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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 3 of 3)
DeathPaladin Oct 12th 2011 9:15AM
My Death Knight is not permitted to die as punishment for the atrocities he's committed. The spirit healer is a powerful servitor of the Light that follows him and is charged with enforcing this punishment by keeping his soul chained to his body.
There is a faint hope that if he does enough good to outweigh the horrors he's caused, his sentence will be commuted. If that happens, he will cease to exist with a smile on his face.
He tends to bring out the grimdark in me.
Sintraedrien Oct 12th 2011 9:26AM
One thing I've learned as a general RP rule: vagueness is your friend. If you are confused, dazed, forgetful, any of that, many inconsistencies can be smoothed (spackled?) over. So game-mechanics are often an anomaly that may be safely ignored, as long as there is something (anything) else going on. Plus, those inconsistencies may provide a later hook:
A: someone "dies" in character.
B: two days later, said character "comes back to life"
C: "Oh, I didn't die, I was just knocked out."
D: Character starts acting strangely
E: "Ha! Character is dead, I've been taking his/her place! I'm EVIL"
F: "E was lying, I was only a prisoner, but I'm back"
All sorts of things can happen. :)
Sintra E'Drien of the Ebon Blade, né Sindorei (Still sad no RP panel at BlizzCon)
ravyncat Oct 12th 2011 9:38AM
I sort of play my Death Knight as immortal. She cannot die because the evil magics animating her keep bringing her back. She has also resigned herself to a "life" of atonement for the evil things she did as a servant of the Lich King.
I am working on Loremaster and I RP that as my DK going around and trying to help as many people as possible. If the tasks include death or murder then at least she can get that out of her system without killing complete innocents. The Molten Front is another place where she can atone while also doing the killing she is forced to do because she is a DK.
Raids are another place where she is helping her allies--friends now--defeat whatever big evil thing is next. She does feel friendship and compassion even if she can't quite grasp all the emotions of the living anymore. But I consider it one long battle. Not "omg everyone died and came back!" repeated until it is finally cleared.
Ulduar was a place she went more out of loyalty than anything else. ICC was personal; she has a very deep need to see Arthas dead for good. (Alas...she still hasn't seen him die! DOH!)
Stuff like random dungeons or the dungeon finder, I tend to ignore. Ditto stuff like JC or cooking/fishing dailies or the dungeons I run to farm mounts. I count the first time she was there as her clearing the evil out but the repeats don't happen.
So I guess my final answer is I use game mechanics only when it makes sense to my overall story. The rest of the time I ignore them.
Sunaseni Oct 12th 2011 10:55AM
I know how to RP "death":
"Sunaseni! But you're dead!"
"I got better."
nekoali Oct 12th 2011 11:17AM
Well, given that it is a setting of high magic, the excuse of "A wizard did it" is perfectly valid. Or a priest, witch doctor shaman or what have you. When it comes to death in game...it largely depends on my character and the setting. My shaman can return from death on her own by an in game ability. Sometimes not instantly, but getting the spirits/loa to bargain with you isn't always a quick process. My death knight literally cannot die. She thinks as long as a Lich King exists, her spirit is bound to him and any death is meaningless because his power will just draw her back, no matter how many times she tries to die.
With others, it can be dependent on the situation. Assaulting Icecrown? You have all those Argent Crusaders hanging in the background, some of them can raise the dead. They may not participate in the fights, but they can restore you to life should you die. If nothing else you can fall back on the mysterious spirit healers telling you it isn't your time. Perhaps some ancient mechanism of the Titans to keep important people from dying before their time.
When it comes to random dungeon groups, guild chat and things like that I rarely see or treat them as in character, other than in vague ways.
Nyold Oct 12th 2011 11:22AM
Levels: epiphanies... From my experience killing up 1000 boars, now I finally learn how to do this thing that makes them can't walk. I think I still need to see a proper rogue trainer to know the dos and don'ts of doing it, the pitfalls, etc, but I think I'm getting the gist of it.
Achievements: bragging rights. No I really fell 65 yards without dying.... I did...
milka.hanhela Oct 12th 2011 11:59AM
I ignore game mechanics when they don't fit my character's story. Levels and dying are a game mechanic, I don't take them into account in roleplay. Most of the questing and instancing I do happens out of character, unless it fits the character background story seamlessly.
Out of my three Kingslayer characters, only one was "actually" present in Icecrown Citadel when Arthas fell, because she's an Argent priestess. Similarly, my troll only visits Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub for the valor points, because in character she would never in a million years lift a hand against the Zandali.
Sometimes - although very rarely - it irritates me that I have to do things that would be morally wrong in my character's mind, because otherwise I can't advance in the game. The players are given very little freedom of choice in questing, and especially now that Blizzard's grown fond of zone-wide questlines, declining one quest usually means you can't get any further in the zone.
But the feeling passes. The game is still fun, and when I roleplay, I decide what my character has experienced, not Blizzard.
Jyotai Oct 12th 2011 12:46PM
WoW is a 'too-persistent' world.
We have zero ability to impact it through our characters actions (phasing not-withstanding - and its a bit too specific).
I just can't see roleplaying in an environment where I know Hogger will be back 30 seconds after we villagers arm ourselves with pitchforks and go take him out.
Or where I can chat up the guard all I want in Ironforge and he's still just going to tell me to keep my feet on the ground...
Nothing changes.
No matter what you do.
We can all meet in Thunder Bluff and elect a council to petition the city to charge a toll on the lifts, and 3 seconds later a random BE paladin rides up the thing and past us without a care in his empty-hair-band-head-world.
If I were to RP online, I'd have to go to something like Second Life; where the content is 100% user made and if we're in a RP location, the people playing it can make permanent changes based on the roleplay.
- But when I did try that I found myself already too soured by the WoW experience's inability to effect change to even be able to even get into the RP in a setting where I could...
Kuro Oct 12th 2011 7:34PM
Well maybe it's not that WoW had soured you to SL, but that SL is, in a way, the extreme opposite of WoW. If they were governments, WoW would be like closer to a communist/socialist place whereas SL would be the the place of few regulations total libertarian place.
Think about it.. WoW is a communist, top-down model of control on a virtual space. It's a super-controlled world with no chance of the user impacting the environment in any meaning full way but you have a very stable, familliar place without the need for the user to mantain it.
In comparison to SL which has almost no central authoritarian structure at all. To do anything in the world you have the skill or resources to build, script, and promote it or buy or create it and deal with the consequences of supporting.
One of the major issues with RP in SL is that because everything is user created and you have to deal with the consequences of it all. If you want to integrate combat mechanics into the system, it's can devolve into a huge mess. You can cheat at combat so easily and things into sour meta-game yelling matches.
One of the major complaints in WoW that they're trying to address now is a lack of individualism -- everyone looks the same and feels like a clone of the other so they're letting folks use old armor sets.
I think the ideal is somewhere in the middle and that's hard to achieve in either place. If wow added player housing and if SL a universal combat/rp system, it might inch the other closer to the other--but realistically neither is going to happen and the the RP focused end user is just going to have to adapt and use the environment as they are to obtain his or her entertainment goals.
Oteo Oct 12th 2011 1:32PM
As someone who (currently) plays in a strict orc clan that involves lots of fighting, I generally RP "death" as being knocked out. Actual character deaths come through RP with people only, not interacting with NPCs (e.g. mobs), and when that happens the character is removed from the guild.
Sometimes when people's characters die, they'll go on to play that character as OOC only. Other times people decide they were resurrected, but I usually put those people on ignore: I think resurrections cheapen roleplay (unless they were a planned part of a storyline), because RP doesn't carry the same weight if IC actions don't yield IC consequences. I do try to make sure I'm not flippant about getting into fights, since there are real risks involved. My orc, despite being skilled with a bow, usually fights with her fists because bows are meant to kill.
I roleplay level as a vague idea of character experience and strength. While I wouldn't roleplay my level 85 orc hunter as one-shotting a level 14, like she could in a real duel, I do assume that she has far more fighting experience.
And finally, when it comes to things like quests, I either keep game quests separate from my character's history (we can't ALL be the new wielder of Quel'delar), or assume she had some role in helping (e.g. part of a large army assaulting the Lich King).
Micte Oct 12th 2011 4:36PM
To me, dying is like having 0 hp in D&D. You're knocked out. You're getting closer and closer to dying, unless someone heals you. A rez is a massive heal.
Running back to your body is regaining enough hit points to be conscious again without a heal, but you're in bad shape.
Drakkenfyre Oct 12th 2011 5:28PM
With 2.0 and lower rules, 0 was dead.
I know that's not here nor there, just wanted to point it out.
Seeing "you're not dead at 0, you are just knocked out" made me go "Wait, what?", when I read the changes.
morncreek Oct 12th 2011 5:30PM
"Maybe cross-faction dungeons[...]"
I believe you mean "cross-realm." :)
Mperiolat Oct 12th 2011 8:31PM
Well, I can only speak for myself, but I only "see" levels in the game as a pally, priest or shaman toon, since I call them "Blessings of the Light." Same in turn for the characters. I consider quests to be my character's "story" and as I solve quests and turn in items, the "story" evolves, regardless of mechanics. It is all about having the adventure, learning about a larger world and how that larger world and the quests impact the character.
Take my belf pally for example. She starts the starting zone as a patriotic sin'dorai, still in mourning from Arthas's attack and just wanting to fight for her people's survival. Slowly, through the zones, the character has added a dislike for trolls, a deep mistrust of the Forsaken, but sympathy for the fate of Sylvanas. For that sympathy, she is currently allied with the Forsaken as they go about their work in the northern EK, but we will see how long that lasts.
Above all, it's about survival for her, for her race and for herself.
It varies from toon to toon, but that's a belf for me.
Aldon Jr. Oct 12th 2011 9:45PM
One of my favorite parts of the game was when I played on Emerald Dream and guild chat was IC. We justified it by having a "Gnomish Communication Device" that IC was actually created by my Gnome mage. it was a lot of fun having that.
Micte Oct 13th 2011 1:14AM
I started with 3.5, hence the knocked out at 0. Never did play any lower or higher. Well, no, that's a lie, I played 4.0 once and that campaign went nowhere after the first hour of play.
I wasn't even aware that was different in earlier versions. I feel like I should have the NOW YOU KNOW from Bill Nye slamming me in the face.