That torture quest still makes him angry. He is no stranger to death and killing, but the complete disdain that the Kirin Tor mage had for Viljo’s honor was just too much. (“*I’m* not allowed to torture, it’s against the rules and morals I follow. But *you* can do the torturing. *You* don’t follow those morals…or any.”) Especially since if you’ve done any other questing in that area, or even flown out of Warsong Hold once, you already know the location of the prison they are trying to find.

In general Viljo tries to avoid more ethically dubious quests, especially from the Forsaken Apothecaries. He has since he was a young troll sent to Undercity for magical studies. However, I did cave in and have him do the leadups to Wrathgate. If I’d kept him strictly RP I would never have trusted the Apothecaries. I only did that because I wanted to see the Wrathgate stuff. :/

Xionn on the other hand, having lived just as long as Aleros most likely ICly does every single quest. Why? Well he spends his gold faster than he can acquire it and while he may not do something if the pay isn’t right, he isn’t going to turn a job down if it’s FUN. Fun to him involves spilling blood and having a monetary excuse to do so. If a quest only offered experience, and was to help someone’s dear grandmother carry a crate of supplies, he’d not do it. Decapitate 10 blokes for 10 gold? Sounds good to him. I made this character more than 10 years ago, and I keep trying to drop him but he keeps coming back. He’s the perfect Id. He drinks, he smokes, he’s a womanizer, a murderer, a thief and a bit of a politician when it comes to controlling people.

A little bit off the subject of those two, I’m not sure how many of you played Lord of the Rings Online. That game did quests really well. I felt a justification for my character doing just about every quest, especially the starter quests. Humans of Bree mostly dealt with orc incursions and evil humans. In some of the later starting levels they dealt with the undead. Dwarves on the other hand dealt with goblins a lot, but many of their actual leveling quests dealt with CRAFTING. I’m not talking about actualy player system crafting, but helping some guy find his crafting tools, or gathering materials or this and that.

Then Hobbiton. Oh Hobbiton. From levels 1-10 the only thing you ever killed were crop flies. All of the starter Hobbiton quests were errand quests. Deliver mail, deliver pies, help granny, brew beer. Once you got up to level 13 or so you had to clear some spiders out of the Scary quarry, and then at level 15 you had to face your first real danger, goblins! The quests in the game made it genuinely athentic, and I felt each of my characters had a reason for doing the various quests they were told to do.

Rashona’s my main and I do pretty much all my quests IC on her, so if she wouldn’t do it, I don’t take it on her. Alts, I’m a little more lenient on, but I’ve played Rashona so long that it messes with my head to be terribly OOC on her. Hell, she’s barely even touched the Argent dailies, because I just can’t get her to give a damn about it.

Bricu has gone off and done most of the quests ICly. He didn’t chop down the trees for the Tourney, he didn’t kill Scarlets for the Ebons and he doesnt’ do the daily PVP IC; however, he has brought back bounties, heads and tusks to less than savory people. He’s been less-than-idealistic since launch, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.

He does struggle with quests, and it does take a toll on him; however, Bricu has a tendency to twist things back on his handlers. Sooner or later, everyone is off their high horse–or their moral high ground–and at eye level to Bricu.

To quote Logen NineFingers, “You just have to be realistic about these things.”

Shaurria has been IC almost the entire time I play her. She doesn’t have much trouble with the “Go out and kill X number of Y” quests, because she does it in kitty form, and her kitty is almost a different personality than when she’s an elf. When she’s a cat, she’s not killing so much as “hunting”, and cats hunt all the time, even when they don’t need to (think of how many fat housecats you’ve probably seen stalking birds in a yard somewhere). Also I’ve leveled enough toons now that I know where the “trouble” quests are, and she just avoids those areas. I’m not really sure what I’ll do when she gets to Northrend. Guess I’ll have to figure that out when it happens.

Dorri kept killing them

So while I do tend to try to keep much of my questing IC, and I have turned down quests that felt just wrong for the character at hand, I don’t hold to the exact details of a quest unless it’s important for my character’s RP. Maybe my character was one of several people working on a given quest — sure, a dozen Scarlet Crusaders and their captain were killed, but maybe Karreth only took out a couple of them and created a diversion while a rogue snuck in to assassinate the named guy. So she’s responsible for the outcome, but she didn’t kill every single Scarlet Crusader in the encampment all by herself. Perhaps Lakena was sent as an advance scout on a particular mission and didn’t actually do much killing, herself. Or maybe Yelgah stood back and healed while someone else rushed into battle and slewn encroaching waves of bad guys.

Also, I’m definitely not 100% IC on every single quest. I’ve taken quests that my characters probably wouldn’t really do because I wanted the reward, or I was helping a friend, or — somewhat mind-bendingly — because a quest further along in the quest chain WAS very appropriate for my character’s RP. When possible, I justify it as my character having found a way to deal with the situation that was more morally acceptable to him/her and still accomplished the necessary goal.

As for raid bosses, I think it’s a matter of how you deal with it. I know I treat those places as being constantly under siege. We make forays into Ulduar, Naxx and the tourney.

If you catch the Prophecy of Light actually discussing current events, you’ll hear them mocking the tourney and hating that it is keeping them from where the real war is at. yet the go. because that is what they were ordered to do.