I have a concern. Today I began an rp with someone who appeared to be a new player. He invited me to his tattoo parlor in Vodou. When I arrived there it was an OOC shop complete with products to buy. The rp was clearly about getting me to buy his tattoo and I felt that his expectation was that I would OOCly purchase a tattoo from him. Once I made it clear that I was not going to purchase a tattoo he abruptly ended the rp. He said he needed to go to RL but I felt that it was mostly because I was not a buyer, that suspicion was compounded by the fact that he did not log off.

When players rp with alternative motives, such as the motive to extract linden from another player it destroys rp. Even if a player never comes out and says oocly that they want you to buy something, the fact that they have lured you to an ooc shop under the guise of an rp destroys trust on the sim.

This practice of rping with the intention of getting someone to buy from you should be banned even if that person is renting land on this sim. After that experience of rping with this person for an hour and discovering they just wanted my linden I felt like logging off. It also made me leery of rping with new people. Now I feel that I need to "watch out" and be hyper-vigilant about people who are just vendors on this sim who want to capitalize on the players.