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?

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!

The same holds true between reader and author. We here at WTT:RP wrote about WoW-based RP for nearly two years. Over the past few months we’ve let our responsibilities slide. There are a number of reasons — most of them simply real-life responsib, but what matters is that we have been negligent to you, our favorite readers.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to change that.

We’re not just going to focus on WoW RP. We’re going to expand to talk about table-top games, story games, and RP in other game worlds. While WoW is still a huge source of RP for us, we need to acknowledge the other games that we play. With that in mind, you’ll see some changes to the site design as we get WTT:RP ready for the next phase. If there are any titles or subjects you’d like us to cover, let us know in the comments!

We’ve had a fantastic series of conversations on RP, and there are many more we still want to have. But now it’s time to include the other RP settings we love. Stick with us. We’re going to show you that RP isn’t dead, it’s constantly evolving.

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?

I’m going to be honest: I don’t get people who feel the need to come after or condescend RPers. For the past two days, the Breakfast Topic at WoW Insider has attempted to start a conversation about RP: What we do, how we do it, what mechanics we follow and why we follow those and not others. I get it. Mr. Ross has questions about the hobby we talk about here regularly. Yesterday, Falconesse answered a few concerns.

Today it’s my turn.

First and foremost, I need to help clarify something: Dr. Who’s Police Box is a Tardis: Time And Relative Dimension in Space. It’s like a time travelling bag of holding that’s stuck in the shape of UK Police Box circa 1963. The 11th doctor explains that to Amy Pond in the above video clip.

Now that we are all set on the Doctor, let’s come back to Azeroth.

Dealing with the Sandbox that WoW provides is pretty consistent topic here at WTTRP. Some mechanics we incorporate easily: Anything magical or ‘engineery” is quickly imported into RP. Some, like rezes, require a little finesse. Some are flat out ignored by specific rp circles but others are full embraced. Levels are an example of this particular mechanic. I’ve seen it used a “seasons” or “campaigns” while most of the RPers I associate with it don’t use it all that often.

When we queue for a random–what some of us call ‘taking a job’–we don’t typically start RPing while we’re healing, dpsing or tanking. RPers want to enjoy the content just like every other player of the game. Random BGs are in a similar vein: Although, to be perfectly frank, when people do trash talk RP or Feathermoon, some of us do become more vocal…but that’s a future post.

What matters most to RPers–as much as lore and content–is the story they are telling. RPers have an idea that they want to carry out their way. Sometimes they find the right circle, sometimes they don’t. But they try to tell a story set in someone else’s world. They pay their $15 a month to let their story play out. Blizzard probably will not allow player-created content in WoW, which means the stories told by RPers will be the closest our hobby gets that form of content. It may not work for everyone, but given the population of the WoW, it will probably work for someone.

Questions about RP, how to RP, how to integrate Mechanics of WoW into RP are all fair questions. These are questions that can be easily answered by playing on an RP realm or hanging out with RPers. My question to Mr. Ross is this: Do you really care?

Honestly, these questions could have been addressed by reading a few articles on WoW Insider, WTTRP or any other RP blog. Framing the questions with “I don’t get it” comes across as condescending at best. There is enough griefing on RP Servers, we don’t need to start this conversation the same way WorgenFreeman starts to bash an RP event.

So Mr. Ross, if you’re sincere, you’re welcome to come to Tuesday night at the Pig and Whistle. Anyone else have questions about RP, we’ll be here till they turn the servers off.

Zeve and Taeli are two of the newest RPers to join the WFR crew.  Zeve’s a pirate and he has still managed to stick it out with the likes of Bricu, Tarquin and Ulthanon.  He also hates dog jokesa

Lidia Carraway had been his first and was the only one to surprise him. She hadn’t smiled when she’d singled him out for a dance, and she hadn’t smiled when she’d lured him into a stockroom and laid him on a bed of treated lumber. She’d undressed him just enough, herself barely at all, and had looked as proper when she left as when she’d entered ten minutes before. The memory was as much of splinters in his back and the smell of processed wood as it was of the pleasure she’d drawn out of him. When he’d next seen Lidia at a dinner party and his fellows had seen her look away from him as though he was a disliked acquaintance, they’d exchanged the shit-eating smirks they’d seen from their older peers on so many occasions. It well masked the lying, unsteady confidence of a boy who’d been thrust into manhood too soon.

A Bloodsail bastard had been his first, nameless and not likely to be missed by anyone. The man had been condemned by a gunshot to the stomach and offered as part of an ultimatum: “If you let him die, I will kill you.” Had their positions been reversed, the pirate would have gladly cut him down without a thought, but Zeve’s hands had shaken as he delivered mercy to the dying man. He’d wondered what made him more of a coward: being afraid of killing or being afraid of dying. Weeks had passed before he’d stopped apologizing to the pirate’s pale, dirty face in his dreams. Years had passed before the face and the question had become equally blurred and meaningless.

His father had been his first; Dourian Bosch had wanted to make a son in his own image. Zevedron had been a protege first, a representative of the family second, and a valued son only when he’d merited acclaim for his house. The standard of all things had been propriety. The goal had always been quantifiable success, and to that end Zevedron had been afforded the education and experience to realize his father’s expectations. Unfortunately, he’d discovered that the world outside the manor contained booze, barn dances, and pretty things in petticoats. The only time the Lord Bosch had deigned to touch the boy had been when he had cut his losses and discarded his failed creation with a slap that drew blood and a literal kick to the gutters. The thought always brought a humorless smile to Zeve’s face: so much for proper.

Fells had been his finest. How could she not be? She’d picked him up from the floor of the Pig, held his head over the canals while he retched up three nights’ worth of drink, and had done him the kindness of not pushing him in afterward. That kindness had drawn him to her, compelled him to become better for her, even if at the time it had seemed like part of an effort to win a simple bet. His upbringing had dictated that he seek out certain traits in a woman: culture, propriety, and sensibility. Fells was none of those things, yet that was precisely why he wanted her. When they had first been together, the world could have slipped into the Maelstrom for all he’d cared. After, when she slept and he’d traced out words on her shoulder, he’d marvelled at how quickly she and the family she’d given him had become the center of his life.

A bandit named Jack Slade had been his finest. There had been nothing particularly fine about Jack Slade, or even outstanding–he’d merely chosen the wrong mark at the wrong time. The signet ring Zeve wore was like a beacon to Slade, drawing him to the Gilnean in the hopes of easy riches. What Slade didn’t know was that his mark had only recently been cursed–that his mark was unable to control the transformation from man to monster. Zeve couldn’t remember if the bandit had screamed. When he came back to himself in the small, gore-covered Old Town alleyway, he was gripped by a wicked realization: he was satiated.

Edward Vane had been his finest, if not his worst. Gilneas had given Zeve to the sea, and the sea had given him to Vane, captain of the Black Card. Vane commanded with dispassionate pragmatism: learn or be killed, work or be killed, kill or be killed. Zeve might have boarded as an arrogant noble’s son but the impudence of youth, like the flesh of crewman in need of ‘discipline’, was an unnecessary nuisance to be stripped away. It was Vane who had shown Zeve the weight of taking a life and taught him the meaning of death. When pushed to a breaking point, Zeve respectfully resigned by way of crippling the Card and stealing a longboat’s haul of plunder. At least this time he’d left home of his own volition.

Shad was his last. Shad who had been “Ears,” and became “Haemon,” and was now “mate.” Shad who, when Zeve first asked him to kiss him like he really meant it, had done so gently and with hesitation only to make sure that Zeve was as comfortable as he could be. Zeve didn’t consider himself sly–if asked, he could explain in great detail the things he appreciated about the fairer sex. Still, he could say that he loved Shad and mean it. In order to make sure that their family–their ‘us’–was happy, they had needed to bond with each other. At some point the need had become a want without either of them realizing it.

Someone who had deserved to die was his last. A cultist of some sort meaning to end the world or some such nonsense. Zeve was at peace with the idea that killing was a part of the world–being human had taught him that. Becoming a worgen simply allowed him to kill more efficiently. His last had been preceded very shortly by three or four others just as insane and in need of putting down; there was no shortage of lunatics in the world, but at least a few of them had been dispatched. If Zeve had any say in it, his last would not be the last.

The Riders were his last. Perhaps Tarquin, the master puppeteer or Bricu, the foul-mouthed heart were his superiors, but the Riders were truly his last: men and women from the highest to lowest circles who came together in an equal mixture of Improper and Right. They had accepted him for who and what he was long before he himself had. It’d made settling into their ranks easy, if not natural. The purpose they offered him made the Riders friends and comrades. The freedom they offered him made them family.

This is a refrain that has been going on since before the original Naxx dropped all those years ago, and it was a ridiculous refrain even then.  Just because you cannot find the RP doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  To be fair, sometimes it may seem that there is a dearth of RP…so here are five quick ways to bring it back:

1)  Plan an event.  

That’s right.  You see the dearth, you plan the event.  Pick a day that people are going to be online and have a party.  Run a pub crawl.  Host a dueling tournament.  Host a back room poker game that is busted up by Stormwind Watch Officers.  The point is that since you see the problem, try and fix it.

2) Slow Walk

Slow walk through the capital of your choice.  Visit the places that should be active for RP.  Talk to people.  Ask for directions.  Buy people a round of drinks because you just had the windfall of a lifetime.  In short, reach out to the community of your faction by interacting with your faction.

Be ready to /ignore the people who want to give you a hard time.  Personally, I don’t think that will be a huge problem, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

3)  Use the Content

WE’ve said it before and I’m saying it again:  Blizz has given us a huge world to play in, so play in it.  Throw together an RP raid.  Establish a target and a motive (Shaw wants this person dead, disrupt more Defias activity, Garrosh has issued an honor challenge to the person who can bring back Nefarian’s head).  Better yet, throw down with the opposite faction.  Organize a War Game.  See how many RPers you can fit into AV or Gilneas.  The reason is there, go exploit it.

4)  Visit Your Forum

A lot of RPers check their realm forums to see what is going in the server. If you want to have more RP on the sever, I’m sure someone else is going to have a similar thought.  Team up with that other person and get RPing.

5)  Search WTTRP

We have tips, tricks and tutorials on a number of ways to kick off RP or integrate yourself into established RP.  While all of them have a similar tone, “Don’t be a dick, RP with people not at people” some of them may have a particularly brilliant idea that can inspire you to do great things.

RP is out there folks.  It isn’t going to die.  It isn’t to cliquish.  You just need to find the right fit for you.

This week, we get the real deal on Shad, the official midwife of Feathermoon.

Celesse was his first. He never counted Eurydice, because no matter how she plead, promised, or punished, he always refused her that final step. No, it was the woman he chose to be his wife with whom he finally joined under the shade of a great oak on the shores of Lake Elune’ara. She was beautiful, graceful, so much the ideal woman that he’d been sure that it was love. That it was forever. He didn’t regret those six months, two of whirlwind courtship and four of everything men bemoaned when they shunned marriage. Was it any surprise that he also didn’t regret the kiss that had ruined it all?

In an occupation where these things should have been months preplanned, his first was a surprise. He’d offered some help at the start, but to be there for the terrifying, bloody end of it hadn’t been on the menu. To this day, he’d still never had one that bled as much as that first one. It had taken all his training not to run, but in the end, it was worth it. Most Riders made their way in the world by killing. He considered it a blessing that he’d found another path to take. Nerida O’Connaugh was a most satisfying first child to have to his midwifing credit.

Like most boys, he could count his father as his first. And like so many boys he was so certain that No Really, His Father Hated Him. Why else had he been such a draconian instructor? He’d once made his son sit for three days and nights in the freezing cold of Winterspring, refusing him shelter until he’d felt the pulse of a pine. Even then, he’d never been satisfied. Never once praised him. But he’d show the Dreaming bastard. He’d be twice the druid his father ever was.

There was no question that Fells was his finest. Though his mother had taught him about love, it had been Fells who taught him how, and in the flickering shadows of the waterfall that blurred the bliss of fireworks into a shimmering glow, he’d thanked her for her patience in spades. She wasn’t everything he’d ever dreamed of, but it turned out everything he’d ever dreamed of was pretty stupid, and he never could have fathomed what it was like to actually be happy with someone. She didn’t try to make him into someone he wasn’t; she transformed him effortlessly into who he was supposed to be. Even if she’d only live sixty years more, he knew they’d be the best he’d ever see.

If he had to pick just one, it would have to be Felicia that was his finest, as she demanded that she be born all of fifteen minutes before her twin. Regardless of who’d come forth first, they’d both been his greatest triumph: twins gotten on a once-barren woman thanks to his magics, and a difficult delivery for which he didn’t have to call in more competent help. She–they–were proof that he wasn’t a failure, and the best gift he could offer to the woman he loved. And during the long nights full of screaming infants, that was the thought that kept him sane.

Era was definitely his finest. After the months they’d struggled for control of the plague-ravaged body they shared, the panther would surely have felt fully justified simply slaying his captor and/or taking over entirely. Instead, he’d taught the lonely child what it meant to be a cat, and gradually helped shape him into a man. That they’d grown into equal brothers only made Shad all the more grateful that Era had endured his years of obnoxious condescension. How had he failed to see then that he’d never really been in charge at all?

His last was something of an awkward topic, at least outside of their little family. Sure, he’d been the one to propose the arrangement and insisted that all things had to be equal, but that didn’t make it any less strange to be pulling Zeve down to the mattress with him. But oh, he’d moved as slowly and gently as he would have while treating a wounded tiger, forestalling both flight and fight from both sides of the dance. Of course it wasn’t perfect; he’d have been concerned if it was. But in the end, Zeve’s words always put it best: it was Right.

Technically, his last wasn’t finished yet, but it was his most recent. Baby Boy Windwhisper (as he was presently known) would not come into the world for months yet, but he’d already made his mark. Shad didn’t get many kaldorei clients for obvious biological reasons, and those he did had always been, if not ready, then grateful for the blessing. But in so many ways, his last was also his first. Corrienda was the first to complain of being too young. She was the first for whom he’d researched the remedies taught by whores who’d disposed of unwanted baggage. And even though he hadn’t had to put them into practice for her, she was the first he had to struggle not to despise.

Tarquin was his last. The Riders pledged allegiance to the black and red, not directly to him, but all jobs and orders ultimately filtered through the Boss’s nimble fingers and trickled off his wicked tongue. Shad didn’t know him very well, but did anyone, really? He knew enough; he’d put his life in the man’s hands as both ally and adversary over the years, and his heart still beat, and that was all he needed. Really, if anything made Tarquin special, it was that: Shad didn’t need a damned thing from him other than trust.