How I Role (A Dissertation on Ninja RP.)
I’ve practiced a somewhat unorthodox form of RP since I rolled Malebrignon on the first day of Twisting Nether’s operation. It is a light-hearted form of “heavy” roleplay. The basic premise, which I often refer to as Ninja RP, is that everything can be roleplayed. All the game mechanics, including repetitious death and corpse-camping, can be treated as in-character concepts. Nothing requires storylines or events. You just choose to “be” your character. Here are some “rules” of Ninja RP.
--- Treat everything said in /say as IC, even when it’s obviously OOC. If it’s too OOC for you to Role with, like “I just saw Spider Man 3. MJ dies at the end!”, well, that person would go on my ignore list. (That's not a SM3 spoiler. It's an example.)
--- Do not /ignore other roleplayers no matter how much you don’t like them. If they are making an effort to be a character on the server and not just another “lawl RP” asshat, then you cannot pretend they don’t exist.
--- Don’t tell other people how to RP. Just “role” with it. I hate seeing “lol” and “zomg” come out of RP’rs even if it’s OOC, but the fact is those words are said so much in our online society that you can simply treat them as words. “Lol” means something was funny to that person and you can react accordingly instead of sending them a tell saying {{“Listen, guy, LOL is not RP.”}}
--- RP Everything. I can’t say it enough. What the hell do you mean that raid symbols break your immersion? I don’t know anything about raid symbols. I carry a box of enchanted gems which create magical markings above our targets so it’s easier to delineate who we should attack and in what order. If you don’t want me to use them, tough. I haven’t invested all this time, money, and research into enchanting for nothing!
--- Acknowledge that the realm does not revolve around YOU. It revolves around ME! Well, not really, but not you either. There’s a good chance that nobody read your story/poem/art/character bio or is aware of your current plotline if you have one going. It is up to YOU to get them involved and bring them up to speed if necessary. It’s also up to you to acknowledge their own storylines if you want them involved in yours. This one is just good advice.
--- You don’t always need a storyline. It really is okay to just “be”. Brig’s current “storyline” involves little more than shaping up his troops and plundering Medivh’s tower. I don’t need a driving goal past that. I am always in-character.
--- RP is something you do while actually playing the game. This is the one that most people don’t seem to like. I know a huge amount of RP’rs that seem to think RP is something you only do in a town, at an event, or at other times and locations that don’t involve fighting. Is it really that hard to be in-character AND play the game? Now, this does not mean you shouldn’t stop for a swim and maybe some sunbathing while you visit with friends in Booty Bay, but it does mean that you shouldn’t go OOC the moment you put on your battle gear and leave town.
--- RP Everything. I’ll say it again. Don’t take it to OOC until you just can’t conceive of RP reasoning anymore. Everything can be RP’d with a bit of creativity. It really can. Abric can show you the way on this one. Ask him to find time to include you in one of his groups and watch the show. It will give you “#1 you love it happy day joy”.
--- If you’ve just plain gotta be OOC, there’s always Teamspeak/Vent. Then you can have the best of both worlds. You can RP in /p or /ra and keep your OOC chatter to TS. Unless, of course, someone has to be a ninny and won’t use their microphone. You know who you are.
--- Set RP rules if you gotta. Chances are, I’ll stay IC for the most part even if you tell me that party/raid chat is OOC, but it never hurts to tell people up front. Unless it’s in /say or /y, I don’t recommend assuming something is IC. Tells and whispers are much the same. The Ninja will treat everything said to them as IC unless it’s declared otherwise. (( Put it in the brackets, dammit.))
--- Learn to Play. There are hundreds of other outlets for text-based RP if that's really all you are interested in doing. If you've been level 70 for three months and are still wearing level 62 greens.... you need to play the game. Don't make your friends carry you along, and they will if they love to RP with you. Ask questions. Keep it IC if you can; I could totally have an IC discussion about shadowpriest spell rotations in raiding. Take it to OOC if you need to. Don't tell me you're a great and powerful wizard when your average DPS is 135.
--- Play the Game. Don't tell me "well, my character wouldn't do that". Find a damn reason to do it. Work with your RP buddies to make it happen. Use a little OOC arrangement if you have to do so. Don't short-change your WoW experience because "I can't do that IC." RP is all about creativity; create a reason you CAN do that. It's really that simple. I spent over a year saying "Raiding isn't RP. You can't RP raids." and all sorts of other stupid crap like that. I realized, eventually, that you can do anything you want in the game and RP it.
I’m sure I’ll edit this to add some more ideas at some point, but this is a good start and I’d love to hear what others think of this. It might also help some of you understand why I can be kinda difficult to deal with. I do my best to adapt to others and hope they’ll do the same for me. A good majority of the folks I tend to talk to in-game operate under these guidelines, too. At least, I pretend that they do.
There really is no point to this posting other than to make you read my preferred method of RP. I’ve done stricter, storyline-driven “heavy RP” before, but it got too involved and depressing at times. It bled into real life. This is a great way to RP and let it start and stop with the game itself. Hope someone finds something here useful. If nothing else, tell me how you role!
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Originally Posted by Shadowspeak
