Adopt/Assist a newbie?

Moon Guard
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Decided that I want to try my hand at WoW roleplay after spending the last decade roleplaying in various other mediums. It’s always interested me, but seems like a pain to actually get involved and immerse myself in the community.

I have all the basics down, I have my addons, a few character concepts, etc. Does anyone have any tips/advice for someone looking to dive right into WoW roleplay? Should I just idle around the Mage District and try interacting with people? Should I find a RP guild? How do I even find a RP guild? This is all incredibly intimidating.

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My advice as a long time roleplayer outside of WoW, but relatively new inside of WoW, is this.

The main mistake that most people seem to make is assuming that RP is a single thing. Getting involved means figuring out what kind of RP you’re looking for, and then finding out where that RP happens.

Like if you want casual hanging out in taverns, slice of life RP, you’re gonna be looking in a different place than if you want hardcore regimented military RP. Asking around here is a good start. Also, being clear about what kind of RP you want is a good start.

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A good roleplay guild or group should be somewhat difficult to join but easy to leave.

I’ve found that guilds that mass invite or have huge influxes of new characters aren’t usually in it for the roleplay or are scams. Look for groups that want to get to know you, your characters and will do the work to see you’re a good fit for each other before you join.

Also, especially for bigger guilds, ask if you can talk to any previous members. If provide them and you’re happy to do the leg work then it can be a great way to find out what that group might be lacking or how it’s changed. If the guild gets weird about you speaking to past members… I personally would treat that as a bad sign.

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As someone still getting into the swing of things on mg again, I heartly welcome you to our loveable oddball home server. For some pointers and guidance with role-playing here, it’s safe to assume we’ll over half of the players here are active roleplayers with stories flush for their backgrounds and origin tales a plenty to share. We all go through that first butterfly in the belly feeling when starting it and I’m sure we all can be sympathic to nervous breaks and pauses in introductions so don’t feel that you are alone in that nervousness, we get it too.

First tip is to recognize that certain status and ranks among classes should not be as populated as they currently are at this time. There’s at least a couple hundred archdruids and archmages on the server and none of them are willing to admit being op in representation as characters. Each of them are unique but that doesn’t excuse the abuse of ranking there, being handed it like frigging candy to every Joe blow with talent. Earn that rank in character and wear it with pride but there’s waaay too many as is.

What you do out of character while leveling isn’t necessarily roleplay material though I’m sure a pack or two of captains and sergeants will argue that point with me all day, we all must remember some incidents that happen in content shouldn’t be ingrained into character personality or talked about in character as for some players may not know about that content you’ve been to yet or hadn’t a clue about it and don’t want spoilers for themselves. The thing about legacy weapons or legendaries that bugs me might not bug another player but I never claim to own the original of anything in game as a character. Not because it’s breaking lore but because to me it’s breaking the fourth wall for all players involved in said roleplay. Making a copy makes sense, people want to follow their role models and copying their weapon styles makes sense. Not carrying around the originals and boasting owning them straight from their period owners themselves. That just makes your character sound so full of themselves that they might burst with ego flood if pricked by a pin.

Being a human, your characters history will depend entirely on his age, origin city and what job role he’s taken as part of the alliance. Some mages are Crafters while some may tinker with making interesting devices for weaponary and so forth. Each mage is completely different from the next so your class is what you make of it, with or without professions applied. You don’t have to be just a mage, you could be a news reporter for the local news team, which in this server is Gnews, ran by a bunch of really nice folk. Or you could be a farmer that discovered you could make popcorn, the hard way with magic fire, by complete accident. There’s any number of ways to develop your characters background and I’m sure there’s hundreds of human roleplayers that will gladly help you with the finer points if you ask around in whisper and that’s if you get stuck on any detail you hadn’t worked out yet.

Last but not least defining in character chatter from out of character chatter is something most of us do out of habit. I tend to use parentheses to enclose my ooc chatter and with TRP it tints the text a specific color for other trp users to identify the ooc as just that something that can be simply overlooked and or ignored if need be. But making sure you have a strong in character profile, background and an idea of how the characters personality responds to in character stimulus, reactions to just about anything, will give you a solid character to play here on moon guard and make your home here as well.

So once again, welcome to moon guard and I do hope this post helps in some manner.

Edit: Excuse the typos, writing in a tablet with a broken screen… Only one corner isn’t responsive and it’s the corner that the enter button sits on.

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Seriously. I’m looking around, and everyone’s Lord Such-And-Such, or Master of the Dark Beyond, or High Captain So-And-So. And usually I’m all, “Hi, I’m Helnea. I’m a scrivener. If you need something transcribed, or you’re looking for a particular type of ink, I can help you with that. If you happen across any kind of odd book that you can’t translate, or you need transcribed, please let me know.”

Now, that said, there are a lot of people who don’t place emphasis on rank or title, and are just doing their thing In Character. Cooks, and bakers, rank and file mages or soldiers. Stormwind does have a whole lot of thieves and assassins, because that’s a kind of roleplay that people enjoy. Criminal RP is definitely a thing.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to be involved in every piece of roleplay going on around you. There are players who make weird, wacky, or disruptive scenes just to be disruptive. Spend any amount of time in a location, and someone is probably gonna come up to you and do something odd. You can try to politely deflect them, or, if you don’t want to engage in that roleplay, just say that. If they refuse to accept that, you can ignore them. Basically roleplay is a social contract. An unspoken agreement between people that we’re all going to play pretend together. But not everyone wants to play the same kind of pretend. This sounds obvious, but it’s pretty important. If you find that you’re having to deal with people who aren’t willing to roleplay in good faith, and respect your wishes or the wishes of other people, you don’t have to put up with them.

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Definitely this. ^

Finding a group to fall in with usually isn’t too difficult but beginners get the hardest end of the deal because most go in blind and without warnings of what to watch out for and or avoid. Most definitely keep a strict idea of what kind of boundaries of social grounds you are comfortable with as a person cause getting too involved is a thing that happens and can ruin the experience for you.

But if you aren’t comfortable looking for guilds or groups to join as an in character member of, you can always stay in busy role-playing spots like the taverns in stormwind or the mage quarter and slaughtered lamb well area just to listen in and get a feel for the vibe of each group and guild little by little. I promise by the end of two weeks you’ll know what group is good for beginners and what ones to avoid. If that doesn’t suit you as a player or you feel time is punched when you do play you can always join a casual friendly guild and stay with them until you find a suitable roleplaying guild that’s more your fit. I have a few nonelf characters in mine but I gotta talk to ya in game and get to know ya a little better to make sure you’ll mesh well with the rest of the group before I toss out invites to anyone joining.

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This is the nugget of truth.
As you don’t need to be involved or even accept every aspect of others roleplay happening there’s no need to be concerned about how many archdruids and archmages are running around. They are enjoying what they do. If you want to acknowledge it, are invited to participate and choose to do so then - enjoy!

Again I give credit to Helnea as she said it best:

Your consent is necessary. If you are not comfortable - take a pass. It’s okay. Please be careful as there are recently returned individuals to Moon Guard that left the server when they were outed for child grooming/ERPing with minors. This is a crime and they will be reported to Blizzard/law enforcement if they even flinch in that direction.

Not sure if this is still a thing but there was a job fair (guild recruitment) that took place in SW once a month. I know the Horde version is still going strong but ask around or maybe someone else will know more. Here’s the thread:

Best wishes OP! Hope you enjoy spinning your story and making more friends.

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