Life at virtual Hogwarts -- an update

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On the grounds of Hogwarts castle.

My friend Headburro Antfarm recently asked for an update on how things are going in my other rp venue, Hogwarts United. And of course, I am always glad to accommodate HB’s requests, just as I heed his suggestions. So here’s a quick summary of how things are going:

* I got through my entire first term of being there without injuring any students or destroying the library.

* At the end of that first term, they made me Head Librarian. (not because I was wonderful or anything, but because Sio Timeless, the previous Head Librarian has some real-life issues to deal with and they had to plug somebody into the gap).

* I found that most people I encountered, especially the students seemed to like the character I had created, and especially enjoyed her occasional correspondence.

* Once I became head librarian I undertook the task of reorganizing the actual note-card-based books that the library has, trying to get them consistently filed alphabetically by author. That made me feel very useful and accomplished.

* I made some nice friends on the staff especially Professors Nyx Carnell (Phoenyx Firehawk) and Avaya Wirefly. They’re fun, delightful people, dedicated teachers, and damn fine rp’ers.

* I have recruited a couple of library assistants who show great promise. I have already discovered that one of them, Quinn Porthos, shares my enthusiasm for blowing shit up.

* I have had a great deal of fun. And I still am, even with the whole “being given responsibility” thing, which was something I was trying desperately to avoid. (oh well).

Working in the restricted collections o the library.

I have enjoyed getting to experience a type of rp that is very different from what I am used to in places like Deadwood. First off, there is a whole lot less random violence, and I can’t cuss like I am used to. I do say “bloody hell” alot, however, especially when something happens like the castle being swarmed by charmed pumpkins hopping through its halls, or cursed books exploding into flames when you try to to get them to reveal what sort of spell has been cast over them.

I have been very impressed by the faculty, who put a great deal of significant effort into preparing the lessons--doing research, writing their syllabi and handouts for the students, and setting up demonstrations of various sorts to make the classes interesting. The one thing that I find to be a drawback to the system is that such a commitment is required of the teachers in developing and presenting their classes, these folks frequently don’t seem to have a lot of time or energy for actually doing much roleplaying. The faculty in general take their responsibilities extremely seriously.

Which was probably why I found myself directing Dio in a direction that is, like her role in Deadwood, sort of a one-woman Greek Chorus commenting upon the action or filling out the big scenes, but which also includes a bit more comic relief than I offer in other rp settings.

You may recall that her backstory revolves around being a former auror who was retired early with PTSD--so Dio has her quirks and will periodically do or say things to surprise or befuddle people who expect librarians to act in a certain way. One odd tendency that sort of evolved on its own without me really planning it, is that I will be extremely formal in speech and manners with people I do not know well, or in most normal professional circumstances. However, with friends, or when I get excited or angry, I become much more casual and rather coarse (at least as much as one can be in a PG sim). When no one in authority is looking, I also am inclined to draw on my background in magical combat and no-holds-barred spell casting to deal with various situations.

For example, there currently is a movement afoot among the students protesting the requirement to wear robes to class, and they have been marking the castle up with graffiti. I found some of this graffiti on one of the library tables, and becoming frustrated after trying to clean it off with the usual “tergeo “ charm, I just used a combat spell to blast the marking off permanently. Miss Porthos was in attendance to put out any resulting fires (which she did, quite nicely) and she agreed with me that the pyrotechnics that ensued were worth the resulting char marks on the table top. We’re going to leave the damage in place for awhile to stand as our own “message” to would-be graffiti artists.

The table with the graffiti "cleaned off." Don't worry...I am sure I can remove the burn marks...eventually.

The real place for me to exercise my proclivity for comic relief, however, has been in making up ridiculous titles for nonexistent books when a student asks for something that isn’t actually in the current limited collection. Another source of some yuks are the letters I have sent by way of my owl “Rasputin” to different people on various occasions. The following was a letter I sent to one of the professors who also works for the Ministry of Magic, and who was supposed to be cracking down on the use of unauthorized portkeys (magical teleportation devices).

A rather seedy looking owl of indeterminate age and type wheels crazily through the twilight, pauses to look around in apparent confusion or possibly the owl equivalent of Alzheimer's disease.

It then crashes onto your windowsill, and lies there looking fairly ill. As you open the window to retrieve the message it is clutching in its badly trimmed claws, it vomits up some partially digested mouse remains, and then blinks its eyes at you in a expression that can only be described as one of mild irritation.

As you go to close your window again, it suddenly ruffles itself, shedding a few mangy looking feathers and one or two of some kind of insectoid parasite. It also seems to have dandruff.

The message reads:

To:
Mr. Wendall Kristan,
Official Ministry type Minister of something or other
Ministry of Magic

From:
Miss Diogenes Penthesileia Kuhr
Auror (retired)
Assistant Librarian, Dangerous Books Collection
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

cc: Headmaster Lysis Nikolaidis

My Dear Mr. Kristan:

I understand that you are seeking information about the misuse of unapproved Port Cheese at the school and let me tell you bucko, tis about HIGH TIME someone did something about this disgraceful situation. The practice of mixing Port wine in with cheese is an absolute travesty, not to mention a dreadful waste of perfectly good Port, though I will admit that on whole wheat crackers at a little get-together with friends, it does taste pretty good. But for a formal occasion such as an official inquisition or Wizardgamot hanging party, it simply WILL NOT DO!

No No No, for those kinds of situations, you should always go with something like a nice Stilton, or if you have people coming whom you really don't like all that much, I suppose you could fob off some kind of cheap gooey Brie on them, and hey, they most likely won't know the difference, will they?

Oh.

Wait.

One of my colleagues just informed me that the issue was about the misuse of "Portkeys"....not "Port Cheese."

Never mind.

Oh dear. Well, that's pretty bloody embarrassing, isn't it? Dreadful sorry about that. Portkeys? Hmmmm. haven't used one o' them silly buggers in years. Always worry that if you use one and it goes wonky, you're going to end up with your head stuck up your own tookus, eh? Though I do suppose Ministry people have to use them a lot, don't they? Oh..not that I'm implying...um...yes, well...best quit while I'm ahead , eh?

yours
D.P. Kuhr


Silly stuff, I know. But fun. And certainly not inconsistent with the Harry Potter-esque reality that Hogwarts United represents.

Again, I will reiterate that this kind of highly structured immersion environment is not for everyone. Major rp scenarios must be presented in a proposal to a review committee and approved. Some folks find the process slow, and that it perhaps “cramps their style.” But it does serve to keep the roleplay under control and within the set of parameters that the sim leadership has established. As with any rp community, there are a few drama whores and idiots, but their ability to affect everyone else’s experience is severely limited by the sim policies. It is very seldom that you find yourself watching someone go off in some ridiculous self-indulgent direction, while everyone else present is muttering, “Well that was fucking moronic.”

This also suggests that the recruiting/application/orientation process really does work in maintaining a level of quality among the sim population, and reducing or eliminating the peckerhead factor. I have yet to encounter a grieftard in the castle, at all. That has been really nice.

So what’s next? Well, I am going to try to spend more time in Hogwarts if I can, and hopefully encourage more of the sim residents to write up essays or booklets--covering anything from magical techniques to their backstory family histories--that can be added to the library collections. I mean hell, I can’t keep making up silly titles for non-existent books forever.

~~~

Hogwarts United: well organized immersion

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Newly hired assistant librarian Diogenes Penthesileia Kuhr and Head Librarian Siorai Timeless in the library at Hogwarts castle.

Mind you, my heart will always belong to Deadwood, but I do like to go exploring. And do you remember how I was telling you about being intrigued by the application and orientation system being used at Hogwarts United, a Harry Potter-themed immersion rp environment? And I told you how I had gone through the process, applying to be a staff member, and I would let you know how it turned out?

Well, boys and girls, I got hired!

I am an assistant librarian working in the school library, with a special emphasis on looking after the restricted and "dangerous" collections, although I also have been called on to take the front reference desk and help students with their research needs. This was my first week and it's been a blast, as well as an interesting and enlightening experience.

I have been switching back and forth between Deadwood and Hogwarts, and so far it's worked out pretty well. I'm pretty much just wearing my formal Victorian ensemble, but without the over-skirt and bustle, so the changeover doesn't involve a lot of extra effort to switch wardrobes. Fortunately, wizards and witches being sort of eccentric folks to start with, this look seems to fit in pretty well. But I'll say a bit more about costuming later on.

First, back to the admission process. You may recall that I had to do a lengthy written application that included a well developed backstory (retired Auror with PTSD, looking for something useful to do). Then I went to an Out of Character (OOC) interview with one of the admissions people (a charming young lady who mostly focused on asking questions designed to determine if I had a clue about the canon or not). After that I went to an OOC orientation class with a group of other new folks, and we got a good review of how things work in this community.

Then I had to wait for my face-to-face interview.

After a few days I heard from Deputy Headmisstress Anastasja Barbasz, who set up and conducted the meeting in her lovely office in the castle. The interview was done in character, and was a fascinating melding of roleplaying and a serious examination of me, the candidate. With us both in character, Deputy Headmisstress Barbasz was fun to interact with: I assume part of the exercise here was to make sure that (A.) I can actually roleplay effectively, and (B.) I'm not some kind of mega tap-dancing douche. But I genuinely enjoyed it.

I seemed to have managed to convince Ms. Barbasz about the mega tap-dancing douche issue, because lo and behold, a week or so later (Headmaster was on vacation and so the process was a bit slower than it most likely usually is) I was informed I had been hired and was told to report to the Head Librarian.

This brought me into contact with Head Librarian Siorai Timeless, who was just an absolute delight as she got me squared away on how the library functions, and what would be expected of me. In this process, there were a couple of surprises, the most interesting of which was being informed that I would be working the front desk and helping the students. This shows that these folks had a lot of faith in me, thinking that I am in any way of a temperament or otherwise appropriately suited to work with impressionable young people. Either that, or there is a serious flaw in their interview system that let me slip through.

But one of the key things I learned from Sio is that if there is no actual notecard or flip-style"book" available from the library's shelves covering the topic that a student is studying, then I would get to roleplay finding them the book. AND if I so chose, I could make up some plausible title and related details about the imaginary volume.

WOOHOO! This was real fun as I chattered away at the students about books I invented such as "The Idiot's Guide to Quidditch," "Treasures of Transfiguration." and "Great Duels I Witnessed: or How in Baal's name did he do that?" I got a bit carried away on the dueling book, explaining in detail about how it had been written by a man named McKromsky who had been Europe's best known referee of magical duels in the last century. However, being as he was pretty thoroughly drunk at almost every wizards' duel he ever refereed, there were holes in his memory and a lot of what was in the book was simply shit that he had made up. I did however, tell the students that it was really fun to read. At first I just rp'd giving the kids a book to sign out, but then I found an old freebie volume with a reading anim in the inventory, so I started giving them that.

After a few days of this kind of book duty and just observing and reacting, I began to initiate a few minor situations, and soon had some pretty full blown rp conversations of a philosophical and dramatic nature going. I had a lot of fun with some students (including my old friends from Deadwood, Tallulah and Guru) and several of the staff, including Professor Diesel (one of the charms instructors) and Nyx Carnell, the arithmancy and transfiguration professor. Nyx was a really good sport, putting up with my rambling and pontificating long after he should have gone to bed, and he is, like many of the folks in this environment, really damn good at the art of rp.

One of the most interesting interactions I had was with the guy in charge, Headmaster Nikolaidis. Now, be honest: when you think headmaster of a wizard school, you think some old Goodgulf Grayteeth character, right? A benevolent, grandfatherly old sod with twinkling eyes, a beard the size of Honduras, and shuffling around in a grubby old bathrobe with stars glued to it, right?

This ain't that kind of headmaster.

He's younger than me, slim and all dressed in leather, sporting a neatly trimmed goatee, and dude! ...about as benevolent and jolly as Genghis Khan. This man is serious, hard as nails, and ready for any shit that might come down the pike. He had combat blades strapped to his legs and an attitude that was...well....let me put it this way: when I offered that I had heard that he had something of a sense of humor (not sure where I got THAT from) he stared at me for a minute and then said flatly that he "was not aware of having anything like that."

Damn. If Dio wasn't a tough ol' kakootza herself, I think she'd have crawled under a rock and waited for dark to fall so she could escape unnoticed.

But don't get me wrong -- I thought this was really appealing and engaging. You have to keep in mind that this version of Hogwarts is set about 10 years after the last of the Harry Potter books ends. It is a new world, and still certainly dangerous. I have heard from several people, including the headmaster, that there have been bad things happening, people getting attacked, and that many of the students--being the children of the deatheater generation--have some pretty intolerant tendencies going. It really struck me that this was a headmaster who would NOT put up with any nonsense or folderol, and who would kick asses and take names if he had to.

And yet, at the same time, he told me his main goal was to encourage "the students to learn from one another."

Fucking fascinating...

Canon is there, it is respected--but it is just a starting point. What is being done here feels like "Potter: The Next Generation." Hell, I seem to be oldest person in the goddam castle, at least so far as I can tell (though I am still meeting folks). Most of the staff are in their 20's and 30's. Look at the picture of Sio, the head Librarian: she's a very attractive young lady, dressed in a sleek but practical pants suit, nicely coiffed and with cool glasses. Lots of the other folks are a bit more traditional in gowns and pointy hats, but damn...it's not your granddaddy's Hogwarts. The castle itself has the elements you would expect--great hall, towers, moving staircase, cloisters, dungeon like classrooms--but it also has a clean and slightly modernized feel to it. It's not all dark and cluttered, which in reality is probably a function of keeping prims under control, but mentally, it's easy to think that it's all an aspect of this "new Hogwarts" way of doing things. You can also imagine it is perhaps the result of the general clean-up and repairs that had to be done after the big battle that happens in the last book and which undoubtedly did a good deal of damage to the castle.

The approach that is taken by the players is admirable. There are classes that the students attend, uniforms are worn, and points given and taken from the various houses. Intrigue and rivalries abound. The teachers have to make syllabi, recommend books, and present lectures and demonstrations. The students are given homework, and come into the library complaining about it. The school administration clearly has planned out what they need and what they can manage from a practical standpoint, and when they had all their staff slots filled, they sent out an announcement saying that no more new staff would be hired until next term.

This is really well thought out and people have made a commitment that is impressive.

Is this for everyone?

No, of course not. It is rather demanding of time and energy. I imagine a lot of people burn out pretty quickly. Casual guests cannot wander in and ramble about the castle (though they can in the adjoining Hogsmeade village). And it takes awhile to get into this. I think of myself as a pretty experienced and adaptable roleplayer, but when I first got in, I felt constrained to quietly go about my assigned tasks and at most, give or respond to polite greetings. I observed and listened, and people pretty much left me alone until I was ready to begin getting to know them a bit and engaging them a little. It all felt very very real in terms of how people adjust to new situations.

My guess is that you need to be one of those in-between personalities. If you're really shy, you might get into this and go for weeks or months without talking to anyone very much. Or if you're a rampaging psychotic attention whore, you're probably going to bump up against the wall of the existing community culture, and burst into a mass of flaming farts, after which you'll go back to your usual haunts and whine about how insular and "cliquish" those people in Hogwarts are.

But hey, that's life on the grid, right? Me, I'm going to keep at this and see where it goes. Like I said, I love exploring, but sometimes, you really can't learn much by just visiting a culture for an hour or two, and then hope to come away saying you understand it. When it is this complex, you have to live in it and try to be a part of it. And so far, I am really enjoying living in this environment, and I am grateful to the Hogwarts United folks for opportunity to try to be a small part of it and understand their rp community a little better.

~~~