Roleplayers?

[Razzy]

So, I've decided that I'm going to start Role-Playing on WoW. I've made a dwarf hunter on Wyrmrest Accord, and I was wondering if anyone else rped on that realm. If you don't, what realm to you play on? What do you role play? Share your characters!

[Saturo]

I roleplay Toshi, as an evil Hunter with an obsession of Warlocks... Most of Toshi's character is in the Forum Roleplying thread.

[Karathyriel]

Sorry, but I'm on german realms.
What do I roleplay? Well, every f**king toon I have, which is quite a lot.
Any questions? Post 'em or PM me.

[VelkynKarma]

I'd love to get into RPing, but I honestly can't fathom how it'd work on a realm. I'm more used to rp posts in forums, or rping in an im/chat room; I'm not sure how I'd go about doing it on a toon.

All my chars have backstories though

~VelkynKarma

[Ungoro]

I'd love to get into RPing, but I honestly can't fathom how it'd work on a realm. I'm more used to rp posts in forums, or rping in an im/chat room; I'm not sure how I'd go about doing it on a toon.

I've also had this feeling, because me and my irl friend wanna join a RP realm but i have no idea how one goes about it and my friend was on a RP server before i convinced him to join Khadgar. He was having a bad time on the RP server too, i think he had problems with the way they roleplayed or they had some kind of crazy flaw only he would pick up on, unfortuantly i can't remember the realm name...

[Vephriel]

I have the same problem that VelkynKarma mentioned.

I've attempted to start a Roleplaying character on an RP realm, but I can never get into it. I'm used to forum roleplaying boards where I can take my time and type out a detailed reply. I'm not used to acting in real-time.

It also seems difficult to find a good bunch of roleplayers on any given realm. It's very sparse.

[Aleu]

-shakes fist- You rolled Alliance side. >:( You're supposed to go Horde!

Nah, just kidding. I started RPing several years ago, but it was all forum RP. Wasn't until my friend introduced me to WoW back in 05 that I ever started RPing on WoW.

[Razzy]

-shakes fist- You rolled Alliance side. >:( You're supposed to go Horde!

Nah, just kidding. I started RPing several years ago, but it was all forum RP. Wasn't until my friend introduced me to WoW back in 05 that I ever started RPing on WoW.

I don't think any race would be more entertaining to play as than a dwarf.

[Aleu]

-shakes fist- You rolled Alliance side. >:( You're supposed to go Horde!

Nah, just kidding. I started RPing several years ago, but it was all forum RP. Wasn't until my friend introduced me to WoW back in 05 that I ever started RPing on WoW.

I don't think any race would be more entertaining to play as than a dwarf.

...Trolls? :<

[Chrizesu]

I used to rp every night, now I rarely do ust because I'm tired of the drama whores on my server.

[Skyshot]

It also seems difficult to find a good bunch of roleplayers on any given realm. It's very sparse.

No kidding.. I took a break from my trolls realm (Feathermoon) when BC hit to work on getting my first 60 (an alli hunter on a pvp realm) to lvl 70. I used to RP quite often on Feathermoon because rp was so abundant at the time but, now that I've started working on my troll again, I can't seem to find any RP for the life of me. I haven't even seen many RP guilds looking for members.

I miss the days where I could be waiting on the zeppelin and have someone just walk up and start talking to me while in character.. =(

[Aleu]

WRA can be rather... Bah, can't think of the word right now, but a lot of people (Horde side anyways) seem to limit their RP to only people in their guild. Smaller guilds seem to often be shoved aside and guildless people very rarely find RP. It's something that bugs a lot of people.

I tend to get ignored whenever I try to make RP. XP Thus why I'm searching for a good active guild for her. My druid has one, but...

Bleh. I dunno.

[Karathyriel]

Well, I can only speak for the german realms but most of them are like this. I tried them all.

The problem of every RP-realm seems to be that Blizzard does not take role playing as serious as you do. In one way, I could just go to their HQ and smash their heads in with a blunt object until they all look like strawberry Jello, on the other hand, I know why they do this and I understand that it can't be handled any other way. Everyone has a different angle when he looks at role playing and Blizzard just can't go around and tell people that their role playing sucks while others a re good. It's a matter of personal taste and with 12 million accounts worldwide, how could they decide what is role play and what is not? And, to be honest, there is onyl one bad kind of role play: No role playing at all!

With role playing, you need to keep your mind open. Role playing is something else for everyone who tries it. Some people think they are roleplayers, because they have a WOW-account and WoW is labeled as an RPG. But nowadays, every game where you gain experience and improve your character gets that label, so please, scratch that! Get to the word itself and you'll notice, how this works.

Role playing. Playing a role. Doesn't that sound awfully like what actors do? Yeah, it does and, no kidding, it's what you have to do too. The only difference is that you have to be better than any usual actor! Yeah, you gotta beat Tom Cruise or Sigourney Weaver at what they do best! Why, you ask? They have a script. They know what the others are going to say and they know how they are supposed to react to their actions. You have to be spontaneous, have to do it while you're rolling, like an improvisation theater.

So I strongly recommend for every beginner to make the character of his first role playing toon not so different from his own character. It's much easier to react normal than to think of how someone else would react to a given situation. You may add some quirks to make the toon fit into Azeroth, like my Tauren is terrified of undead and he still mistrusts any forsaken toon he meets. Never forget that, if you react in a negative way to someone, send a whisper to him that clarifies that you are roleplaying and it's nothing personal.

Role playing is pretty easy. You just should have something like a skeleton of a back story. You don't need one epic story to tell at campfires. Your adult life practically starts at level one and your way to level 80 (or soon 85) is the story of your life. But sometimes it just doesn't seem to be enough for some of them. You will meet very strange persons and most of the time, it's just because they are not used to role playing and think that every hero of a role playing game need to be so epic, that king Conans adventures look like a sunday trip with the family. You will meet vampires, half-dragons, about 256 sons and daughters of any given race leader and, most disturbing for me, people who play one class and role play another. "This is no death knight, he's a fallen paladin." is so common that I don't even raise my eyebrow about it anymore. Sure, to do something outside the box is a lot of fun but make sure you do not overdo it and that you can do it in a way that makes it easy to believe. A little example? Here you go: I met a Tauren warrior (Never forget: the game gives you information you don't have! Yes, his tag tells you that he is a shaman but when he's there, wearing nothing, how could you tell?) once in Dalaran who's equipment seemed to be looking awfully strange. I greeted him role laying style and, as I thought, he responded in the same way. As we were talking he told me that he was sent away by his tribe because he didn't only worship the Earthmother but also believed in the light and his faith was so strong that he was granted with the powers of a paladin. So, he told me, I was talking to the first ever Tauren paladin. (That was long before anyone ever thought of Cataclysm and Tauren paladins, mind!) I checked his equipment again: There was a belt that could produce a paladins bubble, some engineer crafted item, there were gloves that did a minor healing spell when used, he had those goblin cables to revive other people and some of his items were typical paladin items, like the shoulder pads. All in all, a perfect imitation. Sure, he couldn't have run any instance as a paladin but that was not the point.

If you decide to role play, please keep in mind that

• you play a role so don't take it personal
• you should leave enough room for other peoples acting
• you might see things different than other people do
• you don't have to role play with people you dislike
• many role players think it's their show
• Blizzard will not be any help
• many players are on RP realms because
  • their friends are here
  • they think they can sack some server firsts because role players suck
  • they simply don't have a clue what role playing is
  • they don't give a damn and you're a weirdo

If you still want to try or need some more info, help or tips, if you can't think of a back story or a character, feel free to ask me. I'm role playing since 1985. And in case you wonder why I'm not the the role playing threads: I just can't stand forum role play. It's like playing chess by mail. I just don't like it. I need immediate reaction.

[Saturo]

The most fun I've had so far as rolplaying goes was a RFC where I did /y Die, evil demon!
Turns out, the other guys, except for a shammie, roleplayed too. So we basically ran around in-character, the shammie left because we were wasting his time, and I made some cross-server friends. Their greeting was without a doubt the best;
"OMG another roleplayer!"
"Im not really a roleplayer..."
"Greetings, elf. What brings you here?"
"Uhm..."
"Hear ye, hear ye!"
I was like, whatever, until we really got into it.

[VelkynKarma]

Role playing is pretty easy. You just should have something like a skeleton of a back story. You don't need one epic story to tell at campfires. Your adult life practically starts at level one and your way to level 80 (or soon 85) is the story of your life. But sometimes it just doesn't seem to be enough for some of them. You will meet very strange persons and most of the time, it's just because they are not used to role playing and think that every hero of a role playing game need to be so epic, that king Conans adventures look like a sunday trip with the family. You will meet vampires, half-dragons, about 256 sons and daughters of any given race leader and, most disturbing for me, people who play one class and role play another. "This is no death knight, he's a fallen paladin." is so common that I don't even raise my eyebrow about it anymore.

Hrm...that kind of reminds me of Diary of a Planeswalker. My friend showed this to me jokingly, and I got a laugh out of it...until I realized people actually want to PLAY these characters. I was shocked!

Now as I said before I have no experience rping on a realm, but I have done plenty of character design and backstory, and I agree with Karathyriel here--characters don't always need to be super-epic. People--and characters--more often than not have personal 'moments of epicness' that do not necessarily make a turning point in established lore. My rogue's turning point, for example, was when the scourge plowed through Silvermoon to get to the Sunwell. Until then, he was a merchant living in Silvermoon. Afterwards, all he was trying to do was help his family survive and recover in the aftermath of their home and business being destroyed by Arthas' assault. Black market dealings seemed the way to do it, and that eventually puts him in contact with the rogues of Silvermoon. That's not a big turning-point for any of the major faction leaders, but it is for the character. Stuff like that is, I think, the mark of a mature writer or roleplayer.

~VelkynKarma

[Jadvya]

I'm a roleplayer, in a good RP guild on Earthen Ring. It's very fun once you get used to it, and my character isn't really a social butterfly, so I'm not constantly RPing, just whenever I feel like it. Granted, it's a little tricky to find on ER if you're not in a guild, but there's usually something going on in the Park or various player-run bars about half the nights of the week.

[Karathyriel]

Just as an afterthought...

Have you ever noticed that, when you see a movie where it goes good guy VS bad guy, the good guy is juat that? He is good. The bad guy, that's the one they can build up to make you feel angry about, that's the one who can do whatever he wants, that's the one with so many quirks and ideas and the boiling cool acts of pure evil that makes you hate him even more so you just could punch him for smiling at you? That you dislike the character of that actor in the next movie as well?

Have you noticed that the new age heroes of ongoing movies are not of this "I'm such a good guy that even my urine would save lives"-type? That the new heroes are quite brutal or evil themselves? It's because of the bad guys always stealing the heros show. The more epic they are, the more bored gets the audience.

I found that playing "the paladin" leaves you with less choices on how to react. If you're playing that badass brutal rowdy, you end up with so many more options, including the "I wanna be a good boy on this". Why am I telling you this? The not-so-epic character with flaws and dark spots in his recent history is just more fun to play. I seem to remember that there were like a catalog of question that helped you build your toons character by answering them. When I happen to find them, I'll post 'em for you!

[Kalasha]

Heh I do roleplay with a small group of friends. Never felt up for it in wow though.

Allthough I did have a lot of fun lvlng my human female pala along my friends male gnome mage. We woud use /s whilst running instances to banter like a married couple.

'Dont you think that throne would look nice in my study, dear?"

"Next to the Devilsaur head you STILL havent put up, dear?"

"Quit pestering me woman, for wizards are powerful and quick to anger!"

"Offcourse they are dear, now if only they were quick to put down the toilet seat as well..."

A lot of ppl thought wtf at first (since we re not on a rp server), but later on those two made quite a name for themselves in Ironforge, drawing quite a crowd whenever they went to the bank or the AH. Sadly Aeryn and Weemadarthur arent together anymore, the crusading and the mystic arts became to big a strain on their relationship. But they remain on friendly terms, and Weemadarthur gets the kids every other weekend