Many people have expressed their opinions on resources in one way or the other, and I do have to say that I agree with most of them.  I think that a lot of us forget the “little things” we could do to promote RP on sim, meet and greet other players, and enhance our own RP in the process.  These are just MY ideas and opinions, by the way, but I do hope they spur a few ideas for roleplay in others.

While most of the time our RP focuses on our relationships and on our personal drama and the relationships that we have between the different groups, and the high energy of big stressful scenes that create obvious turning points in our character’s lives, we forget about the little things.  We forget at times that the driving force in this location is survival and a big part of that is the lack of resources.

Do we pull together or do we rob each other?

I do notice that most people want to be good and want to be liked and people want to pull together, and that is good.  Part of that is what pushed for the new map, so that we can ‘band together’ and help each other out, but still give the ‘baddies’ a place to be relatively safe from prosecution. But I think that many of us don't know in real life what it's like to be hungry, to need things we take for granted now, the little things in our daily life that we don't think about so much that would make an impact in your character's life.   Yet it seems that lately we are just pulling them out of our pixel asses and not thinking about how acquiring those things could be used to enhance our roleplay or increase our interactions with others.

I mentioned in one of the proposals, a bit sarcastically albeit, how we all seem to have every single merit badge--we can all sew, we can all fix things, we can all hunt, we all have a green thumb--and this is part of what alienates the groups and locations created to help characters find their place in town and promote the “resources” story lines. If you are completely self-sufficient in all this all the time, you are stanching rp!

The Garage -  We all talk about how we would NEED this, yet few people call on the mechanics to come fix their things.  Had a fight with someone and they kicked a door in?  Call on them to come fix the latch.  Where are you getting the gas to go on runs?  How are you keeping that vehicle in running condition?  Like the proposal for the garage mentioned --fall on your ass during a fight with an infected and happened to land on the radio and now it’s busted?    Go to the garage!

Hardware store - I think this place was meant as a convenience store of sorts.  While the ATC might bring things in bulk, most of us don’t think to buy a case of toothbrushes to last us 5 years, and toothpaste, or tampons or razors.   The ATC could very well keep these items for themselves and sell them “retail”, but correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t see many of us going down there to get these things either.  Someone running the “hardware” store could buy them in bulk from the ATC and have them for sale at the Hardware store.  The few times I’ve seen the Hardware store manned I have gone there to buy precisely those things --toothbrushes, tampons, condoms, toothpaste, etc.   The hardware store could also sell things like transistor radios, batteries, etc.  Whoever runs the Hardware store could establish a business relationship with the ATC and get RP going that way.  They could also buy things that have been repaired from the mechanic’s shop for resale---but then what?

Nothing - That’s where it ends because most of us don’t RP needing those things.  Most of us, even those of us that are in relationships on sim and having sex, don’t roleplay having a period, or having to be careful for fear of pregnancy, or even needing basic toiletries and necessities like razors to shave our legs and armpits or deodorant.  We don’t rp having to go to the bathroom and needing toilet paper or even laundry soap--those that rp near me know that Kali does her laundry on Sundays, that she hangs it out to dry on the roof.  But I’m guilty, hell if I know where she’s getting all that Tide!

The Diner/Other Food sources - There is a player run shop called Hunted and Gathered and there is the diner.  While these two locations could very well feed off of each other for RP, if your character or group is not out there hunting and fishing DAILY, if they are not coming to the diner at least once a day to eat, if they are not coming to Hunted and Gathered to buy food, if they are not buying dry and canned goods from the ATC, how are they getting food to eat?  And yes, DAILY.  We don’t have refrigeration.  Unless you have a smoke house or a way to dry meats and fruit safely, or know how to can food, if you don’t eat it all in a short amount of time chances are it's going to rot!  Fruit and vegetables have a season, things are not available year-round, check out what grows in the Bay area of CA online.

In the same way, Hunted and Gathered and the Diner should not have food coming out of a magical vending machine.  If no one went hunting or fishing or whatever, they should have nothing to serve.  So they should be looking for people to bring in food, or people should be looking to bring food to them.  Say your character is a loner and they don’t want to work for a particular location, maybe they are good at fishing, catching crabs or hunting.   You could probably keep a dozen crabs alive to last you a few days---or you can sell them to the diner.  A bigger catch means they’ll have enough food to sell for the day.  Shot down a deer?  It’s too much for one person, if you don’t have a group to share it with, look to selling it or bartering with the diner or another group/shop.

Also, when you go hunting and fishing--ROLL DICE!  You can figure out how you wanna do it, but you can roll once for what type of animal (1- Bear 2- Dear 3 - Raccoon, etc), and roll to see if you killed it or not.

Didn’t get any?   That’s not necessarily a bad thing--RP wise.  It’s another dimension or facet.  Are you going to beg for food back on the island?  Steal? I see a few folks in the ooc complaining about not having enough money to buy food.  Well, you can get up to 10% of someone’s HUD$ if you defeat them in PvP, you can RP robbing them, you can stand on the street corner and beg, you can offer services/chores/odd jobs for money or for food.  Scavenge too!  Some people keep track of the things listed on their HUD when they scavenge and they trade for them.   You can do whatever your character is desperate enough to do for a plate of food.

We do make allowances for roleplay and imaginary things-for example, Kali will pay HUD$ for imaginary empty bottles and odd jobs like washing glasses and bottles, and OF COURSE we are not going to roleplay all day pulling weeds out of a garden, or spend every moment online hunting, but needing things is what is going to make us seek each other out, help prevent business locations from going dead and promote RP.  So for example, when you come online after a few hours of being off, you can RP that you were out hunting, fishing, scavenging, or tending your garden.  Roll dice to see what you got, and take it from there.  Look for ways to add to your RP that will increase your interaction with others.