Hot Take: (Guild) RP Must Be Parallel to In-Game Content. Tavern RP is Not a Good Investment

[Clawmane-wyrmrest-accord]

My Background:

I have been roleplaying in various mediums, starting with tabletop games, for about 25 years. A core amount of that time learning and honing RP was in World of Warcraft, on Emerald Dream. I was part of a guild that did exactly as the title mentioned:

• The guild story was parallel to that which was happening in game
• The guild officers and core characters had side stories that ultimately tied into the game
• The guild made a point of tying PvE as well as PvP into the story, with the former being a driver for guild celebrations.
• The guild avoided character-first RP situations which detracted from the story
• The guild leaders helped drive the story as pseudo-GMs, but took a backseat to let the other characters of the guild hit the story milestones
• As a result of being parallel to in-game content, the guild did not admit a character that could not be made in-game.

I learned a lot about roleplaying in a game, its success and how well these principles tied everyone together toward a common purpose. I was in this guild for the better part of a decade, and its demise came ultimately at people growing up and finding life with families and such.

Nowadays, I see a lot of RP involved in taverns (Darkshire), or standing in city streets (Murder Row). A lot of the interactions are centered around a few people perhaps driving a story, and it is often only known to a few people. Or, it’s tavern RP.

Don’t get me wrong-- tavern RP has its place. But it should be a bed for recruiting people into places that allow for discovery of budding guilds that are adhering to the aforementioned principles. And every once in a while, getting a guild together to “blow off steam” both in character and out of character is worthwhile.

But in every game that I’ve done RP in, tavern burnout is a thing. It’s the same stuff over and over again. Inevitably drama starts poking its head because of something that might have happened ICly, and ends up fracturing some of the RP community. Or worse, it simply disinterests people after a while.

So if you want to get good communities going, especially at this rich storypoint with Horde and Alliance forging a truce, start a guild that revolves around in-game content. The lull before an expansion is a great opportunity to do that, and if you have a decent enough foundation when the game launches, you will find yourself catapulting forward into an RP-rich and story-intense experience.

[Eledris-wyrmrest-accord]

It’s good that you had an excellent and fulfilling experience in the guild you were in. I also had a great time for a while in a guild that was very similar – at least by the metrics you mention – to the one you describe. It was one of several formative influences that have shaped the way I RP today.

I’ve also had an excellent, fulfilling, self-developing experience in a guild that, while set firmly in the world of Azeroth, rarely has much to do with current content or main expansion storylines at all. Some other guilds have enjoyed years of what appears to be happy and enthusiastic member participation while focusing on performance- or venue-related themes. Have you spent much time in guilds that don’t adhere to the principles you outline here? Have you had many in-depth conversations with people who have? On what basis do you assert that a guild must parallel in-game content? And “must” in order to … what? Recruit? Survive? Fulfill the creative needs of any and all prospective members? Be ‘good’ according to some standard?

@Clawmane-wyrmrest-accord

Nowadays, I see a lot of RP involved in taverns (Darkshire), or standing in city streets (Murder Row). A lot of the interactions are centered around a few people perhaps driving a story, and it is often only known to a few people. Or, it’s tavern RP.

Don’t get me wrong-- tavern RP has its place. But it should be a bed for recruiting people into places that allow for discovery of budding guilds that are adhering to the aforementioned principles.

The way you phrase this seems to imply that you assume the people RPing in Darkshire and Murder Row aren’t in guilds and don’t also do guild-based storyline RP in addition to their tavern/walk-up RP. I expect that some of them aren’t and don’t. I’m also pretty sure that many of them are and do.

Furthermore, a few people driving a story that’s only known to a few people is often precisely what guild RP is; guild RP is often driven by DMs, and relative to the RP community’s whole population, any given guild really only recruits a few people. Are you sure that glimpses of guild RP aren’t what you’re looking at?

And what do you mean “a bed for recruiting people into places that allow for discovery of budding guilds”? What sort of places? Tavern RP is, itself, a place that allows for the discovery of budding guilds. Other such places exist and are great, but I don’t see why one such place should be intentionally demoted to the position of a feeder venue for others.

@Clawmane-wyrmrest-accord

But in every game that I’ve done RP in, tavern burnout is a thing. It’s the same stuff over and over again. Inevitably drama starts poking its head because of something that might have happened ICly, and ends up fracturing some of the RP community. Or worse, it simply disinterests people after a while.

This phrasing seems to imply that burnout, repetitiveness, community-fracturing drama over IC events, and eventual disinterest aren’t phenomena that occur in the course of guild RP. They are. These things happening with tavern RP isn’t evidence that tavern RP is the problem.

People burn out on tavern RP. People burn out on long-running storyline RP. People burn out on /roll 20 events. People burn out on specific characters and/or themes. People burn out on the game.

If somebody does one thing (tavern RP, storyline RP, a specific character’s RP, etc.) to the exclusion of all else for a long time and burns out on it, the specific thing they were doing isn’t the problem. Doing only one thing for a long time is the problem. And when you’re not doing one thing and one thing only for months or years on end, tavern RP can absolutely be a good and healthy part of a balanced RP diet. I love my deep, complex, long-running storylines, and I have also found that if I never step outside them and let a few random encounters add breadth to the world I’m playing in, they start to get narrow, bogged down, and stale.

Good communities come in a number of different forms. That we only see strangers when they’re in public doing public things doesn’t mean that they don’t also have houses in which they do non-public things sometimes. And all guilds conforming to a particular narrative pattern is unnecessary and would be counterproductive to there being communities for everyone to enjoy.

[Quelalar-wyrmrest-accord]

So… lots of thoughts here.

Lets start with the premise that all rp guilds should adhere to any singular strategy or theme or method. Uniequivicably false. At the end of the day, all RP can boil down to collaborative creative storytelling. What you find relatable, fun, or engaging can differ wildly from someone else. This is the equivalent of saying that all fiction books need to be told the same way. For example, every story needs to be an epic hero’s quest to save the world. Yes, there are plenty of examples of those being popular, but there are plenty of examples of the opposite. RomComs exist despite the epicness of Oysseous.

What you have to do when you are looking at methods for guilds to work is what is the end goal? If the end goal is to run a simple tavern and do slice-of-life stories with all the drama that may be invited, then socials are absolutely the way to go. If your goal is to slay dragons, save the monarch, and rescue the realm from certain destruction, then following a format like you have suggestion is probably closer to the goal.

I agree with many of the things Eledris already said. Such as the strange suggestion you imply that only slice-of-life/social events can cause burnout. Which again is false. It may not be the case for you, specifically Clawmane, however, these are very broad strokes you try to paint everyone with.

Ultimately…these are all works of fiction, there is no reason to put down anyone who is having harmless fun. As with any work of fiction and fantasy, there is no ‘right’ way to do all of this.

[Sef-wyrmrest-accord (Sef)]

It’s subjective. You can only derive the value from RP that you can derive.

For me, the game’s story has never been great but jumping into some IC chatter in a tavern to scratch whatever itch that is – for me it’s not a writing thing, more like acting – is about as fun as RP can get in this game for me.

[Norman-wyrmrest-accord]

@Clawmane-wyrmrest-accord

rich storypoint

what

what?

[Enekie-wyrmrest-accord (Enekie)]

I once roleplayed with an Orc and we were both detectives solving a case together and I think that’s what all RP should be.

[Kailarra-wyrmrest-accord]

meanwhile i’ve had nothing but bad experiences with flash-in-the-pan current content guilds and am kinda more here for the established slice of life guilds that last more than a single expansion.

i don’t really want to do storyline RP with more than 3-4 people. the kind of RP that turns my character into a background character in a roll20 event is kinda boring. if i’m just there to do some action and then get nothing out of it besides plot beats that the main story provides, I’m just going to play the actual game. turns out raiding and pvp are way more fun than RP’ing the raid and the pvp.

[Axiann-wyrmrest-accord (Axiann)]

I’ll chime in here.

I was thrilled to find out the details of Dragonflight, and its story has been a breath of fresh air for The Sunreavers because canonically, we can finally participate.

Legion was the first major expansion since the Guild’s founding in 2015. As it was centered around the Broken Isles, used Dalaran as a hub, canonically brought the Sunreavers back home and was lead by the Kirin Tor, we as a guild were able to fully immerse ourselves in the story.

I just wish my DM skills would have been better, but hey! I was not only a new DM but also role-player!

Battle for Azeroth is where things started to get challenging. As a neutral-aligned guild, the Sunreavers could not be on the front lines during the Fourth War. This meant we had to create our own storylines and campaigns, that ran parallel to the main story, for two years.

Then, when we outright refused to head into the Shadowlands, we faced the same challenges for another two years! Of course, this lead to the Year of the Scourge campaign and community, which was one of the best experiences ever.

Now, finally, we are able to be right there where the action is, and it looks like we’ll be able to during the next expansions as well, and I welcome it. For us, it works!

[Clawmane-wyrmrest-accord]

In the…

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