Starting to RP

[ashdawn]

so im at the point in WoW where I want to try RPing, Im most likely gonna go with the petopian guild on moon guard, so tell me everything I need to know about RP, never done anything like it in my life so yeah, the only thing I know is RP walking. prepare me so that nobody tells me:

YOU ARE NOT PREPARED

[Lupis]

RP is very fun! Here are the tips I can give...

-When making your character, make sure you do a little research. Look up lore about your character's race, make a history, some interesting characteristics. Have fun with it! Those little details might make your character stand out as a really interesting and fun character to RP with.

-Here's a warning, though; read about what a Mary Sue is and avoid it at all costs. For your first character, I recommend going with something simple. The stupid simple grunt character can be much more interesting than the world-class hero of much renown, and trust me, people will like you a lot better for being humble with your characters.

-When you're roleplaying, you're in character. Do what your character would do. In general, this means not using textspeak or knowing the future and things like that. If you're playing a novice warrior, they might not know the full history of the Draenei, but they'll know about fighting stances and weapon balance. Keep your characters' limits in mind when you roleplay, and it can lead to interesting situations.

-When you're roleplaying, don't be afraid to piss people off so long as you're in character. That's not to say that you should run into people and actively try to mess with them, but if your character hates Worgen, then your character is going to hate worgen! People tend to understand that in-character actions are just that, what your character is doing, and won't take personal offense. Plus it can lead to delightful RP encounters. Being nice all the time can be boring.

-As mentioned above, in character actions are only ever between the characters. The players of the characters probably mean you no harm at all, they're just playing a character. Heck, I greatly respected the players on my old RP realm that played my character's sworn enemies, because they were great people and played great characters. My character was the one with a beef with them, not me.

-RP isn't always super exciting. Sometimes it's slow and boring, and it takes initiative to make things happen. If people are being boring, suggest something you can do! Or just do something strange and let people react. Everyone's sitting silently around a pond? If it's true to your character, leap into the pond and splash everyone. They might get upset in character, but I assure you they'll be relieved to have something happen.

-Your character is a person. They're going to change and react. Let your character go into situations you didn't expect, let people get the upper hand every now and then. Lose a fight you could have won. Get tricked. Every time I found my character in a bad situation, it was such a dramatic and amazing moment that it glued itself into my mind.

And finally, let people know that you're just starting. Most people will understand and will try to give you tips on how to improve. There are obviously plenty of jerks out there, but it's worth it.

[Nevish]

Just adding on to what Lupis said: Take the word Mary-Sue with a grain of salt because it can count as a baseless insult flung around by RPers to try and bring you down. If your character is an immortal mega hot night elf priestess who was hand-picked by Elune and was once Illidan's girlfriend, she's a Mary-Sue. If she's just an above average skilled priestess who is cute and friendly with people, she's not a Mary-Sue. That's kind of the rule of thumb.

Everyone roleplays differently so it'll take a bit to find out what you like! Have fun. :3

[Bowno]

LupisDarkmoon pretty much hit the nail on the head.

I'm going to be blunt with you. If I see someone RPing that they know everything about anything or claiming they did this major lore event, I am going to just smile and nod IC, but laugh at them in real ID and prob never make contact with them again.

While your character is indeed doing all these amazing quests and raids as you level up and get gear, that doesn't really mean that your character has done all of that, or any of that, IC. Millions of people have the same quest. Millions of people have killed Deathwing and are STILL killing Deathwing. If you go out and say you were one of the people to deal the final blow to Deathwing, people are going to set you on ignore pretty quickly. IC, the people who killed Deathwing or done any of that major lore stuff should be considered as non player characters.

Also, I can not stress this enough.
This is Warcraft.
This is not Warrior Cats or Harry Potter. If you want to RP those things, I suggest trying second life. It is free to play and you can actually BE those things. Not only are you saving yourself from paying 15 a month, but you are also doing it in the correct game!
Warcraft is for RPing Warcraft.

Again on the lore subject, you should NEVER be linked in any way shape or form to a major lore character. You can not be the grandchild of Arthas. You are not Baine's personal body guard. You are not the Queen of Lordaeron. We, as players, are here to fill up the world. We can still be Hero's but we are not THE Hero.

If you try your hand at RP fighting, you might want to start out with the /roll system. Higher number wins.
It goes like this:
Person A Posts an ATTEMPT to hit Person B.
Person A rolls.
Person B rolls.
Person B rolls higher, so Person B posts how they avoid the attack and their ATTEMPT to hit person A.
Person B rolls.
Person A Rolls.
Person B rolls higher so person A posts how they are hit. Person A now has to think about what would be fair or reasonable. If they were hit like this in real life, would they still be up and fighting? If yes, Post an attempt. If no, post about how they are unable to recover.


When you get better, you wont have to /roll. You will know your characters strengths and limits. You can fight simply by trusting that the other person will not dodge every hit and that you will not dodge every hit either.


One more thing. If you RP as a dragon or something... I just. There are no words. Please RP as the race you rolled. X_X

Blunt honest answers. Hope I didn't hurt any feelings, but yeah. That is just how it is.

[Silivren]

I had a friend who rp'd as a dragon once but I think she did so very well. She wasn't all powerful or knowledgeable. She was a whelp, a runt of the litter. She didn't come out and tell everyone she was a dragon, hell she masqueraded as human half the time and very few people got to know what she actually was.

That being said for a novice rp'er that is not something I'd attempt and not everyone's going to be ok with it.

Above all though, have fun. You'll be ok. Try your best and don't be nervous. Let people know that you're new to it!

[ashdawn]

Ok this all seams pretty fun and easy so far here is my replys and a few more questions

Replys



Mary Sue: To be completely honest I hate the idea of being linked to a lore guy or being super uber l33t megr n pro and the king of azzinoth.

RP Battles: I've never RPed before without all the *action here* first one to type wins, being a slow typer, i hate that kind of RP

Knowing lore: Im a lore freak, but not for the races, I know keal'thas lore and dranei lore, orcs and humans also, the dwarfs a little, gnomes... gnomes have lore? eh ill be kicking them to the moon anyway. no idea about troll or tauren lore other than Carnie (cant spell that) is dead :c who should I brush up on next?



Questions:



Races: what would you recommend for a beginner? I kind of like the idea of being sort of a hulkish worgen, human until I get angry, is that a good idea? Am I starting? x3

Dungeons & Raids: Do people RP actively in them?

Guilds: These confuse me, a lot.

[Nevish]

Ok this all seams pretty fun and easy so far :) here is my replys and a few more questions

Replys



Mary Sue: To be completely honest I hate the idea of being linked to a lore guy or being super uber l33t megr n pro and the king of azzinoth.

RP Battles: I've never RPed before without all the *action here* first one to type wins, being a slow typer, i hate that kind of RP

Knowing lore: Im a lore freak, but not for the races, I know keal'thas lore and dranei lore, orcs and humans also, the dwarfs a little, gnomes... gnomes have lore? eh ill be kicking them to the moon anyway. no idea about troll or tauren lore other than Carnie (cant spell that) is dead :c who should I brush up on next?



Questions:



Races: what would you recommend for a beginner? I kind of like the idea of being sort of a hulkish worgen, human until I get angry, is that a good idea? Am I starting? x3

Dungeons & Raids: Do people RP actively in them?

Guilds: These confuse me, a lot.

Go with whatever you're interested with. Try on a character idea like pants - if the pants aren't comfy, take 'em off (woo woo)! So if you want to be a worgen struggling to contain their rage, that's an excellent start. There's really no limit on what you can roleplay as.

As for dungeons...generally, I wouldn't RP with a total stranger group. But I've seen friends RP with one another while using the dungeon for whatever plot they had rolling. One of the funniest groups I ever ran with was on a Pandaren hunter I rolled on Sisters of Elune, Horde side. There were two monks, a pandaren and a tauren, who claimed to had been sent to Ragefire Chasms as a diplomacy maneuver by Ji Firepaw, the leader of the Horde Pandaren. Both of them were playing as DPS, although the tauren had queued as a healer. The whole dungeon, they were trading lines and bickering over who was performing their martial arts better. During the final boss they were shouting that whoever lost their match had to pay the winner's bar tab, so the competition ramped up considerably. In the end, I think the pandaren won, and the tauren blubbered while he got lectured with crack "wise teacher says" lines, as they walked back to the dungeon portal.

Most RP servers have a distinction between casual roleplaying, which is usually just a handful of people, versus scheduled events where a whole guild, or several, might get involved for a story. Ravenholdt-US in particular used to have server wide "invasion" PVP events, where one faction would play-invade an enemy city. They'd form line ranks, have "generals", and so on. But there's often a few guilds dedicated to helping out new roleplayers on each RP server, and they're usually very welcoming.

[Lupis]

Guilds can be huge help when it comes to RP. Most realms tend to have a bunch of RP guilds for all different flavors of RP. Generally, what they are are groups of people who have all joined the same organization ICly. For example, troll tribes, tauren tribes, orc clans, or a more all-race group. The guild lets you keep track of people more easily so you can find RP more often, and it organizes RP events that can be very fun. I highly suggest joining an RP guild, because it's great to know the people you're RPing with most often!

RP fights can be fun when not using the roll system, but you need to trust the person your character is fighting. I first started RP fighting using the typical "person 1 types out an emote, waits for response. Person two responds with his counter-action, possible weak point, and action. Person 1 responds similarly." but it can take a very long time to play out these fights. I tend to find them more fun than roll fights, but they're not for everyone.

On to your questions: The worgen sounds good! Most worgen I see hang around in worgen form all the time for RP and it makes me sad, so sticking to human form is a refreshing change.

People don't tend to RP in dungeons, but I've done it before. Generally, you go through the dungeon as normal but you stop every now and then to RP out your characters reaction to this or that. I only do this with a group of friends who know it's an RP run.

[Nachtwulf]

Oh, one more thing. DON'T, FOR ALL THAT'S HOLY, USE TEXTSPEAK.

Never, EVER use 'u' or 'ur', 'lol', 'omgwtfbbq' or smileys in your text while RPing. Write fully composed, literate sentences. They don't have to be long ones (sometimes "para", or "paragraph" RPers really annoy me because they feel that quantity > quality and will spend 10 lines lighting a cigarette), but don't write like you're being charged by the letter either.

Also, and this is a pet peeve of mine, avoid 'future participle' tensing. Specifically, say 'Billybob walks toward the fountain.' because you are, ostensibly, walking there at this very moment when you post that. Do NOT say 'Billybob would walk toward the fountain.' because dammit, either you are or you aren't, and hypothesizing that you -would- just makes me go 'BUT ARE YOU REALLY DOING IT' in my head. And 'past' tense doesn't work either because you obviously haven't 'walked toward the fountain' because you just posted it. Past tense is fine for storywriting, but it shouldn't be used in active, 'present' RP.

[Nevish]

Oh, and /e for the "make your own emote" function is your friend.

Example: /e grabs the gnome by their ankles and flips them over, shaking the loose change out of their pockets.

[ashdawn]

my worgen is level 10 atm, things are going well, not a great deal amount going on yet only a tiny bit of RP with other worgens.

Im going to make a post of my RPing adventure, so if you want to see my progress go to that, maybe you can get some questions from me over there haha

[Makoes]

This thread may prove to be very useful to you in your endeavors Worba's Guide to staying human (for worgen)

[Castile]

Hmm I've never rp'ed before but all these posts kinda make me want to

[Slickrock]

Side question here... on the PTR there is ALWAYS someone spamming for Kindom RP. What exactly are they doing, and why on the ptr? Never see that on normal realms....

[Nachtwulf]

It's basically a kind of 'sandbox RP'.

Rather than fit their characters into the open, ongoing story of WoW, they're looking for people to take roles in a 'sandbox' roleplay that is isolated to just that particular topic/scene. Think of it as sort of like a 'murder mystery weekend'...there's also 'Gilneas RP' and 'Family RP' (the latter is usually a solitication for ERP), School/University RP (also often ERP)... A lot of times they also break lore or go completely outside the WoW-verse entirely (I've seen Hunger Games RP for example.)

Honestly, I don't bother with it; I'd much rather spend my time on a continuing, 'real' character than a one night stand that doesn't actually exist as part of the continuum. (also a lot of them are really bad roleplayers.)

Edit: To address why it's happening on the PTR, it's probably because the PTR by its very nature is 'sandboxy' and removed from the live game. That and it's quite possible they expect the blues to be paying attention to the things they're testing rather than monitoring language/content, so they can do stuff like ERP basically in the open without being disturbed (or banned.)

[Slickrock]

It's basically a kind of 'sandbox RP'.

Rather than fit their characters into the open, ongoing story of WoW, they're looking for people to take roles in a 'sandbox' roleplay that is isolated to just that particular topic/scene. Think of it as sort of like a 'murder mystery weekend'...there's also 'Gilneas RP' and 'Family RP' (the latter is usually a solitication for ERP), School/University RP (also often ERP)... A lot of times they also break lore or go completely outside the WoW-verse entirely (I've seen Hunger Games RP for example.)

Honestly, I don't bother with it; I'd much rather spend my time on a continuing, 'real' character than a one night stand that doesn't actually exist as part of the continuum. (also a lot of them are really bad roleplayers.)

Edit: To address why it's happening on the PTR, it's probably because the PTR by its very nature is 'sandboxy' and removed from the live game. That and it's quite possible they expect the blues to be paying attention to the things they're testing rather than monitoring language/content, so they can do stuff like ERP basically in the open without being disturbed (or banned.)

Hmm.. that might also explain why some folks seem to live there. I might guess that's it's almost a RP sub-culture for ERP since that is harder to do on live servers, based on the constant spamming I see for it.

[Quiv]

I have toyed with the idea of doing some casual RP. This thread is great, but I have always wondered a few things...

Can you use global chat? I know its convenient but its not realistic, seems to break immersion.

What is the proper way to break character (such as to let people you are new to RP)?

How important is the way you look? I imagine a bunch of RPers wearing heirlooms is frowned upon.

[ashdawn]

before this thread gets massive, can this be moved to RP? I didnt notice it when making this topic.

[Nachtwulf]

Using global-channel RP is sometimes done... some servers have a 'virtual tavern' that's set up as a channel anyone can access, and the RP done there is understood to take place in some convenient gap where you're oocly out leveling or something. Pros: you can RP while you're doing dailies or something else mindless. Cons: people can only join in if they already know the channel name, and...well, I personally don't like it because it messes with my mental timeline with its vaguenesses. But that's just me.

Global channels are also sometimes used as guild or guild-association IC communicators. (Some guilds use Gchat as IC, some use a global channel as IC, it depends on the guild and whether they typically include other guilds in their RP.)

Breaking character is generally not advised, but if you want to let people know you're new, just download a RP addon (I use MyRoleplay, there's also TotalRoleplay(TRP). There used to be FlagRSP too but I don't think anyone uses it anymore.) and set your 'Roleplaying Style' field to 'Casual Roleplayer' or 'Beginner Roleplayer'. If you absolutely have to say something OOC and doing it in tells won't do, set your statement apart from your IC text by using parentheses or brackets ((Like this. Hi, I'm OOC!)) so people understand you're really not saying that.

Heirlooms are not very IC, by and large, no. But you can usually cobble together a decent looking RP set even at low levels and on a budget with only a little bit of work. For example:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/m ... eon/simple
That's my tinypally, Treon. His stuff is just vendor whites, a quest breastplate, and Scouting Shoulders. Not difficult, but it shows you've made the effort to present a coherent appearance.

[Quiv]

Heirlooms are not very IC, by and large, no. But you can usually cobble together a decent looking RP set even at low levels and on a budget with only a little bit of work. For example:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/m ... eon/simple
That's my tinypally, Treon. His stuff is just vendor whites, a quest breastplate, and Scouting Shoulders. Not difficult, but it shows you've made the effort to present a coherent appearance.

That looks great even for whites, imo! However, questing and dungeoning (levelling up) in that would be... tedious, especially as you grow in level. Does transmog break RP then? Obviously I would be wearing heirlooms but I would mog to some green or blue pieces.