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?

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?

Time to check in and take the pulse of your RP.  Is it happening?  Is it dead?  On Hiatus?  Is it Thriving?  Is it booming?  Is it political?  Is it personal?

Fill us IN!

Wrath ended with a bang:  By killing Arthas.  It is far too early in Cata’s to accurately predict how this expac will end (though I think we all have an idea), but to be fair, those of us at WTTRP care about the overarching plot of WoW in how it relates to our own stories. While I think Nameless Grunt’s interaction with Deathwing could be interesting, I care more about an RPers interaction with their own stories.

To that end, today’s open thread is about endings. Tell us about an ending to a story–or a character–and how it went. Did it go pear shaped or was it more awesome than awesome? What endings are you looking forward to? Take the word ending and run with it!

The Shattering has occurred: How has this affected your RP? Did you see how Azeroth has changed? Are people “missing” since the Shattering? Fill us in!

In the Pig. Notice the abundance of druids, and Fells with bunny ears.

Welcome to the projective test edition of WTTRP. Describe the scene and what’s going on here, and we can have one of our qualified mental health professionals diagnosis your unconscious.

Burnout, tedium and boredom are not limited to the professional world. Even Die Hard RPers can run into this issue. The RP gets stale, Raid Drama brings one down or, worse yet, one feels that the character is “done before their time.”

In addition to solutions we’ve discussed before–rolling alts, taking time away from the game, reading, writing or playing something else entirely–there is another solution: Talk to the people you RP with and workshop the character. Bringing in another set of eyes, however, maybe more effective. So where to bring the character?

To this thread, that’s where! Wednesday’s been a quite day since the end of the Wrathgate Wednesday, and Workshop Wednesday rocks the same alliteration. Feel free to drop us a line, a note in the comments or ping us on twitter (@gotRP).

Trust us. It works.

Let me be blunt: I typically hate wacky RP. Zany hijinks and wacky adventures don’t do a thing for me. This is just what floats my boat: A lot of RPers I know and respect have Wacky Adventure Time–so while it doesn’t work for me, it works for someone else.

That being said, Bricu has had two wacky adventures: He was turned into a sheep by Pill and he was brief member of the Cult of Batta. The RP that resulted from ensuing wackiness is still part of who Bricu is…

Which leads me to ask: What do you think of wacky? Do you have any Zany Hijinks that you would like to share? Give us your opinions of Wacky RP!