I miss the old days (pre-2010) of RP when it was less weekly event oriented and more story/plot (without events and dice rolls) oriented. Now, those events are cool and stuff and I absolutely appreciate the thought and time that goes into them… but for me, standing there listening to someone talk and /clapping or /nodding at the appropriate times is a little boring. I tend to tab out and reading the news instead.
So it makes breaking into any RP very, very difficult for someone like me, since the usual advice is “go to some events”.
Well, the events are definitely enjoyable for some folks, but I haven’t found them to be a great way to “break into RP” considering you’re typically there listening to someone tell a story or speak about magical philosophy or history of such-and-such people, etc.
I guess it depends on the event really. Events give characters a reason to all be at certain place at a certain time, and can give a back drop for RP. Which are some of the reasons they are suggested to new Rpers. You can people watch to see how others RP, and interact as much or as little as you are comfortable with and not seem out of place. “Back in the day” the events I liked to do weren’t too structured so people would have a chance to RP - we would provide the reason, they would provide the RP.
I mostly agree. While I’ve had some good RP at dice roll events, 95% of the time it feels way to single-player to me. Reason being is most of the time everyone is usually waiting around for their turn to roll all while listening to a DM narrate, making it harder for the characters to RP among each other. The biggest appeal of RPing for me is being able to interact with other characters on Azeroth via my character in real time, and /roll events abolish this kind of interaction, imo.
Best RP I’ve had have usually been events that used emote combat and weren’t overly structured. I miss those types of events a lot.
We just used to either emote fight it out, duel, or do a /random roll based on character level. For example, if a character’s level was 20, they rolled /random 20. It was a LOT quicker than the drawn-out dice system.
My only problem with this weird RPG dice and injury system everyone seems to use is people broadcast that they’re visibly injured and below full health, and if I’m RPing a healer / surgeon I’m gonna want to heal or surg but apparently it doesn’t count outside of the event or game so okay.
Gnomish Medical Mechanica Corps want to RP too. >:|
I think it comes back to the classic sort of D&D debate. I don’t mind roll systems, but I despise any RP event/guild/system where the vast majority of your time is spent rolling, and not writing. I don’t RP to play somebody’s made-up game system.
I’ve also run into lots of guilds that tie player power into guild activity, which, on one level I get, but on the other… Yikes?
Agreed. When all the battlefield injuries are solved with a dice roll it makes the RP stale. At that point you’re playing a game, not writing out a story with another player.
I legitimately feel that story/event style RP is probably best limited to small groups, due to the nature of it. Large guilds can make it difficult to do highly interactive RP, as one starts to see in d&d sessions when they get bigger than 5 people. That’s kinda why large story-based guilds do put me off. Though, admittedly, I do really like events where people share stories and talents and maybe lore insights. It’s neat to see how people come up with things.
But yeah I get what you’re saying OP, but really just explaining that the more people in an event, the more you have to railroad it. I hated when a storyline I was playing with a few friends became a guild storyline, it felt like my character suddenly had no input. But because it was now a story involving lots of people, it kinda had to be that way.
The People on this server could learn to CHILL OUT. All people do is fight, call out, and look for receipts and it’s not conductive to a healthy environment. Like we all would like to interact with someone with the same values as us but I cannot vet every person that so much as glances in my direction.
Every new interaction should not begin with the question “Is this person problematic?” Are YOU? Chances are other people are no more or less awful than you are, we can start giving people the benefit of the doubt. Especially when you take into consideration that the famous jerks on this server are famous for a reason.
And while I think somone being rude occasionally isn’t grounds to cancel someone, this server needs to have a higher bar than ‘Not racist/homophobic/transphobic’ as a reason for not wanting to interact with someone. That Orc doesn’t have to be a misogynist for you to dislike him. You can just admit the Dude’s really annoying and move on with your day.
Because in-game levels are dumb, given that a lot of the threats are pretty much the same as threats we’ve faced before… Like, how are Quillboar so much more powerful on Kul’tiras when they’re using the same magic?
The Lich King was a potentially world ending opponent… but there’s a list of Virmen that could down him like two minutes.
Ragnaros, in his home plane, is apparently weaker than a naga soldier.
The Nightmare Dragons could be beaten by a naked Stormwind Guard.
Azuregos is a joke to WoD orcs, but was a struggle for both Alliance and Horde for a few years.
I can walk my orc out into Hellfire Peninsula with roided up fel orcs and dance naked while they stab, cut, and pummel me and my natural health regeneration will make sure I have 100% health constantly… But then I can go to Kul’tiras and get bodied by a trogg with a rusty fork.
This is why I’m so staunchly against dueling. It’s dumb and makes as little sense as rolling without modifiers. It’s more of a gauge of which class is better, who has stayed on top of PvP, and who understands their class.
Buuuuuut…
Rolling is also horrifically useless most of the time. Without a system more complicated for people to bother with and zero moderation (because it’d be near impossible to do and completely impossible to get people to agree) we’re left with flat 20’s. Which put into account f***-all about what your character has done or what they’re good at.
This is why it’s so hard for me to find a guild. Luckily the Sons are super laid back and health ends up resetting for the next event anyway? So it’d be pretty cool to have a reason for that. I love healers coming up to Aka through the week and helping him out.
Server Event RP that doesn’t just result in “story/lecture time” takes 100000x more effort to run. If what a majority of people are saying is true and that the server has lost quite a lot of activity due to BfA and End-Of-Expansion blues, then there’s a much smaller pool of willingness to run these types of events especially now.
I remember them being run frequently during Cataclysm, semi-frequently during Mists and very rarely during Legion. I can understand why, because trying to get RPers to all stand together and not “turn the dial up to 11” in a server wide event is like herding cats. As someone who’s run an event that ended up having a little over 70 people arrive before, it takes so much effort and organization that completely drained me for a few weeks afterword (but it was kinda super fun to run a pirate/underground meet and greet). I can’t imagine doing anything even remotely LARGER, that terrifies me greatly.
Not even INCLUDING the amount of complaints I got about rude people who attended the event and people who just straight up didn’t like each other not liking that the other was attending the event.
Yeah, I can imagine easily why people don’t want to run these interactive server wide events anymore.
I actually just finished hosting an event for my guild last night so this is pretty fresh on my mind. The way I see it, RP isn’t DnD. It’s a bit more writing centric, and (hopefully) everyone is in it to write a good story together.
So I just let people do what they want and use /roll 20 as a very loose addition of randomness to the event. Health isn’t a case of who “wins” or not but how injured someone becomes, because that’s going to be seen, and dealt with, during casual RP later.
So basically keep your eyes peeled for people more focused on collaberating something interesting instead of winning events. They’re out there. I found em myself.
This isn’t directed at you per se, you’re just the person that voiced the opinion at the moment. Feel free to respond if you’d like though.
I see this opinion espoused frequently. I am genuinely curious, why do you pay to play the game if you plan on ignoring all the game mechanics? There are tons of RP forums, chats, roll 20, and whatnot where you can RP without the constraints of WoW’s game mechanics without paying $15 a month to do it. No judgement on whatever the answer is, I’m just curious.
People like to do multiple things in the game. I casually do raids and mythic+ with the very occasional random BG. I also enjoy collecting stuff even if it doesn’t affect RP.
Levels and gear are just so arbitrary in RP. If someone had Ashbringer equipped at 110 and fought a dude with a pitchfork mogged at 120, they’d lose. But all lore would dictate they ought to win that.
That’s why I ignore game mechanic power, at least. Plus why gatekeep someone from RPing something they want until they’re geared for mythics?
