This has been a nagging thought for me. For the past few… well, years, I guess, I’ve become reclusive from roleplaying. It’s not that I shy away from it or dislike it, but I’ve started to feel like I just can’t write well anymore.
Even in casual roleplay, I get so anxious/nervous about responding that I overthink everything. I’m afraid (and often believe) every response I do is utter crap. So! This brings me to my question for you, Wyrmrest Accordians.
How do you handle roleplay anxieties? What works best for you? What doesn’t work at all?
I’m in two online D&D groups right now and good friends with everyone in both, but when I started with them I was just as anxious. I just had to get acclimated to the group and put myself out there. Same for FFXIV, though I did a little lurking first. I haven’t tried it myself, but maybe you could find someone here willing to do some more casual 1x1 RP and try to get confidence back thataway. I’m unsubbed and uninstalled the B-net client but if you ever wanted to do something over discord you can PM me, I’m TAN#4625.
Would starting small & private help? I’ve found that has helped make some of my own anxiety more manageable-- if I can’t convince myself that I’m not going to sound like a complete imbecile, then I’ll at least allow myself to look foolish in front of people I like and trust.
This is going to sound really sarcastic, but my advice is to mostly stop doing this.
I realized this when I got the idea that I should be playing my character as a person rather than a character. In most of our day-to-day lives, we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what we say or do. The way we interact with other people is mostly cerebral; under most circumstances, it takes us less than a second to form a response if we’re spoken to. Therefore, from a certain point of view, the speech and actions our characters take are more authentic the less thought is put into them.
So I guess my advice is to experiment with saying basically the first thing that comes to mind. That way you don’t have time to be anxious! But I think that’s also sort of a workaround.
I guess this begs the question: what do you think is so bad about your writing?
Grammar and spelling is basically a mechanical skill that you improve at just by doing it a lot and maybe getting some addons to help. If it’s a matter of not liking the stories you create, I’m a big advocate of “identify the stuff you like, then put it into your RP.”
I’m in a weird place right now; I’ve always been afraid to screw up and make a fool out of myself in rp, but I’m trying to put it behind me now.
Due to various reasons, over the years I became reclusive and only RPed with friends, 1 on 1 or the three/four of us if we all managed to be online at the same time.
That being said, so you have a little bit of background knowledge…
The most important thing is that, you can’t do wrong.
Your character, only exists in your mind.
Nobody can tell if you’re ‘RPing wrong’ (unless it’s so severely OOC cough Lillian & Rexxar cough) so.
Try and take it easy.
Nobody can read your mind and judge you for it.
It’s also OK to revise a character after years, if you feel like you want to change them a bit.
I do not have an awful lot of great advice for this - I am much the same. What has helped a bit is making myself admit to people that I’m anxious - the decent folks have been understanding, and sometimes go “omg me too” at me, the people that act like I’m being stupid by being anxious are evidently better for me to not bother with.
Also, I’ve been RPing since 2002, I’ve never stopped being a bit anxious, and I am not remotely the greatest writer, but that time spent has taught me one thing about people’s writing: very few people are consistently confident in their own writing. Usually when someone I’m friends with says they’re terrible at writing/RPing I’m like WHAT! YOU ARE NOT.
And the same keeps happening to me, so I guess it’s true of me too.
Sometimes I feel this too. I’m invested in my characters and I want to do them justice when playing them. When I feel this bog of anxiety and still want to RP, I’ll just make a new character and do whatever thought enters my head. The stress of messing up a character I’ve established is gone and I can focus on just having fun.
I’ve actually had points where I liked the character enough to keep them, even.
I actually write almost entirely /say’s. I sometimes pepper in a few emotes and /me’s, but it’s mostly just dialog. It allows me to quit worrying about how good my prose is, shifting focus to how they communicate instead. I take roleplaying in WoW more as improv acting than prose, and I guess I’m just more comfortable with improv.
Course, I’m normally just not an anxious person. Except! When I’m GM’ing a tabletop RPG. Every now and then, I get worried because I’ve procrastinated, haven’t prepared every avenue the players may go down, my plot hooks might be boring and lame, my characters might be stale and forgettable, or… something like that.
Fact is, you’re always your own worst critic. Most of the time, it’s actually not nearly as bad as you think it is and everyone has a great time anyway. I’ve reinvented my character in some way at least three times since her creation in WoD.
Most of the good rpers I know hate reading walls of text. Don’t worry so much about the prose. Let your character breathe. In rl we see what you do & hear what you say. That’s it. Riffing off each other, not taking turns composing symphonies. RP - imho - is meant to be jazz.
Not thinking about it is probably one of the best things you can do for RP. Just put yourself into the mind of your character - think like they would. Your first thought that comes to mind as a response is, as suggested above, probably one of the best ones if you’re immersed into your character well.
Otherwise, the best way to get over a fear is to expose yourself to it. Force yourself to do it and eventually it’ll become easier to manage - the anxiety may even go away entirely.
I’m a performing artist so I don’t really get the stage fright effect that some get, but I do understand it.
My advice would be more for people that are interacting with those who have some anxiety about it. Make sure you’re being patient, and as reassuring as you can be without patronizing them. Keep advice constructive, and make sure to point out what they’re doing right, also. I’ve found it really helpful for newcomers, and makes them feel very welcome.
Roleplaying is a kind of performance. People in the thread have already likened it to improvised acting, jazz, game mastering, etc.
So having a better understanding of just how the arts and creative process works may help you feel more comfortable about what’s going on. I like Extra Credits, Patrick Willems, and Lindsey Ellis on Youtube. TvTropes and Springhole. Just to name stuff off the top of my head.
Knowing your character, what you want out of RP (or life in general) and having a sense of self also helps. You have to do what you enjoy and enjoy what you do. Not just in RP, but in life in general.
Finally, remember that when you’re up there performing, you’ve already taken the biggest step. Most people can’t even work up the nerve to get onto the stage. If it weren’t for you, everyone would be sitting around and twiddling their thumbs.
There’s a lot of great advice here already so I’m giong to swerve in a weird new direction:
Learn to recognize the types of players that undermine others’ confidence.
Nearly everybody here is an amateur. The fact that you could conceivably write better shouldn’t be putting anyone off, because they could be doing better, too. But some players are going to slather you with praise if you RP the way they want, and nitpick your every emote if you don’t. Nobody needs that.
Quite simply, put yourself into your character’s shoes and let things go from there. Don’t think, “What do I make my character say…” Instead think, “Well, they said this. My experiences in life have taught me to reply with…”
What I like to do is roll in with an alt with a near empty description and just freeball
A lot of the time it’s either boring or a disaster but it makes you appreciate the development and room for possibility that your actual character has in comparison
I don’t get nervous so much as afflicted with a brain fog that keeps me from figuring out what my character would do or how to phrase an emote
engaging RP is 35% writing quality and 65% characters actually doing interesting things in interesting places. A lot of people fluff up their emotes without characterizing at all. I think the most important thing for RP confidence is knowing your character’s constant goal or driving force. If your reason for being somewhere is barely anything you’re going to feel adrift
I was gonna write a response, but this took the words right out of my mouth.
Your RP character is a person. An imaginary person, sure. But they don’t need to act in complex ways. If in doubt, act natural and just keep your character’s motives at the back of your mind!
Sad but true. There are some obnoxiously delusional people who believe you can win rp. Last I checked there’s no currency to buy cool mogs, no rep to earn with npc factions, or any other way to score rp. There’s either Fun or Not Fun.
“I’m gonna have fun by spoiling yours on purpose” is a Griefer thing, not an RPer thing.
Sometimes causing difficulties is accidental - a polite whisper can clear that up. If it’s done on purpose you’re well within your rights to ignore someone.
On a practical level - find someone who seems bold & ask them to chaperone you. Go rp with you in a larger group, let you do your thing, whisper advice, set an example, and deflect difficulties as needed.
So I’ve been RPing for about seven years now and I could go on and on about the worries I have when roleplaying and what I do to combat them, but I don’t think anyone wants to read that LOL so I’ll to keep it as short as I can.
One thing I’ve found that works for me is that when I make a character I make sure to include a little aspect of myself in that character whether it be a personality trait or some habit; I find by allowing myself to have a part in common with that character I can really put myself into the mindset without having to think too hard about it because it’s already something that I have experience with.
And If you’re bothered by your writing itself I promise no one is really going to be mad or think less of you if you can’t the next big poet or something. If you’re sincerely trying your best and you happen to make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world. We can’t all type perfectly all the time. There’s a reason people make rough drafts of essays; and if you think about it, in real life (and in role play) you don’t usually have time to review your words. so it’s inevitable you’ll make a mistake. But you’re not alone in this, everyone else makes them too! ^^
I’m not sure if this is any help or not? Sorry 'bout that lol just thought I would put in my two cents.
Since there are so many wonderful comments, I won’t try to blast everyone’s notifications. Instead I will say this: thank you. Sincerely. All of this is sound advice that, while perhaps simple in theory, can be difficult to put into practice. Thank you all for reaching out to not only me, but to any others that might be experiencing similar issues.
It’s also warming to see I’m not the only one that deals with similar issues, despite X amount of years roleplaying and what not. It is about time I start roleplaying without thinking, let alone roleplaying what makes me excited rather than what others will think is exciting. It sounds silly to admit that, but that’s been a driving factor for a few of my characters that, unsurprisingly, pewter out.
In any case, thank you all again. I truly appreciate the time you spent replying to this perhaps embarrassing Warcraft forum post.
![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
