RP Event Question

Wyrmrest Accord
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First I want to preface this by saying I don’t mean to be critical of anyone’s story or writing or how they enjoy themselves in this or other RPGs. This question is honestly just in good faith and to help me learn and hopefully maybe even enjoy RP more.

Across all kinds of RPGs, from WoW to FFXIV to ESO, it seems the majority of regular events are quite mundane things. Coffee shops and tea houses. Beach parties and night clubs.

And my question is why?

For me, what appeals to me about RP is playing a role you don’t get to play in real life very much or at all. To be an adventurer, or a superhero, or even something that’s not totally fictional. I’ve been a gumshoe detective or a diplomat or a gangster, etc, on forum RPs and such before. I’m also not saying RP has to be “gogogogo”, some of the more fun D&D sessions in my life have been the party chatting in a tavern about their next move, or swindling some townsfolk in really low-stakes hustles not related to the story at all, etc. But I just suppose I am kind of mystified by the popularity of these events and this style of RP.

My question isn’t saying that its wrong to have those kind of events and enjoy them. By all means play how you want. But these sorts of things seem wildly popular, even perhaps the majority of public events.

Is it just because they’re kind of easier to run?

Again my intent is not to pass judgment or cause any offense. Indeed, ideally I’d like to know more about the appeal so I could maybe see this style of RP in a new light and get interested in taking part.

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It requires very few assumptions to be placed upon your intended audience.

Yes, you could make an event out of a demon-slaying expedition to Felwood… but realistically, that is likely to catch the interest of a subset of a subset of the community.

At least on WrA, the events you are talking about are found primarily in guilds, where those assumptions are automatically screened for in the joining process. Is there a significant difference between advertising for said demon-slaying expedition to Felwood as opposed to advertising for a Night Elf themed guild with an interest in restoring the corrupted places of Kalimdor?

I would say no, except that the latter is more directly going to lead to building a community with the kind of RP you are interested in as opposed to a one off event, which is why you see these themes advertised for in guilds and not typically as events.

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Sometimes you want the heart-pumping thrill of killing a dragon and saving the world.

Sometimes you had a long day and want to relax in a social setting.

Both of these scenarios also flex two different skill types for characters. There’s some characters made for combat, others made for socializing, and others who are balanced between both. It can also be fun to see what different characters do in environments they don’t usually hang around in, but that’s not /usually/ the target demographic of the tea house crowd.

Uh, balance in all things, I guess?

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It can be really difficult to organize and manage an adventure-style event, even in a guild. Most community-oriented events aim to offer what guilds by themselves usually can’t / don’t, which is interaction outside of your friend group and guild. My personal favorite style of event is the excessively popular market event. Markets are very easy to run, and offer a ton of interaction with other people. I get to go out and meet people I don’t usually, all while having an IC reason to walk up to people.

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The nature of opening your event to the public comes with it several realites that all organizers need to address, chiefly:

  • Your event will be attended by a wide variety of characters,
  • Played by a wide variety of people,
  • With a wide variety of schedules,
  • With a varying ability to play nice with other stangers.

It’s not impossible to run non-mundane events under these circumstances, but it comes with a lot of headaches. What if you don’t have the same people show up week-to-week, so the people solving your murder mystery have no idea what’s going on? What if you run a combat event and one of the combatants just like, refuses to lose, under any circumstance? If you run an event that involves working with the guards or cops, doesn’t that inherently exclude criminal or otherwise Chaotic characters?

Your average tavern doesn’t have these problems. People can come in and out as they please, continuity is up to the participants, there’s little opportunity for one-upmanship outside of like, drinking contests, and it’s a place that all characters can hang out. The reason they’re so popular is that, if your goal is “run a popular, successful event,” something like a tavern or a beach party is as good bang for buck as you can get.

We could also get into the tendency I’ve observed for roleplayers in MMOs to inhabit their characters as opposed to write their characters, which gives them a higher tolerance if not outright craving for more “slice of life” stuff, but people tend to find my waxing poetic about roleplayer psychology to be tedious, I think.

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No no, continue. Roleplayer psychology is fascinating. Heck maybe we could make a whole thread about it.

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i feel really attacked right now

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So basically the point is to serve as a “you meet at a tavern…”-type moment, and folks just wanted to switch up the tavern? I can get with that, that’s cool. Even though I think I would still prefer a Prancing Pony kind of place.

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It’s an easy, relatable setting in which to be social with other people, learn about other roleplayers in your community, and your character can be from almost any walk of life. Everyone needs R and R. Lots of large RP events can be easily approached by a hardened merc who is just looking to get some good food, or a shy bookworm who is looking to get out of the mage tower for a night if they are as simple as a party or celebration.

Sometimes, the RP behind running these can be fun, too. I run a guild that does plays and performances that actually get talked about by folks ICly, and it’s a lot of fun!

Maybe there’s a surplus here and there, but there’s plenty of events that are combat or adventure based, too. Just that, usually that sort of RP is done with a guild or group you trust, rather than random people, where party settings are just easier to relax in and make friends.

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Let’s say you are the guardian to 6 little cats.

In one scenario, you’re simply putting food in the cat dishes. The cats come along, eat their vittles, mingle and play with the other cats and then they go and do something else.

That was your big plan. It will be successful every single time and everyone wins.

In the other scenario, you have made the mistake of planning ‘take a trip to the vet day’ for all six cats at once. Your plan is to round them up, place them in their carriers, pile them into the car and be there by 0900 on the dot.

That was your big plan. You’ll fail because not all of them will likely cooperate and then you’ll just be frustrated that it didn’t work.

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If I had to guess… in a word: simplicity.

RP gets insanely complex when you start getting into the “big adventure” kind of things. Talking to a stranger in a tavern RP event is, typically, much the same all over the place. There’s different interpretations of lore and current events, but generally these don’t even come up and so don’t cause much of a fuss.

When you start running big adventure RPs, especially when there’s opponents to fight, puzzles to solve, etc… It gets more complex.

First of all, it’s hard to get RPers to agree. Take combat for instance. Some people might LOVE roll combat. Others might prefer RP PvP. Still others might prefer just to emote and see how it plays out. Each of these come with strengths and weaknesses. Roll combat is quite fair and balanced, but can get silly when Farmer Bill is consistently getting better rolls than Highly-Skilled-Battlemage Jill, which leads to Bill’s pitchfork cutting down legions of orcs while Jill’s spells consistently fizzle out. RP-PvP is quick, fun and active, but only really works in certain situations, and can be difficult for people who are playing alts to really feel successful at. Emote combat is the most free in that your discernment/idea of your character informs your choices… but inevitably some people choose to exploit that by making their character matrix-dodge everything while throwing nuclear weapons at their enemies. And yet people get REALLY into their choices. Public combat events could get confusing quickly if people insist on doing it their own way, and could get tense OOC if people are complaining. This problem arises less in the tavern, when people are just talking.

Lore is another matter. Inevitably you’ll find godmodders, powergamers and the like out there in the world… and again people have different philosophies on this. Some people think a good RP character is an uneducated dirt farmer who doesn’t know what in tarnation a fork is for. Some people think a good RP character is super overpowered and owns everyone around them just for kicks… and there’s everything in the middle along that spectrum. Furthermore there’s people who adhere very strongly to the lore and others who bring their own headcanons in… and there’s yet others who ignore or recreate parts of the lore entirely. This problem arises less in the tavern when people are just talking.

Finally, for a big story-driven event… someone needs to organise it. Someone needs to DM, and decide what’s going on. Who are the threats? What’s happening out there in the world? Someone tends to dictate that, to set the scene. For tavern RP, you don’t need that. We all know how it works. Order beer, chat to folks, done. It’s a capital city so most of us have characters who are able to be there for some reason, which can vary out in the wider world… In short it’s simpler just to show up at a tavern, or even a tavern-style-event where the event organiser more or less says “Hey come here we’re RPing as vendors” rather than DMs a d20 event or something.

In short, it’s simply easier to do tavern-style RP, and so people tend to.

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well said for an aussie - i assume half of ur life is a real life d20 event

like going to maccas, roll d20 to see if you encounter a swarm of giant man eating serpents or not

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I still maintain our rep is exaggerated. We have some deadly spiders and snakes sure, but tbh I’d rather fight them than a friggen BEAR. Bears are HUGE

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you literally have a tiny n’zoth in your reef that paralyzes people until they join it in a watery, abyssal grave

even ur small creatures are deadly

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idk bro during the quarantine i thought RP’ing about going to a coffee shop and talking to people was definitely RP’ing a magical adventure i could never have.

edit for real answer: because large story-driven events are really a pain to run. If you’re running them for a group of more than 5-6 people, it runs off the rails really fast and then no one has spotlight or screentime. tavern events are easier to manage if you’re not limiting the people who can join the story.

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Everyone’s already given some good examples as to why big server events combat/action/adventure events aren’t more common.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist! There’s a fighting tournament gong down today in just a couple of hours!

And in a couple of weeks, there’s going to be a days long hunting competition. Again, open to everyone.

There’s a monthly Draenei wrestling tournament.

And for the past couple of months, there’s been an ongoing RP-PvP campaign.

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Don’t forget Year of the Scourge, Tammy!

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You stay out of this, possibly Scourgey duskwood ghostman!

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Oh don’t worry, I’m not Scourge. I’m one of those elite ghosts you find in the Karazhan ballroom.

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Tell your boss to drop my stupid enchant transmogs. :B

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