Today we’re opening the floor up for discussion. Some people have already answered these questions–we’ll have our first set of answers up soon–but let’s put it out for everyone! FEel free to answer with in the comments. if you want to go all out, and put up screen shots, videos or audio, leave that in the comments so we can get in touch with you!

1. What’s your Name.
2. List some of your favorite toons.
3. Describe your philosophy of RP.
4. What was your favorite RP event? Why was it so good? Did you organize it?
5. Have you organized RP before? How did it go? What did you learn from it?
6. Talk about an A-ha moment for a Toon—a moment where all the RP clicked and you knew this was the story they were supposed to tell?
7. If you could ask any RPer one question, what would you ask? What is your answer to your question?

Two frequent commenters and contributors–Rhoelyn and Kyraine–brought up to common hurdles to RP in an MMO: Scheduling and Burnout. While solutions for these common complaints have already been discussed, it’s worth discussing them here to figure out how to Problem Solve after one Identifies a hurdle.

Getting everyone together for an RP night isn’t easy. People have a number of obligations–family, friend, work, school, raiding–that take up a fair amount of time. But if people want to RP, they will find a way to make the RP happen. In regards to scheduling, two solutions come to mind: Find a day and stick with it or Add RP to a regular event in game. Before we can implement either solution, we have to determine which is feasible.

The first step is finding who is interested and when they are available. Both of these issues can be addressed with the following question, “Are you interested in RP and when are you free?” Once people announce their intent to RP and they share their schedule–either via email or a forum–than a day and time can be scheduled to conduct all the RP business you want.

Where this can become problematic is having two clusters of free time with little overlap between groups. If the interest is strong, one could have two groups of people running RP. This would allow for parallel stories and create some interesting dynamics when schedules (inevitably) change. One should not start working on the complicated parallel/multiple group story until the schedules are established and RP is occurring regularly.

Solving the schedule problem is relatively simple: Find a time and get people to stick with it. Burnout is more insidious, and it can take a bit of creativity to reignite RP once everyone feels crispy.

At this point in WoW’s history, we’ve been playing for around 7 years. Some people have played their characters to death. Other have just lost interest in the RP they have participated in. Some people may not even know why they’re burned out. In short, this particular hurdle needs to be examined further.

If you’re feeling “meh” about RP these days, you’re going to have to spend some time navel gazing and thinking why this isn’t working for you. Is it the expansion? Is it the people? Is it a lack of follow through from other stories? Is it just time to move on? Is it something else entirely? IF you can’t find the answer on your own, then bring it to the people in your circle. Talk to people about your feelings of burnout. They may have noticed the burnout long before you have.

A few methods to correct the burnout are as follows:

Once someone Identifies the hurdles, the next step is to figure out the possible solutions. Some of the solutions will work, others, upon review, will only serve to make our lives more difficult. But the pattern remains: Identify the issue, identify solutions to the issue. The next step? Implement.

Questions,comments, vague misgivings? Any specific methods you want to discuss in the comments?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I snagged this song idea from All Songs Considered.

So you and your RP group have decided to run with a romance story. You’ve agreed to certain boundaries and you’re having a grand old time. What do you do next?

You keep the story alive.

Look, a story is a lot like a relationship. You have to give it the attention it needs in order for it to flourish. Even if the story (or relationship) is healthy and easy to maintain, you still need to put effort towards it. This can be small things, like a few minutes of RP on a non RP night, planning a big RP event between you and your partner(s), or ficcing up something “just because you can.” Keeping the RP Romance alive means you have to give these people, and their stories, more care than you may realize. That is part of what makes Romance RP special.

Now then, there is a difference between Romance RP and Erotic RP. ERP isn’t something that I, or many in my circle, are interested in. If you want to do it, that’s fine. Make sure that this is part of the boundaries you set out earlier. Surprise ERP isn’t spontaneous fun. It’s at best uncomfortable for your partner.

When the romance has those “tender moments” feel free to say “And Scene” or “And the Camera Fades to Black.” You could even play “Take my breath away” over your choice of audio chat programs.

Recounting a love scene in detail, when your partner is not interested in hearing it, detracts from the story. How can this scene affect the RP? Simple: If you and your partner agree to “fade to black scenes” and you start recounting this:

You are crossing boundaries. Again, at best this make RP awkward. Even Ficcing a love scene may be too much for someone, so if you want to fic the scene, you need to talk it over with the people you RP with. Otherwise, you jeopardize a lot more than your RP circle.

Romance is tricky folks, whether it is in a story or in real life. You have to take care of it, you have to set your boundaries and you have to talk about it. Otherwise, you may not just kill the romance. You could end up with ruining relationships.

The first rule of Romantic RP: Talk it over with the other player.

Let me perfectly honest here: You might think this RP idea is the best thing since D&D, but if the player of the character isn’t interested, you don’t force it. If they are interested, you need to do the following things:

In short, treat this RP like you would any other RPing partner. The major difference between this kind of RP and “traditional” RP is that you have to allow your character to grow and change based on what occurs in the in game relationship.

Not following Rule Number one isn’t cute or ground breaking RP. It is a serious breach of boundaries. Just because it happens in a romantic comedy does not mean its a good idea in game.

What are some other good rules for romantic RP? Do you have a story about Romance Gone Wrong? Fill us in!

Listen to theme.

Write 140 word story.

Post it.

There may be dozens of roles in RP circles. I don’t just mean the classes or professions, but the roles characters play within their circles, cities, and culture. In other words, how do others see your character? We have the leader, the heavy, the advisor, the traitor… What other roles can you think of? What roles do you typically play and why roles do you rarely see done (or done well)?

Wildfire Riders don’t recruit. While we do try and advertise for RP events and we try to pull people into RP, we do not go out of our way to look for RPers. I, personally, am of two minds. I personally think that RP guilds should advertise and work with all sorts to make events happen; however, I think RP guilds shouldn’t recruit in a traditional sense.

Like a raid, there are roles and tasks in every story. People need to herd cats to the event, work toward a satisfying goal and then move on to the next goal. RP shouldn’t be handled like a raid. For instance, the tone, theme and methods of storytelling in WOW vary greatly from group to group. One circle’s RP style may not work for another group. Stories and RP are more personal than raid content. A person may be shot down by raid because they’re can’t follow directions or hit good number. Working with someone’s story requires more panache and care than typical raiding applications.

This is not to say that I think RPers should stay to themselves. Personally, I believe RPers need to make a public appearance on their server and support each other. I just draw the line at actively recruiting RPers.

What do you think? Should RP guilds actively recruit? What would that process look like? Fill us in!

Azeroth has a variety of alcohols, tobacco products, and it has coffee, but what about other, more illicit narcotics? In Dalaran we can see the washed up mage, a victim of Kungaloosh:

Shattrath had it’s own down-on-their-luck NPCs, and let’s not forget the Blood Elves. I’d be remiss if I didn’t include herbalism and alchemy as well. Addiction is a real thing in Azeroth, my question is what are people using?

I know there are people who will be up in arms about drugs (either for or against legalization) but that is neither here nor there. What we want to talk about is the seedier side of RP. Have you run a story where people were using narcotics? Do specific races–like the Belfs–have specific narcotics? What if the Tauren have a hallucinogen that is extremely addictive (and damaging) to gnomes? What are the policies of the factions regarding drug use?

Can Forsaken really get wasted?

Stories involving illicit substances can be personal–one character’s struggle to over come addiction–to a large scale story pitting guilds against guilds–I’m thinking of Traffic. The Riders have examples of both of these stories: Bricu’s work to overcome alcoholism and dealing with a lotus peddler. Fallout out from both stories will be examined in our regular RP event.

This kind of story is worth looking into. But there are also pitfalls. Addiction is exceedingly common, and a number of people have their own attitudes towards the personal, legal and societal implications of drug use. Be understanding when plotting these kinds of stories, otherwise, your story may never get off the ground.

Does anyone have examples of drugs in Azeroth? Anyone care to share their stories involving the illicit substance of WoW? Let us know!

Darin House's Poker Photo

Photo courtesy of Darin House’s Flickr Stream

So you have a room full of shady, reasonably wealthy characters, each of whom who have a tendency to bluff and exaggerate, smoking in a bar stocked with expensive booze. How long before they start gambling?

I’m sure its possible to come up with a narrative method for card games. Rules would have to be ironed out and someone would probably figure out how to utilize the RNG to address ties…but why bother when you can just download an addon?

Back in Vanilla, people played a few hands of Anzac between pulls (or wipes) just to pass the time. But a poker game can be an RP event in and of itself. A small, illicit game can be part of a regular RP night. Imagine a regular, floating game that people try to find in a major city.

But a full on poker tournament can be a large scale event. It could be a charity event or just a damn big game. Right now on Feathermoon, the regular poker game is phase one of a big story… But that’s a post for a differnt story.

A mini game like this can add another dimension to RP. Are there other mini games available now, or are we going to wait for Pokewow?

A character who is either stupid or willfully obtuse. Dealing with a lurch is no different than dealing with any other difficult character. Some might scream at a lurch, some may ignore a lurch while others just love their lurch. Today’s filler open thread: who is your lurch and how do you rp with them?