As you can imagine by my realm, I’m very adamant about RP in wow, say what you will about the story or the races but I personally have come to enjoy the setting very dearly. And so I was hoping, as a nice change of pace/tone, tell me about your favorite class and why it’s your favorite class.
I don’t mean from a gameplay standpoint like “because they can do a lot of damage” or anything to the effect. What I’d like to hear is whether or not you enjoy the fantasy of your class and if it drives you to play that class because it speaks to you… in a way, as opposed to just choosing a class based on how they perform in game on a statistical level.
Poor wording and phrasing aside, I’ll go first.
Personally I’ve always had a strange fondness for Druid’s and their lore, even though I personally don’t feel like I’m very good at playing one. Ever since I was younger I liked nature because my home was only a single mile away from a large forest preserve, and so I carried that with me for a long time. Something about being the agent of nature and using the power of the land just feels really cool to me and it breaks my heart that druids are so under represented. And if druids my realm has a decided lack of druids, you know I’m stepping up and bein the bear.
Anyway, if you have something similar feel free to share, I’m interested in what people have to say about this. Plus I hope there’s still room for RP in classic.
As for Warlock, I’ve always liked the idea of turning the powers of Evil toward Good ends. It’s my biggest gripe with D&D and alignment locking classes. Why must I be Evil in order to dabble in dark magic?
Warrior. A real “by the bootstraps” kind of character. “I’m awesome because I am awesome. I dont need to borrow power from anyone, that’s for the weak. The strong can surpass any challenge.”
There’s a quote from an old warhammer dwarf army book I like: “there’s naught that a cannon can do that a determined dwarf with an axe can’t.”
Rogue. I really like the wide variety of possibilities the class provides for RP. The very first Forsaken rogue I played as a farmer in life who had started stealing to survive before dying and coming back thinking the only skills he had were farming and stealing and stealing seemed a better way to pay back the debt he owed for being resurrected. Others have ranged from the sociopaths who just like the thrill of assassination to heirs of the well to do who steal for entertainment to the sort of Robin Hood types.
Dastardly rogues have always been a favorite of mine, I’d even consider rolling one on an RP server, though I imagine rogues to be a very… populated class so I’ll let people like you have the fun. Cool backstory aswell though, I appreciate the humble origin.
I’m not a good enough story teller to player the superhero type without the character coming off as a cliche cardboard cutout. And yes, rogues can be very… populated. An excellent choice of words by the way.
If we’re talking strictly Classic classes, I would say my favorite characters to play are druids and shaman. In a world of rogues, barbarians (warriors), and arcane magic users, I like the counterbalance the nature-based magic users provide. I also like that in the tribal Horde, druids and shaman are usually the leaders.
I also like roleplaying a rogue for obvious reasons. All my characters in any TES game, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, end up being some kind of rogue.
This is what pretty much killed RP in modern WoW for me, because no matter how skilled or advanced my characters eventually become in game, I always see them as primarily part of the larger story, rather than THE hero of the story.
As to the question, I will more than likely be maining a warlock in Classic. I will be rolling a female gnome who starts out with a very cold, calculating attitude, regarding demons as just more mechanical devices that she can manipulate to gain power and get ahead. She answers only to herself. As she gains that power, travels, meets people, and sees what is going on in the wider world outside Dun Morogh, she begins to consider her morals and her allegiances.
Question: Do you roleplay with other people? This isn’t something that most social roleplayers even pay attention to.
This sentiment is that of someone whose idea of roleplay is the game. And in that, you have always been the hero. You’re up and comer, and from 1 to 60, that story has always been that you become a hero, and then, as expansions go on, you become the savior of Azeroth.
Who kills Hogger? You do. Who takes the head of Edwin Van Cleef and stops the Defias threat? You do. Who finds Mankrik’s wife? You do. There isn’t anyone else in most of these zones who actually does anything, according to how these quests are written. It’s entirely a single player story, that happens to be connected to a lot of other people who engage in their own single player stories.
The narrative from Vanilla onwards is that you did all of the quests - you helped kill Ragnaros and Nefarian and Hakkar - regardless if you actually did so in-game or not. WoW simply assumes you did, or at least helped.
Eventually, all those victories add up, and you can’t be considered “just one of the soldiers” with that many accomplishments.
I tend to prefer playing support in RPGs, which draws me to any of the hybrid classes.
I like mixing both martial combat and magic, which is why I was originally drawn to the Paladin class. Magic, melee, and support. I did kind of wish back in the day they were a bit more of a traditional Paladin and less of just a Cleric, but Vanilla is Vanilla and all =P
Though this time around I want to play something different, and I’m thinking I like the duality of the Priest dabbling in both light and dark magic.
I’ve always been drawn to Forsaken on the whole and Affliction Warlocks specifically. Given the Forsaken’s tie to the Shadow it’s a natural, or un-natural?, pairing. Plus, it opens up a lot of RP opportunity with the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow and such.
That’s where the game always gets a little weird for me. On the one hand, you’ve done all of these heroic things and are viewed as a savior. On the other, some random nobody is asking you to do a meaningless errand. It’s easy enough to RP around, but at the same time it can also make for interesting comedic opportunities.
S1: “Hey, you know that guy/girl you just send off to take care of your garden?”
S2: “Yeah. What about him/her?”
S1: “He/She was the one who killed former Prince Arthas and saved us all and you just asked them to pick turnips and kill moles.”
S2: “I’ll be damned. Oh well. It wasn’t like those turnips were going to pick themselves.”
Or even better… it’s like the player character has well over 7 million karma.
“Wow! You saved the world from Arthas AND you’re ridding my turnip patch of the rodents infesting it? You are truly a remarkable individual. No job too small. Thank you so much!”
Up until a certain expansion, and I can’t remember which exact one they changed it, the kills were credited to “a group of adventurers”, which is fine with me and exactly what I mean by preferring to see my character as part of the larger story rather than THE hero.
You’re not the first person to tell me that I’m WRONG for feeling the way I do. I remember back in WoD, I mentioned that I still personally and privately RP’d that I was still a ragamuffin. I even had some dude condescendingly explain to me about how D&D works, and tried to tell me that Blizzard is the DM here and that I was going against the rules, and how I needed to find a real D&D game so I could have the freedom I wanted. It was the goofiest thing. What I RP in my head while playing WoW is of no concern to anyone.
In vanilla, all of us are up-and-comers. Varian Wrynn gets credit for killing Onyxia. “Adventurers” of different vague stripes get credit for killing other dungeon and raid bosses.