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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: How do you handle game mechanics when RPing?
by Andrew Ross 
Oct 12th 2011 at 8:00AM
I'm going to be honest: I could never get into Warcraft roleplaying. RP can be hard enough with the different approaches people have (accents, interpretation of lore, Pollyannas), but in-game mechanics can often make things incredibly difficult. For example, in past games, I knew people who refused to RP in any channel other than /say. Why? Because they felt that only psychic characters would be able to communicate across mountains without cell phones or other modern-day conveniences. It's a bit picky, but I get it.
What about other things, though? Our players constantly come back from the dead without an explanation. From Asheron's Call to Rift, other games have made the death situation take a front and center position in lore. AC characters are magically bonded to lifestones for a seedy purpose unknown to them for several years; Rift players have spirits anchored to the world via technology or divine intervention; and WoW players ... have more resilient ghosts than most NPCs? Or at least, most of the time, since Cairne was ganked a lot prior to Cataclysm and always came back until someone gave Garrosh a poisoned blade.
How do you deal with game mechanics when RPing? Are levels "birthdays"? Is earning an achievement an epiphany? Maybe cross-faction dungeons with instant transportation are similar to finding Dr. Who's telephone booth?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
HappyTreeDance Oct 12th 2011 8:44AM
I've honestly never understood why people get so hung up on these technical gameplay mechanics when they consider RP. In -any- game you play, there are things in place that are obviously meant to make playing the game easier, but don't affect storytelling.
That said, I can explain how I handle some of these mechanics. When my toon dies in game, it's not actual death. It's being grievously injured or knocked out or something like that. Rez spells are just massive healing spells. Except in a few very special circumstances, I don't believe that our characters are constantly dying and coming back to life, nor do I feel having the power to return someone to life is something most player characters have.
During Wrath, I viewed ICC as a long, drawn out siege rather than a quick storming of the castle. My character and her friends spent months trying to get to the Lich King, and for every bit of progress they made, they kept getting pushed back. At the end of it all, they had a massive scourge vs. horde/alliance battle that I wrote as being very similar to Braveheart, with LK and Lore characters in the middle, and my characters fighting around them. This way, I can say my pally was there for the fall of the Lich King, but not that she was the one who actually killed him.
My guild has a specific channel for RP, and we call it our guild hall. We used to do the goblin communicator thing, but I felt it just didn't work. Instead, people can choose to go into the RP chat. It's understood that while their avatar might be out doing things like dailies, in character, they're sitting around in the guild hall with everyone else. It only take a little bit of imagination.
And I guess that's the thing with RP. It only takes a little imagination to get around these gameplay mechanics. I imagine Azeroth being far larger and expansive than what we see in game. I've drawn out maps of Silvermoon that make it feel more like a real city (with residential areas, even!), and created my own taverns and inns for it to use in my writing so things feel more alive. In my RP, travel takes much longer and is much more difficult than it is in game, because I think that's more realistic. As long as the people you RP with understand how you approach things and do so similarly, it's easy to make the world feel alive.
I generally don't link to my blog here, but I did write a post that is exactly about gameplay versus roleplay, and how I handle the differences between them. It goes more in depth than what I wrote here, so if someone is interested, it might be worth a read: http://the-dancing-tree.com/2011/08/12/roleplay-versus-gameplay/
deanspeedway Oct 12th 2011 9:10AM
I do like your description of how the story of the fall of ICC went down. That's a good way to explain the way most raid instances are dealt with (ie, over weeks or months of trying) by most groups.
cloudhopper013 Oct 12th 2011 10:54AM
I was going to say, he writer of this column obviously doesn't really have a grasp how RP works - we disregard those mechanics. People who RP aren't in their characters constantly. We don't pretend our character is really in the game killing major lore figures when we go to raid or quest. That would be both ludicrous and selfish. To act like the OoC (out-of-character) world (like PvE and PvP events) is one in the same with the IC world (in-character) is pretty silly.
If we're out of character, which is a surprising majority of the time, everything that happens to that character doesn't actually happen to the character we're RPing, just to the toon that we use to play the game. Even in character, the most I've used death for is by destroying my hearth stone so I can use the new stuck button (the one that kills you) to pretend my character passed out. He didn't die, but the toon did.
Awesome Oct 12th 2011 1:12PM
I like the simile you used with Braveheart. I too, consider raids and such, long events that take a long time (when I RP). Also, when it comes to end game bosses, I consider my character that secondary character (you know how sometimes in a movie, theres this one random unnamed soldier that will step forward/say some motivational BS/ does some unnecessary badass action) yeah, thats me.
And when the final battle comes I consider my character (like you so aptly put it) the guy they cut to to see do something awesome (and unnecesary)/ or rallie troops/ or shoot the arrow that DISTRACTS the badguy while lore dudes take them out, or my guy (along with the raid) gives assistance in some small way....
And sometimes, I consider my guy a part of the hero crew thats popular and strong enough to be in the crew, but not enough to be named, or super recognized. IT helps me feel like im still epic, and helping out in an important way, but not that I hog up the spotlight and get my character confused when VARIAN is credited with killing Onyxia or MAEIV striking the final blow on Illidan.
tuskalo Oct 12th 2011 8:49AM
Generally, most in game mechanics like the dungeon finder and such get ignored, i've met people who referred to levels as ranks that you obtain through training but most people don't even mention them. In a world where magic is prevalent, communicating across great distances is not that difficult to find a way to do, I know my current guild uses a set of enchanted rings that allow is all to communicate.
One important rule to remember though, NEVER MENTION THE MAILMAN. I mean holy shit, this guy has to on the level of or even above the titans in power! He can travel the entire world, delivering mail to some of the most powerful people on Azeroth, knows what we're going to do before we even know ourselves, and does all of this completely unseen. That guy, is terrifying.
Mortenebra Oct 12th 2011 9:05AM
And not only that, he (or she) also knows precisely where you're going to want to pick up your mail! How amazing is that? And if you travel across the globe and remember to check your mailbox? No problem! The mailman makes sure your stuff is waiting for you RIGHT THERE.
tuskalo Oct 12th 2011 9:11AM
What's more, if your bags are full at the end of a dungeon run or something, and the mailman sends you whatever you would have gotten, he tells you that he found floating through the twisting nether! Take a moment to think about that, and then consider the implications.
LynMars Oct 12th 2011 9:16AM
I do mail as portal magic modified for a specific purpose and monitored by "mailmen' who are mages specializing in this branch of the arcane.
tuskalo Oct 12th 2011 9:30AM
I suppose that makes sense... I gunk I'll keep to my conspiracy theories though. ^.^
violet.ink Oct 12th 2011 3:03PM
I just remembered that when I first started the game I was convinced that the mail would be delivered to the mailbox next to the inn that you had settled in. So it happened that a friend send me some starter gear, which was being delivered while I switched inn's due to moving on to the next zone. Now, that mail really never reached me and I took on the endeavor to find it, walking (what other choice did I have) back and forth between different inn's, resetting hearthstones and looking into all mailboxes I had passed before. It took me quite a while to figure I never got the mail because I still had a trial account at that time and even longer to wrap my head around that mechanic.
I am not a roleplayer, that was just me.
@tuskalo: very good point
Edymnion Oct 12th 2011 8:45AM
Did... did he just call the TARDIS a telephone booth?
MattKrotzer Oct 12th 2011 10:44AM
Yes. And all the Dr. Who fans around here need to mellow out. This place has felt like Who Insider lately. Not everybody knows or watches Dr. Who, nor have they memorized the decades-long history and minutiae. You guys have been running around here lately like you're a Naxxaramas raid guild in Vanilla, and we're all casuals on an RP server.
Some of us haven't (and won't) experienced/enjoyed what you do. You guys need to learn to be fine with that.
Taitle Oct 12th 2011 4:56PM
To be fair, if you're going to make a pop culture reference, you really should try to get it right. A quick wiki search would've been enough.
Josho Oct 12th 2011 8:46AM
*Rainbow* IMAGINAAAAATION
Ice Oct 12th 2011 8:52AM
Some people just ignore deaths. Lets be honest, if lowbie (lvl 15) does on lets say feralas (50 zone) by mob theres no need to stop and go "oh no wild bear mauled the guy!".
If its RP-pvp then dying is getting injured. To me at least. Some people tend to ignore this too as they are powerfulroar.
As for the rest? Eugh, we tend to ignore them and focus more on actual roleplay. I dont need to explain that I'm doing daily heroic to everyone and how it happens like "magic".
For the priv channels we use different things. As humans they could use gnomish radio-devices to contact others. Its possible and have been in the game already (like darkshore quest). Night elves could use the power of the forest and wisps to deliver the message. And of course goblins do devices too.
So basically. Engineer did it.
Mortenebra Oct 12th 2011 9:03AM
As someone who's tried (keyword here being "tried") to write stories based on my guild's adventures in raids, there are just some things that absolutely cannot be explained. I know, that's not bona fide, in-game RPing but it's similar. Just hear me out, please.
One of the things I got hung up on was the idea of my players' abilities. Forget the bigger things like boss deaths and zoning into dungeons! I mean, the everyday stuff that your character does whenever the player pushes a button. How hard could that be, right?
Well... Things like Last Stand was easy enough to describe-- surge of energy and vitality as you feel impending doom and your life ebbing from you from a million cuts and bruises, that sort of thing. But then I tried to describe my hunter's misdirection. When I figured it out, it was a long, clunky description of how I ricocheted some arrows off of the wall and made it look like it was coming from the warrior who had his sword and shield in his hands the entire time the monster was staring at him. Even the summary is clunky and confusing!!
Eventually, I gave up trying to describe fights in a play-by-play, ability-by-ability account, and just wrote the *story*. I focused less on the "All the fights are awesome, with lots of stuff flying through the air!" and more on "Here's a band of adventurers and friends who try to figure out the evil behind this place... while doing some awesome combat."
Everything else I just try to explain as, "It's maaaaaagic." (as in, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ECNb_tazHg)
Baribal Oct 12th 2011 9:40AM
Hunter Misdirect
Hunter shoots the boss, boss turns angrily to attack, hunter looks innocent and conspiratorial and points at the tank.
deanspeedway Oct 12th 2011 9:08AM
I've always considered that in-game death is just 'getting the crap kicked out of you' and you are knocked unconscious or badly injured.
A toon dies way too many times to explain it as death followed by resurrection. Maybe if it's a big story event, like Tirion rezzing you at the end of the LK fight, you could call it an actual death.
But a run of the mill 'health reaches zero' event as in a BG or boss encounter, I just chalk it up to a KO rather than a 'death'
Drakkenfyre Oct 12th 2011 12:12PM
If you ever mouse over your health when you are dead, it says 1. When you die it says zero, but while you are a ghost, it says 1.
I have always figured it was for game mechanic reasons, but you could use that to help explain it.
LynMars Oct 12th 2011 9:12AM
The guilds I'm in have various mechanics for IC guild comms; there are gnome and goblin comm boxes in game since classic--and now the NPCs use various methods to keep in communication during quests themselves. So either magic or technology, or a combination of both, have been used by various guilds I've been in to explain that.
I've always seen death as severe injury and resurrection spells like CPR and other resuscitation methods. In the wilds alone, it's easily ignorable IC. Otherwise death has no real meaning and those NPCs who die--sometimes right in front of us in story quests and events--would be saveable in many cases. I don't RP in the random dungeon finder, as not all those folks are RPers, from RP servers, or interested in anything but getting the job done, so it's not a concern. IC, my character's off doing something else behind-the-scenes as she does when I'm not playing her.
I've seen people show to raids and not be there IC, just Random Avenger of Hyjal or Random Ashen Verdict, etc, member #347 due to story stuff keeping them out IC but they still fill their slot.
There's just a balance where you ignore some of the mechanics because they exist for game balance reasons; even the devs have said they've sacrificed story and lore for gameplay at some points to make things more accessible, fun, and just plain workable. There are a few mechanics you can use to your benefit and the story you're telling, and a few times when it'd be in the way to dramatic tension and plotline. It just depends on the group, the player, and their personal RP bubble about how the world works.
RP bubbles are explained as how some people fill in those big events (as part of the major event, boss kill, etc, but not sole contributor), whether some zone story stuff is still ongoing or not, people doing storyline quests at different points in time, how certain unexplained things in lore are handled by the character, etc as a way for people to RP together while noting they also have a "personal space". Most times, the bubbles meet up, merge for a bit, separate again, bump against each other friendly but never connect...and some bubbles just don't work at all, and that's OK.