Hi people,
I thought I try to write a little guide to role playing, especially role playing in WoW. I really hope you like what I will post here.
The basics
What the hell is role playing?
Well, that’s easily answered and hard to tell.
Role playing is a very special kind of being an actor. Aside from LARP (Live Action Role Play), you don’t have to dress up, need no make up and, best of it all, you don’t have to learn a script by heart. Role playing just means to try to empathize with your toon and let him or her act instead of yourself. Sure, you still have to do it but it’s his character that makes the decisions, not yours. My characters have so many times said and done things I thought to be stupid but then, it was what they would have said or done. Yes, they actually develop a personality and that is the fun part about role playing
Most beginners start of with one little mistake: they want their character to be a hero. Don’t get me wrong here, there is nothing wrong with being a hero but (aside from death knights) everyone starts at level one and is in mortal danger when a second boar decides to join the fight you started with one of them. Let’s face it, you are merely accepted by the trainers of your class and your training has just begun. Not so heroic now, huh? Well, you have 79 dings (and when Cataclysm hits the shelves, it’s going to be 84 dings) on your road to heroism. Take your time; Rome wasn’t built in one day either, as they say…
If you don’t have a very special reason to do it, you should avoid being something you are not. It confuses people to see a hunter come along with his pet by his side and to learn that this is not a hunter but a warrior with an animal friend. It’s confusing, so you should, if in any way possible, stay within the boundaries of the game. Also, people forget that they can’t read your name or your class in the tool tip and so will approach you with knowledge, their character just can’t have. That is a real problem. People can’t really decide what is their own knowledge and what is their characters knowledge.
Try to avoid things that aren’t common in the world you play in. Vampires and Werewolves are cool, no question about that, but how many have you met in Azeroth so far? The Worgen might give you the chance to play a werewolf as they actually will be able to switch between human and worgen form, everything else is hard to role play, believe me and especially beginners should avoid being half dragon, vampire or demon spawn. Try to fill out a normal role before you start any adventures.
A little help can be provided by using a flag add-on like FlagRSP2 or MyRolePlay. Why does it help? First of all, other role players who use such an add-on will recognize you immediately as a role player. Second, you can write down a description of your physical appearance in details, so you don’t have to tell everyone who looks at you. It is very tempting to write down your story there but stick to your physical appearance. That’s all people see when they approach you. You don’t wear a “that’s my story”-t-shirt, are you?
Third, you can use a family name or a title or stuff like that to make your character appear more alive.Think of a story for your character. You can do it very detailed or you can make a rough sketch of a story and develop it while playing. Both ways have their disadvantages but more on that later.
The chosen race and class
If you decided on staying with what the game offers you, you have to think about your race and class. It may not be obvious, but a blood elf hunter and a tauren hunter are not the same in role playing, even when they are in their play style. Both hunters will have, aside from their racial traits, the same skills and abilities. So while playing your hunter, both will work in exactly the same way. But then, when role playing, the tauren hunter is a very valued member of his tribe, providing skins, meat and all the other stuff the tauren can use to craft items from, may it be clothing, weapons or jewellery. They will not hunt what they don’t need in honor of their bond to nature and their goddess, the Earthmother. When needed, the hunter can use his abilities on humanoids to defend himself or his tribe. The blood elf hunter is a hunter for sports who enjoys the hunt itself. He will not hunt because he needs to but to show his skills in archery and tracking. He will take the meat of his pray and invite friends for dinner to show off his skills. The rest will probably go to waste. Or the blood elf will be more like a ranger, an excellent archer defending his home country but no hunter at all.
This counts for almost any race / class combination. The same class will be looked upon differently in other cultural backgrounds. As the warriors of the orcs are highly valued, honourable persons, the warriors of the trolls are just that: warriors to defend their people.
So, if you decided on which race and class combination you would like to play, you should spend some thinking on that combination for your role playing style as well. Try to imagine what that class means for the chosen race. Will the forsaken warlock be as despised by his own people as the orc warlock? Well, you’ll get the idea…
Characteristics
Every race has its own way of living. So, like I said before, there will be typical orcs or trolls as well as untypical of their kind. When you read about a race and what they are like, you’ll just get the typical stuff. But that shouldn’t prevent you from going off course and do something not so typical. Don’t get me wrong here; there is nothing wrong with playing the typical orc or draenei! It can be as much fun to do just that than having a not so typical representative of your chosen race.
If you would like to get your chosen race a little better, there is always WoW-Wiki to check out and gather some information.
But, let’s face it, it sure is a little more fun to build up your own character rather than just act out what the people at Blizzard came up with. At least, it is for me.
The best way to get a feel for how your character will be and how he got there will be his story. How to write one will be covered in a later chapter of this guide.
Characteristics can cover everything, from little quirks in his or her behaviour to completely strange ways of living for this race. Take my blood elf hunter Karathyriel, for instance. He completely abandoned his people due to some issues with his family and ended up being blood brother of my tauren warrior and honorary member of the (made up) blackhoof tribe. This goes very far and is sometimes hard to act out but then it is so much fun to talk like a tauren, worship the Earthmother and kneel before Cairne or Baine Bloodhoof.
How far you let your character stray from the ordinary is only a matter of taste and role playing skill.
You just sound like…
Both factions, alliance and horde, consist of different races who all have their own language. For obvious reasons, both factions chose the language of the leading race as their official language. What does that mean?
I always have a smile in my face when I meet a role playing orc who speaks in simple sentences with some words coming out wrong, just like an orc should speak. Or should he? Let’s face it, the horde speaks the orcish language. Who of all the races should be able to speak fluently and flawless if not an orc? It’s their native language and they learn it from childhood! All the other races should have accents, shouldn’t they?
Alliance players have an easy going here, as the human language is the main language, so you don’t have to think about it. But can nightelves, dwarves and draenei speak that language as well? If your character can, why?
A lot of people think, roleplaying is all about thee and thou and sound medieval. But think about it? Would an orc speak in the same way as a nobleman from a kings court in 1504? I don’t think so. And even if you play a human that has no background with the nobility, would he talk like this?
You see, even the way you speak is worth a thought or two.
I've certainly tried, but after so many burn outs it's hard to get back into it. Maybe if a group of people all started together then it would be fun instead of the lone, solo journey you usually have to make by rolling a brand new alt on a server where you don't know anyone.