getting-started-with-rp
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Storyboard: Getting into the scene
So, I lied. While I had originally been planning on something different for this week's column, I had a new topic more or less thrown to my doorstep from Bio Break. It's all well and good to talk about roleplaying as if everyone has been doing it since small times, but there are plenty of players with a vague curiosity who have never tried it out. For them, roleplaying is like heroin, vaguely promising a good time while always seeming dangerous, with the failures so publicly visible that... You know, I'm dropping that analogy right now before it starts looking terrifyingly appropriate. The point is that people are interested who aren't sure quite where to start. Thus, we're taking this week to put together a few things that help make it just a little easier to get into the joy of roleplay without getting bored, unintentionally stepping on toes, or winding up as the butt of everyone's in-character jokes. We can be a catty bunch. But you can get started without drama or too many issues, and it's not as bad as you might think.
All the World's a Stage: Trolling for roleplay
Okay, so by starting off with "trolling" in the title, you're probably expecting some kind of subtle guide to how to troll the official forums, or maybe how to avoid some of the worst drama. But when I use the term trolling, I'm speaking to the base root meaning: how to inspire a reaction. In our case, how do you inspire a roleplay reaction from the people around you? The basic idea here is that in order to ferment roleplay, you have to start it yourself somehow. You can't simply expect to walk into Mordor all in-character and hoss with your well-thought-out plans and storylines, expecting to find a town full of roleplayers. No, my friend, you're usually going to have to get it started yourself. Let's just assume that "if you RP it, they will come." Once you get the roleplay started, you'll find other roleplayers showing up around you. There's two main avenues for you to create roleplay around yourself. First, you can use emote spam. This can be annoying if you overdo it, but I will try and explain some ways that emotes can be inviting to other roleplayers, without turning into a passive-aggressive emo fest. Second, in-character speech in parties and raids will take you a long way. It functions like emotes, but speech has its own pitfalls to avoid. Jump behind the cut and let's chat about how you can be a successful roleplay troll.
All the World's a Stage: Attitudes about roleplaying for the first time
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.We've talked before about getting started in roleplaying, as well as how to find the right group to roleplay with. But there's also another aspect the question of roleplaying for the first time, which is that inner attitude people feel towards it.I often see people leaving comments on All the World's a Stage, saying that they have some sort of story for their character inside their heads, but they don't let it out, for various reasons. Some don't feel that they have the right social space to let it out, and find it difficult to connect with others in such a way that their internal idea can actually take shape in reality. Others feel as though roleplaying isn't for them, even though they clearly seem to have the gift for it. In both cases, their roleplaying is limited to their own mind, where no one else can hear it or benefit from it at all. For every one who posts something about it on a site like this one, how many more just think about it, and never say anything to anyone?
