All the World's a Stage: Ten Commandments of Roleplaying

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-16-2008 @ 11:13PM

Pål said...

About rule 5 up there, about how you react to the game's inconsistencies with logic, the alternatives mentioned are either ignoring them or making up an explanation to them. Isn't it also possible to play as if they were completely natural? If a respawn is what your character is expecting, you don't have to act surprised when the mob respawns, you don't have to pretend like it was there all the time, and you don't have to make up an explanation for just what a respawn is. It's a respawn, a natural part of life.

Similarly, mounts are used to being stuffed inside little bags and think nothing of it, some species simply don't usually have the body parts that in the real world are considered vital, and a meeting stone outside your house is a sure sign your life's coming to an end, not just something to be used and then pretended to not exist.

3-17-2008 @ 6:58AM

TomWolf said...

Personally I don't think it's a good idea to treat it like it's natural. The reason is that if you expect to be respawned no matter what then you have nothing to truly be afraid of. (besides, how did the undead become undead? ;)

For me it's just that we don't see everything that is going on. What happens on screen isn't exactly what happens. I guess that comes easier when you've played a lot of pen and paper RPGs. When I get ganked by a lvl 70 tauren warrior, in my mind he hit my helmet with the broad side of his sword, knocking me to the ground where he left me for dead.

When I open my bag and bring out my trusty steed...well trusty oversized goat anyway...in my head I had him with me by my side all the time and I simply mounted him.

It might just be me but I don't find it enjoying if I'm supposed to pretend that somehow my gnome can carry five backpacks filled with swords, horses, big boxes of supply and that big high tech gun he found off a...bear (don't know what the bear did with it but it smells funny). I rather work around the game mechanics in my head.

3-17-2008 @ 8:21AM

Cynra said...

If you're willing to accept that being an orc, or a gnome, or a tauren, or a night elf is a valid part of the universe and that we're all wielding magic or riding flying creatures, why is it so hard to accept the other aspects of World of Warcraft? Those are just as unfeasible in our world as the things that you've pointed out. We're constrained by the mechanics of the game, but we don't need to find real life justification or explaination for everything. Go with the flow! Accept things the way they are!

3-17-2008 @ 8:58AM

TomWolf said...

Well actually the game mechanics are not part of "World of Warcraft". If you read the lore there doesn't happen once that someone dies and then respawns at the nearest graveyard. What I'm saying is that this is a fantasy game and the game mechanics are not meant to "be" what happens but rather to represent what happens.

I don't think there are many people who enjoys thinking that there is a guy somewhere doing nothing all day but telling adventurer after adventurer to go out and find his lost brother and when he is found and helped to return he goes out there and gets lost again, and again, and again.

Just use your imagination a bit and it'll be all the more fun =)

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