Heroes, Antiheroes, villains and bad-asses: What do you play in WoW and why?

Step Three of dealing with issues in WoW is implementing and assessing what you problem solved in step two. This is the part of the plan that has a tendency to fall through. It’s really easy to come up with a few plans that seem positively brilliant… But they fall short when we try to accomplish too much.

Breaking down a plan into small, confidence building steps is key to reigniting the spark. It’s tempting, once you have a plan you love, to do as much as possible as quickly as you can.

This may be how you burned out in the first place.

Go slowly. Enjoy the RP. Let it build. Enjoy it for what it is: Sharing stories with people you want to be with.

The next common stumbling block is the lack of a critical eye on the plan and its implementation. Simply following a plan isn’t enough to rekindle RP. Sometimes, a plan needs to be scrapped as the story just doesn’t go anywhere. Take time to review and revise the plan. Remember that the plan is supposed to help get you to your goal of more RP and shaking the blues. If something better comes along, by all means, go for it.

Be critical, be flexible, but by all means, enjoy it. If the RP isn’t happening or it isn’t fun, then what’s the point?

Fact is folks, hurdles can be jumped. But action alone will only burn you out again. Careful planning and evaluations can not just beat the burnout, but bring you back to the story.

Anyone else got tips, tricks or hurdles they’d like to share? Fill us in!

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?

If you want to into RP, there comes a point where you just have to do it. I recognize it isn’t always easy, and there maybe a hurdle or fifty to overcome to get your head in the game, but the fact remains: To RP, one has to just do it.

I have to be clear: This isn’t a general call to JUST GO OUT AND RP. I find the statement “just do it” minimizes the difficulties people may face when trying to start things. This is a call, however, to identify what’s in the way of your RP. So this is what we are going to do this week: Get back into RP. Step one: What’s in your way?

Are you burned out? Can’t find a group? Can’t find a concept to play? Have too many concepts to play? Are you missing follow-through from your RP organizers/circles? Let’s start talking about what’s in our way!

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!

This week, we’re going to talk Romance and RP. To prime the topic, let’s have an open topic on romance: Have your characters had romances? Has your character been on a date in game? Do you fic it or do you rp the date?

Fill us in!

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)?

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!

In the next xpac, we’re headed towards not just towards Pandas, but an elevated level of conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. On a more depressing level, we also need to realize we are going to loose people as WoW hits 7 and other games launch. During these next few months, before we run out of Cata Steam,long for Mop or say goodbye, we should lay the ground work for the next chapter of our game.

Right now, we can begin to think of how our toons can fit into the Horde-Alliance conflict. Granted, some of us will avoid all the spoilers we can while MoP is building; however, it is not a huge stretch of the imagination to begin to think of how our toons will react as the war heats up. Now is the time to approach players about building rivalries and future Rp events. For instance, I may have talked to someone else about setting up future issues.

IF you are saying good bye, think about how you are leaving the game. Are you killing off your toon? Is your toon riding off into the sunset? Is your toon just going to retire? Keep in mind that as circumstances in real life change, your decisions to leave WoW may change. In short, keep the door open if there is the slightest possibility that you may want to return.

We have said it many times before. RPing is collaborative story telling. OVer the next few months, either a chapter–or a story–are going to end. Give this ending the same care as you did your “golden age” of RP.