Can you think of any other labels in SL Gor for sims besides "By the Book" and "Gor Evolved"?

"Back to basics", and "In the spirit of the books" are two I have seen lately.

There used to be a Gorean Authentic Charter, that Ari started, that isn't even a group any more I don't think.

Outside of gorean specific, "Immersive" is always my favorite.

I think the halfway point on the spectrum of "Gor Evolved" and "By the Books" is "Book-Based."

I think it disagrees with the idea of Gor's Natural Order philosophy would morph into something different overtime. I think it also warrants the freedom to fill in the blanks for many unknowns during roleplay, without it seeming counter-intuitive to what we've read so far.

Right or wrong, I've started to associate "by the books" with a sort of rigid, inflexible, and sometimes ignorant arrogance.

I think BTB or By The Book got a bad wrap. See in the beginning, as I was there and know the folks starting it, it was a movement to stop femlaws. That was it. It did not mean being strict about what names you called the library, kitchen, fridge. It did not mean to harass those who were new or doing small inconsequential things. It meant 'No female outlaw types'. Thats all. Unfortunately the Gor Evolved crowd stated just the opposite as it was a movement against them being they used and accepted the non existant role. This was so overwhelmingly stated that eventually its what everyone thought. Even BTB places started becoming asinine and doing just the things I stated they weren't supposed to be doing. Now it stands for something it never was meant to be. Thats the most common misconception about BTB. Its about no femlaws and nothing more. Unfortunately too many forgot that.

Does anyone use Disney anymore? I mean disparaging yes, but it is a label. I stopped using any lablels like GE or BTB. To me it is Gor or it is not. IF yo ucall a library the Scribery, or you speak of the 'chilla' or even get things completely wrong its not a biggie, its minute details that aren't worth arguing over. Femlaws, yes, thats not Gor. Label that how you wish but its not a Gorean Sim in any way shape or form. Stick with Gor as the only label and things will run much smoother I think.

This doesn’t really answer the OP, but here are my many, many thoughts on labels.

If we take Gor or SL out of, let’s say someone invited you to come play football. When you arrive, you might be puzzled to see them playing by Canadian, or American, rules. It’s not so different, you could still manage. Slightly different field size and different number of downs, but same equipment, same ball. It might challenge you a bit, and open your mind to some new plays, but you’d probably still have a lot of fun.

Imagine now if the player invited was Euro though, and he showed up expecting to play his version of football. He’s geared up and ready to play what we know as soccer so may not be able to play at all, or if he did he might not have fun, and it might turn him off American or Canadian football and the players forever. Why? Because he might feel he was misled, or that they have bastardized his idea of the game. If, when invited, the player would have been told there would be 11 players on the 100 yard field, a 10 yard end zone and four downs… essentially American Football, then the player either may have chosen not to come play, or prepared themselves mentally for the game they would be encountering.

Now to bring it back to SL, I can make a sim, with machine gun wielding centaurs and call it Gorean RP. There is nothing to stop me from doing so. If a player is searching for Gor, and pops into my sim seeing this, he might either get the completely wrong idea what Gor is if he has no prior knowledge, or might think the RP is fun and who cares if it’s not authentic, or if he does have prior knowledge might get turned of about that sim and leave.

If he chooses to leave, and on the second sim he encounters what seems to be a school or sorts, where girls are learning to be slaves. Very little terms of storylines or plots, just lessons, and focus on doing things in a certain specified way. Most unusual to him (or her) they find that the people there don’t do OOC, in fact they aren’t even IC either, they just simply are what they are. This means the female players especially must act like slaves in all ways, IM or open chat. This might be enough to turn a person off Gor completely and they would never continue the search for what feels right to them.

I do agree that the BtB label has hurt everyone. I have no doubt that it originated with good intentions, which were at the core to reduce or eliminated the armed female combatant roles such as merc, assassin, warrior or outlaw. As with most good intentions though, as with almost all labels and efforts to segregate, the hostilities, misinformation and dislike only grew. Those that wanted to play those roles were, understandably, resentful of the sims that didn’t recognize their characters existence. This lead to spreading the ideas that BtB meant so rigidly narrow minded that it was essentially re-enactment with zero creativity.

In retaliation, those players who were trying to stay authentic to the basic premise of a male dominated society on this planet Gor we read about, started to look down on those that were playing it different, bastardizing their genre by even daring to use the name, and the war was on. They started to imagine these sims that did allow armed femlaws as being so far removed from the concept that they called them evolved, or pew pew, and the whole thing degraded from there.

Now here we are, stuck in a bitter situation, with misconceptions and bad feelings on both sides, and no easy solution. I see players who I believe play their characters well within the plausible realm of the books we’ve read distancing themselves from the term BtB faster than rats out of burning barn. This doesn’t help either. Denying you are BtB because the term now leaves a bad taste in most peoples mouths, or because it’s passé, isn’t going to help the more traditional players, or anyone for that matter.

We could stop using all terms for the more authentic sims or players and just say Gorean, but what do we call the other ones? Ideally, nothing. Labeling others, especially when we do so in a negative way, only adds to the hard feelings and segregation of roleplayers.

We still haven’t answered the question about that new player. Or the one searching for a new sim? By dropping a descriptor, we still haven’t helped that person have we?

So in some way perhaps we do still need a term, or a label, or a definition, but no amount of rebranding is going to help at this point. Whether we use Spirit of the Books, or Gor Authentic, or Book Based... if we drop Disney Gor and Gor Evolved and call them Laissez Faire Gor, all the same negative feelings will still be there. It may be best to simply just say Gorean, and in the rules explain that femlaws are not allowed, and leave it at that. If other sims, the machine gun wielding centaur sim calls itself Gor, then so be it. Mounting a campaign is going to hurt us as much as them, maybe more so, we start to look like narrow minded zealots rather than roleplayers.

We also, most importantly, need to vote with our feet. Play in the sims that match your vision or expectations, give them your support and stories, and don’t worry about the others. If you are having fun in a place that suits you, then at the end of the day that’s all that matters. If some other less authentic places have two or three times the traffic? Well, there really isn’t much you can do about it. Viewing other sims as competition might techinically be true as roleplayers are basically a commodity, and everyone would love to have a good player base in their home, but in the end the OOC intersim hostility and then protectionism of home causes rumours of cliques and elitism. This whole thing has become a bloody mess.

Let’s stop dissing other places that are not playing in the way we envision Gor, let’s stop labeling them, and maybe they will stop labeling us. We, those more authentic players, need to stop holding up our BtB badge like it is some proof that we’re the chosen people. More importantly we need to stop vehemently denying this label when it’s mentioned.

If you truly do play within the genre as outlined in the books, don’t freak out when someone calls you BtB, because really you are just adding to the negative stereotype that goes with it by insisting you aren’t that. Instead try to find out why someone is using the term, and how they mean it. Maybe take an opportunity to explain that it doesn’t mean you are doing a re-enactment or that you don’t eject any player who uses an incorrect term or is wearing an outfit that isn’t described in the books. If you have a nice normal conversation with someone, if you can prove you aren’t some book waving ideologue, and that though you don’t wear BtB like a banner you don’t run from it either, then maybe, slowly, the term will fade out, at least in the context of being used as an insult which is really how it’s being used now.

I have no real solutions. I know, I wrote ALL that to say I have no solutions. It’s ok though because I don’t, we don’t, have to fix it here and now. What we do have to do, all of us, is recognize that this is an issue, and adjust our own behaviours accordingly.