What common (or less so) RP tropes do you see that really bug you?
I’m kind of a lore stickler (a habit I’m trying to wear down so I’m a bit more open). It still irks me when I see someone RP a death knight full of emotion, especially positivity. You’re undead, dude, with an added curse that makes you suffer if you aren’t inflicting pain. Warmly smiling and having a grand time with your pals isn’t really in your wheelhouse.
And I hate the folks who insist on you having to play your class to fit the pre-prescribed fantasy blizzard assigns. You rolled a monk but want to RP as being more of a hunter? Go for it, so long as you’re not breaking the lore. Play a character, not a class!
Nothing really bugs me as I tend to watch roleplay. If one thing did irk me it’d be being ignored or not acknowledged. Not sure why that rubs me the wrong way but it does. Other than that you could be the second coming of Deathwing for all I care so long as you’re cool beans then your RP is fine in my book.
Anything out-of-universe makes me really mad. Met someone RPing a Time Lord once. Ugh. xD
I think other than that though it’d be powergaming/godmodding. I always roll my eyes a little when someone walks up to me saying they’re the big hero who has been ICly involved in every raid, who personally knew the identity of Lich King Bolvar and were happy to share, who in a fight dodge every attack and unleash powers of pure obliteration on their enemies.
I gotta admit my interpretation of the lore is that DKs still feel emotion, at least in some cases. They have some significant handicaps, like the need to cause suffering, which probably makes it unlikely they’re down in the tavern getting drunk with their mates and having a laugh… but they’re not robots. Thassarian feels love for his sister, outrage that she was mind controlled. He was willing to betray his nation to forge a temporary peace with his best friend, and dedicate his unlife to freeing said friend from prison. Idk seems like he has emotion to me.
That said I do feel the idea of many DKs RPing as if there’s no consequences of being a DK. Especially the pregnant ones. Ugh.
Me on my smiley Death Knight humming cheerful tunes as I murder the heck out of these fish which I plan to make into a delicious pickled desert for all my friends.
i will point out that having trauma doesn’t mean you’re miserable all the time-- signed someone with ptsd. and death knights have definitely been traumatized.
(also shout out for liotuse pointing out that u literally cannot win as a dk RP’er lmao)
that being said yeah I RP in WoW to RP in WoW. I would rather not interact with crossover characters. power to you if you do, especially since there aren’t a lot of sandbox RPs anymore, but I keep my RPs separate. WoW is for WoW RP, my crossover RP is for canons from all genres, and my dragon rider RP is for dragons.
however if you’re playing anything that fits within wow’s lore and we have a reason to RP together, I probably will play with you.
Your two examples seem directly contradictory tbh, because stoic unfeeling DKs is part of Blizzard’s pre-prescribed fantasy. I have a DK that’s actually a priest of Mueh’zala, and he’s perfectly capable of enjoying a night out.
Anyways a common RP trope that annoys me is gnomes going off and gnoming.
I’m 100% sincere when I say this: I was very serious about my answer and if people make it out to be about anyone else’s answer in this thread… well, then…
Spot-light hogging RPers who cannot accept that yes, occasionally, you have to lose and/or give up that spotlight so everyone else can have some fun.
I just can’t get behind being in a role-play situation where the involved parties are so dead-set on destroying everything the other has built, killing each other’s friends and families and undermining every happy thing the other has going. I’ve been a bit-player in big, sweeping stories and I greatly enjoy being the side-character who occasionally gets to do something cool and is generally helpful, but almost every time, at least two or three people will struggle with each other for the spot-light and rather than either choosing to join a different RP or try to share the spot-light, they’ll suddenly lock horns and the whole story can descend into them actively trying to bend each other over.
And inevitably they either have to get bumped out of the RP or everybody else bails because it just becomes an ever-increasingly hostile game of “I shot you!” “No I dodged!” “No I have magic seeking bullets!” “No I have supernatural reflexes!” and it just becomes the most un-fun thing to deal with.
I think the only ‘fun’ thing was a pair of Rogues who ended up straight-up dueling to the tune of Duel of the Fates getting so ragey they guilt the guild when the entire group just up and quietly moved to the other side of Teldrassil to continue the session rather than deal with their edge-lord nonsense, and this Discord just blew right up with these two screaming at us that we abandoned them and the rest of the guild pointing out we were trying to IC plot out a viable strategy for a funding event for war-orphans and their hatred for each other drove them to start trying to tear up the district trying to kill each other, yes we’re just gonna go “aight I’ma head out” when they pull that .
Most of my gripes are OOC grievances with playstyles and preferences like: wallflowers who complain about not getting RP but never walk up or self-insert characters that become upset OOC if any antagonism is presented ICly.
In terms of tropes, hmm… honestly I’m kind of sick of suave, smooth-talking rogues and thieves that secretly have hearts of gold. I’d love to see some ruthlessness! Even if they’re only presenting as charming rogues and are actually total dbags that are trying to get their jobs done as efficiently as possible, knowing that they can use the romance trope of handsome rogue to get away with anything.
I also really hate the shy, pure church-goer type blood elf confessor. Maaaan, it’s Silvermoon. If someone’s confessing any sins, they’ve probably got the trashiest things going on and that confessor has heard some absolutely HEINOUS things being said. Ain’t no one getting blushy and cute because extra-martial activities were mentioned. Stories of cheating probably don’t even rate.
Excuse me, my head is plainly visible, whereas your head is just a rumor at this point.
Canon, probably: Ezekiel is just trying to distract people so they don’t notice, and so that people don’t kill her for her flying horse every Halloween.
It’s a small annoyance, but overuse of ellipses. It makes your character sound like they either have zero confidence, or are deliberately putting on the pity points to manipulate a situation.
.