How to get deeper into rp?

Moon Guard
1

I’ve been roleplaying for years in WoW and before that used to get into some heavy rp storylines and manage a few communities outside the game. Though since starting rp in WoW most if into all of my rp has been very surface level and I feel I’ve not been able to (partly my own fault I’ll admit) get deeper into the larger rp scene as a whole.

I love playing villains and that’s provided me with quite a bit of rp, though as i mentioned earlier its very shallow surface level rp. TBH the thing i struggle with the most is just basic sort of calm slice of life rp, like interacting with other people in a public setting like idk having a character go get a drink or meal and have idle conversation. I feel like this is a big part of why im not getting past the surface of what rp has to offer, and it doesn’t help that I’m very socially awkward as a person and struggle to make characters act “normal“ as a result, because I don’t have experience in that department lol.

I’ve never joined guilds until it feels like recently, for the social awkward reasons mentioned above. I have however been forcing myself to try and connect and have joined a few guilds, with only one being one I liked enough to make connections in though it quickly slowed down do to random drama. Other guilds though have been overwhelming and confusing with ongoing campaigns and stories, where it feels a bit intimidating to jump in with no prior knowledge.

Frankly I love public walk-up rp though it’s very situational to get something fun and engaging that lasts long and I rarely make connections from it, and the latter again being mostly my fault I’ll admit.

Sometimes I’ll log on and get an urge to rp, and walk around but quickly just log off after a few rounds around rp hubs where I cant summon up the courage to approach others partly influenced by how my own characters might be written as I try to think up a reason for them to do so. Though I’ve found it helps to rp certain things like my character setting up a temporary shop to sell things, and more recently an idea I had was writing out a number of character objectives/quests for my character to accomplish.

Idk I feel it’s who you know in a lot of cases and I’ve tried haunting a few hotspots to try and get in but I’m just too unsociable despite my best efforts.

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I don’t RP, but I’ve heard that conflict can be very rewarding; villain RPers do seem to have a very rough time though. Whenever I see the adventurer’s plates in FFXIV I kind of think that WoW RP might benefit from something similar, something searchable, so that people can put up what their character is like and what they’re looking for to find one another more easily than hoping they bump into each other like billiards balls.

I know guilds are great for some people but I’ve been thinking that they might not be so great for others. I’ve always hoped that the community channels feature would help alleviate this, but it seems difficult to advertise and maintain.

This is something I’ve seen a lot of people say. They can do the public RP but the connections are so fleeting. I almost wonder if the switch to battletag friends instead of character-specific friends might be a part of it, or maybe a lot of it is discord. But as you mentioned, setting up hooks to make interactions stick is great.

Do you think say, putting out a slightly sinister undertone while selling stuff and just telling the person OOCly that they (and their friends) might have fun pursuing your villain might be fun for the both of you?

I wish you the best of luck, and hope things can improve.

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In my experience, I find my RP results tend to improve on a less-than-good character if I give them a cover of sorts. Pondering how a villainous character might go “Heh heh, I will DECEIVE THEM into being FRIENDS!” or somesuch can help flesh things out.

I understand why (at least, most posts about it that I’ve noticed) less-than-good characters tend to avoid walkup RP hubs, but I’ve had a delightful time giving certain characters public-facing covers that they have to maintain. Having that aspect built-in during character creation makes it much, much easier to expand the RP types available, as opposed to…Idk, a man’ari who still openly uses Fel and wants to fill the power vacuum left by Sargeras or something. As a bonus, this also helps ground the villain and make them more relatable.

I’ve also had a lot of luck recently posting RP ads in Discords. I am in some guilds and communities, but it’s also perfectly fine to post a RP ad of “LF single-encounter scenes” or something to that effect. Not every scene has to be life-changing or the beginning of a long and beaaaaautiful friendship. Sometimes it’s nice and neat to just get a response from someone interested and have two characters bump into each other, chat, and part ways.

My ren’dorei isn’t exactly a good person, and as a result of their Void infusing they have a deep appreciation for foodstuffs. The Void Hungers™ and all that. It doesn’t really help much, but it serves as a fantastic excuse for them to frequent establishments that provide baked goods.

There was (is? to my knowledge it’s not fixed) a recent bug in the Community feature where players can’t edit their community note - it just pops up a big ‘ol black box. The workaround ended up involving going to account settings (on the WEBSITE, not in game) and disabling…I think it was voice chat or something? Multi-dollar company. The state of the community function is very unfortunate, but also pretty much inferior in every way to Discord. It’d be neat if TRP added a ‘active RP, feel free to pop up’ tag that people could activate and scan for (where currently there’s only scanning for just profiles in general).

4

Pick axe. Shovel. Manametric Excavator.

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5

This is the method that works for me, and has reliably worked for me for a million years because I am an old. Your mileage may vary. It takes time and patience and a lot of…yes…social RP, to start.

  • STEP ONE - Identify who you want to do stuff with. Read profiles, watch people RP, this is your time to be choosy. See who shows up regularly around when you do. See whose styles and interests match yours. See who’s got interesting stuff going on but doesn’t already seem overwhelmed.
  • STEP TWO - Meet people! Focused primarily on the targets that you’ve identified, but now is when you fire a broad cannon and open yourself up for approach in turn. Before you get to dessert, first you must eat your vegetables. This is difficult to do on a standoffish or overtly evil character so the easymode version is to make a character who is social. Someone with a genuine interest in other people, with a reason to approach them. This is your TROJAN HORSE character in which multitudes of nonsense lies. Resist the temptation to exposition your entire backstory for fear that you won’t see them again and you just want to get it all out there. Keep it light with maybe just a few drips of hints of other stuff going on.
  • STEP THREE - As you do social RP, start to float some of your plot hooks. Your character escaped from an evil wizard. Your character is looking for lost family. Your character has a skill that the other character needs but needs a reagent located in a dangerous place. Whatever story it is that you’re interested in exploring. Start setting up your villain character in vague mentions as a threat, as scary, as a thorn in your side. Also be open to the other people’s hooks. The best arrangement is a sort of “Today for you, tomorrow for me” sort of thing where you also get involved with their nonsense that they’re introducing. The best of all scenarios is when you find ways to intertwine all of the nonsense, even. Maybe your villain knows their villain. Maybe your villain caused their tragedy hook. Maybe their curse was created by your villain. These things can be subtly seeded, or just plain hashed out in OOC discussion!
  • STEP FOUR - Start to plan stuff with those people! Bring your villain around, then it’s like DUN DUN DUUUUUN, I know that guy, oh no! Or hey, let’s go on an adventure to try and get this thing I need, or I need help going to kill this thing, etc. And start to do THEIR stuff too, have your character help them with their hooks. Start small and low stakes, but as time goes on now you have all this shared history and lore to build from.

And now…you’ve got a regular RP group that you can do detailed long term stories with! :tada:

It’s worth a note that a shortcut to some of this is just to join a guild, but unfortunately a guild isn’t necessarily filled with people that you’ll gel with unless you make the guild, which takes a lot of time and structure and also if you’re just out blind recruiting may end up with people who don’t like or get along with each other. I, personally, have had more success with just creating a small group of friends with new additions over time.

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Deeper RP requires teammates - at least one consenting and participating other person - in my limited experience. Finding that person and/or people will be the challenge.

I like telling stories and WoW RP is a very good medium for that. Walk-up is FUN, but it generally stays at surface level because the players in these interaction are winging it without knowing the player across from them. Walk-up gets deeper when you have these spontaneous interactions on a regular basis with the same people or when a group working with a planned storyline or dynamic pulls you into their RP via walkup and your character gets folded in.

The villain aspect means that the relationship between your character and the one across from you will be antagonistic on some level (which some players don’t enjoy), and it keeps you at an emotional arm’s length. To go deeper with a villain arc, you would need consent and input and participation from the other player, and this requires OOC discussion most of the time.

In my real life, I am a social anxiety machine like a lot of other people who participate in RP. That said, for deep stories, you need other players.

The other potential solution is that either you or another player become a DM of sorts, having written out the idea of what your story or campaign will look like and what direction you want it to go in. You can find walkup partners who will go along if you have a talent for leading the story and can adapt well to the independent stranger’s responses and suggestions.

Even in that scenario, you gotta find other people and get them onboard. It’s about chemistry and writing style and knowing your character well enough to roll with the changes that get introduced by others.

Finding a small group of 1-3 other players who want to RP the same kind of stories with you is really the key to unlocking depth. Our characters are all being driven by people behind those keyboards, and deeper storylines require participants who know at least a bit about what’s going on with enthusiastic consent to play along.

Edited to add:

This is the most important part, and it’s how you find “your people.”

What I found is that even if the people I enjoyed walkup with were onboard, going deeper requires the PLAYER, not just the character, to be someone you gel with OOC. There is an absolutely amazing guild full of really great and interesting people who RP the same type of stories I wanted to RP with, but the way they organize and do things was not a fit for my personality and gameplay preferences…and they are an established group that has their own way of doing things and long-standing OOC friendships and dynamics that I didn’t fit into.

That’s just how it can pan out because people are humans and the most important ingredient in deep RP storylines is healthy OOC communication, consent, and agreement. That’s the hard part, but it’s also the most rewarding part. It’s worth the discomfort, in my experience, to send out those tells in /w to the people you find yourself vibing with in walkup.

I had the BEST story campaign I’ve ever RP’d in any game or medium last year with two other people. It was so fun and so engaging. Man, I miss those guys (Swan and Jean…you two are just the best story I ever played through in this game. /hugs).

It required us to coordinate with each other OOC, and I don’t see any way around that if you want to dive into layered, lengthy, and meaningful campaigns together.

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