Filed under: All the World's a Stage (Roleplaying)

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Pandaria is one of the most fully-realized places on Azeroth to date. A lot of this has to do with quests and stories, but far more of it can be attributed just to the design of the continent. Pandaria feels like a place that people live in, a place that people have been living in for years. Small details like buildings atop hills, hidden cubbies stuffed with books and collected items, and the simple placement of objects as if they were meant to be there really gives the whole continent an overwhelming sense of life.

And for a roleplayer, Pandaria is a mecca of roleplaying locations. Not all of these buildings scattered around Pandaria are occupied, leaving them open for a roleplayer to claim. But beyond the deserted buildings, there are plenty of other places perfect for becoming a hot new roleplaying hub. The best part? None of these locations are faction-specific, which means both Alliance and Horde can feel at ease.

Back in 2011, WoW Insider's Michael Gray featured two roleplay workshops with long-standing Horde roleplay guild Pox on Shadow Council (US-H). Pox leader Shryn'Dael organized several workshops, introducing roleplay novices to the fine art of WoW roleplay.

Pox has existed since back in 2007 on Shadow Council, and been a bastion of RP knowledge since they first began running their roleplaying workshops. The last series was fantastically well-attended, aimed as it was at the newer roleplayer, the shyer roleplayer, and the curious, and dealing with topics such as emoting, character backstory, popular role-playing addons, and IC/OOC conflict. As a novice roleplayer, these sound fantastically useful for avoiding roleplay gaffes!

The first workshop of this series deals with emoting. Emoting goes far beyond /smile, /flirt and /bashful, and Pox will walk roleplayers through how it's done, as well as pitfalls to avoid. This workshop will be held on Monday, November 5 at 7 p.m. MST (GMT-7), at the Bonfire in Thunder Bluff, Shadow Council (US-H). If you don't have a character on Shadow Council, you are encouraged to make one, and Pox even offer to arrange pick-ups if they are contacted before the event.

If you're a roleplaying novice, wanting to learn more, or a practiced roleplayer looking to refine your skill, these workshops are a great place to start. Head over there this Monday, 6pm PST, 7 pm MST or 9pm EST.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Antiheroes are some of the most difficult characters to roleplay within the context of an MMO. It's hard to roleplay someone who is a neutral character when the entire context of gameplay is based on the concept of side versus side. In the case of the Warcraft franchise, it's always been about that unending struggle between Alliance and Horde. Admittedly, in the history of the game we have definitely had ceasefires called every now and again, and we've cooperated every now and again.

But when push comes to shove, Alliance and Horde seem like they're destined to never get along. That conflict is highlighted in Mists of Pandaria in a major way, and if datamining on the 5.1 PTR is any indication, it's showing no signs at all of slowing down. Now that you have an idea of some of the various degrees of neutrality, and an idea of what the antihero's role is in a story, how do you apply that to your character?

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Mists of Pandaria is an expansion full of war, conflict, and the effects that said war and conflicts have on the world around us. It's an expansion where the clash between Alliance and Horde once again rears its ugly head. It's an expansion in which the Alliance finally begins to pull together and push back with ferocity, and it's an expansion where the Horde finds itself splintering, driven to pieces by the warmongering leader, Garrosh Hellscream.

And in the midst of all of the war and conflict is Pandaria. Its idyllic, serene landscapes are shatteringly altered by our arrival on its shores. Yet even as our characters look at Pandaria as a once-tranquil land shattered by war, our leaders seek to provoke us into further animosity. This leaves us with a unique space where our character may not feel like embracing their factional pride ... and takes us into the interesting gray area of the antihero.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Levels 1-85 with a pandaren character are an exercise in learning just who your pandaren is, and what makes him tick. It's also an opportunity for some sweeping character development, the type we really haven't had much of before. A new pandaren from the Wandering Isle is essentially a wide-eyed, fresh-faced ingenue in the world of Azeroth, tentatively taking those first careful steps towards exploration, excitement, and opportunity.

But Azeroth is like a bus swinging abruptly in front of your character. The impact of the world and what it means to your pandaren is entirely up to you, as is the strength of that impact. Your pandaren could be unaffected, ever the optimist in the face of despair -- or they could be transformed by the experience into someone far darker, far more sullen, far more worldly than that wide-eyed person that left the Wandering Isle.

Once you've hit level 85, the world changes dramatically all over again.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Roleplay can be tricky in a game like WoW, particularly when new races or classes are introduced. In Cataclysm, we had the conundrum of worgen and goblin death knights to contend with -- how did they become death knights, if they weren't fighting with the Alliance and Horde until after Wrath was launched? This was explained in a relatively tidy fashion, leaving those roleplayers with reasonable options for a plausible backstory.

With the pandaren of Mists, the story is slightly more complex. Not only are the pandaren that we play significantly different than the pandaren we encounter in Pandaria, they're also available to both Alliance and Horde. This makes that clear line between factions slightly muddled, and it's a challenge for a roleplayer to find a plausible reason for choosing one side over another. But there are a myriad of other unique challenges that face pandaren roleplayers during the course of their travels.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Welcome to Pandaria, roleplayers! With the launch of Mists, players suddenly have a lot of leveling to do, and countless things to keep them occupied at level 90. However, that doesn't mean that roleplay should come to a halt. Because Pandaria is a land we've never before seen, there's a ton of information to be absorbed, stories to be heard, and lessons to be learned along the way. The things your character will see and hear in Pandaria will affect them throughout the course of the new expansion, every step of the way.

But what if you leveled in a frenzy, or you missed some important points? There's so much to see in Pandaria that frankly, it can be overwhelming to even the most seasoned roleplayers. Today we've got a primer of basic plot points for you to consider for your character as they travel the Pandarian wilds and make that trek to level 90 -- or a refresher course if you've already hit max level.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Theramore is no more. In the first of many scenarios that will be playable in Mists of Pandaria, Garrosh Hellscream launched an open attack on the quiet port city. The results were immediate, as a visit to the mass graves outside the city can attest to. For better or worse, there is no more Theramore for Alliance players -- and that leaves roleplayers with a particularly poignant and heartbreaking event to roleplay about.

As for Horde roleplayers, you aren't exactly left in the dark here, either. The Theramore scenario sets the scene with a Horde prisoner that must be rescued and evacuated before the bomb drops and Theramore is wiped out. But the orders, plans, and schemes behind Theramore's fall all give Horde roleplayers much to think about. Do you side with Garrosh and his plans for continental domination, or do you look at history, and wonder what might have been, and what's yet to come?

On the eve of Mists, roleplayers certainly have their hands full. And what your character does and how they react to Theramore's loss, whether Alliance or Horde, will likely affect how they approach Pandaria, too.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Cross-Realm zones have given roleplayers the unintentional bonus of a ton of new people to roleplay with. Of course it'll be better when all the bugs are smoothed out of the process, but in the meantime, it's worth it to say hello and get acquainted with the new additions to your server. Roleplay is very much about the social side of the game rather than mechanics -- and the more people you have to roleplay with, the better the experience tends to be.

Of course, this is great if you're good at making friends and chatting with people. But one of the questions I'm most often asked is exactly how you go about making friends in roleplay. How do you find roleplayers to hang out with? How do you get your character in their good graces? And once you've got a good pile of friends, how do you keep them around and interested in roleplaying with you?

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

You're not quite alone anymore.

For roleplayers, roleplay has typically been restricted to whatever realm you happen to choose. Some roleplaying realms are far more populated than others. This means that new roleplayers tend to flock to these realms as well -- after all, if you're looking for roleplay, you want to go where the roleplay is at. However, after the release of patch 5.0.4 the dynamic of servers has changed a bit, and it spells some really big changes for roleplayers and how they look at the world.

Cross-Realm zones are a new feature that was introduced in patch 5.0.4. They're starting gradually at the moment, but more realms will see this feature implemented as time goes on. For roleplaying realms, a quick trip to Dalaran, Shattrath, or any of the more out of the way cities may reveal a surprise to traveling players -- your server is now linked with another roleplaying server. Or maybe even two or three of them, depending on the area.

Inadvertent or no, this new feature is a tremendous boon to roleplay.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Now that we've got the obligatory Princess Bride clip out of the way, let's talk weddings. There invariably comes a point and time in every character's storyline where they become romantically involved with another character. Romance is one of those roleplay subjects that seems to be a popular point with a large percentage of the the roleplaying population. Equally as popular are in-character weddings -- the more lavish, the better.

Planning a roleplay wedding may be an easier task than planning a real one, but the process does have the potential of being a drama-ridden situation. There are certain things you want to keep in mind when you're planning a wedding for your character, to keep the day drama-free. But before you decide your character ought to settle down with their sweetie and take the next step into marital bliss, there are a few other things you should think about, too.

As we embark on the closing weeks of Cataclysm, roleplayers have a lot to look forward to. Not only do we have an entirely new race to roleplay, we've also got an entirely new class -- something we haven't seen since death knights were introduced. The monk class is not restricted to the pandaren race, which brings up this question, submitted via email:

As a gnome RP'er and a bit of a lore junkie I was wondering about a few things. First off how exactly would one go around RP'ing a non-Panderan monk? I ask this since Mists comes out soon and I haven't seen an All the World's a Stage on it and based on some of the Realm Forum posts on my realm I am not the only one wondering this.

Thank you,
Coggling Arcanegrin

Well, Coggling, I'm certainly happy enough to answer your question. It's a good one, too. Roleplayers take in several different factors when creating characters, and the monk class is one that takes a bit more attention to detail than most. So let's go over the basics of the basics and see what roleplaying a monk is all about when you aren't a pandaren.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

A new expansion means several things to roleplayers. There's the thrill of new content and new areas to roleplay in. There's the change in storyline to something fresh and new. And of course, there's the introduction of new races or classes depending on the expansion, something that offers a new outlet for creativity as far as roleplay is concerned. With Cataclysm, we not only got two new races, but we got several new race and class combinations that weren't possible before, which opens the door even wider on making character changes.

For most roleplayers, the choice of what to do comes down to rolling yet another alt to roleplay with. For others, attachment to their main character and that character's story might suggest a different option altogether. Race change services have been around for a while in World of Warcraft, and although most players change their character's race and don't really give it much though, it becomes an odd situation for roleplayers.

So how do you work around a race change when you're a roleplayer?