RP Guide

I know this has been done with Evil and RP battles...so I decided to give some do's and don'ts on RP.
The first you need to do when creating your character (if you haven’t made one already) is to come up with a basic back ground for your character, I’ll give you an example of one of my characters, Imoenak.
When Imoenak is ever asked about her past, she always give a checky smirk and asks “are you hitting on me?” she eventually reveals that she was born in lorderaon, for the first 19 years of her life she was trained with the silver hand in Diplomacy and History. when asked again she tells you that she rarely speaks of her past and doesn’t want to talk about it now and asks if we can just let it drop.
This is just an example remember, the more intresting your background history is the more fun the game will be not only with you but for people who party with you regularly. As you can see from mine I have left it open all you know is that she was born at Lorderaon and that she trained with the Sliver hand ( which was a big thing to be put into at the time ) and that’s all she wants to tell you.
The more depth and characteristics to your Character the more intresting he/she will be.
Here’s a bad example of one.
Raj was a knight who served under Ulthar himself after Athras’s betrayal, Raj ran and helped other civilians escape. When asked about his feelings on Lorderon he sighs and replies sadly “I had many loved ones who died, my wife Agatha and my two boys…” he then pulls out a chain with a ring on the end and tells you that this ring was his wifes wedding ring he tells you it was the last thing he has to keep him sane.
Now one thing that was wrong about this was it revealed to much of his past and now that the player knows about Raj’s complete history or big major part of it, it gets rid of a big chunk of story and character development that could of happened.
Here is another example that is a big no no we will call this character Tier.
Tier was a Paladin who has fought many wars in his time, he tells you of the time when he was captured during the second war and not only did he break out of his cell but killed Deathwing and 15 dragon’s along with it! He then brings out Deathwings head and 15 dragons teeth to show you that he is not lying. Then when the Burning legion attacked his home land he grabed his trusty two handed axe and killed most of Burning legions forces single handed. He then goes on to tell you stories of him killing the Defias leader in the Dead mines and crippling the scarlet crusade.
Now though this doesn’t give away to much of his past, but it is very bad in the sense that it would never happen. People saying that they’ve killed the defias leader or killed millions of orcs during the wars is plain nonsense and if you did say this to any RP’er you would proberly not have a long RP session with them.
So the key to a good background story is to…
· Make a simple yet interesting background for your character if you find this tricky to do (which I did at first ) go on WoWwiki and look up some lore or even better go on the main WoW site and look up the lore and that. Your best bet is to buy the games however. 
· Make it believable, don’t be Sargeras’s spy or be possessed by a Demon (more on that later) 
· Don’t reveal to much story your character will be more intresting if he/she is mysterious.
Now that you’ve made you background lets design your character’s characteristics.
Your character now has a decent and very interesting story, now you have to think how your character will come across towards other characters. Your characteristics have to match up with your background for example Imoenak Flirted when asked about her past hoping that the person asking her (most likely male) would get all shy and not want to talk about it. Also after she was asked again she got very defensive and told you to drop it.
If I could sum up Imoenak’s Characteristics I would proberly say that she is a very cheeky and a joker but when she needs to be serious she is deadly serious. This makes RP’ers more interested in the character as she is a laugh to be with but then there’s that side of her that is really serious which is her true self?
Another example of a interesting Characteristic would to have say a Dwarf and do the usual stereotype Scottish accent and be a alcoholic but how about making him a mechanic so he can make bombs and be a total psychopath. Make him a rage warrior, make sure he wields either a two handed axe or mace or two axes. 
You can use the fact that he can make bombs to your advantage so he could always be drunk and making bombs (not a good mix). Your party members could interact with this asking him if that’s such a good idea and of course he could say “ Bah! I’ll be alright ya wee ponse! Done this many a time!” and then it’ll blow up it his face (not killing him) or he makes a dud. Of course he should be very repulsive, if he does get in trouble he would either threaten them telling that he has loads of bombs pull them out and then threaten to light them, or if he’s been arrested say he has bombs in his pockets then shake around saying there very sensitive, scaring them off!
Or maybe you could twist the Stereotype have a human paladin who is complete coward, and he doesn’t like attacking people or using sharp objects so he wields a hammer and shield. But make him more of a healer so you could add that bit of comedy of him being a complete coward staying behind healing everyone and running away screaming like a little girl when some one tries to attack him, if he’s asked “why aren’t you a priest?” he can tell them that daddy was a paladin and his brothers and sisters are all paladins and now he has to be one, but he would rather be a hunter so he can his pet to attack the monster while he hides or pretends to be dead.
Things like this add comedy and character to your character and make them more fun to be around.
What not to do is to be an annoyance for example if you do RP insults make sure you don’t get to into character and break the EULA and get banned for discrimination. 
I’ll talk about villain’s characteristics most of it is covered in the thread but I thought I would at least show this example.
Right say you want your Priest to be evil one thing I would recommend is to give him/her some skills in shadow and some in the light so she cover up her tracks, for example she should be well known as a holy healer but she uses her Shadow abilities to control or kill anyone who would appose her. She mustn’t show that she is evil at all as this would cause distrust with people she may need to get what she wants. How would she do this? Easy say you met this woman and you both go off and find a rare artefact you tell her it’s evil and should be destroyed however she tells you “the best defence is to know what our enemies use against us” she would then get someone to look into the artefact. 
Then after a few days she would call you and tell you the person looking into the artefact is assaulting her and killing people and she is afraid, when really what’s going on is she’s hurt herself and she is using her mind powers to stage this researcher into killing loads of people and nearly killing her, you come down tend to her wounds then she tells you by law you have to kill him you do so then when she’s healed she goes tell someone really high up about what’s happened and pin the entire slaughter on you making you look like a mass murder. 
This is one example the rest is up to what you want to do how evil you want to go and where it will lead you in the end.
A bad example of being Evil is to come right out with it for example say “I follow the shadow and I will kill everyone!” in the middle of Stormwind or tell someone who is guarding Stormwind. Also saying your possessed by a Demon, you have to ask yourself ‘why is my character so important to be possessed?’ being possessed by a demon would only happen if he/she had was very powerful politically say the king’s advisor or someone who had control over a army. A Demon wouldn’t waste his energy possessing a simple Rogue or Warlock because there would be no point he wouldn’t accomplish anything out it.
Quick summary
· Add simple comedy if you can, this doesn’t mean you have to be a laugh a minute just make really simple jokes the more simple it is the funnier it is. 
· If you character isn’t the comedy type give them a characteristic that would hide their past or their true feelings remember to show their true self at certain situations. 
· If you are role-playing evil make sure you manipulate people in doing what you want, the best Villains I’ve played against on other RPG’s have all done this for example Sepiroth, Saverok and Irrenicus. 
· If you are thinking of being possessed by a demon make sure that your character has some use to be possessed.
Now that you’ve got your characteristic and background sorted you may think that’s it right? Wrong my next do’s and don’ts I will move onto is situations.
During your RP experience you will eventually come across situations that will test your character and RP skills if your bad at it and do the don’ts you will proberly be ignored but if have taken in the do’s you should be fine. 
One thing I have come across is people getting arrested for doing crimes that they did or maybe did not commit. 
Remember you will NOT be under arrest for months on end, only proberly ten minutes most, in the mean time you have many choices what you do whilst being questioned you could be an idiot and mock you captor or you could go along with it then when his back is turned look around for an escape or maybe something else its your choice just remember to make it believable.
The don’ts is if you are about to be arrested and you throw a pout and what I mean by that is constantly say “No! You can’t do anything go away!” if you RP a crime you have to RP the consequence it’s only decency. Also keep your cool threw out any situation and try to get in your mind how would <name> react to this? Also remember that if someone is having a RP Situation which is really tense say a arrest don’t get involved unless you want to be arrested to. 
Another good tip is don’t get your mind set that an RP event or situation is going to be in your favour remember that there are others Rpers with you and you must respect other Rpers if you wish to do more RP.
Which brings me to my next subject Respect other RP guilds events even if you don’t agree on what they are doing in character or out of character, if they are having a meeting sure you can spy but if your caught don’t expect them to go lightly on you if you heard something they didn’t want you to hear.
Quick summary
· Remember to go with flow, things don’t always go the way you planned but who knows it could go better than you planned. 
· If you are not invited in a RP Situation don’t get involved unless you want to suffer the consequences the Rpers give you and don’t throw a tantrum if this happens. 
· Respect Guild meetings just for the fact of decency and if your not careful you can be reported.
My next subject will be on Emotes and the dreaded power emotes.
To make RP that much greater Blizzard has given you the option to do your own emotes. Emotes are a description on what your character is doing which wouldn’t be impossible in the game engine for example Imoenak looks at floor and sighs. 
This can give real depth to your character and character development, you can also use this to do what some people call RP fighting which there is a thread about on how to do this. This can enable your character to attempt to mind control people or attempt to knock someone over or run away from someone. 
Note I have made the word attempt bold this is because it is the most important part of Emote fighting a good example of a fight emote is:
Imoenak attempts to punch Raj
A bad example of fight emote is:
Imoenak punches Raj
The reason why this is bad is because it doesn’t give the player an option to avoid it meaning it is no longer an event for two people it is yours and obviously it won’t last long. This is called power emotes or God modding.
A more in depth on how to Emote fight is here:
And that I think raps it up I hope you enjoyed reading it and thank you for reading.
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