Everyone is important!

Moon Guard
1

I’m going to blame Blizzard for this, but…

I’m seeing that the majority of characters I meet in Stormwind City are very, very important people. About… two thirds? Maybe three quarter? They are Lord Admirals, Generals, Special Agents, Archmages, etc.

I understand this sort of makes sense since, according to Blizzard’s storylines, our characters are very, very special people. Champions of the Alliance, even.

But it’s gotten to a point for me that I’m starting to really admire and become attracted to the more civilian type of characters, like regular guards, old senior/retired characters, normal bar patrons, etc, because, in their blandness, they have become the special characters that stand out to me.

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Everyone wants to be what they cant be in real life, its fairly normal for RPG games.

That said, the more mundane characters can actually be fairly hilarious. My goblin shaman is really only a shaman part time. Her main job is being a tattoo artist.

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I would not say this is particularly new, I remember “Important” people being around before Warlords of Draenor, which was when Blizzard went hard on the “Player Character is super special.” thing.

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How is this Blizzard’s fault? People have been doing this since the server opened, before the narrative started to make us Pretty Important People. There’s nothing wrong with claiming you are a captain of a ship or a commander of a unit, but people figure having fancy titles means they are more important. Bonus points if it’s something that’s canon to lore.

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Yes! I’m finding that this is the case as well. The ‘mundane’ characters seem much more entertaining. Maybe it’s because they’re less restricted to a role? They generally turn out less serious about stuff and seem to be able to inject a lot of humour into things.

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To be fair, some of us have had characters on the realm or with wow for 10+ years and I imagine some of the titles have story backings that are legit and played out.

Not all of them, but some. My main doesn’t have any titles and she’s my oldest character with an established background. Granted she wasn’t exactly a good person…

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I login in Moon Guard for the first time last week, i have experience in RP, but i never did in oficial WoW. I created a human, he is warrior by interface, but on rol he is a humble farmer, owner of his own small farm.
When i created had a lot of hype, because was the first i time was going to rol simple civilian, and not some kind hero or project of hero. The idea of rol in a medieval envairoment in a more simple way, attracted me. But i couldn’t rol to much, maybe because mi toon was level 1, and people think that you are not going to serious becacuse your low level. But i didn’t have time for leveling, because i allready do PvE and PvP in other realm and i have to manage my time if also i want to rol.
Anyway, my char was able to interact with some people, but most of the time i was just talking loud with the hope that someone notice me, or just introducing my self to a random stranger and asking something like “excuse me Sir/My Lady, where could i drink a quality beer in this Town? I don’t came here to frequently”.
I tried to join a couple a guilds, but after talking with the people of those guilds, both we realise that my humble farmer didn’t fit with super heroic theme of their guilds.
Anway, I’m going to try it again, may be next the time i’ll have better luck. I know i can have a lot fun roling my humble farmer. And if you want to meet my farmer with your character you are welcome anytime, just tell me. :smiley:

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That’s not entirely true. Up until Mists of Pandaria the kind of overly ‘important’ characters we see nowadays were few and far between, at least on the nobility side of things.

Yes, there were always Marshals, Lord Knights, Commanders, etc. but there was far, FAR less 'Baron/Duke/Duchess/Lord of '.

Personally speaking (and I mean this wholeheartedly) I blame the Game of Thrones hype of the past years for this sort of character RP.

+1 - I’ve found some of, if not the most rewarding RP through Guard RP and commoner RP.

It’s ‘easy’ to write a character that’s developed, has titles and an epic backstory. It’s far more difficult (and fun) to create a basic character and then develop them through interaction instead.

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I only have about 3-ish years experience with WoW RP, but I honestly feel like the titles are out of control. Walking around with TRP on and I see people with 6-8 subtitles makes me roll my eyes sometimes.

I agree with this, especially with the subtitles. Many people seem to have their character’s at-a-glance with so many titles you’d think they were Khaleesi. (e.g. Lord Darion Walden, master assassin, keeper of secrets, the dark blade, lord of stormkeep, leader of the deadly brotherhood council, master of coin, et. al.)

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Hey. How about we not shame people for the things they chose to role play? Its kind of gross watching nerds talking badly about other nerds as if your choice of fantasy character in a video game was somehow superior to someone elses fantasy character in the same video game.

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Admittedly while Bertha here calls herself a Volcano Queen… its not a rank. Its a self granted title to reflect how she fights.

Personally I just play her as a former soldier turned adventurer. She’s a good fighter, great even, but she’s not fantastic with commanding troops and has 0 talent for magic beyond smithing.

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I like to go back and forth between Tyrinade with her many titles and Old Sweepy who’s only significant title is Sanitation Engineer and he gave that himself. Some folks like to mix it up, you never know who is behind that Lord or Lady, Janitor or Gardener. We play in a fantasy game where fantastic things happen. It doesn’t matter if the character is important or powerful. Rather if they are engaging and well played. :heart:

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I don’t think people are try to mock or degrade those but simply voicing their opinion on what they prefer and how it brushes against the grain. And that’s fine for me; I like to see these discussions as long as they don’t become what you’ve said.

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It’s been that way for a while.

Some are tired to their guilds, other do it to give you a feel for their character from what I’ve gathered.

I don’t think five titles are necessary nor is everyone being a Lord Marshal/Commander/Captains/Heir, but I like keeping my characters simpler than most.

It really just boils down to personal preference.

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Reminders are occaionally needed :slight_smile:

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Agreed that rank-and-file person is a better role to see. You can have conquered two Draenors and the entire Burning Legion, and these can be part of your story, but you’re honestly still just a person in the city.

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#mercenary4life

Do consider that some players do apply the faction story to their character and the role we generally act in is pretty important.

We also have races like Draenei and Night Elves (and now Void Elves) that have experienced a lot in their expansive lifetime. So them being off higher rank wouldn’t be surprising.

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People can do what they like with their $15 a month. That said, I always prefer making civilian, npc merchant type toons.

Mailang, for example. She just sells noodles and runs a noodle shop. No IC fighting or missions. The only news she gets from the war is what soldiers and volunteers back from the warfront on leave tell her when they stop in the restaurant for food. She has basic monk training–as all Pandaren learn the basics to honor their heritage of using martial arts to break free of the Mogu–but that’s it.

Whatever your class, don’t make yourself the highest rank of your order (Archmage, Grandmaster, etc.). You don’t have to be the guy who landed the final blow on the final boss Commander in a Warfront. Just be the guy who took out the gate cannons or helped take down a war machine. Not everyone needs to be the super soldier BA champion of the planet sparkly snowflake, you know? lol

And as a good rule of thumb…do NOT say you personally know any major lore character. Maybe you shook the king’s hand once after Varian’s memorial. Saw Lady Jaina in passing. That sort of thing.

That’s my MO. Civilian RP is a whole animal in itself that is refreshingly simple. :wink:

Besides, the best sorts of deep story characters to me don’t need cliché backstory tragedies or Chosen One syndrome…just give them dynamic traits, hobbies and quirks, personality, solid story, motivations, goals, and weaknesses. A little tragedy is okay, but keep it reasonable, IMO. For every special ability, give your character a major cost to use that ability and significant flaws that hold him back from achieving what he wants.

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I considered writing up a ‘point buy’ system for WoW RP in order to help some people not write marry sues.

You’d basically start out with a set value, and then would buy certain traits, IC weapon enchants, titles, etc with points. You could also gain back points by taking on flaws.

For example, lets say you want your new character to be a Horde Centurion, since its an officer rank you’d pay around 10 to 15 points in the system, and in order to balance things out, you decide to give your character the flaw of being blind in one of his eyes.

You’d then add backstory along with how he got blinded in that eye in order to tie it all together.

Never got around to writing this up, but it should help people out with not writing marry sues.

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That would be an interesting dissertation to read.