IC school

Welcome to IC school - part 1!

Today we will go through Character creation, personality and development! Come along!

Character creation:

This is so much more than just selecting your class, face and skin tone - this is about figuring out why your character is alive in Azeroth. Where was he born and raised? Why is he a mage?
Most of us are not entirely sure about this when we make our characters, we just feel like playing a female orc shaman and makes one that looks cool. That is totally okay!
But when you start using that character in roleplaying it gets so much more complicated. People will ask where you are from, how you got here and where you are heading and why. If you really don't know - send a whisper to the person asking: "I haven't figured that out yet, perhaps you have some tips for me?" I can almost guarantee you that they will try to help you out.

Remember that it is no fun to roleplay with perfect characters - it is breaking immersion really hard when characters claim to be the illegal son of Thrall, the Chosen One, the most beautiful woman in Azeroth etcetera. Try to make something more interesting!
It's not vital to have a 5 pages long background story, it is really enough with a couple of sentences:

Allimi is a young gnome, born and raised in a small village. Now she travels the world to fight for gnome's rights and to defeat the lengthism!

Try not to make your background too EMO and horrible - it is so usual that it gets quite boring:

Bill's father and mother were slain in front of him, he was caught and abused for several years, then he broke free but only to find that his entire village was destroyed and everyone he ever knew was dead. He was in the war, lost one eye, gained a powerful, magical sword and found out that he was in fact adopted and his real father was Thrall and his mother Jaina Proudmoore. Now he seeks revenge and doesn't like anyone! (He's 17 years old, btw)

You do see how this story fails, don't you? It is not believable.

Character personality:

Flaws
The beauty about roleplaying is that you can be anyone and anything you want. Perhaps you want to be someone better then you are in the real world, someone who doesn't have the flaws you have IRL. Perhaps your character have no flaws at all?
Remova and remake - because everyone has flaws and the flaws are most of the times what makes us real beings of flesh and blood and what makes us interesting. If you want to make good roleplay you must add flaws to your character as well as traits.

For example he can have troubles with alcohol, writing, have a leg shorter than the other so he can't walk straight, be afraid of spiders, water, refuse to go out when it rains, be allergic to cats.... there are millions of flaws to choose from!

Traits
Yes, you probably don't want your character to be full of flaws but ahve at least one or two traits. But beware as this is the part where most people go way too far. Ask yourself these questions while you figure out traits:

1. Is this a trait that I can have with my race or class? If you are a human warrior who want to be able to cast lightning bolts and speak troll you might be going too far as that is just not possible. Of course you can always try - but don't expect respect for it.

2. Is this a trait that will make me a believable character? Just because Azeroth is a fantasy world it doesn't mean that everyone inhabiting it have impressing gifts.
If you approach someone who has constant warps in his body and skin - what will you say to him?

Bull: Hi, I can't help but notice that you have constant warps in your body and skin.
Bill: Yeah.
Bull: Doesn't it hurt?
Bill: Nah, I've always had them and I'm pretty used to them.
Bull: Okay... bye then.
Bill: Bye.

That doesn't seem like fun RP to me.

3. Is this trait plain silly and will the rest of the roleplaying
community want to roleplay with me if I have this trait - or will it
mostly cause boring problems? If your female blood elf has the trait to seduce anyone she meets you are doomed to fail. Because she will not do it, in fact she will be despised, laughed at and told how ugly she is by both trolls and orcs. Will that be fun for you? Don't have traits that depends on what other characters will do - be the boss of your own traits!

So make your traits believable. Here are some good examples of nice, down-to-earth traits:
Good memory, able to shoot at something small from a long distance with a bow, makes awesome omelettes, can walk in high heels, has a lot of humour, can scetch beautiful portraits, make big bombs etc. etc. etc.


Character development:

This part is very linked to the creation and the personality parts. Of course, in a real world, the events that you have been through has formed your personality.
If you are a human-hating orc who cares for nothing but the slaying of all humans until they're dead - sure, fine. Believable enough. But when you have been running around for a while, killing all humans in sight, you encounter this beautiful troll elementarica *cough* who tells you about all the humans she met that was kind and generous and helpful.... and then you meet a couple of them yourself that you just don't have the heart to kill... And suddenly you have transformed into a human-disliking orc that kill humans that aren't nice.

Does this sound wrong and boring to you? Did you feel that the orc caracter above was destroyed? Then I don't think roleplaying is meant for you as character development and changes are the very POINT of roleplaying!


That's it for now, I hope you learned something and that you also agreed on what I tried to teach! I'll see you again in the next part! *waves*

Welcome to part 2 of IC school! I hope you have been resting your eyes on something beautiful and calming as another wall of text is approaching!

This time I will go through talking, emoting and the art of having fun RP! Come along!


Talking

When I made my first character at a roleplaying realm I thought everyone talked like Shakespeare. I admit that I was terrified and afraid that my half-descent english wouldn't be good enough. Well, I soon learned that I was entirely wrong and that my english was just good enough.

There are a few key things to remember for any beginner roleplayer:
1. Don't ever use leet: How r u m8? Want 2 rp, lolz? It looks terrible and it is just NOT THE WAY PEOPLE TALK! Write what your character says and nothing else.

2. Don't ever talk about real life things or game mechanics. To me it is pretty obvious that your character doesn't know she's being cntrolled by someone sitting in front of a computer or that this is a game. So why would she suddenly mention that she is lagging?

3. Don't use double brackets if it's not absolutely necessary. "((OOC text))" looks just as bad as "OOC text". So don't stand in Orgrimmar discussing levels and quests inside double brackets as it is very disturbing - use whisper or make a group for talking about it instead! (( )) are only correctly used when you have to announce something at a roleplaying event and can't do it in another channel. Don't use (( )) when you have misspelled a word when it's obvious what you mean. Rather /cough and say it right instead. There's nothing OOC with a tongue slipping - it happens to me IRL every single day.


Emoting

Emotes show others what your character does, how he moves, if she scratches herself - it is simply what makes the RP feel real and alive! There is a few things to think about concerning emotes:

1. You are not a book! Certainly it is fun and can spice things up to emote what you are thinking or how you feel - but don't expect others to acknowledge it IC unless they are roleplaying someone who can read minds (wich is plain silly).

2. Most people don't have eyes in their neck or ears on the walls! If you bow to someone, standing behind them, you can't really expect for them to see it. The same goes for talking lowly on the other side of the room. No one can notice everything and in real life we can't scroll up and see what people did or said!

3. Mystery!! Instead of just writing /e looks sad you could give other characters the freedom to notice that you are sad by sighing, looking towards the floor, wipe a tear off your cheek etc etc etc. If they still don't notice - act like your character would act! Would he just swallow the feeling and do something else, start crying like a child or would scream something like I'm sad!! Why don't you care!? You hate me, I knew it!!?

4. Don't spam it! Even if you are bored and someone is being dull it's still rude to spam emotes so the chat log gets full of it and the event gets stuck.


Fun RP!

Yes! We are all here to have fun, no? First think of this for a second:

1. What is fun for you? Don't sacrifice your own fun for others. If someone is trying to RP a situation you don't like and don't want to take part in - get out of there! Even though character development is extremely valuable you have the right to ignore events that turns your character into something you don't enjoy her to be!

2. Is this fun for everyone else? Treat others like you want them to treat you. Involve people if they want that, be interested in them and respect their characters! Don't ignore their roleplay. Even if your character can't see what they're doing in the other side of the room you can probably see their emotes in the chat log - have an IC errand over there and notice it! I can't imagine something more boring than doing awesome emotes and being completely ignored.

3. Does it have to be dead serious? Is RP all about war and misery? Sounds terribly boring to me. Let your character have fun, do ordinary every-day stuff and get into tricky situations - it's great fun! Don't win every fight, don't be so cool that you're silly and don't be afraid to roleplay a confused alcoholic without sense of direction!

Wow, you made it to the last, and most important, part! This is the part that will make you a top roleplayer and will make everyone else truly enjoy playing with you - so keep them eyes opened for just a few more minutes!


META-gaming

META-gaming means that your character suddenly knows something that he or she shouldn't, for example someone's name, class, what guild they belong too (unless you can recognise tabards really well and they're wearing one) the way around Silvermoon City even though it's his first time there etc, etc, etc. AVOID THIS!

If you are OOC at the moment and just need to go see that weapon trainer - go do it and have my blessing. But don't roleplay that you have all the knowledge in the world!


Power-emoting

Truly hated by most roleplayers is the power-emoter. Someone who tries to roleplay your character and take control of your actions! BIG NO-NO!

Give other players the freedom of making their own choices and look the way they want. For example:

Bill wants to stab Bull in the back because he doesn't like Bull very much and wants to get rid of him.
BAD WAY:
Bill stabs Bull in the back and watches him die painfully in a sea of blood.
GOOD WAY:
Bill sneaks up behind Bull, raises his dagger and attempts to stab Bull in the back.

You clearly see the difference, right? In the bad way Bull has no chance to avoid the stabbing and fight back. By doing it the good way Bull can hear the tapping feet, suspect that something is going on and turn around, avoiding to be killed but getting a nasty cut in his arm.

Another example:

Bull stands by the lake in Thunder Bluff, singing to himself and fishing with his brand new fishing rod that he bought out of AH. Bull walks by.
Bill: Oh, why are you so sad?
Bull: What? I'm not sad, I'm just singing.
Bill gently pats Bull.
Bill: No, I can see that you have tears in your eyes and that you are dreaming of your home land and the family you lost.
Bull: What? My family is right over there!
Bull points at his family on the other side of the lake.

Okay, certainly Bill might be a madman that makes things up - or he could just have mistaken Bull for someone else. But if that was not the case he was clearly trying to rule over Bull's roleplay. Bill should make his own emo fisher instead of trying to take over other's!


GOD-modding

Ah, the GOD-modder... the oh, so hated but oh, so frequently seen GOD-modder. He wants to be powerful and mighty. He combines META-gaming and power-emoting to roleplay a god-like creature that can never be harmed.
It's the worst kind of roleplayer ever and please, DON'T!

Example:

Bill, the worldwide feared mage, walks into another guild's meeting fully armed and with a fierce look on his face.
Bill: Your leader is a donkey and I have slept with his mother and sister - they were so ugly I had to put a bag over my head! Besides that he has no honour and I spit on his shoes!
The guildies roar, unsheathen their weapons and starts moving towards the intruder to attack him.
Bill looks around and notice that most of them are low levelled. (META-gaming)
Bill raises his arms and casts a big fire-ball that forces the guildies to back. (power-emoting)
Guildie Bull charges at Bill with raised swords and bared teeth.
Bill just stands there as he knows OOC that Bull can't attack him as they're both horde. (META-gaming!!)
Bill walks out again and is happy with himself for being so powerful.
Bull's guild immedeately close all alliances they had wih Bill as he is a bad, bad roleplayer. (Good job!)

Agali wrote:

Most of us are not entirely sure about this when we make our characters, we just feel like playing a female orc shaman and makes one that looks cool. That is totally okay!

The troll knows...

Looking forward to see the rest of this! Keep up the good work!

Ah yes. There are many good pointers here! I hope this get's finished, as even Gilandael needs some character developement.

agali i think i have a great site where you can develop your char the best.

http://www.geocities.com/poetess47/100questions.html
100 questions about your char

Sticky please

...and finally finished.

Lovely