL for their currency, the Linden Dollar, and actually making a profit in the real world. Of course, SL isn't the only MMO on which people make money. People have been making money off of World of Warcraft for a long time and Everquest even longer.

Anyway, I had already known that. But what I could never have imagined is that SL users--or "residents," but I'll never call them that--some users have immersed themselves so much that their characters actually play tabletop Dungeons & Dragons. Let's let that sink in for awhile...

That can't be healthy. The users themselves are sitting at their respective computers, and their characters are sitting at a table in Second Life, playing D&D. Often in these huge, 3D chatrooms, there are activities for avatars to do: dancing, darts, drinking, other d-words... All things that their character is actually doing in that fake universe. The characters dance; a little, digital dart flies across the room; characters drink and puke--whatever. The stimulation of those activities is visible right there, on the screen and inside that universe.

But with these SL roleplayers, the stimulation is in their digital brains! All an actual user sees happening is a group of characters sitting around a table with animations for rolling dice and writing on paper--the characters "acting out" their D&D characters' actions. All the while, one of them acts as the Dungeon Master and a "real" session of D&D is going on.

Riveting, isn't it? At least they're playing "outside."

It's like The Matrix inside The Matrix!!1

The saddest thing about it, I think, is that D&D in SL could mean that real life roleplaying is too social for some people to handle. They're dorks, and they want to roleplay, but they don't want to get out of their computer chair, invite their three friends over to go down into the basement to chuck dice and slay Pizza Hut, Doritos, and 2-liters of Dew. That's too overwhelming? They'd rather experience that from the safe, secure distance that an MMORPG-RPG can provide?

It bottles the mind.

What about the myriad smells and grease sheens that probably aren't in SL? What of the caffeine and sun-blasted headache that strikes upon the ascension from the cave after eight hours? What about arguments about exactly how many Hit-Dice Beholders have? Can a typist emote the venom and ferocity of those arguments via text-chatting?

"NO... NO... A 9th level Beholder would have hit dice of 9d8+3 not 9d10+3, you F'n dork!"

It's just not the same. Where's the Dorito spittle and flailing dice bags? Where's the mother wrenching open the door at the top of the stairs, screaming threats to drive all your friends home early if you can't play nice? And everyone involved should be listening to Manowar, not just the Second Life Dungeon Master. How's he supposed to make sure everyone's rocking the same atmosphere?

See what I mean? Totally unhealthy.

Can you imagine a LAN party during which gamers are logged into SL and playing D&D? Man! That's totally different! Not only would they be actually (kinda) socializing in the real world, but they'd also be socializing in an MMO and socializing in a D&D session in the MMO! Vast levels and mastery of socializing.

I guess dorks aren't shut-ins afterall.

Mace...out of HP.