World of Warcraft®

((Just a little thing I put together involving in character fighting and arguments to help keep them fun.))

Conflict in Role Play

When role playing one must compromise. Things will happen out of your control and if you can learn to roll with it the role play can be very rich and exciting. All of our characters and creations we have made and love. We usually want these characters to have interactions and to be enjoyed by not only us but by those around us. These interactions can sometimes bring conflict. Role players are artists and that brings extreme passion behind the characters we play. With that passion more often than not conflict builds between characters. Here are a few ways to keep that conflict from causing problems.

The number one rule of this is to keep your own personal feelings out of the conflict. Remember this is the characters fight and not yours. It is like reading a good action scene in a book, or watching a great argument in a movie. While yes you have emotion behind it the comments coming from the other party are not directed at you personally but at the character you are portraying. The conflict within the role play should be fun and exciting for you, not causing drama and conflict between you and the other player. Remember keep it between the characters and remember to laugh when things get intense. I would suggest you read Tips for avoiding a blurred IC/OOC Line by Miradollia to further elaborate on this.

Keep it fun for both sides, give your character weaknesses. Invincibility may be fun for you, but it is not fun for the player on the other side. If there is no possible way to take your character down, or harm your character eventually the other player will lose interest. What is the point of role playing out a conflict within role play if there is no way your character can win? I am not talking about harming your character but at least making them fearful of something. When your character stands there with their hands on their hips saying,” You can never harm me I am invincible,” it makes the other character just want to walk away from the role play.

Realize that if your character does or says certain things there will automatically be conflict. Some are adherent to the lore of Warcraft. Try to stay with the canon of that lore. Lore can be bent a little and I will use examples from horde side because I am not too clear on the conflicts in lore alliance side, but I am sure both sides will understand the point here. If you say you are an Amani troll, don’t expect to be able to walk through Silvermoon without someone saying something about you being there. The Amani and the blood elves have been fighting for many years and I am pretty sure they would not be welcome in the city with open arms. Other troll races are not a problem. Also if you say your character is a member of the twilight cult or works for the legion, expect conflict and people screaming for your arrest. Be mindful of the lore in the game, but also realize many role players will allow a little bending of lore as long as it isn’t outrageous. We all are pretty sure Arthas and Sylvanas never had babies if you get what I mean. Much more can be said on lore, but I think this suffices for this topic.

I cannot stress this enough. Do not godmod. Perhaps I should type that like this, DO NOT GOD MOD! Fights will happen; we like to think of our characters as very passionate. There is a difference between: “Ludwig punches Bertran in the face” and “Ludwig takes a swing at Bertran’s face.” Allow the other character to react, in the second statement you may see that you are allowing Bertran’s player to decide whether or not to allow Ludwig to actually punch him in the face. Also remember though, don’t be invincible allow some of those punches to land. Sometimes some of the best role play can come after you limp away from a fight.

PART 2

Try not to be a know it all. Yes, some characters are highly intelligent, but if they know things before they happen it takes away from the role play. This can be very hard for some. This is called meta gaming. What you are doing is using something you know out of character to make something happen in characters. I love planning out role play and having a general goal, but the fun for me is the journey to that goal and how it changes and works with the character. When you use out of character information for in character reactions it’s like skipping to the end without the entire fun story in between. I will say I have accidentally meta gamed a time or two, it does happen, especially those of us with a plethora of alts. This is another way to meta game, if one of your characters knows something another does not and you use the information on the character that doesn’t know.

The last thing I have to say is remember to have fun. It should be fun and exciting for all parties in the conflict. Remember there are winners and losers, and even losing can be a big build up for a character. Accidents happen though, and the things above can happen, just don’t get angry and learn to work with each other to work it out. There is no role play when you are the lone invincible man standing in the room. We all need each other.

Celinthia, this is amazing! Thank you for this! You've made a number of sound, strong points here.

I'd like to invite you over to https://soe4rp.wordpress.com/ to contribute this there as well. While having things like this here on the oBoards is priority, we want to kind of build an ongoing, searchable hub there where folks can always reference back to the material, have discussions, etc. (It's basically a WP-based community for writers of here on SoE.)

I was looking at the word press site this morning and made an account there so I can start a blog for Celinthia. I would love to contribute this there as well.

Just leave a comment on the Apply section and I'll be sure to add you. Nice read :)

This is a great read! It'll be a nice addition to the SoE Wordpress site. Thanks much for this post! :)

I enjoyed this! Hope to see more WP posts from you soon :)

...and you can lose with class.

I had my eyes opened a few years ago when a group I was in finally caught a killer they'd been after for a while. He RPd his death with such panache, his emotes showing his body's condition while dead and his play after being raised and put on trial (where he bled all over the sovereign's nice marble floors) were so good that it made me want to lose fights, too.

I would like to add something here. If people are going to insist on RP fighting. Use Logic.

For example if someone comes from behind to try to attack you and realistically you wouldn't see them coming if for some reason you decide that you detect it, especially if it's a rogue, you just started out the fight by god modding. In real life you'd be dead meat. Characters do not have eyes in the back of their heads no matter where your in game camera is positioned. Now it is okay to rp some abilities like a Paladin with divine aura on likely wouldn't take much damage from the back stab but they would still feel it, likely be forced to stumble forward at the very least. A warrior who is in Defensive stance might be more aware of his surroundings but an attack from behind is still from behind and since the battle mechanics work that way in parties and raids it's safe to assume the warrior's back would be just as exposed to a player as it would to a mob.

I would like to add something here. If people are going to insist on RP fighting. Use Logic.

For example if someone comes from behind to try to attack you and realistically you wouldn't see them coming if for some reason you decide that you detect it, especially if it's a rogue, you just started out the fight by god modding. In real life you'd be dead meat. Characters do not have eyes in the back of their heads no matter where your in game camera is positioned. Now it is okay to rp some abilities like a Paladin with divine aura on likely wouldn't take much damage from the back stab but they would still feel it, likely be forced to stumble forward at the very least. A warrior who is in Defensive stance might be more aware of his surroundings but an attack from behind is still from behind and since the battle mechanics work that way in parties and raids it's safe to assume the warrior's back would be just as exposed to a player as it would to a mob.

. . .

Really.