((A few tips on Role Playing.))

(Keep in mind, this entire post is OOC, feel free to jump in, give your own opinions, ask questions and give critiques, I encourage it.)

It’s hard to sum up everything I know about RP into one tell-all post. It’s as much a part of the game as is raiding, questing, PVP, as much a part of it as anything, and more. RP takes up two thirds of RPg, and I treat it as that dominating factor that drives the other aspects of the game. Without a good story, the graphics, the play style, and the difficulty doesn’t mean much, which is why most people can only stand to spend about fifteen minutes playing a story-less arcade game before they get bored. Unfortunately, in today’s world where it’s more important to be 1337 than it is to enjoy the experience, most people RP objectively, never truly responding to the world that Blizzard has created. We will not join the ranks of these poor souls. We, being true RPers, take role-playing to next level, and play the game as it was truly meant to be played.

When you RP effectively, the pixilated image you see on your computer screen pulls back to reveal Azeroth as it was truly meant to be seen. No longer is your character a jumble of rapidly changing segments of code, but instead, a living, breathing, and thinking person, there are thoughts beneath the surface, feelings, preferences, likes, dislikes, memories, priorities, concerns, emotions of all kinds. This person wakes up before you log on, and returns home to go to sleep after you log off. This person has a life of their own, they have a job, they have a past, and they work and live even when you are not there to guide their actions. Azeroth becomes more than just a digitally synthesized plane, but a vibrant world, as it was meant to be.

The first thing you should do, and should have had done before you even made your character, is to create your character history. Your character history is, as the name suggests, the past events that have led your character to this point in time. The important thing to remember about your character history is that the events that you have in it essentially create your character. You will draw on it for everything you do, and we will read the parts you have chosen to make known to get a better idea of who you are, and what to expect. When you make your character history, don’t worry about whether or not people will be impressed. Simply make it the way you want it to be, and make it so it reflects the character that you are making. The ancient cliché stands, be yourself. Be sure to include your childhood, your family, what major events were you involved in, and what characterizes you. When you have finished writing your character history, you’ll have to decide how much of it you want to be known. Keeping important facts about your character secret can play to your advantage. Perhaps you, Mr. Fire-Mage are actually a Red Dragon in disguise (Like Chromie), or perhaps you slaughtered an entire village in the days when you were strongly tempted to become a death knight, and now you’d rather keep that fact hidden from everyone. Secrets and their revelations are an important part of your character.

However, after your character history, it’s time to let go, and let the story guide itself.

You will start to RP very slowly, sticking to your original idea of what your character’s personality is supposed to be. Eventually, though, your character will go off on its own without you knowing. It will sneak off at night and do things that you never thought it would do. It will rebel like a bratty teenager against what you have set down for it. It will run wild, but that’s ok, because it is becoming YOU. Whether you like it or not, you will unconsciously lead your character in a direction that you never thought it would go. Your character will begin to pick up tidbits of your personality, your experiences. In a very convoluted and cosmic sense, they become your true self, leading you in the direction that your true self wants to go. You can either resist or let it take you. I find it much more fun to let it do its own thing, and watch the story follow its own path. Don’t be alarmed, because this is only your story maturing.

Now that you have read my introduction, it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty.

There are three vastly different forms of role-playing that follow the same basic rules with a few variants.

-Written RP
Written RP or “Post” RP often happens on the role playing forums on worldofwarcraft.com. It is old school RP, written like a book that everyone participates in. Written RP gives you the time to employ all the elements of proper style and RP. There’s little room for error, but more than enough time to correct it. In written RP, there is little known downtime, it’s implied. Also, your thoughts and actions are more thought out and they read more like a book than a hastily put together emote.

-Chat RP
Chat RP is the most common form of RP, and it is what we do in the guildhall. Chat RP involves a lot of downtime, but periodic bursts of RP events, where the slow easy feel of it lifts to the pace of a roller coaster. During RP events, things move quickly, and errors are easier to make. Unlike Written RP, it usually isn’t as thought out as written RP. Also, the events that happen in chat RP are more likely to spin out of control, allowing for unpredicted variations in your overall story.

-Played RP
Played RP is a lot like chat RP, except it goes into the downtime as well as the important parts. There are few lapses where nothing is said for hours on end. Instead, you are forced to play through the downtime. Major events are likely to happen in played RP, mostly out of boredom. These events include parties, initiation ceremonies, or deliberately played RP events.

RP events themselves fall into different categories..

-Downtime/Normalcy
The name is self-explanatory. Downtime and Normalcy involves some dialogue, maybe some real discussion, but nothing too major. No secret revelations, no fights, no arguments.

-Arguments
Characters are bound to clash every once in a while. They will often do this through sensible debate, discussion, shouting matches, ranting, or fighting. Arguments will normally stem from a hot issue. The mad dog that is the burning issue will eventually be silenced only after major changes happen. Arguments can be the catalyst to these changes, or they could send them back, and keep them out of the question. Or the issue will persist to create more arguments. Arguments can also spin character histories in different directions; this is where things can spin out of control, and fall apart at the seams.
>Violence: Violence is a type of argument where words have failed, and actions take precedence. Fights are more likely to change the status quo in one direction or another than typical arguments. While some people will relish in these arguments, I see them as means to change the status quo. I concentrate on what caused them, and what the result was. Fights however, are major events, which demand special attention. One of the big things you’ll need to remember in fights is to take some hits, and don’t be afraid to fail. You’re not Superman, you’re not going to be a Spartan. (Never saw 300, but it seems that those Spartans were ridiculously lucky. Under normal conditions, you’re not going to be able to do anything close to that.) The video game cliché that you can take whatever is thrown at you does not apply here. Also, when you are in the process of attacking someone, make sure that you indicate that you don’t know if it hits or not. (“-Player- thrusts his dagger at –target-“; “-Player- casts a spell directed at –target-“ NOT “-Player- swings his sword into –target-‘s shoulder, causing –target-‘s blood to fly everywhere.”) The target must take on the action of receiving the blow. They can dodge, block, or take the hit. The point here is to avoid godmoding, or taking control of someone else’s character. Furthermore, make sure what you’re doing is either in line with your stats in game, and what you can do in combat, or in line with your character history. For example, if you’re a warrior, you can’t cast a fire spell, unless you are actually a dragon in a different form (again, like Chromie) and you would have to show your dragon form in order to cast that fire-spell. (I’ve caught myself making easy mistakes in RP fights. Maybe it’s because I’m looking to the ultimate goal instead of how to get there, maybe it’s because of the fast moving pace of most RP fights. Whatever it is, mistakes are liable to be made in RP fights, if you make those mistakes, learn from them, and listen to what other people are saying.)

--On death—
I never see death in RP as a convenient way to just pop right back up after you got into a situation you couldn’t handle. My version of death in RP is permanent, just as it is in the real world. If you somehow die in the middle of an RP event, there are excuses. Grave injuries, loss of consciousness, you name it, just don’t say that you died. Also, keep in mind, that major NPCs in the game cannot be counted as dead either. For instance, if you went to Orgrimmar and killed Thrall, then that’s great for you, but wouldn’t the Horde grind to a screeching halt in that case? We have to act like major events like that never even happened. Major NPCs, whose death would change the game as we know it, must survive.

-Celebrations/Ceremonies.
Parties, Ceremonies, Weddings, Gatherings, these all fall into this category. More often than not, these are played out, rather than written up, or chat RP’d. At these ceremonies, a myriad of events can and will happen. Fate may have other plans besides just the celebration. Perhaps a character will fall ill in the middle of an initiation ceremony, perhaps that wedding cake was poisoned, or maybe there will be a Horde attack in the middle of a formal ball.

(Cont.)

(Cont.)

For every situation however, the same set of basic rules apply.

-DON’T godmode, or take control of someone else’s character.
Godmoding includes:
>RPing other players (actions or words)
>RPing the receiving action of one of your actions. (Ex. The bullet slices into –target-‘s skin)
--On RPing NPCs—
Role Playing NPCs is kind of a gray area. Some NPCs are ok to RP, while others are not, others are somewhat disputed. If you are going to RP an NPC, make sure it is a minor NPC, or an NPC that you created. Do not RP a major character in the game, like Illidain or Thrall.

-DON’T be superman
This can include taking no hits, and using ridiculous abilities with no justification, or having nothing bad happen to you.

-DON’T break from lore.
I’m sorry, but you’re not going to have a submachine gun, nor are you going to say that the Battle of Mount Hyjal never happened (with sincerity, but I’m sure you can think of a conspiracy theory or two.)
--On Lore interpretation—
There are two basic schools of Lore interpretation. Strict construction, and Loose construction. Strict says: “Where in the lore does it say you can do that?” Loose says: “Where does it say I can’t?” With each theory, we must take things with a hint of common sense. Just because the lore doesn’t cover a space of time, doesn’t mean that nothing happened during that time, but we’re pretty certain that during that time Archimonde didn’t materialize in the middle of Stormwind, and started to do a little jig before he vanished just as quickly as he appeared. Strict constructionists must take what happened in those little areas that aren’t mentioned in the lore into account, and Loose constructionists must have a grain of common sense.
(Personally, I consider myself a loose constructionist, edging my way in where I see a hole. The holes in blizzard’s lore I do not see as flaws, because they allow room for variation in your own character history.)

-DON’T break from character
If you are in the middle of an RP, the worst thing you could do to destroy the experience would be to break from character. If you are having an argument over the scourge, and suddenly a character starts talking about how they just got an Ipod, the whole experience is destroyed as the outside world rudely marches in, in a macabre parade of all the reasons we’re trying to get AWAY from the world for a while. If you must break from character, use the OOC channel.
Also remember what your character knows and doesn’t know. If someone else said in their character history that they are a wanted criminal, that doesn’t mean that your character necessarily knows that. This also includes bits of lore, and names.
--On ((OOC)) brackets---
One other thing that people like doing is using ((OOC)) brackets, that is, surrounding the OOC statement with double parenthesis. While this is a viable way to make an OOC comment, it does have one problem, it breaks flow. This is why we have an OOC channel. If you are RPing with someone who is not in the guild, whisper the OOC comment. Brackets should only be used when you are linking an item, if you can’t do it in whisper.

-DON’T forget the basic rules of decency.
Use the golden rule, and remember that there are people who could be offended by something you say. Please consider what you are saying before you say it, and if it does come out sounding offensive, make sure that everyone knows that that wasn’t the intention. Avoid profanity, excessive gore, and other obvious things that should be kept out.

The following are more suggestions than hardfast rules. I would keep them in mind, though, to avoid holes or lapses in your story.

-DO have plausible explanations for character abilities, absences, and all manner of events that involve your character.
Everything demands an explanation, and some backup in RP. If you are gone for a while, what was your character doing while you were not there? If your character is missing a toe, why is this? How did it happen? This is not a hardfast rule, but it is a good idea to have a reason for something, in case someone asks.

-DON’T let an idea get away.
One of the big reasons good RP events die before it’s time for them to go, is because people let the idea slip away. Don’t let it go away, continue to revisit the issue until reaches its eventual conclusion. If memory serves, I remember at one of the initiation ceremonies, Alduur was crushing boxes for some reason, as his eyes went black. I think I remember something about him not remembering doing it when he was questioned, like something else was in control. It was a good idea, and I would have liked to see it fully mature.

-DON’T be afraid to show weakness.
Your character is not going to be the picture of perfection. Everyone has a disease in some way, no one is perfectly normal. Maybe you have a skeleton in your closet, maybe you have a birth defect, maybe you once had another life, but something happened, and you have no clue how you got to where you are. Maybe you’re blind, maybe deaf, maybe mute. The point is, make sure that you have a problem, because it adds flavor, and feeds your RP.
On the same note, don’t be afraid to fail, don’t be afraid to let everything fall apart at the seams. When it looks like things can’t get worse, make things get worse. The point is, don’t be perfect. A good strong character is going to have some pitfalls here and there. You can’t go on without them.

-DON’T ignore what’s going on around you!
Someone else’s RP event can have far reaching implications for your own character. But this only happens when you actively participate in as many events as you can. Don’t avoid or ignore other people’s events.

-DO admit your mistakes.
Everyone is going to make mistakes in their RP, it’s only natural, and sooner or later, you will find it is unavoidable to make mistakes. I myself have made many, and I’m pretty sure that somewhere along the way, I’m going to make another one. Admit to yourself that you made the mistake, then find a way to fix it, don’t let your character history, and your credibility take a hit.

-DO leave room for expansion, and variation.
Your RP is constantly evolving, it’s not a predetermined program that will always do the same thing. People change, and your character is no exception. Your character history may change due to recent developments, or restrictions. Remember, nothing is set in stone, and until your character eventually passes on (meaning you either quit WoW or you deleted your character.) , your RP will expand. Leave room for it to do so.

...gosh dang Aleria...




...broken down to a science....

I should probably include some advice from what I learned when I took Drama in High School...



...nevermind...i think she may have covered it.

Mekaya wrote:

...gosh dang Aleria...




...broken down to a science....

If I could even hope to break it down to a science, I think i'd need a textbook the size of the New York City phone book.

No thanks...

Mekaya wrote:

No thanks...

That doesn't appeal to you, Mekaya?

Nicely written and covering the big bases!

Myself, I'm a Strict Constructionist as far as lore is concered, and thus, gone over the Blizzard Cannon Lore a lot, so if you need a hand with some time frames or WoW Historical events, just speak up.

Really quick I'd like to note that some people on the server are really working hard to keep RPing alive in the server thus creating a channel strictly for RPers called the "TheGathering". In no way a relation towards Magic the Gathering...


The setting is very similiar to that of ours before we established that the guild chat was set in the "guild hall"...pretty much everyone has a Scryer stone or enchanted stone whatever and you can RP through this, and going through all the other stones in the world and people and i guess respond to distress messages or just have fun joking around...whatever...


Just thought Id advertise.