Information about RLV in Second Life

Information about Restrained Love Viewer, collars and relays in the virtual world Second Life.

RLV (Restrained Love Viewer) is a system that permits other users to control a user's avatar and viewer to some extent. A collar is an interface that permits users to interact with the RLV. A relay is an interface that permits objects to interact with the RLV.

RLV accepts special commands from objects owned by the RLV user. It can imply restrictions on e.g. inventory, rezzing, editing, attachments, clothing, touching, viewing, communicating, maps, teleporting, sitting or flying. It can also force e.g. attachments, clothing or teleporting.

RLV permits access to inventory in the "#RLV" folder directly under inventory root. Things can't be taken from there through RLV though, only added and used.

A collar contains one or more scripts that permit a user to interact with it by touch, dialog boxes or chat commands, issuing commands to the RLV. It does not have to look like a collar or even be worn, but can be any object owned and rezzed by the RLV user.

Collars and restraints often permit "owners". This does not mean that they actually belong to the "owner", but that the "owner" is permitted to control them.

A relay contains one or more scripts that permit another object, e.g. BDSM furniture, to interact with it by "hidden" chat commands, issuing commands to the RLV. It does not have to be worn, but can be any object owned and rezzed by the RLV user.

Some devices automatically scan for users with relays, trying to take control over them and force restrictions or actions on them. Such devices are called RLV traps.

Many RLV objects offer "eye candy", e.g. restraint appearance, chains, restrained poses or animations, and restraint functionality like blindfolding and (gag) garbling, but these don't depend on RLV. With the use of RLV, they can however be forced on the RLV user.

Often relays are built into collars, and often various restraints contain RLV scripts to e.g. prevent detaching them when locked.

To use RLV, the user needs a RLV enabled viewer, like the original Restrained Love Viewer (http://www.erestraint.com/realrestraint/), Phoenix viewer (http://www.phoenixviewer.com/) or Imprudence/Kokua viewer (http://blog.kokuaviewer.org/), the two latter with RLV turned on. The user also needs a collar system or active relay.

Some major RLV collar/restraint systems are OpenCollar (free and open source) (http://code.google.com/p/opencollar/wiki/OpenCollar, in SL http://slurl.com/secondlife/Keraxic/86/220/24), RealRestraint (http://realrestraint.blogspot.com/, in SL http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pak/76/61/105), Restrained Freedom (in SL http://slurl.com/secondlife/Xoliantha/46/207/73) and T&T (an obedience belt) (in SL http://slurl.com/secondlife/Free%20Bird/57/172/39).

Some major RLV relays are OpenCollar (built-in) (http://code.google.com/p/opencollar/wiki/OpenCollar, in SL http://slurl.com/secondlife/Keraxic/86/220/24), RLV reference implementation (free and open source) (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Protocol/Restrained_Love_Relay/Reference_Implementation) and Think Kink (tkPBA, free) (in SL http://slurl.com/secondlife/Blacksilk%20Forrest/220/144/25).

Some "players" abuse RLV by e.g. locking and leaving those they play with. Such locks can always be cheated out of by switching to a none-RLV viewer, detach the locked items, reset the scripts in them and re-use them. Some also have built-in resets and spare key systems.