Role-playing games (from www.wikipedia.org); A role-playing game is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, they may improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.
Role-playing in World of Warcraft is your way, as a player, to enhance your gaming experience by making the World surrounding your character more alive. Characters with their own personalities, histories and ambitions, will interact with each other and act as you, the player, lets your creativity come to its climax. Meaning that you will be able to form your character and its surroundings based on your own imagination, and your ability to share that imagination through your interaction with others – in the way of role-playing. By doing that you might not just enhance your own gaming experience, but also affect others’ as you bring their characters on your adventures, or as yours are becoming part of theirs.
The possibilities of unique adventures to follow is as endless as the possibilities of the human mind. You don’t have to be as creative as an artist or a writer to make up your own stories, neither do you have to be smart or able to fluently speak and write English (or French, German, Spanish, Korean or any language of those non-English realms if you play on them). I don’t speak or write English fluently (my English is a result of 7 years of studying in Swedish grade schools, and 2 years in upper secondary school), but even if I don’t understand some words and phrases, or am unable to express what I could have expressed in mother tongue, I can role-play in the World of Warcraft even silently just by acting. There are players role-playing mutes as there are others role-playing characters who needs translators as their character speaks a different language in-game. Those ways of playing are all results of creative thinking.
You might choose to role-play casually, just as a character based on your own personality and thinking. Playing casually does not mean that you’re any worse role-player than other more devoted players. You might prefer to role-play the underling who follows his master’s orders, or a patriotic soldier who fights for his faction. You might also choose to role-play very affectionate as a story-teller who makes up creative adventures and plots and brings other role-players in on them as you not only form your own destiny, but shares it with others. You might be a very affectionate underling who serves his master but has his own ambitions, willing to do anything to fulfil them, or a soldier who has left his family and beloved ones to serve his faction in battle. He knows that he probably will die never seeing them again, but still he fights with hope of reunion – close emotions to distant goals. You might role-play as a strong and powerful leader, with plots who collides with other affectionate leader’s plots – resulting in epic conflict role-playing which can spread throughout the entire realm.
The more you think about it, the more you realize how endless the possibilities are.
This is a guide to role-playing, not a guide with rules telling you how to role-play, but a guide with tips on how you can either improve or change your role-playing (hopefully for the better). This is my third role-playing guide, and with this I want to bring up exactly everything I did on my two previous guides and also add even more – so hopefully all questions will be answered. I will also leave some space for future updates, if you as reader has any good remarks or tips of your own. I can’t promise though that everyone will be affected by this guide, and that all of you will share my opinions in every topic. You might hate it for all I know, but note that this is a personal guide based on my own point of view. And I wish for you to enjoy it, and learn from it.
Role-playing realms
The role-playing policy is set on two different kind of gameplays. There is the player vs environment (PVE) gameplay and player vs player (PVP) gameplay. Both of them have special realms with the role-playing policy, but then marked either only as RP (role-playing with PVE gameplay) or RPPVP (which obviously is role-playing with PVP gameplay, not role-playing or PVP gameplay). It is of course possible to role-play even on realms without the RP policy, though you as a role-player would be a clear minority and perhaps even laughed at by others at the realm. That’s why it’s good with realms that has a strict policy saying that role-playing is mandatory. You will now instead become a majority and you don’t have to fear that other players will be mocking you for playing out the RPG part of MMORPG. Acting out of character (OOC) is against the rules on the role-playing realms and it is reportable, and based on its degree the game masters might actually do something about it, considering how well written your report ticket is (names, time, conditions etc). I will write more about tips on how to face OOC later in the guide.
The role-playing realms with PVE gameplay are:
The role-playing realms with PVP gameplay are:
Choose your realm wisely.
Creating your character
A common view of characters on role-playing realms is that they all are individuals with stories of their own. This is not how it is on a role-playing realm, neither is it the way I say it should be. Some people say that stories are more for hardcore role-players, while others just think to lightly of themselves and their capability to create something interesting for others to take part of. Whether you want your character to have some kind of story or not, is up to you, and it’s also something you can come up with while you play.
What’s important is that you play something you like, or something new you want to try. If you want to play an orc, play an orc. And after you have started playing, that’s when your ideas might pop up. That’s when you realize the endless of ways to role-play as the race and class of your choice. It might never happen, but as long as you don’t break any role-playing policies, you’re free to make your character act in any way you want.
The only thing about character creation that I want you (as either a new or experienced role-player) to think serious about, is your character’s name. Common on role-playing realms is that your character name is the same as your character’s first name, if it would be a living person (or undead). Some characters in fantasy stories (I guess this only because I don’t read fantasy) don’t really go under a name more than a nickname. Or they simply are named after some feature or alike. As long as there is some kind of meaning by your name, even nicknames are allowed in role-playing realms. If you want nicknames and surnames for your character in-game, then there are add-ons that can help you with that.
Something very important about naming your role-playing character is to follow the naming policies for character names. Read or bleed! http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01722p And remember that Luke Skywalker doesn’t fit an orc. Neither does Mrawesomepowergnomewithlazers. And please, don’t name your draenei paladin to Jean-Luc Picard. Other than the naming issue, there is not much to be said about character creation.
Playing your character
Remember to not let the role-playing get to your head. Role-playing doesn’t separate from PVE or PVP by the fact that it’s known as just another abbreviation. RP is something you do meanwhile you PVE or PVP, and it’s not something you only do instead (unless you have a character made for just RP) and it’s not something that should limit your PVE and PVP gaming. RP is your way to know how your character will interact with others, as well as handle certain situations, and through RP is your path to do both PVE and PVP.
The first thing you do is to learn to separate your character from you, and easiest way to do that is to make sure that it’s always the character that controls /say, /yell and /emote while you control /party, /raid and other OOC chat channels. Everything surrounding your character in-game regards the character while everything surrounding the game as a game regards you.
The second thing you do is to give your character a basic personality, either “good” or “evil”. Just by playing Horde doesn’t mean you must be evil, and as Alliance you don’t have to be good. The words good and evil are also very individual and a matter of perspective. Personally I consider a personality more alive and realistic if it has both goodness and evil within it, as well as both strengths and weaknesses. If you’re not sure on how to act another personality than your own, then act out your own. If you consider yourself a very good role-player, then experiment with every detail of your personality, or give your character more than one in different situations, by using strengths or weaknesses. Watch others, copy others, modify them into your own. True art is all about stealing from others, but hiding it well. The word original is only to do what everybody else has, but in a completely different way. Play around and find yourself. You can also make a Mary Sue, play out your ideals.
Remember that every good character doesn’t have to be Jesus, and every bad character doesn’t have to be Hitler.
Communication
It’s important as a role-player to always communicate in-character. Use /say, /yell and /emote for in-character (IC) communication. Normal chat channels are mostly OOC (though some people use IC guild chat channels – more of that later). Some people also sometimes use /whisper for IC communication, but that is when they don’t want others around to hear the conversations, for example if someone is whispering a secret or contacting through some kind of mind controlling. Though /say, /yell and /emote are the only chats that have a policy to always be in-character, and that is common knowledge by players who actually care about role-playing.
It’s popular among role-players for their characters to have some kind of accent depending on their race. For example, dwarves are often role-played with Scottish/Irish accent, while trolls often are role-played with Jamaican accent. Common among undead characters are hissing accents and sometimes jagged words and sentences. Experiment with your accent if you want one, though by my own experience I´ve often got tired of keeping my accents since I tend to talk a lot, and making yourself write in accent tends to slow down the writing process.
“Could you tell me where the inn is, please?”
“Ey lad, ya don’t mind aidin’ mi to the inn, will ya?”
“Ah’m lookin’ for da inn, mon!”
“Isss the inn... ssomewhe-ere... nearby, sssir?”
Accents contribute a lot to a realistic role-playing experience.
Try to communicate in a way that is realistic for your character. In the beginning, I often talked a lot about my character’s history and all of his story in every conversation I had, just because I wanted to share what was my own creative piece of work. Though I later realized that my character’s personality doesn’t fit all those sessions of vomiting words into people’s faces just because I wanted them to know about my biography. I started to act more after my character’s characteristics and saved the word vomit for blogging RP reports in the realm forums (more about that later). I sometimes role-play with people that word vomits in the way that I did in the beginning, and it’s entertaining to make my character act according to those situations, since I play an “evil” character who couldn’t care less about other people’s life stories (though it’s important to separate what another player’s character is saying and what he’s saying, if he’s rude doesn’t necessarily mean that the player dislikes you – if there’re beginners at role-playing which your character is rude towards, you might need to send them a whisper from time to time to warn them about your character’s behaviour).
“Sorry for disturbing you like this, young man, but my armor is broken, my back is aching and my boots are dirty. Could you point me to the direction of the inn and to the town’s blacksmith?”
“Mi mouth’s ahs dry ahs a rock elemental in thi Blahsted Laands. Ay want mi ale, an’ ay want it now!”
“Ey, mon, ayes up here!”
“Firsst of all... ssir... give me your go-old... ssssecond of all, sshow me... the inn...third of all... conjure me ssome water that goess with that pretty... flesh of yoursss!”
Or a simple “Where’s the inn?” goes fine too, I just got dragged in by the experience. My point is that communication is a big part of interaction, which is the main part of role-playing in World of Warcraft. Since the game has unchangeable rules you have to play by, and limit yourself after, the communication part is the closest way to awesome role-playing. Communication bring you the stories and communication brings you the intrigues.
Role-playing in RP guilds
Role-playing guilds are simply the best thing there is for players that want to focus on RP as the number one thing in the World of Warcraft. Though it’s a big effort to be in charge of an active role-playing guild, and as a guild leader you will have to often try to come up with fun events to entertain your guild members. It’s more about socializing in RP guilds and you get closer to each member in the guild, both as character and as player. Something negative though is that there tends to be a lot of RP guilds in a realm, but each with very few members and of very low level. Many RP guilds tend to make alliances with other RP guilds and through that experience end game raiding, to solve the member issue.
Many role-playing guilds have in-character guild chats. Some role-players consider IC guild chat to be fake, since the characters who talks to each other doesn’t really interact with each other in the game. I`m standing neutral to that, since I enjoy the IC guild chats more like fake role-playing conversations to enhance the gaming experience. But there are other guilds that solves the IC guild chat with either magical solutions or technical solutions. If you want your members to be able to communicate with each other throughout the world, then come up with something the members accept, or stick to “fake role-playing”. Remember though that a guild with OOC guild chat is not a worse role-playing guild then those with IC guild chat. It might even be more hardcore.
All role-playing guilds are unique, but there is one major similarity to all of them, which is that they are based on some kind of story-line. May that be something simple as a band of soldiers or mercenaries, or a complex result of months work of conflict role-playing. Most role-playing guilds have no level restrictions, since “levels” doesn’t exist in a realistic way. Other role-playing guilds that actually has a level restriction would more consider it “amount of strength” or “battle experience”. There are guilds that focus only on role-playing, and does nothing else than hosting role-playing events and playing out their different story-lines. Other role-playing guilds might be RP-PVP guilds that focuses on fighting the opposing faction in outdoor PVP or in the never-ending battles of the battlegrounds. There are RP-PVE guilds that focus on end game raiding or just questing in the World of Warcraft. And there are of course guilds that tries to balance every aspect of the game.
Though leading a role-playing guild is not an easy task, since members enjoys different parts of the game and it is expected of the leader to be in control of every guild matter. Larger guilds often tend to have a wider council of officers that are assigned to different guild matters, which use to make the individual parts much better than if only one person would be in command of it all. Therefore it’s important as a guild leader to know exactly what is his ambitions with the RP guild and how he will solve the matter of guild-growing and event-creating.
I will not mention the name of the best RP guild I´ve ever been part of, but I will share some of the ways it functioned. I was new to the game and my highest level character was a level 37 dwarf hunter. After some time in the guild I was promoted to officer since I had so many ideas on banking system, events and role-playing missions. As I got the officer rank, I realized that the creative thinking came to work and I wrote and wrote and wrote all the ideas I had. The commander of the guild refused some of my ideas, but accepted others and mixed it with his own. We had events like military training, monthly fishing contests, different missions sent out by mail to members of different ranks, and weekly promotion ceremonies after the weekly guild meetings. We did outdoor PVP and instance runs, and we had a lot of fun before I decided to quit the guild for re-rolling.
A guild leader must know how to be in charge of a guild, he must have time in his hand to help members and aid them when they need it. If he can’t come up with original events himself, he might have to promote more officers to help him with the event-creating. Popular among RP guilds is that you often do things within the guild, but never shall it be repetitive as it would for a guild that only focuses on for example making BG premades. A guild leader must also be able to kick members from the guild if needed to, and this is a tough thing to do for someone too kind.
Role-playing in casual guilds
Casual guilds are guilds that doesn’t promote role-playing to it’s fullest, and has both members that role-plays and members that doesn’t. Role-playing is individual in casual guilds, and those who role-plays does it mostly with their personal contacts on the server or through World RP (more of that under the next topic). The guilds are mostly PVP or PVE oriented, but many are also all-in-all guilds or just simply a gang of friends playing together and helping each other. They can have names that doesn’t relate to anything special, but hopefully won’t be OOC enough to break the server policies.
Even though many casual guilds might get a bad reputation on RP realms just because they might have members that doesn’t role-play or stay in character, there is no reason to bad-mouth them or refuse to join guilds like that, just because you’re a role-player. I`ve been in casual guilds, and it hasn’t affected my role-playing much, since I´ve always preferred World RP more than guild RP anyway. And if more role-players join the casual guilds, it could work as a catalyst to bring more role-playing to players that play out of character.
World RP
I believe that World RP is a very wide topic. Everything in the World of Warcraft - may it be quests, NPC:s, world bosses, etc - is there for a reason. That reason is based on the lore and the fact that your character is the one interacting with all that, is what makes it a RPG. Doing quests is definitely role-playing, even though some quests are more in character than other. I don’t consider it to be World RP to talk to mute NPC:s, but it is World RP to let your character do what your character would normally do when it comes to all kinds of interaction in the World of Warcraft. You can do World RP by yourself, just for the fun of it, or you can do it with others.
When I played on my old night elf druid Lorendel, I was bored enough to go and do a little moonwell investigation on my own. I went to every moonwell in Teldrassil because my character wanted to. I thought that something as meaningless as playing around like that by myself when no one is there to see it, might turn out into something meaningful regarding RP. I met people along the way, I interacted with them – that was World RP. I gave myself a reason to do that moonwell investigation even though I never predicted that someone would take part of it. Another time in Desolace, my druid started a prayer. I just wanted to write something, but there was no one around to role-play to, so I did it to myself only. Without reason, just for the fun of it. Then after I had done that solo role-playing, I turned around and saw a human paladin who had been watching me all that time. I realized that by staying in character all the time, even when you might be alone, can lead to spreading role-playing not only to your artificial surroundings, but to other players who just might pass by at the right place at the right time.
World RP is something you can create, so why wouldn’t you? Make yourself a part of the World, as meaningful as all NPC:s, quests and world bosses around you. When your character is part of your World of Warcraft, then he can finally become part of others. After a while, it’s only natural that your character is part of the lore for role-players in your surroundings.
There are numerous ways on how to start role-playing with others. If you’re out looking for RP, you must have one thing in mind. What is realistic for your character? In the World of Reality, people tends to be very stiff when it comes to interacting with strangers (unless they’re drunk). Often you try to avoid talking to people you don’t know, but it’s also a matter of personality. Some people loves to talk to strangers. It’s about having a reason and having the courage to do it. In the World of Warcraft, people tends to talk about their whole life-stories to strangers just because it’s easy RP. But if you want your role-playing realistic, try to come up with a reason for interacting. You might ask something about a character’s weapon, about direction, about some big threat in the world, etc.
“You remind me of someone...”
“That tabard!? Are you one of <insert random guild name here>?”
“Wait a minute? Are you <insert name>, wielder of the legendary <insert legendary weapon name>, slayer of a thousands, paladin of the <insert guild name> and protector of the Alliance? Oh my Holy Light, it really is you!”
It all works well if you want to start a conversation. There are also numerous of ways for “evil” characters to start conversations. I can mention some of my World RP initiatives I´ve more or less used with my undead warlock Manovan.
“Why do you stare at me that intently? Do you want me to rip your eyes out?”
“That pretty skin of yours looks really tasty. You mind if I have a bite?”
“Watch where you’re going, whelp. You want this day to be the last of the rest of your life?”
Other ways to take the initiative is by emotes. Manovan grins at you wickedly tends to get peoples’ attention, but also more detailed descriptions as Manovan glares at <insert name> angrily while sniffing the air around him, trying to find out what odour that stranger is secreting from that rotten body of his. Manovan mutters something about killing before he spits at the ground next to him, still glaring at <insert name>.
Plotting
By plotting, you gaze into the future through conflict role-playing. Remember that plotting is never solid role-playing – you could call it changeable ideals of your character. This is something wonderful for hardcore role-players, and not so common among casuals. You start with giving your character a goal, may it be something reachable through game mechanisms, like getting the Argent Dawn tabard so you can call yourself an Argent Dawn soldier. You have becoming one of their soldiers as a goal, and you use it in your role-playing. You make sure other players and their characters know about for what reason your character exists. It will be something you will play for instead of getting all the epics, reputation and honour or meanwhile you’re grinding for that as well. You enhance your gaming experiences, giving yourself more reasons to play this game than just by simple grinding.
But you can also plot for unreachable goals like conquering the world, turning into a demon or making all mortals into your slaves for all eternity. That is not possible through game mechanisms, but since your character knows nothing about game mechanisms, nothing stops him from having all this in mind. You can let your character follow this goal through the game, reporting his actions by blogging (more on that later), and have the time of your life knowing that he will never reach these goals. Then what’s the point of them? It’s all in conflict role-playing.
Conflict role-playing is how you and someone else share a common storyline, and each of your characters’ actions affects the other in a positive or negative way. You role-play together, you form each others’ stories and you change each others’ goals. Though, read this line twice so you remember it, conflict role-playing often gets into god-moding (more of that later), so make sure both parts agrees on the plot and don’t try to change the other’s role-playing without his permission. Are things getting complicated? Not for long.
This is an example of conflict role-playing which happened on Scarshield Legion a couple of months ago:
Manovan Marrowsteel (me of course, no, I`m not flexing right now), bloodlord of the Bloodstone Order (currently disbanded, so don’t get any hopes) is addicted to bloodstone ore which can be harvested in Drywhisker Gorge in Arathi Highlands. He orders his men to go there and mine that ore for him. The lore says that bloodstone often are used in demonic rituals and things like that, and Manovan believes that he will get stronger by devouring that ore. His blood will turn demonic and he will become of monstrous strength, like Illidan (this is an unreachable goal, but still possible to plot about). Though others are aware of Manovan’s evil plans, and Council of Medivh (also they are disbanded by now unfortunately) believe that he’s crazy. They wants to stop him, and are keeping an eye on him by having spies in his guild and among his allies. Note that not everyone in Council of Medivh was doing that same plot, only some of them. When Manovan heard about this, he started to verbally assault people and interrogate “possible” spies. If I remember correctly one of them was Miriah of House of Sylvanas (guild still around, join them), though she proved to be innocent.
Another example of conflict role-playing was when Council of Medivh lured House of Sylvanas’ old leader into the Gurubashi Arena for an ambush. There was a big battle there where members of four Horde role-playing guilds (mostly undead) fought each other to death. That is an example of brilliant conflict role-playing (since both parts are in on it). This ended with a forty gold bounty on Council of Medivh’s leader Drakarm and he being banished from Undercity. Since the one playing that character agreed on those terms, it was excellent conflict role-playing which became even more plotting between the Horde role-playing guilds on Scarshield Legion.
The above happenings have affected my character’s role-playing a lot even to this day, and I`m sure it more or less has affected someone else’s as well.
God-moding is when you take things too far, when you want everything to go according to your plan and leave no room for discussion. One form of god-moding is when you decide another role-player’s reaction to your actions. God-moders might try to kill your character and decide that they succeed, without asking you. They might poison your character or #!*! your mother, they might decide that you are sick or healthy, that you know certain languages or know specific things. Whenever someone else tries to role-play for you, that is god-moding, and it’s not acceptable at all. Conflict role-playing often turns into god-moding when one part is deciding things and rules about the role-played conflict without talking to the other part about it. For example, you can’t decide that someone is banished from Undercity if you don’t ask the player first if he agrees to role-play that he’s banished. If he doesn’t, then come up with another solution together. But if both parts agrees, then the possibilities are endless.
Blogging
Blogging or reporting is simply to note your RP in the form of a story. This topic is truly my speciality. I would be lying if I said that I don’t have writer ambitions. You can do RP blogging in different ways. I normally do it in the form of a short story, either written in third person or in first person. I write differently depending on what I want to achieve with my report. I consider third person be the obvious choice if the surroundings and actions are the main part of the report, and first person is the obvious choice if I want to reflect as much of my character’s feelings as possible. I might report something that has happened to me in-game, but in a more detailed (and slightly modified) way. I might report my character thinking about his goals for the future, even though it has never happened in-game. This is something I do to spread my role-playing to other people and to entertain people with the stories of my characters. And it doesn’t matter if I`m role-playing a lot in-game, by blogging a lot you will get the reputation to be a hardcore role-player anyway.
Another way of blogging is to note certain guild events or RP events in general. That is mostly done by shortly summarizing what has happened, without caring too much about how the sentences are written. Also it’s important for event blogging to add lots of screenshots taken during the event. This way is also possible for normal RP reporting. The more pictures you add, the better. I seldom do this anymore, but I will tip on it anyway. Screenshot many of your RP encounters, and then choose the best shots to show the rest of the world in your reports. It’s even better if you cut out all interface from the screenshots since it tends to get in the way if it’s the RP you want to show. I think I have a couple of hundred screenshots all together from my old and new characters. Most screenshots have been taken by my warlock Manovan, my old druid Lorendel and my old hunter Rhagnar.
It doesn’t really matter what you write in your reports. Just do it, share your RP with the world. Not just your character’s background story, but his plots and what happens to him in-game as well. I would love to read it, and I`m sure others would love to read it as well. Idealistic would be if even the hardcore PVE guilds reported them slaying a new boss in a role-playing report. Don’t care about others who has killed the same boss a hundred times. Your kill is your story-line, and that is a story worthy of sharing.
How to face OOC
There are no special rules on how to react when you see people breaking the role-playing policies. Often, the rules are ignored unwillingly by new people who hasn’t got the hang of role-playing yet. Though the most annoying OOC:ers are those who does it for fun, just to annoy, or who just couldn’t care less about role-playing in general. If you report them, the game masters will most likely not even give them a warning. And if you can’t just ignore their attitude with the believes of them ruining it for others at the realm, try to talk to them, but do it mature. Make them know that either you have a higher status in the argument, or they are stupid morons. Know what you’re going to say, and do it properly. If it doesn’t work, then use the ignore function. Some people are sociopaths and doesn’t care at all about other peoples’ gaming experiences – there’s just noting to do about them other than to ignore them and make sure that other people does as well.
It’s common that casual players get blamed for being OOC:ers by hardcore role-players who believes that the RP servers are all about role-playing and not about PVE or PVP or any kind of grinding in game. Those role-players are clueless, and you should as a casual ignore them completely. PVE and PVP are parts of how this game works, and it’s obvious that every players should experience them. Though the RP rule set is there to get people to RP “during” or “between”. Every realm needs an amount of guilds focusing on end game raiding, and if they want all their members to get a share of the loot, they need to raid a lot. And much raiding leads to less role-playing, or simply no kinds of role-playing at all within the guild – unless it’s individual. But that’s what a casual guild is, and there is no need for any hardcore role-player to tell them that they have OOC:ers among their members just because they are a PVE guild.
Decalogue of RP
You shall have no other realm before the RP realm
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the RP realm
Remember your real life, and keep it holy
Honour your game masters
You shall not corpsecamp (unless your character has a reason to)
You shall not in public commit adultery with emotes
You shall not ninja loot
You shall not bear false witness against casual players
You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife (yeah, you try and come up with something RP around that one!)
You shall not act like a total jerk in-game... or covet your neighbour’s house
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