Despite playing WoW since launch, there are certain aspects of the game that I am just not familiar with. PVP is the one thing in WoW that I will lrn2play.
Integrating PVP and RP has been my weakest link in game. I ran a story once that was supposed to end with a little PvP–just to incorporate more people in the event–and it went poorly. Since then, PvP and RP have been taboo for me (and a few others).
With 3.0, I have become more interested in PvP, and I’ve even purchased PvP gear. Even with this increased exposure, I’ve only come to one conclusion about PvP in RP:
1) Plan for the Result of the PVP
If the result of the PvP action is going to be pivotal to the story, then as the Storyteller (GM), be comfortable with the outcome of the story. One cannot assume that the outcome of PvP will go the way the script demands.
With that, I have to ask: How to integrate PVP into RP?
3 Comments
Sean Riley on May 7, 2009 at 8:47 pm.
You need to be comfortable with two possible outcomes — Party A wins, or Party B. And then you need goalposts. The most common one I’ve seen for RP PVP battles is a flightmaster dying — They tend to be tough customers even for level 80s, so taking one down isn’t instant.
So let’s say you’re fighting a war over Arathi Highlands. You arrange the stakes out of character (through forums, or email, whatever) and then conclude what a victory for either side would mean. Both armies begin in their respective towns, and then set out into battle. When one flightmaster drops, the game is done, and whichever side won gets their ‘storyline’ advanced.
Or in an individual one, it could be a to the death battle. (Gurubashi Arena is great for this.) Or it could be that the loser is exiled. (And, with the Barber Shop, could set up a Charlie Brown From Outta Town plot.) In this, the goalpost is easy: Which side loses the duel/dies first in the arena.
It’s pretty easy to mix PVP and RP, I think.
What was the deal with your unfortunate attempt? What was the plot/event?
Bricu on May 8, 2009 at 11:07 am.
My experience with RP PvP was mostly my fault. I was not as familiar with pvp, there was significant miscommunication and I had not been clear about the storyline outcomes.
Pvp adds a level of competition that some–obviously not all–RPers are uncomfortable with. PvP can also make players recognize that their toon is not as badass as they thought. Players need to be flexible with the results–and not even player is that flexible.
Your point, Sean, is well taken! I do thnk that rp pvp is more viable now.
Rollandren on May 11, 2009 at 4:16 am.
Sean makes a very valid and very important point regarding PvP with In-Character consequences. whenever a PvP situation emerges, there is always a strong chance that either side will win. Both sides have to understand and accept that either side could possibly win. Naturally, we all want to think that our character will win; this is very often the case in roleplaying, but PvP pits two people who want to see their character win against eachother in a far more direct way than what normally occurs in cooperative roleplaying. Thus the most important rule is that both sides have to accept that they might lose and accept the resulting consequences. It is reminiscent of the “I had a good story idea but it involves your character getting curb-stomped” dilemma, but now with the possibility of your character getting horribly curb-stomped instead.
Beforehand, I would certainly advise coming to terms about what will happen to either side should they lose. That way people already know what they stand to lose, and no one is surprised if something happens to their characters as a result of losing. Obviously not everyone likes having their characters killed off in a horrible, grizzly fashion, so having the other side say that as a result of their victory they took the heads of so many from the losing side would not go over so well. This goes hand in hand with other fundamental rules of roleplaying, like don’t kill off someone’s character without their permission, and so on. If you are already communicating cross-faction to put an event like this together, it should be simple to come to terms on consequences of the event. It also can be a major benefit, giving both sides a feeling that they are actually fighting for something important to them.
In all of this, mixing roleplaying and PvP probably takes a certain degree of more maturity than standard, cooperative roleplay does. Steps should likely be taken so that the contest is more or less fair, and so that the battle is not an entirely forgone conclusion. Everyone who’s faced a raid group that outnumbers them two to one can easily attest that getting wiped out by a group twice their size is certainly no fun for them. If I were to arrange an event, I would likely have a certain neutral party, one that has cross-faction capability, to act as a referee and make sure both sides play fair and go by the rules they put in place. Ideally a ref shouldn’t be needed, but it adds another layer of insurance, someone disaffected from the outcome who both sides respect, who is there to oocly observe what is going on and make sure it works for everyone.
Depending on the character background and a character’s motives, PvP can add a great deal to them, and it can give a character a sense of purpose that they would otherwise find lacking. Some backgrounds and circumstances practically demand it, such as the person born and raised in Southshore who watches her home getting ransacked day and night by raiding parties from Tarren Mill, or the orc or tauren who has family back in the Barrens and likely hears every day about yet another attack so close to home.
As an example, with both of my primary characters born in Stromgarde, I can attest to this impulse, and it also guides where I PvP with them. Both of them are devoted to the League of Arathor’s cause, and Rollandren feels strongly enough that the battle for Arathi Basin is still the most important PvP fight to him personally. For them, it’s about more than just smashing Hordies; it’s about taking back a piece of their homeland from an invading army. The same is very likely to end up the case for any orc of Frostwolf Clan descent. For an orc of Frostwolf parentage, Alterac Valley is the region they’ve lived in for generations, and now a bunch of imperialist dwarves want to lead an army in and take it from them? Naturally that orc is going to say “over my dead body.”
When taken right, this can give characters a motivation to fight that is just as strong as any PvE opponent. Everyone who is out there fighting, whether it’s against Scourge, Yogg-Saron or the Horde and Alliance, has a reason to be there, fighting. A good IC reason to fight can give your character a whole new reason to be out there. And just like with motivations to fight that lead to PvE encounters, it can be well done or poorly done. The one marked difference is that when IC motivations to PvP bring roleplayers into IC conflict, additional cautions have to be taken to keep it from becoming an OOC conflict too. PvP naturally brings people with a strong desire to win into competition with eachother, and to keep this under control people always have to keep cool and remember that it’s still a game.
And now I’ve probably rambled on for way longer than I should. I think I see my timekeeper over there checking his watch… Is that Anna facepalming over there, or is she falling asleep? In any event, this concludes my sermon on RP-PvP.