Saturday, July 31st, 2010

Facebook Roleplaying

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Social Networks are now allowing people to communicate in new and exciting ways which weren’t even dreamed of in previous generations. Aside from just randomly chatting, they are also allowing people to tell stories, and to create works of fiction, which are emerging to recreate the nature of storytelling.

Roleplay is an act of imagination, where you gather a group of people together, and each one assumes the role of a character. Then they act as that character, in order to further the story. Everyone adds their own perspective to the piece, and the resulting story is made up of the whole.

6a00d8341c7ed153ef0120a5b3018a970bSocial networking communities are places for people to tell one another stories already. Through the submission of pictures, videos, and written content, you tell your friends and families about the life you are living. It is a form of personal narrative.

This ability can be tweaked a bit, allowing a truly creative individual to tell fictional stories using this software. This allows you to sign up as someone else, a fictional character, and then to tell the story of that character the way you would with your own life.

This story can then be expanded by interactions with other characters, or even with real people across the network. In this way the tale becomes interactive, with new life being breathed into it by a variety of creative minds.

Most of the big social networks are not intended for use as fictional or roleplaying tools. You will find in the terms of service of most of these sites that the act of creating a fictional character is expressly forbidden, and can be punished. While these rules are not usually enforced very strictly, their mere presence tends to hamper your ability to engage in create endeavors.

There are alternatives however. The most popular is probably http://www.RolePages.com. A social network set up very similarly to facebook, the creators of RolePages encourage members to sign up as fictional characters. In fact they want members to sign up as the strangest, and most creative people they can possibly imagine. The goal is to then create stories through interactions with other character members across the site.

Social networks are a new frontier in the art of communication. Using them as a medium for telling stories is a trend that is just starting to catch on. As the sophistication of the technology increases the ability to create fictional works using these tools is only going to improve.

To read more about this subject visit RolePages.com an in character roleplaying social network where you can sign up as anyone or anything that you can imagine. There you will find more information on facebook roleplaying, as well as an eclectic cast of members including werewolves, vampires, fairies, psychics, aliens, madmen, monsters, demons, and anyone else that you can imagine.

If you click on any of the links on this page and make a purchase, the site owner may receive a sales commission.

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