WoW Insider http://wow.joystiq.com WoW Insider http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/feedlogobig.gif WoW Insider http://wow.joystiq.com en-us Copyright 2015 AOL, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. View our terms of service here: http://legal.aol.com/terms-of-service/full-terms/ Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/ <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The curtain falls]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/12/27/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-curtain-falls/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/12/27/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-curtain-falls/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/12/27/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-curtain-falls/#comments All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

It's a strange feeling to look back on four years of roleplaying in WoW, more than two of which were spent writing "All the World's a Stage," and feel as though the curtain is coming down on this part of my life, just as many new things are rising up to take its place. It's a sad thing, and it's a happy thing at the same time.

Part of me doesn't want to change -- it just wants to go on having more of all those experiences I've enjoyed, which have helped me grow and become the person I am today; but the other part of me embraces these changes, and looks forward toward the experiences that will make me into the person I will be tomorrow.

The fact is that I need to put WoW on indefinite hiatus, but before I go, let me share some of the things I have deeply appreciated about playing the game, especially how roleplaying filled an important niche in my life, and actually helped make me a better person.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The curtain falls

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All the World's a Stage: The curtain falls originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> cancerexperiencesfarewellguide-to-lorelorelore-guiderole-playrole-playing-guideroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrp-guiderp-wowworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (David Bowers) Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: Anonymosity]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/12/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-anonymosity/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/12/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-anonymosity/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/12/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-anonymosity/#comments All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

Roleplaying is a journey of trust you take with strangers. You may now and then start out with a group of people you know in real life, but for the most part, the people you roleplay with have no idea who you really are, or why you are sitting here at the computer. You can tell them if you want to, but most people don't ask. Roleplayers tend to keep personal details private, and don't intrude on one another's space.

Besides, other roleplayers don't necessarily care that much about who you "really are" either. They're there to get to know your character, not you as a person, unless your character first makes a very good impression and they decide that they actually want to be friends as real people. Even though you respect each other as people who share the same interest, there's still a distance between you which either (or both) of you may wish to maintain.

And yet, the relationship you have is one of trust. It's not at all at the same level as a best friend of course, but you still have to trust one another in a very creative sense -- you rely on each other to create interesting things for your characters to share with one another. You're not just buying a shirt from a salesperson or holding the door for a passerby -- you're exchanging behavior and language in an unpredictable and totally interconnected way. Any little surprise a stranger brings to an interaction may completely alter the whole game session and stick in your mind as one of your most memorable gaming experiences. Roleplayers have to trust other roleplayers to help make those experiences positive, even without knowing anything at all about one another. Sometimes two characters can even become very close friends, even though the real people behind them do not.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: Anonymosity

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All the World's a Stage: Anonymosity originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> anonymosityanonymouscharacterfemalegenderguide-to-lorelorelore-guidemalereal-lifereal-worldrole-playrole-playingrole-playing-guideroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrprp-guidestrangerstrangerstrustworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (David Bowers) Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: Player housing, interactivity, and other possible features]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/15/all-the-worlds-a-stage-player-housing-interactivity-and-othe/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/15/all-the-worlds-a-stage-player-housing-interactivity-and-othe/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/15/all-the-worlds-a-stage-player-housing-interactivity-and-othe/#comments All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

Playing Warhammer recently has made me think of more features that WoW could add in order to create a better roleplaying experience. Far and away the most important one, to my mind, was the Tome of Knowledge. WoW players really need an in-game resource they can refer to as a standard for information about the Warcraft universe, and having this at hand, roleplayers could do a lot better than they can today.

Knowledge is the most important thing, of course, but there are other features Blizzard could add to the game that would help roleplayers too. I'd like to address a few of these things, and see how much they could really do for us. Player housing is a possible feature that gets talked about a lot, but I have my doubts as to whether or not it would really help roleplayers all that much. Another issue is one that is more important to me personally, and is another feature inspired by my trial with Warhammer Online: looking at interactivity between characters.

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All the World's a Stage: Player housing, interactivity, and other possible features originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageanimationcoweremoteemotesguide-to-loreidleinteractionkneellielorelore-guideplayer-housingportalrole-playrole-playing-guideroleplayroleplayerroleplayersroleplayingrprp-guidesitwarhammerwarhammer-onlineworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (David Bowers) Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: How to bring Warhammer's "Tome of Knowledge" to WoW]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/08/all-the-worlds-a-stage-how-to-bring-warhammers-tome-of-knowl/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/08/all-the-worlds-a-stage-how-to-bring-warhammers-tome-of-knowl/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/08/all-the-worlds-a-stage-how-to-bring-warhammers-tome-of-knowl/#comments All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

Some time ago, I had my first look at Warhammer Online, and wondered if that game treated roleplaying any differently from World of Warcraft. I wrote at some length about the significance of a written warning whenever someone signs up for a roleplaying realm for the first time, but I also noticed that Warhammer actually had another very special feature that could be beneficial for WoW roleplayers, namely the "Tome of Knowledge." Playing around with this a little bit made me think about how Blizzard could make something similar, which would go a long way toward enriching the experience of the game, not only for roleplayers, but for all players. Warhammer's Tome of Knowledge is not without it's flaws, of course -- I can surely imagine a better one for WoW to adopt, but at the moment WoW has nothing at all like it, which is unfortunate.

But what is the Tome of Knowledge? Basically, it's is an in-game database full of all kinds of information you might be interested in. This includes gamey things like achievements, titles, and quests, but also contains a lot of info about the story and lore of the game, such as some history for each major region, descriptions of noteworthy persons, and a bestiary of all the enemies in the game. When you visit an important location, encounter an important questgiver, or defeat a new enemy in battle, information about that entity will appear in your Tome of Knowledge. A little popup will even let you click through to it right away.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: How to bring Warhammer's "Tome of Knowledge" to WoW

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All the World's a Stage: How to bring Warhammer's "Tome of Knowledge" to WoW originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagechaos-portalguide-to-lorelorelore-guiderole-playrole-playing-guideroleplayroleplayerroleplayersroleplayingrp-guidetome-of-knowledgewarhammerwarhammer-onlineworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (David Bowers) Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The voices of every race and class speak in RP]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/01/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-voices-of-every-race-and-class-spea/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/01/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-voices-of-every-race-and-class-spea/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/01/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-voices-of-every-race-and-class-spea/#comments All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

All the World's a Stage has been a voice for roleplaying in WoW for over two years now. I didn't quite realize it at the time, but the article entitled "So you want to be a bad guy" was just about at the 2 year mark for this column! To celebrate belatedly, today we'll review some of the other websites about roleplaying in WoW out there. If you like All the World's a Stage, you'll probably enjoy these as well.

In addition, you will find that some of these websites have similar, but unique pages with information about roleplaying the various races and classes of Azeroth. So for those of you who would like to have a reference to all these articles in a single place, I've collected them all together in one list at the end of the article. This list includes my own articles, as well as those of all the other websites I'm about to mention which follow on the same theme.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The voices of every race and class speak in RP

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All the World's a Stage: The voices of every race and class speak in RP originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageallianceblogatelleclassescompass-studiesdramatis-personaeguide-to-lorehordelorelore-guiderace-class-information-listracesrole-playrole-playing-guiderolecraftroleplayroleplayerroleplayingroleplaying-lore-guidesrp-guiderp-made-simpletradeskillsworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (David Bowers) Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: We don't need no narration]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/25/all-the-worlds-a-stage-we-don-t-need-no-narration/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/25/all-the-worlds-a-stage-we-don-t-need-no-narration/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/25/all-the-worlds-a-stage-we-don-t-need-no-narration/#comments All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

Throughout my career as a roleplaying columnist on WoW.com, I've been talking about roleplaying as a way to tell stories, but last week a comment by Zombie, as well as those made by a few others on the same topic, caused me to think about roleplay stories in a new way. Perhaps what we roleplayers do isn't actually storytelling so much as it is character development through interesting and somewhat disjointed anecdotes.

There's really no beginning, middle, or end to a roleplayed character in WoW. Instead, what you get is a mishmash of events and experiences, which you may then string together into a story in your mind if you like. But even if you don't, you can see that most of us don't really expect for a narrative to develop from a clear beginning, through various plot developments, and finally lead into an exciting climax. There is something else roleplayers want to get out of their experience, even if many of us have trouble articulating exactly what it is.

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All the World's a Stage: We don't need no narration originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagecharactercomic-stripscontinuitydays-of-our-livesdungeons-and-dragonsgreat-expectationsguide-to-lorelorelore-guidepersonalityrole-playrole-playingrole-playing-guideroleplayroleplayerroleplayingroleplaying-gamesrprp-guiderpgstorysunday-morning-funniestabletoptabletop-gamingthe-neverending-storyvampireworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (David Bowers) Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: Attitudes about roleplaying for the first time]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/18/all-the-worlds-a-stage-attitudes-about-roleplaying-for-the-fir/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/18/all-the-worlds-a-stage-attitudes-about-roleplaying-for-the-fir/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/18/all-the-worlds-a-stage-attitudes-about-roleplaying-for-the-fir/#comments
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

We've talked before about getting started in roleplaying, as well as how to find the right group to roleplay with. But there's also another aspect the question of roleplaying for the first time, which is that inner attitude people feel towards it.

I often see people leaving comments on All the World's a Stage, saying that they have some sort of story for their character inside their heads, but they don't let it out, for various reasons. Some don't feel that they have the right social space to let it out, and find it difficult to connect with others in such a way that their internal idea can actually take shape in reality. Others feel as though roleplaying isn't for them, even though they clearly seem to have the gift for it. In both cases, their roleplaying is limited to their own mind, where no one else can hear it or benefit from it at all. For every one who posts something about it on a site like this one, how many more just think about it, and never say anything to anyone?

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All the World's a Stage: Attitudes about roleplaying for the first time originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageattitudesfirst-impressionsgetting-startedgetting-started-with-rpnewcomersrole-playingroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrpstereotypes (David Bowers) Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to raise up the shadows of doom]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/12/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-raise-up-the-shadows-of/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/12/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-raise-up-the-shadows-of/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/12/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-raise-up-the-shadows-of/#comments
Today, All the World's a Stage concludes a series on "how to be evil," bringing the bad guy back into your fantasy roleplaying, complete with ideas, methods, warnings, and practical examples. Be sure to check out steps 1-3, steps 4-6, and steps 7 and 8 on the path to evil!

Your friends keep telling you, "you can't play Arthas, man! Nobody's going to believe that your little human death knight is actually the Lich King in disguise. Get real!" But your idea just won't go away. You admit that creating a human death knight named "Ahrrthyss" might not be the best way to go about it, but you're in this guild which is devoted to fighting the Scourge, and you want Arthas to be a part of your story, not just an NPC who shows up in some quests and at the end of a raid.

We've already discussed a number of ways to be a villain in WoW - so you look at them to see if you can get one of them to work for you: The most obvious is to just start a new character and designate it to be one of your guild's antagonists, but the problem here is that making Arthas as an actual player character is way too Mary Sue. Such a tactic usually only works for very subtle villains (more like flawed heroes really), or for short-term possession, and your guild has done 3 "possessed by the Lich King's power" type stories already. You need something new! Another choice is to create a disposable villain, perhaps, some agent of the Lich King, which could be interesting, but still doesn't put you in touch with Arthas himself.

But there is another way, which many people have not thought of: to put the villain entirely in the shadows of the background, let him never actually be seen, but let his effects be felt based on what happens to the heroes. Arthas can indeed play a huge role in your story, without ever having to appear in person. It has been done to great effect before, even in novels. Sauron, anyone?

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to raise up the shadows of doom originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagearthasbad-guyevilhow-to-be-evillich-kinglord-of-the-ringslotrrole-playingroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrpsauronscourgeshadow-villainthe-lord-of-the-ringsvillainvillains (David Bowers) Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a disposable villain]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/04/all-the-world-s-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-disposable-villain/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/04/all-the-world-s-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-disposable-villain/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/10/04/all-the-world-s-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-disposable-villain/#comments Today, All the World's a Stage continues with steps 7 and 8 of a series on "how to be evil: bringing the bad guy back into your fantasy roleplaying," complete with ideas, methods, warnings, and practical examples. Be sure not to miss steps 1-3 and steps 4-6 on the path to evil!

So, you want to be evil? It's not as easy as it seems. Perhaps you've watched a lot of movies or TV shows in which the bad guy has amazing powers, threatens human civilization, and nearly destroys the universe in his quest for domination. Perhaps you were playing Warcraft and saw characters like Arthas and Archimonde wrecking things up pretty bad and said to yourself, "I wanna be just like them when I grow up!" You open up your copy of World of Warcraft and find that you can't play a Lich King or Eredar Overlord, so you just click on the "forsaken" or "draenei" options as the next best things available. "Yup! I'm all ready to go!" you say to yourself. Everyone is just gonna love my idea about being an immortal demigod out to destroy the universe!

But it turns out no one believes you're actually the Lich Prince instead of just another forsaken dude. And people just roll their eyes whenever you reveal your draenei's secret eredar affiliation. A lot of people want to play a raid boss, but the fact remains, you're just not. You're a generic adventurer like everyone else. That doesn't mean you can't be bad... it just means can't be 20 feet tall and out whole cities with a flick of your hand. Once you start thinking practically, about doing something with what you've actually got, then you can start getting somewhere.

One of the most practical tools you can have for playing a bad guy is the disposable low-level character. Keeping your villain at a low level means you don't need to hesitate when he's been defeated, you can roleplay his glorious death and delete him. Your friends save the day -- you save a lot of leveling time. How is it done? Read on.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a disposable villain originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagearchimondearthasdisposable-villainevilguideguide-to-lorehow-to-be-evillich-prince-of-belairlorelore-guiderole-playrole-playing-guideroleplayroleplayingrprp-guidevillainsworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (David Bowers) Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be possessed]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/27/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-possessed/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/27/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-possessed/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/27/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-possessed/#comments
Today, All the World's a Stage continues a series on "how to be evil," bringing the bad guy back into your fantasy roleplaying, complete with ideas, methods, warnings, and practical examples. Be sure to check out steps 1-3 on the path to evil here.

It's been said that the secret to writing a good story is not having a really interesting hero, but rather an interesting villain. The hero himself is defined by the villain in many ways, just as a sports team becomes famous only once they've defeated the last year's champions, or a runner breaks the world record for speed, a hero needs someone to test himself against, a great obstacle for him to overcome or destroy. If the villain is interesting, then the hero will be interesting too.

It is natural, then, for a roleplayer to want to test his own heroes or those of his friends against some obstacles as well. Many of us sit down with the intention of creating a really interesting challenge for our guildmates to overcome - but in our creative endeavor we must remember that danger lurks behind every corner, and creating a villain in itself is a task with significant obstacles to overcome. In fact, one might say that the greatest enemy of such a roleplayer is none other than his own self, the ghost of cliché lurking just outside his field of creative vision.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be possessed originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageclicheevilguideguide-to-lorehow-to-be-evillorelore-guidemuahahahahapossessedpossessionrole-playrole-playingrole-playing-guideroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrprp-guidevillainvillainsworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (David Bowers) Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a bad guy]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/20/all-the-world-s-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-bad-guy/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/20/all-the-world-s-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-bad-guy/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/20/all-the-world-s-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-bad-guy/#comments
Today, All the World's a Stage begins a series on "how to be evil," bringing back the bad guy in your fantasy roleplaying -- complete with ideas, methods, warnings, and practical examples.

Up to now, we've mostly talked about roleplaying as a way that you and your friends can get together and enjoy developing your characters' relationships with one another. You don't normally tell stories about epic struggle against evil incarnate as a roleplayer in WoW, mostly because you have very limited control over the enemies you can struggle against in the game -- they tend to respawn every few minutes. It's hard to say, "We have just defeated Arthas and rid the world of the threat of the Scourge!" when your guild is scheduled to do the same thing again next week. There are ways around the continuity problem when you're raiding, but generally the best roleplayers tend to stay away from big lore characters and earth-shattering consequences, to focus on the more personal, down to earth things our heroes experience as they go through their daily lives.

It's kind of like if you had a TV series about all the things that happened in the general background of Lord of the Rings that didn't make it into the movies or novels - Frodo, Aragorn and Legolas would not be in it, but there would be other characters who could interact in the same world, and flesh out many of the details that wouldn't fit in the epic trilogy. (Incidentally, I have not had a chance to play Lord of the Rings Online, but I would hope that one of the goals of that game would be to do just this for the world of Middle Earth, the same way WoW roleplayers can sort of do for Azeroth.)

Now, even though you typically don't roleplay yourself beating up the biggest bad guys in the game, that doesn't mean you can't have any antagonists in your RP stories -- just that your own personal villains have to be somewhat low-key, and that you and your friends have to play them yourselves. There are a lot of limitations and pitfalls with that sort of endeavor, of course, but with a bit of subtlety and imagination, it can most certainly be done.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a bad guy originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagebad-guyevilhow-to-be-evillow-keypvprole-playingroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrpsubtlevillain (David Bowers) Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The art of the alt]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/13/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-art-of-the-alt/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/13/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-art-of-the-alt/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/13/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-art-of-the-alt/#comments All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

With all the talk lately about starting new characters once the Cataclysm arrives, it struck me that most roleplayers already have more than one, including myself. Like most players, I started with one, a night elf druid, and focused on playing that exclusively for quite some time. It didn't really occur to me that I would even want to play more than one.

Then, I began to notice that other people played more than one character, even within the same small group of friends. I had one friend in particular who had mastered the art of roleplaying multiple characters. She never said anything out of character to anyone in our group, and it took me ages to even realize that her characters were ally played by the same person in the first place. Each one had its own personality, and each had a different relationship with all our mutual friends.

Knowing her made something click inside my mind, and I began to see other possibilities for myself too, other sorts of characters I could play with different weaknesses, strengths, and entirely different stories to tell. As my roleplaying experience grew, I began to feel as though one character couldn't contain all the ideas I had jumbling about in my head, so... I started another one, then another, and ... another. Little did I know all the pitfalls I could run into with so many characters, nor the quirky little tricks that could become possible with multiple characters, a small group of friends, and a bit of creativity.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The art of the alt

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All the World's a Stage: The art of the alt originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> altaltscharactersendgameguildguild-hallguildsmultiboxingnovelpetemoteraidingrole-playingroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrp (David Bowers) Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: Cataclysm's new race/class combinations]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-cataclysms-new-race-class-combinations/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-cataclysms-new-race-class-combinations/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-cataclysms-new-race-class-combinations/#comments
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

As you know, the new race and class combinations coming up in the Cataclysm will open a whole new set of doors to people who want an alternative character choice that goes against the grain of their typical racial customs, to one degree or another. With the exception of a couple combinations that feel as though they should have been there from the beginning (such as blood elf warriors, which need no discussion here), each new possibility presents roleplayers with an opportunity to play an outcast of sorts, a character who has made a significant break from the traditions his or her race usually represent.

The lore behind each combination is not yet fully clear. We know tauren paladins will probably worship the sun and call themselves "Sunwalkers" for instance, but not much more than that. Some things are clear, though, and there's a lot to get the imagination going for those roleplayers who yearn to play something a little different.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: Cataclysm's new race/class combinations

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All the World's a Stage: Cataclysm's new race/class combinations originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagealtsclassesdruiddruidsdwarfdwarf-shamandwarven-shamandwarvesforsakengnomegnome-priestgnomesgnomish-priestshunterhuntersnight-elfnight-elf-magesnight-elvespaladinpaladinspriestpriestsrace-class-combinationrole-playingroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrptaurentauren-paladinstauren-prieststrolltroll-druidstrollsundead (David Bowers) Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The new character experience in Cataclysm]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/30/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-new-character-experience-in-catacly/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/30/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-new-character-experience-in-catacly/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/30/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-new-character-experience-in-catacly/#comments
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

As you know, the Cataclysm is going to bring major changes to the whole world of Azeroth. There will only be 5 new zones for leveling above 80 and one new zone for each new race -- the rest of the work they're doing involves changing the old zones, bringing them up to the standards of zones in The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, adding new quests that are more appropriate to the current timeline, and completely rebuilding the areas that just didn't work so well.

You are also probably aware that this is a much-needed improvement. The 1 - 60 leveling process (except for the draenei or blood elf starting areas) has long been fraught with serious flaws. Going through it the first time wasn't so bad, since exploring everything felt so new, but doing it the third and fourth times meant sheer boredom. I remember many times going to a zone, completing many or all of the quests there, and leaving without ever feeling as though I had really "been" there. Except for a few real gems, quests mostly involved spending a lot of time running long distances in order to kill more nameless bad guys -- they felt more like pest control than adventure. Just being there seemed to remove me from the story of Azeroth, and dump me in some other world where there was nothing important happening. Vast stretches of land on the Azeroth map meant absolutely nothing to me as a roleplayer: no character, no story, no meaning.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The new character experience in Cataclysm

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All the World's a Stage: The new character experience in Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagealtaltsazerothcataclysmcombinationcombinationsgoblingoblinsrace-classrace-class-combinationrace-class-comborole-playingroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrpworgen (David Bowers) Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: More possibilities for goblins and worgen in Cataclysm]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/23/all-the-worlds-a-stage-more-possibilities-for-goblins-and-worg/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/23/all-the-worlds-a-stage-more-possibilities-for-goblins-and-worg/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/23/all-the-worlds-a-stage-more-possibilities-for-goblins-and-worg/#comments All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

So the Cataclysm expansion has officially been announced at BlizzCon 2009 and while there are many things we knew before (such as the addition of Goblins and Worgen), there are many things we just learned (such as the beginnings of their proper lore), and many things we still don't know as well -- some things even Blizzard still seems undecided about.

But there are some indications of things to come which will surely affect roleplayers. The most obvious change involves the changes the whole world will be going through. Each of our existing characters' will have their own reaction to the cataclysm, of course, as well as the opportunity to go through the game from 1 to 60 with a new character, and maybe not be quite as bored as you were the last 6 times you did it. Your new tauren paladin's leveling experience will be very different from your tauren shaman's, and each one will have different things to talk about once they reach the level cap.

Another obvious addition is that you can start another character with whichever new race you like most. Many players have been wanting to play goblins and worgen for a long time, and appreciate the new parity that the two races bring to the two factions -- the Horde now has a diminutive race that is likely the closest the Horde could ever come to "cute," and the Alliance finally gets a race that is actually monstrous. This opens the doors for people to try out the opposite faction even more than before. We've already talked about these two races in a previous article, but now that the expansion's new races are confirmed with additional lore and information, there's quite a bit more to say.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: More possibilities for goblins and worgen in Cataclysm

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All the World's a Stage: More possibilities for goblins and worgen in Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> 2009-blizzconall-the-worlds-a-stageblizzconblizzcon-09blizzcon-2009cataclysmdruidgoblingoblinshunterrole-playingroleplayroleplayerroleplayingworgenwow-cataclysm (David Bowers) Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: Reflections on the passing of a roleplayer's mom]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/16/all-the-worlds-a-stage-reflections-on-the-passing-of-a-rolepla/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/16/all-the-worlds-a-stage-reflections-on-the-passing-of-a-rolepla/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/16/all-the-worlds-a-stage-reflections-on-the-passing-of-a-rolepla/#comments All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one man in his time plays many roles.

Long time readers of "All the World's a Stage" may remember that I wrote an earlier series of three articles, called "WoW is a Work of Art," which I viewed as a kind of launch pad for this column about roleplaying. The first article talked about how when my mom came down with a very serious form of brain cancer, I had to put other things in my life on hold in order to come back to the US and take care of her. I was happy to do this, of course -- it was an honor to be able to be there for my mother when she needed me, but I won't pretend it was very much fun. Cancer is a terrible disease that wreaks havoc on one's body and emotions all in one big punch. Roleplaying in WoW was one of the social activities I could do for fun at that time, a little world I could enjoy without actually having to leave my home and the loved one that I was caring for.

Last weekend, the life of my mother was very visibly coming to a close. As the deadline for this column approached, I asked for leave (incidentally the first weekend since almost two years ago with no article in this column), and spent every moment with her I could. She died on Monday afternoon, leaving me an inheritance of countless feelings and thoughts which I shall undoubtedly explore for the rest of my life.

Among many other realizations and ideas that have come to mind, I realized that my roleplaying career had come full circle. My decision to play WoW and eventually write about it had begun with my mother's cancer, and now that this cancer had finally taken her life, I wondered, how has this roleplaying contributed to my real life? Has it made me a better person? When I eventually lie on my deathbed as my mother did, will I feel thankful to have roleplayed in WoW the same way my mother felt thankful for all of her experiences in life?

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: Reflections on the passing of a roleplayer's mom

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All the World's a Stage: Reflections on the passing of a roleplayer's mom originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagecancerdeathfeaturedlifemommothermothersrole-playingroleplayroleplayerroleplayersroleplaying (David Bowers) Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: How WoW and Warhammer treat RP servers differently]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/03/all-the-worlds-a-stage-how-wow-and-warhammer-treat-rp-servers/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/03/all-the-worlds-a-stage-how-wow-and-warhammer-treat-rp-servers/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/08/03/all-the-worlds-a-stage-how-wow-and-warhammer-treat-rp-servers/#comments
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one man in his time plays many roles.

Mythic Entertainment released a beta version of Warhammer Online for the Mac this week, along with a free 10-day trial, so I decided to give it a try. I noticed, quite happily, that there was an option to choose a roleplaying server, and as soon as I selected it, I was surprised to see an introduction pop up, about what sorts of names characters were expected to have there, as well as a bit about what roleplaying is, too.

Why doesn't Blizzard have a proper introduction to RP servers special rules in WoW, you ask? Maybe they felt that most players would know what "RP server" was supposed to mean and respect it better, or perhaps they felt explaining RP a bit on their website would be enough. As time went on, however, RP servers have filled up with people who have no interest in roleplaying and Blizzard seems unsure what, if anything, they should do about it. Perhaps Warhammer's RP introduction built into the game is just the solution that WoW needs too.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: How WoW and Warhammer treat RP servers differently

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All the World's a Stage: How WoW and Warhammer treat RP servers differently originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageblizzardfeaturedintroductionmacmythicmythic-entertainmentroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrpwarhammerwarhammer-online (David Bowers) Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: Possibilities for worgen and goblins]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/26/all-the-worlds-a-stage-possibilities-for-worgen-and-goblins/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/26/all-the-worlds-a-stage-possibilities-for-worgen-and-goblins/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/26/all-the-worlds-a-stage-possibilities-for-worgen-and-goblins/#comments
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one man in his time plays many roles.

Ever since word broke about the possibility of playing either a worgen or a goblin, I've been thinking a lot about how it would be to roleplay them. In terms of lore, each one fits in very nicely -- the goblins have the neutral city of Undermine not far from the great Maelstrom at the center of the world, and the worgen have lots of connections to other dimensions, possibly the Emerald Dream. Assuming the expansion is in fact going to be a combination of the Maelstrom and the Emerald Dream, each race could have a lot to do with why the Horde and the Alliance are eager to go and continue the adventure after Northrend.

Some others are talking about how and why these races would join either faction. The goblins seem a shoo-in for the Horde, since they've already got so many connections with one another above and beyond the ostensible neutrality the goblins maintain between the Horde and the Alliance. The worgen connection to the Alliance is a bit tougher to figure out, but there are two apparent possibilities: either the humans of Gilneas have become worgen and wish to rejoin their former brethren, or the original worgen from their own dimension somehow join up with the Alliance in order to fight off a shared enemy such as the Burning Legion or the "Nightmare" of the Emerald Dream.

Today we'll discuss both of these possibilities and stake my claim on which I think is more likely, and look at a number of the story hooks that worgen and goblins could create for roleplayers if and when we get the chance to play them.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: Possibilities for worgen and goblins

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All the World's a Stage: Possibilities for worgen and goblins originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagealliancecataclysmemerald-dreamemerald-nightmaregilneasgoblingoblinshordemaelstromnightmarescythe-of-eluneunderminevelindevelinde-starsongworgen (David Bowers) Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: Guild themes]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/19/all-the-worlds-a-stage-guild-themes/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/19/all-the-worlds-a-stage-guild-themes/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/19/all-the-worlds-a-stage-guild-themes/#comments
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one man in his time plays many roles.

Every guild tries to make itself unique in one way or another, and yet much of the time it's hard to tell many guilds apart. Most guilds say something like "we are a group of friends" who "focus on casual play" or "on raiding progression" or something which can make clear its priorities in the game, whether in PvP, PvE, or RP.

Roleplaying guilds have a special opportunity to distinguish themselves with all these elements and then some. In addition to raiding schedules, loot distribution rules, and whatnot, they also have a story -- some idea of where the people in this guild come from, and what binds them together. The story theme that binds them may be something as simple as striving to fight against all evil threats to their homeland, or it could be as involved as running a weekly faire, full of trading, performance, and all manner of festivities.

Most roleplayers seem to just drift into an RP guild based on who they happen to meet in the course of their travels and what sorts of friendships they are able to develop. I worked this way for a long time, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, and in the end I gave up, feeling increasingly frustrated that I wasn't drifting into guilds that could really meet my needs. Finally I decided to steer my own ship and I realized that the theme of any particular guild could make a big difference as to whether or not I enjoyed being in it.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: Guild themes

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All the World's a Stage: Guild themes originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagefeaturedguildguild-themesguildsjoystiqfeaturesmoon-guardroleplayroleplayerroleplayersroleplayingrptheme (David Bowers) Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: Out of Character]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/12/all-the-worlds-a-stage-out-of-character/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/12/all-the-worlds-a-stage-out-of-character/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/12/all-the-worlds-a-stage-out-of-character/#comments
All the World's a Stage. It really is. All the World of Warcraft is a actually a stage -- and all its orcs and humans merely players, each one with a role to play.

When people hear about roleplayers in WoW for the first time, some get the impression that we take our little game of "let's pretend" way too seriously, that everything we do in the game has to be some sort of mind-blowing expression of our innermost true feelings. But the truth of the matter is that only a portion of what we do in the game involves stories and character -- a lot of what we do and say to other players is not "in character" at all. In fact, our out-of-character (OOC) communication is essential in order to properly enjoy the in-character (IC) elements, and good roleplayers do a lot of cool things to help make both sides complement each other.

Much of what roleplayer does is out of character, and rightly so. Even just pushing buttons in order to activate abilities could be considered "OOC" -- in a way, the only character you can ever totally immerse yourself in is... yourself. Any time you play a role that isn't yourself, there's always some part you which is there in the background, knowing that it's all just a show. You can't really ignore your true self -- you have to let it guide and inform every part of the role you play.

The same is true when roleplaying in WoW. Roleplay is strengthened when you open up and accept OOC communication with others, establish real relationships in addition to those your characters create. Actors in a play have to support each other as real people or their play will fail, and in the same way, the honest communication we open up with our roleplaying friends can sometimes be what defines our roleplaying experience and gives it true meaning.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: Out of Character

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All the World's a Stage: Out of Character originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagechat-channelsfeaturedguildguild-hallguildsicin-characterjoystiqfeaturesoocout-of-characterroleplayerroleplayersroleplayingrp (David Bowers) Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The guild hall]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/05/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-guild-hall/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/05/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-guild-hall/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/07/05/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-guild-hall/#comments
All the World's a Stage brings you the latest ideas and suggestions about roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.

One of the greatest problems people have with roleplaying in WoW is that the game has a tendency to spread people out all over Azeroth working towards disparate goals, and that makes it hard to sustain a roleplaying environment. Roleplayers can gather together in a meeting place of some sort in order to roleplay, but doing this every time isn't feasible -- inevitably, we want to go questing, get loot, and actually play the game too, all in different places.

So the majority of roleplayers join roleplaying guilds of one sort or another, and use the regular guild chat channel as their default in-character roleplaying channel which people can participate in no matter what they're doing in the rest of the world. Most guilds tend to imagine that their hearthstones (or some imaginary gnomish device) can act as walkie-talkies of sorts and allow everyone to communicate over great distances, no matter where they are.

Today, however, I will share with you some of the ways this solution falls short, and take a look at a better way to make roleplaying work in a guild, no matter what level you are or what you want to do with your game time. This idea can seem strange at first, but in the end it can provide many roleplaying opportunities -- allowing you to alternately build your RP stories, build up your character's levels, gold, or gear, or do all of these at the same time.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The guild hall

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All the World's a Stage: The guild hall originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagechannelchatfeaturedguildguild-hallhearthstoneroleplayroleplayerroleplayingrpscrying (David Bowers) Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Scribe]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/28/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-scribe/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/28/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-scribe/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/28/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-scribe/#comments This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-sixth in a series of roleplaying guides about how to roleplay various aspects of the lore and gaming elements of WoW.

What is inscription anyways? I mean, we all know that it's the newest profession, added in Wrath of the Lich King, and it lets you make these "glyphs" which allow you to modify or improve your various class abilities in interesting ways. In gaming terms all that makes perfect sense, but when it comes to telling a story with your character, there are a lot of details missing.

Technically, a glyph is a character or symbol, like a heiroglyph or a pictograph, which we can see to a certain extent when we click on the glyph and put it into our in-game glyph interface -- it looks pretty cool with all those circles and lines and stuff. But what does it really mean? Are you pasting these symbols into a book of some sort? Are they getting magically tattooed onto your skin somewhere?

And where did inscription come from to begin with? Has it been around in Azeroth all along somehow, or was it some sort of ancient knowledge only discovered recently, around the time in the Warcraft lore when the Wrath of the Lich King begins? If it was discovered, then who discovered it and how? How exactly does a scribe learn these glyphs? Does he or she pore over ancient tomes that haven't been read in thousands of years, trying to decipher ancient texts? Or is the art and magic of it more in the artistic calligraphy of it rather than any difficulty in discovering or interpreting the symbols themselves?

There are far more questions than answers when it comes to roleplaying a scribe, and to a large extent each roleplayer is free to choose his or her own approach. What follows is the just one suggestion as to how you might work out a plausible solution -- please feel free to read it and improve upon it in whatever way you like.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Scribe

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Scribe originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageancient-languagearcanecalligraphychinesedeath-knightsdkirunesdwarfdwarvesegyptianfel-magicglyphglyphshieroglyphsinscriptionlanguagelich-kingnorthrendold-godsroleplaying-lore-guidesrunerunesscribescribestattootattoostitans (David Bowers) Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Engineer]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/21/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-engineer/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/21/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-engineer/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/21/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-engineer/#comments
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-fifth in a series of roleplaying guides about how to roleplay various aspects of the lore and gaming elements of WoW.

Engineering has been my favorite profession in WoW, both in terms of its usefulness in the game, as well as its status as an awesome profession for roleplaying. Maybe it's just because I'm a huge fan of steampunk, but I find that those gadgets and funny things you can make with engineering have a certain style that goes beyond simple utility -- You just look at an engineer with his goggles, his mechanical mount, and maybe even some sort of robot or machine trailing along after him, and you immediately get the feeling that this is a character with character. No other profession can give you such a distinct characterization: you're not just a rogue, for example -- you're a scientist rogue!

In addition to that, most other professions feel like "crafting" jobs added on to the regular game, which they are -- they may give you better stats in one area or another but otherwise don't add many new abilities. Engineering, on the other hand, gives you a lot of special abilities and buttons to push, all of which can start to feel like a special sub-class for your character, underneath whatever class he or she already has.

In fact, as roleplayers, many of us play up our status as engineers as much or even more than our status as a hunter, warlock, rogue, or whatever. That engineering style is so persistent that it can define our characters more than anything else -- our own Palehoof practically defined this style in the column devoted to engineering that he used to write every week, before he lost his horns and his hooves in a bizzare scientific experiment (and decided thereafter to spend more time with his family). His commentaries on practical and theoretical engineering serve as excellent inspiration for all roleplayers who would call their characters engineers.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Engineer

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Engineer originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagedeath-raydeepdive-helmetdimensional-ripperengineeringfrankensteinglobal-thermal-sapper-chargegnomegoblingoblin-jumper-cablesgoggleshunternigh-invulnerability-beltpalehoofroleplaying-lore-guidesseaforium-chargethe-invisible-manthe-time-machinex-ray-goggles (David Bowers) Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:45:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The core layer]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/14/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-core-layer/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/14/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-core-layer/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/14/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-core-layer/#comments
This week's edition of All the World's a Stage concludes a three-part series on the layers of social interaction in roleplaying. Next week we will continue looking at how to roleplay one's professions.

Good friends are stars in the sky of life, and especially as roleplayers, friends are absolutely essential to our hobby - our whole reason for playing WoW involves creative social interactions. Even if you never really know who a roleplaying partner is in real life, just roleplaying with him or her for a few minutes can create a memorable experience.

Previously, we discussed how to roleplay when you first meet someone, as well as what to do once you've gotten to know them a bit more. The key in each case is remembering that roleplaying is a social experience first, and a creative one second - your character must conform to the rules of good socialization before he or she can succeed creatively. Even though at first this seems more limiting, in the end it will be more liberating, because through sociable characters, you can collaboratively create stories and experiences in a way that no other form of storytelling can.

In fact, the closer you become to your group of friends, the more the possibilities bloom. The core concept characterizations you used to use to entertain strangers are still useful, but here they can take on a deeper meaning. You still listen to your friends and adapt your own character to theirs, but now they will listen to you, and adapt their characters to yours. The closer your friendships are, the more your exploration and creativity are truly mutual and cooperative, and the more you can try out new things that you've never done before.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The core layer

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All the World's a Stage: The core layer originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagecharacterizationscore-conceptsfeaturedfriendsjoystiqfeatureslayerlayersmary-suepersonal-lives-of-azeroths-heroesquirksroleplayroleplayerroleplayersroleplaying-layersrp (David Bowers) Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The inside layer]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-inside-layer/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-inside-layer/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/06/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-inside-layer/#comments
This installment of All the World's a Stage continues the discussion about the layers of roleplaying, still taking a break from the series of roleplaying guides about how to roleplay your race, class, and professions. Last week, we looked at how to interact with strangers in roleplaying environments, on "the surface layer."

So there you are -- you've got a character who is gregarious and gets into roleplaying groups relatively easily. Your character's way of interacting with others makes it easy for other people to recognize you as a roleplayer, and even encourages them to come out and roleplay with you, even if they're not that much into roleplaying themselves. You've followed some good advice about finding roleplayers -- maybe even joined an RP guild -- and you're meeting characters you think are interesting, and you really hope they think your character is interesting too.

But then something goes wrong and you feel that special RP feeling start slipping away. The people in your guild stop talking to you as much -- sometimes the whole guild atmosphere seems to go quiet and dull, and no matter what you say, nothing seems to get the actual spirit of roleplaying flowing again. You start to think maybe your interesting character quirks aren't all that good after all. You keep trying to think of new ones, but no matter how funny your accent or entertaining your antics, people just aren't getting into it like they used to.

The problem here isn't actually you -- it's an assumption that many roleplayers, even experienced ones, sometimes have when they are in new roleplaying situations. We take the burden of creating a roleplaying atmosphere too heavily upon ourselves, when actually what we need to do is not create the atmosphere, but nurture it. Questions are the key here -- if your character has a genuine interest in other people then he or she will be able to draw out the spirit of roleplaying in them, get them talking about themselves, and start having interesting interactions together.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The inside layer

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All the World's a Stage: The inside layer originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagearthasattitudebackstoryeleventh-commandmentinquisitiveinquisitive-attitudeinside-layermary-sueopen-mindedquestionsquirkquirksroleplayroleplaying-layersrpsurface-layerten-commandmentsthat-roleplaying-feeling (David Bowers) Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The surface layer]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/31/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-surface-layer/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/31/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-surface-layer/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/31/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-surface-layer/#comments
This installment of All the World's a Stage diverges from the series of roleplaying guides about how to roleplay your race, class, and professions, in order to have a closer look at different layers of social interaction in roleplaying, and see in which ways you can tailor your character for each one.

So there you are -- you've got the coolest, funniest, most heartbreaking character idea on your whole RP server. You login, create your new masterpiece, and start leveling up... But as time goes by, you realize you have a problem. No one seems interested in you! You may be having trouble meeting people who actually roleplay on a roleplaying server, or the roleplayers you run into may not realize how truly awesome your character is. Let's say you even join an RP guild and try to impress your guildmates with your witty "/guild" chatter, only to discover that they're seem mildly interested at best.

What's a roleplaying genius to do? It would be tempting to think that you are not such a great roleplayer as you think, or that your character idea isn't as fantastic as you had hoped, but the truth might lie in something far less depressing: You may have created a character with true depth, yet lacking established friends to explore that depth with, your character has no way of showing it. Making such friends is never easy if you are too deep for them -- they expect some sort of interesting surface-level interaction first. Likewise, if a character is all silly gimmicks designed to entertain strangers, without anything deeper for potential close friends to enjoy, he or she may seem like an attention grabber, entertaining in the short term, but mostly shallow in the end. Choosing the right kind of surface-layer character traits to suit your personality and social needs is essential if you want to have a good experience in roleplaying.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The surface layer

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All the World's a Stage: The surface layer originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 31 May 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagecharactereccentriclayerlayersnormalquirkquirksroleplayroleplayerroleplayingroleplaying-layersrpsurface-layer (David Bowers) Sun, 31 May 2009 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Leatherworker]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/24/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-leatherworker/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/24/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-leatherworker/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/24/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-leatherworker/#comments This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-fourth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

At the outset of this series on how to roleplay one's professions, Leatherworking struck me as the most difficult profession to write about, even more than skinning, herbalism, or mining. This was in spite of (and in fact maybe because of) the fact that it was the first profession I ever chose in WoW. My very first character, who was a druid, wanted to choose leatherworking in order in order to make her own armor as well as prevent the dead bodies of all those animals she had to kill during her quests from going to waste.

At that time I didn't know a whole lot about roleplaying, or how to play the game, and I knew even less about the background lore behind everything I was seeing. I originally roleplayed with my friends that my night elf had been born in Darnassus, only later to find out that would have made her about 3 years old -- a fact none of us had known, because WoW was our first exposure to the lore of Azeroth. This was actually my inspiration for writing these articles, so that our readers wouldn't have to go read pages and pages of books and websites or play old and (to me anyway) less enjoyable games.

As I played the game more and more, the leatherworking armor seemed less and less useful and seemed more and more difficult to make. I also started imagining what skinning all those animals and then stitching together parts of their dead bodies would actually feel like, and suddenly I felt more like a kind of Dr. Frankenstein than a peaceful druid. It turns out, however, that I knew as little about leatherworking back then as I did about the game itself.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Leatherworker

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Leatherworker originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 24 May 2009 23:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageartd.e.h.t.a.dehtadruiddruidsdrumsdrums-of-battlefeaturedfrankensteinhunterhuntersjoystiqfeaturesleatherleatherworkerleatherworkingnight-elfrexxarrogueroguesroleplaying-lore-guidesshamanshamansskinning (David Bowers) Sun, 24 May 2009 23:55:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Jewelcrafter]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/17/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-jewelcrafter/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/17/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-jewelcrafter/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/17/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-jewelcrafter/#comments This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-third in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

When I was getting ready for my wedding last month, one of the obvious things we had to do to get ready was to pick out wedding rings. I'm not much of a jewelry wearer myself, but I put a lot of thought into this choice, and in the end, I learned quite a bit more than I knew before about the jewelry profession and how it works. It struck me as a profession for people who really love making beautiful things and who love interacting with people at some of the most significant moments of their lives (such as ... weddings) -- but above all, real life jewelcrafters struck me as people who love details.

Of course, a number of professions in Azeroth have to pay attention to details in their various gaming aspects. Deciding which items to make for oneself, which to sell at the auction house, and how to use your chosen profession in itself requires lots of details. But when you think about roleplaying, there's a definite difference between blacksmithing on the one side, with its broad strokes of a hammer on metal, and jewelcrafting on the other, focused on the smallest of cuts and adjustments that the naked eye can't even perceive. Jewelcrafting is the profession on Azeroth that requires the keenest eye, the steadiest hand, and the most attention to detail.

In some ways, jewelcrafting in the real world seemed like sub-world of its own, where jewelers knew special secrets no one else knew. They used these secrets to draw forth items that were at once dazzling and magical, artistic and personal for each individual that wore them. Jewelcrafters in the World of Warcraft have no reason to be less devoted to their profession, or any less proud of their ability to craft the most delicate of magical items with the most powerful magical effects, using the secret knowledge only they can understand.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Jewelcrafter

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Jewelcrafter originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 17 May 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageattention-to-detailcrimson-spineldiamonddraeneifeaturedgemgemstonejeweljewelcrafterjewelcraftingjewelryjoystiqfeatureslightnew-ageringroleplaying-lore-guidesthe-lightwedding (David Bowers) Sun, 17 May 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Blacksmith]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/10/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-blacksmith/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/10/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-blacksmith/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/10/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-blacksmith/#comments
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-second in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

Blacksmiths are known for being brawny folk -- hammering pieces of metal together is not easy work after all. But in World of Warcraft, even the smallest gnome or scrawniest elf can be a great blacksmith. Azeroth is a land where even the smallest people can wield the biggest of axes, so it would follow that they could craft them too, as well as any other sort of armor or weapon that they could imagine.

Typically, however, even in Azeroth, blacksmiths are, by and large, members of a class that can use plate mail and heavy weapons, such as a warrior, a death knight, or a paladin, just as tailors are usually spellcasters of some kind. So even if a blacksmith appears scrawny on the outside, he or she is very likely still quite brawny on the inside. Underneath that elf's pretty skin are muscles of steel!

Being a blacksmith implies a state of mind as much as it does a state of body, however. Working with metals is not something for the light hearted. The weight, the heat, and all the soot are not for people who like to keep their clothes clean at all times, for instance. It's also not a very socially-oriented profession, requiring long hours spent hammering away at something until it reaches perfection, often using lots of material in the learning process before you finally get one right. Blacksmiths of lore tend to be patient and hardy people, tempered and perfected by their work, like good, hard steel.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Blacksmith originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 10 May 2009 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageblacksmithblacksmithingelffashiongnomeheatlootroleplayerroleplayersroleplayingroleplaying-lore-guidesrpsoottailorweight (David Bowers) Sun, 10 May 2009 23:45:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Enchanter]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/03/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-enchanter/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/03/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-enchanter/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/03/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-enchanter/#comments This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-first in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

Enchanting cries out to be roleplayed. It could be a kind of magician's engineering, or a more refined cousin of alchemy. Although you could certainly play an enchanter as another sort of magical mad-scientist, the profession actually lends itself well to a more gentlemanly (and sane) approach, where experiments are not so much about creating some sort of autonomous monster or mind-controling love potion of serene bliss, but rather altering the nature of things to do what they never would have done previously.

Enchantments have a huge role in mythology and literature. Cinderella's fairy godmother turned a pumpkin into a stage-coach with an enchantment, Hogwarts School's "Sorting Hat" famously talks to students who wear it, and the One Ring even contains the soul of Middle Earth's lord of evil personified. All these are enchantments in which ordinary items are magically enhanced so as to reflect some aspect of character development or plot in the story, and a roleplayer at the keys of an enchanter character can work similar magic in telling his own story.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Enchanter originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 03 May 2009 23:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagebrazier-of-dancing-flamesdiscworldenchanterenchantingenchantmentfairy-godmotherfairy-talefairytalefeaturedjoystiqfeatureskringpinocchiopygmalionroleplayerroleplayingroleplaying-lore-guidesrpsorting-hat (David Bowers) Sun, 03 May 2009 23:40:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The Art of Roleplaying]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/04/26/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-art-of-roleplaying/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/04/26/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-art-of-roleplaying/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/04/26/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-art-of-roleplaying/#comments
This week, David returns (again) to All the World's a Stage as a newly married man, feeling particularly happy and joyful, and overflowing with enthusiasm for just about everything he loves in life.

The relationship between rolelplaying and real life is a multifaceted one. If you have read this column before, you've probably seen some mention of roleplaying as a creative art form, but for some readers, it might be a bit difficult to imagine roleplaying as an art. After all, some might say, it's just a bunch of people sitting around, pretending their characters are real people, having real problems and real stories, all in spite of a game environment in which one's character can't actually affect the world in any way that matters. Problems of continuity, such as instanced dungeons in which many people can slay the same monster at the same time over and over again, make some people feel as though there's no story value to the game at all, and that anything roleplayers do is a waste of their time.

The trick for roleplayers is to think of roleplaying as something more like freeform play art, in which the main point of the art isn't so much the end product that results from one's efforts (as it would be in painting, novel-writing, or composing music), but rather the thoughts, feelings, and inspiration that come to mind when we actually engage in the process of the art itself. The closest parallel to another art form might be improv acting games, where the whole point is to make things up for you and the other actors to enjoy, rather than to deliver a performance for a separate audience; but if you've enjoyed something so simple as building a sand castle on the beach, then you probably have a good sense of what it feels like to roleplay. Fingerpainting, mandala-making or even just freeform music and dancing can all give a similar feeling like what you get in roleplaying: the sheer joy of creation.

Some roleplayers need no more justification for their art than that they enjoyed themselves. But others look at their own roleplaying careers and see certain things that they've taken away from their roleplaying experience over time. These things are usually not as solid as an actual painting or recorded song, but they still have a kind of solidity in the roleplayer's mind, as they positively impact his or her real life in several ways.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The Art of Roleplaying

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All the World's a Stage: The Art of Roleplaying originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageartcharactercharactersfeaturedfeelingshumilityjoystiqfeaturesmatrixroleplayroleplayerroleplayersroleplayingrpsocial-dynamicsthoughtsweddings (David Bowers) Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: The Roleplaying Spectrum]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/04/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-roleplaying-spectrum/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/04/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-roleplaying-spectrum/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/04/06/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-roleplaying-spectrum/#comments
Today David returns to All the World's a Stage, still taking a break from his series of roleplaying lore guides for World of Warcraft. Instead, he shares a few thoughts especially for people who may roleplay all the time without realizing it.

There are lots of people playing World of Warcraft out there, and if you gave a survey to each one of them, asking, "are you a roleplayer?" most of them would probably say "no." But if you actually listened to them, or engaged with them in conversation about it, you might learn a lot of things that surveys usually miss. Many people who say they are not roleplayers actually have an imagination of their character's backstory, personality, or even just individual style. They may not know how to act out the character, and they may not have friends they feel they can act out with, yet at the same time, they do have a sense of their character as their own little creative exploration.

The distinction between roleplayers and non-roleplayers is not as clear as people seem to think. In fact, there's a whole spectrum of different kinds of players between those who say they roleplay and those who say they don't -- and most people probably find themselves somewhere in the middle.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: The Roleplaying Spectrum

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All the World's a Stage: The Roleplaying Spectrum originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> agnosticall-the-worlds-a-stageatheistbackstorycharactercharacterizationevangelicalextremesfanaticlaymanroleplayerroleplayingroleplaying-spectrumrprp-agnosticrp-atheistrp-evangelicalrp-extremesrp-fanaticrp-laymanrp-scroogerp-spectrumscrooge (David Bowers) Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Skinner]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/22/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-skinner/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/22/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-skinner/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/22/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-skinner/#comments
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirtieth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

I should say at the outset of this article that I am a vegetarian, and I generally think of animals as cute and fuzzy friends of the human race. I have no moral objection against hunting animals and using their bodies for food or clothing, however. Logically, it makes sense that people have needed this to survive, but emotionally speaking, I find skinning and eating animals rather distasteful. Things would have been different for me if I had been raised on a farm or in a hunting community instead of a city thoroughly saturated with the culture of Disney movies about cute animals singing songs and having adventures, but... anyways, you are what you are. Hunting enthusiasts should feel free to write their own articles on the topic if they have different points of view.

So, anyway, as my vegetarian brain started churning around this idea of how skinning can be roleplayed in World of Warcraft, I couldn't help but admit to myself that I don't have so much real life experience of the topic. In fact, my first google search of "Skinning" turned up none other than WoWwiki's page on skinning in WoW, and I realized most people living in cities probably haven't got the first clue of what skinning animals is really like.

So I searched again for "skinning animals," and this time I found various articles about how to skin an animal for people who are interested in surviving in the wilderness, or just into hunting in general. One site even had simple hand-drawn animations of the proper way to kill and skin a rabbit, and I was struck by how very different this was from my experience of skinning in WoW. In the animation, we see the head and feet get cut off, a slice go down the middle of the animal's body, and the skin slowly peeling away to reveal all the flesh underneath... while in WoW we just right-click on a dead animal, loot its hide, and poof -- it disappears before our eyes.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Skinner originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageanimalsbabecorpsesdeath-knightdehtadruidfargostar5000forsakenhunterleatherworkingmagepaladinpeas-and-carrotspriestroguerolelpaying-lore-guidesshamanskinnerskinningtrolltrollsvegetarianwarrior (David Bowers) Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:55:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Herbalist ]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/15/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-herbalist/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/15/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-herbalist/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/15/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-herbalist/#comments
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-ninth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

In this world of constant war, you must choose your weapons wisely: you may be a blood-soaked warrior with a jagged-edge axe of phenomenal power, a maniacal warlock with a lust for forbidden magical knowledge, or a ruthless rogue whose stealth lets him kill his enemies before they even know he's there.

You may also pick flowers.

Indeed, if you are either an alchemist or an inscriber, picking flowers is probably exactly what you do, no matter how blood-soaked, maniacal, or ruthless you might be. To you, however, the term "picking flowers" may be the sign of ignorance on the part of people who fail to comprehend what powers they mock when they poke fun at the exalted science of herbalism. "Let them have their giggles," you might say to yourself, sheathing your axe in order to bend down and gather some lichbloom, "I'll be the one laughing all the way down the battlefield with my Flask of Endless Rage! Muahahahaha!"

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Herbalist originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagebiofuelclassesdeath-knightdreaming-glorydruidfeaturedgoldclovergromsbloodherbalismherbshuntericethornjoystiqfeatureslichbloomlifebloodmagemountain-silversagenightmare-vinenorthrendpaladinpeacebloompriestroleplaying-lore-guidesshamansungrasstalandras-rosewarlockwarrior (David Bowers) Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:30:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Miner]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/08/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-miner/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/08/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-miner/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/08/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-miner/#comments This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-eighth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

Mining is one of the strangest professions in the World of Warcraft. This may seem counterintuitive in the face of such odd professions as alchemy, and more particularly, engineering. But when you think of it, mining is equally strange in its own way.

Mining in the World of Earthiness is by and large a capitalist venture, where the people getting rich off of the various precious metals in the world are never ever the same people who actually go out and dig the stuff out of the ground. No, the rich people find other people do to the actual digging for them, and then compel those diggers to hand over the fruits of their hard work for a mere fraction of the work's actual value. Furthermore, precious metals here on Earth are not simply lying about at the surface for anyone with a pickaxe to come along and collect -- otherwise those metals wouldn't be precious anymore.

Mining on Azeroth is more like collecting interesting seashells than it is anything similar to what humans do on Earth. Below, we will find a few ideas about why in the world only the very greatest adventurers with the best training can go around picking up shiny ore nodes sticking up out of the ground, as well as what it might mean to your character to do so.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Miner

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Miner originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stagecopperdwarfdwarvesfeaturedjoystiqfeaturesmetalmineminermineralsminesminingoreorespickaxeroleplaying-lore-guidessaronite (David Bowers) Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Tailor]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/01/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-tailor/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/01/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-tailor/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/01/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-tailor/#comments
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-seventh in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

Tailoring is another aspect of Warcraft which people tend to just gloss over without realizing it is an important element of your character's backstory and personality. "I am Zorlastine the wicked Forsaken warlock!" one might say, "I have come to wreak havoc and destruction upon this world! I also sell extremely large bags on the auction house!" Often it's an element that doesn't quite jive with the rest of one's character, but at the same time, nobody really notices. A powerful mage capable of teleportation, massive explosions, and yes, even KNITTING! Makes perfect sense, right?

No it doesn't.

So today we have gathered a few ideas for how to weave your cloth-wearing character's capability to create cloth wearables into the actual story and roleplay of your character. You think making clothes is a tedious profession? A pastime just for old ladies? No, tailoring is an avant-garde artistic activity of the elite, an excellent way for a starving hero to make cash, and even a mystical philosophy all on its own.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Tailor originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageblack-mageweavefeaturedgalacial-bagGigantique-bagharis-piltonjoystiqfeaturesknittingmagepriestroleplaying-lore-guidestailortailoringtier-8tuxedoulduarwarlock (David Bowers) Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:01:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Alchemist]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/22/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-alchemist/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/22/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-alchemist/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/22/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-alchemist/#comments
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-sixth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

Too many people roleplay alchemy as a glorified fast food restaurant, with typical phrases such as, "Would you like some healing potions to go with your strength elixir?" or "If you give me just one more herb I could throw in a mana potion too..." Of course, the game mechanics often put us in the salesman position. Limited supply and demand force us to compete with other alchemists for herbs and customers, so to some extent we may have to deal with the capitalist food chain to matter what we do.

But there's so much more to an alchemist than just magical boosts and bonuses! An alchemist has the potential to be the other mad scientist! Why should they let engineers have all the fun? Just because engineers can craft their own vehicles and whatnot doesn't mean that alchemists don't have something (or someone) of their own to experiment on.

Today we shall take a closer look at the depths of madness which alchemists are capable of reaching, if only they dig a bit into the unlimited supply and demand of the imagination.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Alchemist originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> alchemistalchemists-firealchemyall-the-worlds-a-stageargent-crusadeelixirelixir-of-dream-visionelixir-of-lifeengineeringfeaturedforsakenjoystiqfeaturesphilosophers-stonepotionpotionsroleplaying-lore-guidesroyal-apothecary-societyshoppingtabletop-rpgundeaduniversal-solvent (David Bowers) Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:01:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Hunter]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/15/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-hunter/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/15/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-hunter/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/15/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-hunter/#comments This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-fifth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.

The Hunter is probably the oldest class in World of Warcraft. Before anyone in Azeroth took up an axe or sword, or learned anything of how to cast spells -- even before they learned to write -- they had to hunt for food. If they were like early Earth societies, the people of many nomadic groups would have relied on their hunters to bring in the meat they needed, as well as to protect the community from enemies. Back then, there would have been no such thing as fancy armor or complicated magical weapons. The relationship of a fighter to nature was just as important as the weapons he carried, if not more so.

Modern hunters in World of Warcraft come from the ancient tradition of those who learned to keep themselves and their families alive by living in harmony with nature. They learned the essential mysteries of survival in the wilderness, killing animals with stealth and primitive weapons, trapping them, and eventually turning predators and prey alike into friends and servants.

As time went by, those fighters who took up the path of the druid would learn to become nature itself; shamans would learn to call upon it; warriors and rogues would make battle their art, each in their own way. But hunters remained at that pivotal point between sentient races and the natural world -- they are connected to nature, but not manifestations of it; they work together with nature, but they do not worship it or call upon its spirits; they fight their enemies with the utmost passion, but they do it with the tools that hearken back to the dawn of civilization.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Hunter originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageanimalsbeastbeastmasterbeastmastersengineerfeign-deathhunterhuntersmanamarksmanmarksmanshipmarkswomannaturepetpetemotepetsroleplaying-lore-guidessurvivalwilderness (David Bowers) Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:51:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Alliance Rogue]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/08/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-alliance-rogue/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/08/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-alliance-rogue/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/08/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-an-alliance-rogue/#comments This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-fourth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.

Many of the most famous rogues outside of the Warcraft setting have been nuanced and exciting characters. Bilbo Baggins, the Prince of Persia, and James Bond, could all be reimagined as rogues if they had existed in Azeroth instead of their own settings.

As an Alliance rogue, you have a certain amount of freedom to borrow from other settings, or from the real world, since the Alliance races tend to be more similar to heroes of other stories we've heard before. To a certain extent, Blizzard has already based its Alliance rogue guilds on stories from other settings, and left some aspects of these institutions rather vague. There is certainly enough room for roleplayers to fill in a bit of the blanks with their own creative inspiration. The only danger is that it could be easy to overdo it and descending into Mary-Sueism: one ought to feel free to reach for a bit of the flavor of James Bond, for instance, without ever believing your character is the single best secret agent Stormwind could ever have.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Alliance Rogue originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> 007all-the-worlds-a-stagebilbo-bagginsdefias-brotherhooddwarfdwarvesedwin-vancleeffeaturedforsakengnomegnomeshumanhumansironforgejames-bondjoystiqfeaturesmary-suematthias-shawmi6night-elfnight-elvespathonia-shawprince-of-persiaravenholdtroleplaying-lore-guidessentinelsentinelssi7stormwindstormwind-assassinssyndicatewardenwardens (David Bowers) Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:15:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Horde Rogue]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/01/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-horde-rogue/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/01/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-horde-rogue/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/02/01/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-horde-rogue/#comments This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-third in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.

Any class needs its role models. Rogues don't have all that many great heroes from lore, but the ones they do have stand out, especially for the prominence of women in this class.

Garona Halforcen is probably the most famous of rogue protagonists, one of the main characters of the original Warcraft I storyline that launched the whole Warcraft series. She's been strangely missing ever since the end of the First War, actually, but it seems that she is finally making her comeback to the story in the World of Warcraft Comic Book. Her full story is best left for others to tell (such as the immensely talented Elizabeth Wachowski, or the mysterious collective mind known as WoWWiki), but for now, suffice it to say that she represents a lot of what makes rogues who and what they are. Here's a few reasons why:
  • She's incredibly cool.
  • She doesn't talk about how incredibly cool she is.
  • She has conflicted loyalties, neither all good nor all bad.
  • There's so much we don't know about her, and so much we want to discover.
  • She's something of a lone wolf, extremely independent and active.
  • Her skill with words was just as important as her skill with weapons.
  • She has a great wealth of complicated emotions and ideas that drive her deeper into the story.

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All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Horde Rogue originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> all-the-worlds-a-stageblackthornblood-elfblood-elvesblood-knightscomic-bookdeathstalkerdeathstalkersforsakengaronagarona-halforcenhalf-draeneihunterkargath-bladefistorcorcsrogueroguesroleplaying-lore-guidesshattered-handsylvanastrolltrollsvaleeravaleera-sanguinarvarimathras (David Bowers) Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:00:00 EST WoW Insider