All the World's a Stage: You keep me coming back
by Michael Gray 
Jul 25th 2010 at 4:00PM
I bring this back because I spent last night at a LARP. Yes, yes, a vampire LARP. There was just as many Linkin Park lyrics and awkward Livejournal posts as you might imagine. I spent a good hour talking about Edward and Jacob. (I wish I were kidding.) But, I'd been having this urge to revisit the old character, so I figured one evening didn't hurt.
And it didn't. It didn't hurt at all. It was actually a relatively decent time. But it did inspire me to get home and quickly login to WoW so that I could roll around on my favorite roleplay server. It's admittedly been a little while since I've truly gotten my roleplay on, and I dove in last night with a ferocity I've not experienced for a while.
I don't know. No matter how many times I've walked away from roleplay for a little while, I always come back around to it. Never been able to shake it.
The frivolity!
I work a long day job, a second job, and help maintain a home. I commute for a length of time most reasonable people would consider a third job. (Not to mention a half dozen other things.) I have long days, brothers and sisters. And sometimes, after that much effort, you just want to blow off steam.
I've never found any other activity that's as awesome for reveling in absolute frivolity as roleplaying. You can be a dork, a loud mouth, or any other thing you can imagine. Feel like being the biggest flirt this side of Jaina and Thrall? Well, roleplaying is your opportunity. (Just don't be creepy, that doesn't do anyone any good.) Feel like being a big comedian? Tell some jokes, learn a magic routine, and rock out with some friends.
This frivolity is part of roleplaying's escapist aspect. It's not that you're trying to get away from the real world and live in some fantasy life. (Well, okay, it's a little bit that.) The idea is that you're getting distracted, you're wiping away your worries while being focused on something else. You're doing the same thing as someone who watches a movie, shoots some hoops, or takes an evening out to go dancing. You're just shaking off a bit of the dust of the day.
The story!
I am, admittedly, a story-based roleplayer. If you're not familiar with the concept, I don't tend to focus much on the "act like my character parts" as much as I focus on the "tell the character's story parts" of roleplaying. But boy, do I love creating those stories.
My favorite WoW story is actually a pretty generic one. I have an old paladin whose sons grew up to be paladins. One was killed by blood elves when they were stealing the Light from the Alliance. That's all. I'm sure there's a billion of the players out there with the exact same story, but this one has been my favorite.
I spend a lot of time fantasizing fun scenes for my characters. (What if he had another son who refused to acknowledge him? It would be this whole awesome reunion angst story!) I spend a lot of time charting out how the character's emotions and personality change as a result of little events in his life. I don't, however, spend much time pretending to be that character.
The friends!
I think one of the truest admissions about why I keep coming back around to roleplaying and specific character is that I do it because of friens. Roleplaying's a social sport. It's something you do with other people. I guess there's some method for roleplaying all by yourself, but I've never been able to figure it out.
And since you need other people to roleplay with, you get to know other people. (Even if the "people" you get to know is just the way they play their own characters.) There's something about that connect. It pulls on the same little heartstrings as any other friendship or relationship. That's why I constantly find myself going back and looking for those old friends.
Roleplayers tend to be friendly, creative folks. They tend to welcome new people and help bring them into their odd, strange little fold. While I think most gamers have this dynamic to some degree or another, roleplayers are especially open to new experiences and good times. I treasure their unique sense of humor and joie de vivre, so I constantly find myself coming back to them.
The down side!
Like I said, though, I was up pretty late last night roleplaying. At the first I was getting my vampire on, and then I was rocking out to the World of Warcraft roleplay. I woke up this morning with one heck of a headache. I suppose it's a roleplay hangover. I had forgotten about those.
All the World's a Stage is your source for roleplaying ideas, innovations and ironies. You might wonder what it's like to sacrifice spells for the story, or to totally immerse yourself in your roleplaying, or even how to RP on a non-RP server!Filed under: All the World's a Stage (Roleplaying)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jamie Jul 25th 2010 4:42PM
Vampire LARP...??? That must be as bad as being a warlock, why I hear cry?
They're both "neck romancers"!
*rimshot*
But more seriously, I used to play Guild Wars and I went back to them recently to check up on how they were doing, first logging into my Warrior/Monk and trying to take on some scarabs in the Amnoon Oasis desert, forgetting how balanced the top end content is that even at lvl20 (the lvl cap) you're not a one man army and quickly died... oh well.
It's funny the ideals you have of archetypes of characters due to the games you play but it's really the mechanics which determine if you'll succeed or not, a lvl20 warrior for example is never going to survive long against a pack of necromatic scarabs...
Irontoof Jul 25th 2010 5:37PM
THIS JOKE WINS.
Father Jul 26th 2010 3:20AM
Son i am dissapoint.
ElrithCC Jul 25th 2010 5:14PM
My first character is my main, and I've never been able to play another character in wow with the same dedication. I have dozens of alts I play to level ten or twenty, a few to 40 and level 60, but to me, WoW may as well be the "Elrith" game and all the lore serves as his background, hehe. It's been a really great journey though to explore his development the past 5 and a half years. I never would have imagined I'd still be playing him with this level of dedication, and how his path has turned out.
Sean Riley Jul 25th 2010 5:31PM
I wish Blizzard would realize this. For many role-players, the role-playing is the point. We don't want to role-play OR raid, we want to role-play the raid. We want to do big PVP world events. It's the frosting on the cake, surplus, yet it makes the cake.
Adoisin Jul 27th 2010 10:34AM
Make your own events. For my guild's birthday, we are all going to munch down on some savory deviate delights, and go do a pirate invasion. We are horde, so plan on hitting Stormwind Harbor. We also plan on having a pirates vs ninjas battle in STV at the arena. The game may have some limits, but you do not. Get your creative groove on, and have a ball!
Sean Riley Jul 27th 2010 5:20PM
Absolutely. No arguments there.
Lavoz Jul 25th 2010 5:43PM
Lately, my roleplaying vibe has greatly run out. Died out even. I went as far as to proclaim myself a PvE-er instead.
However, something is still left with me. My characters. I've played some of the for five years now, and they have evolved into real personas. And whenever I create a new character, I do that based on a concept I have, and not on what class or race I want to play. I guess in my heart, I still am a roleplayer. Sadly, as you stated, roleplaying is something you do with others, with friends.
I got onti good roleplaying when I encountered my by now RL-WoW friends. They are amazing rolepayers, but they have stopped playing the game. With all the ties to my characters severed, and my server not feeling like the most optimal roleplaying environment, I am left empty, with no place to go and just act out a character.
So, here's a shout out. Can any help me or direct me into picking up my roleplaying? I really wish to do that now, so close to Cataclysm, because the change in character that will occur with the upcoming events will be amazing. So, if anyone can help me, please reply. Great thanks! *grin*
Casterdps Jul 26th 2010 12:11PM
Lavoz, what server are you on? I'm assuming, from your comment, that you're somewhat averse to rerolling, or else you could head over to Wyrmrest Accord, where the rp is always rocking out. But I know that's not always an optimal solution, since we often have other ties to our server.
ElrithCC Jul 25th 2010 6:11PM
I also get a bit weary of people avoiding the more common stories and themes in WoW and striving to be original for originality's sake. My choice of role playing with my main is often dismissed at first for being an angst ridden ( I hate this word) Mary Sue. But I think I've done a good job of avoiding those pitfalls and devices while exploring the concept in an intriguing way. I wanted to be a demon hunter (no groaning please) when this game came out and I saw the mention of hero classes on the horizon.
I reasoned out that a fury warrior was the most similar with the whole brutal in your face dual wielding berserk thing. I also thought hero classes would be a sort of hybridization you would choose at end game. But I wanted to have a two handed sword as his iconic weapon. I wanted to explore what kind of mind would actually choose to make the choices behind becoming a demon hunter, and I was determined to begin the game as an unusually young and emotionally underdeveloped night elf male who would eventually become a demon hunter live in game, and I would role play out the entire mental process, doing as much as I could in live sessions. This took a lot longer than I ever expected.
He began as I said, unstable. He was born with a spark for the arcane, but his Sentinel mother despised such things and chose a very harsh method to "purge" him of it. He was basically physically tortured and trained to fight through childhood, leading to a total block and repression of such abilities. He also had an ingrained inferiority complex, with a mother who was cold and aloof who never showed affection or support. By the time the battle of Hyjal came around, he was forced to stay deep in the forests to take care of his younger brother, and they ended up orphaned, like most of Azeroth's children. This served to fuel much of his original regret and anger issues against the weak and infirm, as well as planting the seed of his hatred for the arcane and for the Legion. Upon hearing of the creation of Teldrassil, Elrith took his brother there to leave in the keeping of the druids and sentinels of Aldrassil, and set out from Shadowglen to begin his journey in the World of Warcraft.
Over the years he went from a xenophobic manic depressive with severe anger issues, to learning the necessary evils of mages and warlocks, coming to find true friends and allies in the alliance. With more reason to live, by the time TBC came around, he had calmed considerably. The Naaru inspired within him a peace he'd never known, and a true cause to champion. Meanwhile from into the second year of his journey, he had fostered a partnership with a gnomish warlock and collector of fel lore and artifacts. While in most respects my character had grown emotionally, he still harbored his intense hatred for all things demonic, and had come to desire to learn whatever was necessary to combat them, even fighting fire with fire(of course!). His gnomish associate in the fel arts recognized the profit in this, and a partnership was formed. They would travel the worlds of Outland and Azeroth, adventuring throughout ruins and all manner of places collecting lore and artifacts of fel quality, piecing together what they could of the lost and forbidden arts of the demon hunter cult while Elrith gathered goods and performed needed services for the gnome in payment. Many such adventures were played out in live role play sessions, my favorite type of RP being the live questing and exploration in game while in character.
Finally in January of 2009 after over four years of character development, I began to organize a pug to the Black Temple with the express goal for me to get an eye binding so I could pursue the steps we were approaching in the story. After 3 months nearly of weekly 8 hour half pugged raids and frustration, Illidan dropped the freaking eye binding! I never got a glaive, but that was not as important. We then planned out the blinding ritual.
Our goal then was to carve a small splinter from the still suspended cloven warglaive of Manneroth, near the monument to Grom Hellscream. To go about doing this, my associate and I with a few other friends assisting at times traveled around in character hunting a list of every named and interesting elite demon we could catalog, from the low level vanilla areas to nearly every zone in Outland. Using the blood filled orb shoulders from the Black Temple rogue tier, we gathered the demons blood and fel essences within the orbs I was wearing, RPing it all out. It was great fun. Finally, after collecting the blood and the weapons we had cataloged, we melted them down and forged a small hammer necessary to strike the glaive of Manneroth and break a splinter from the blade itself. There, using a hodge podge collection of spells and ancient knowledge we'd gathered over the past 4 years, we had pieced together what we believed was a rough approximation of the demon hunter blinding ritual.
Using the searing splinter of blade, charged with the essences of the army of demons we had hunted and slain, Elrith cut his eyes free and attempted to bind the essence of the demons he had gathered. Not everything worked out according to plan however. While he had a crude approximation of the spectral sight said to be possessed by demon hunters, their spell work was shoddy at best. He could sense the demonic (using the proc from the actual item) and had imbued himself with fel fire (using the footsteps of Illidan loot card item), but the rest of his vision was merely a world of black flickering shadows, and he had no command over his fel energies and gained no augmented strength or agility. It soon began to effect him detrimentally. He began to almost rot alive over time, a great wasting. It was only though a story arc we Rp'd out that next month that a druid with the aid of my warlock associate managed to create a sort of healing spell that bound to my character to buffer the crude spellwork we had foolishly implemented.
Since then, Elrith has come to terms with his choices in some sense, and while he would not exactly regret what he has done, with the wisdom he has gained he most likely would have appreciated his life more and not have made the same decisions, but he has chosen to embrace his choice and take responsibility and honor in it.
It was actually the quest line in the Howling Fjord when you climb the mountain top to Elune's altar and face yourself there that he had a moment of personal growth and acceptance. There was a similar incident in Winterspring back in 2005 I had RP'd, when Elune's altar there had offered him a catharsis of sorts after he had journeyed to the demon infested gates of mount Hyjal to visit the resting place of his loved ones lost in the battle there.
It's difficult to sum up nearly 6 years of roleplay, but I feel I've succeeded in what I set out to do wonderfully, and have really come to explore the psychology behind the demon hunter and their choices. Elrith feels what he has done is necessary, and only through the sacrifices of the demon hunters were the Kaldorei free to pursue their druidic paths that last ten thousand years. Being barely out of adolescence himself, he never knew this immortality that was lost by his people, but with Cataclysm on the horizon, I am brimming with eagerness to see what plays out.
Sorry for the long read, if you made it this far. I've been wanting to really write this process out for a long time.
McCombs Jul 25th 2010 7:36PM
I'm very attached to my characters. The only one I ever changed was my main NE Druid. I transfered him to Tauren. I loved that Tauren, but I missed my NE too much, and I came back. Though now I really miss my Tauren. Oh the dilemmas!
Zandilar Jul 25th 2010 7:39PM
Role Playing with yourself is also known as writing fiction. ;)
csarcops Jul 25th 2010 10:58PM
I like this. I never actually RP with any of my characters, but I love writing little stories about them. They all have backstories, I have a base to start from with all of them, and it's great fun for me to write about their adventures and how they perceive and interact with the world around them.
Ysonia Jul 25th 2010 9:12PM
The other day, there was an article on wow.com that was basically a discussion of why people *don't* RP. A lot of people cited feeling intimidated as one reason, but there was a lot of variation there as well. I started to think about why *I* don't RP anymore, and I decided to go log into my old mage, who I RPed for several months /played, and put her in one of the RP outfits I'd built for her over a long period of time. Once I got her into the clothes, I decided I felt like RPing her, and I haven't been RPing her for quite some time now. I found an old RPing friend online, and we ended up RPing for quite a while. It was like a comfortable old pair of jeans I slid right back into, and it was a joy.
Maybe I don't want to RP full-time like I used to, but once in a while it is just what I needed. I even RP on my other (PvE) server once in a while, and it always gets attention, which has been a very positive experience. Don't be shy or intimidated, people! The world (of warcraft) needs more RPers! :)
RoseClown Jul 25th 2010 9:34PM
As I fairly new rper to the World of Warcraft, I have found joy in creating my characters.
I have rped in plenty of other places. Forums, D&D, and I took acting classes and performed quite a bit (I got to be the White Witch in the Lion, The Witch, and The wardrobe. I am still proud that my death scream caused the audience to wince.) which is very close to roleplay... just you have a script. (I did a bit of improv though)
WoW has been my first experience in the world, and I find my characters fascinating and something I really enjoy. Even from time to time I dig up my old characters and throw them into either WoW, or toss them into stories that I am planning on writing (aspiring novelist. Very practical, since I love ramen.)
Even characters I made up as a kid, still have a large presence. I don't think, even after WoW is dead and gone many years from now, any of my characters will have really died. They will probably squeeze in somewhere.
ElrithCC Jul 27th 2010 3:11AM
I Rp alone, I guess you could call it. When I solo, I usually walk around in the wilderness and pretend to be my character as I do it. The best thing is when you run into someone else in character, it happened to me a few days ago. I was walking from Menethil to Ironforge checking out the terrain in stereo 3d with my latest extremely high 3d settings, and I randomly ran into a level 20 warrior who was on the road in Loch Modan. We ended up in a friendly in character conversation and spent the next hour exchanging stories and chatting in character.
I've been exploring old Vanilla zones a lot lately, seeing them in stereo 3d is like seeing them all for the first time all over again, and like being inside a giant diorama recreation of the game with a remote controlled animated action figure of your character.
JustSayin' Jul 26th 2010 9:10AM
I Rp alone in 3d, I guess you could call it stereo 3d. When I solo in 3d, I usually walk around in the 3d wilderness and pretend to be my stereo 3d character as I do it in 3d. The best thing is when you run into someone else in 3d character, it happened to me a few 3d days ago. I was walking from 3d Menethil to 3d Ironforge checking out the terrain in stereo 3d with my latest extremely high 3d settings, and I randomly ran into a level 20 warrior also in stereo 3d who was on the 3d road in Loch Modan.
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C'mon. You know you were thinking it.
slythwolf Jul 26th 2010 6:13AM
What?! The Twihards are invading LARP? Is NOTHING sacred? Listen closely, Twihards: YOU ARE NOT REAL GEEKS. You're just whiny tweenagers. If you were real geeks you would be obsessed with LOTR at your age. Please go listen to--I don't know, whatever whiny tweens listen to these days--in your rooms and we *might* let you come back in five years if you shape up your act.
Sean Riley Jul 26th 2010 7:39PM
Dude.
They were, at a guess, invading a Vampire: The Masquerade or Requiem LARP.
Those games were heavily influenced by Anne Rice. Who was basically writing a vampire novel with romance novel techniques. Which is somewhat similar to, oh, I don't know, Twilight.
Geekdom shifts on. Deal with it. Your geeks are not the new geeks. Admit you're old (like me) and stop worrying about it.
bui Jul 30th 2010 3:17PM
So really I was thinking about making a Worgen to goof around on, on an RP server, and I really wanted to know where a good place to do so would be. I do enjoy RPing just wasn't a very fun time back in the beginning of WoW with all the people being well immature. Anyone have a good suggestion for a realm? And sorry for being off topic but well I couldn't think of anywhere else to ask. Thanks for your input.