I originally rolled on Shadow Council. Still there, but I gave up on personally RPing WoW within a couple days. The problem was not that game mechanics actively work against RP, or that too few RP (though both are true), but that what RP does happen is with, rare exceptions, pitiful.

While I don't stay in character at all times I will RP with those doing it if I'm not busy. How? Sadly it's mostly mocking the florid speeches, cliches, and psychotic behavior of most RPers.

The best advice I can give someone trying RP for the first time is to imagine a real person and try walking around in that skin. Maybe base it on someone you know. They'll never know, right? RP need not be volume 11 at all times. Just...inhabit the persona.

This is not assigning three or four exaggerated twitches. Always drunk, attacks elves on sight, yells "COME FELSTEED LET US FIGHT" when the mount is pulled out...for that any other RPer *in character* should laugh, run away, or alert the guards. Or, for their own sanity, put you on ignore.

Try this rule of thumb: if the behavior would suggest the character needs psychiatric hospitalization, start over. Try shouting MIGHTY FORD TAURUS! LET US GO TO THE OFFICE! every morning for a week and see how that goes. A sawbuck says you feel like an idiot and no longer get invited to the neighborhood cookout.

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