I've been to this sim a few times before. Mainly when I'm bored and I want to take a visit to some non-threatening sim. Piedmont is a sim that doesn't participate in force collar or force capture, or raids and is purely role play! Perfect, eh? Not all the time...
Piedmont is a sim which is (for a lack of a better word) marketed to Gorean lifestylers. As I've made clear in my introduction, a Gorean lifestyler I am not. Also, after my first night in Piedmont, I was informed via IM that I shouldn't expect a lot of roleplay out of the locals, as they are purely about the lifestyle. I was a bit disheartened, but I decided to stay, even though I knew going into it that it wasn't going to be the best roleplay of my life. (I originally wanted to visit a different sim, but since the internets were acting funny I decided to head there instead.)
When I first got there I searched a bit for the little green dots on my screen, hopin' to get some action in. There was a scribe on and also a man who was wearing nothing but a "censored" bar across his crotch. My first thought was, "OMFG, you's trollin'!" but when I headed into the inn, sure enough censor man followed suite. I looked around and finally found my room for the night, (which seemed to me it may to be made up as a fancy alcove of sorts.) Knowing that censor man was downstairs, OOC, I made a trip to the second floor and hollared from the balcony - covering my eyes and so forth.
I soon found out that censor man was NOT a troll, but infact a pretty cool dude. My opening line was something along the lines of, "Any other city and your freedom would be questioned!" and so he came back with "Any other city and you wouldn't be here (in the tavern.)" I then declared that we're square and asked for his name, and told him my real name, as I felt he was no threat. Shortly after he asked my homestone; it was quickly after that we found that we were both outlaws of sorts. We sat in the tavern, BSing a bit and talking about whatever happened to come up. I am pleased to say that by the end of the night there were two yellow dots on my screen opposed to one. :) Eventually it came time for my RL bedtime and I said goodnight... hoping that I could perhaps just get a little bit of RP in the morning. The same person who was online the night before was the only person in sim, (the scribe, not censor man) so I left... because I didn't want to roleplay in a dead sim all day... just to go to a not dead sim where everyone runs around OOC, and downs their own people, it seems. o.o
In my time at Piedmont I learned something, rather important about roleplaying in Gor. Part of the experience of roleplay is defense. Defending your family, your homestone, your place of business, ect, ect. Anther important part of the roleplay experience is fear of being collared, of being caught, or being revealed. Now, I am in no way saying that raiding outlaw camps and taking them back to rape their men is my role in Gor. No, no. In fact, right now my header says "There's more to Gor than sex and raids!" buuuut, my point is that non-combat sims limit roleplay oppertunities. I can understand the position of the people of whom live in Piedmont. The majority of their residents, as mentioned earlier, are lifestylers. However, for those of us who aren't interested in sex... this brings up a bit of a problem.
In conculsion, Piedmont can be a fun place to stay if you're just hanging out and want to take a break for an hour or so without getting collared... but like Jort's Ferry isn't a vacation destination. o.o
(Image taken from www.myspace.com/goreanlifestyle)
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