Holy replies, Batman. Lemme reply to some here...
(08-03-2011, 10:39 PM)Cressy Wrote: [ -> ]It is funny you say this..Considering I was telling Rigley how much I love Ironforge while I was running around it planning an area to use for my upcoming(hopefully) guild that is based out of Ironforge.
(COUGH http://www.conquestofthehorde.com/Thread...age-Centre COUGH)
Anyways, I love the place and wish there was more RP based around them. If you are ever up for it, hit me up. Barbie would love to entertain you with talks of artifacts and sharing her plans of archaeological digs.
Moving on! Prejudice RP. God, sometimes I feel like I am the only person in the world that ever feels that way. I mean, I know I can be rude and whatever on Jean, which is the point of it. She is outspoken and dislikes many other races, but she also dislikes many magic users as well. Not many people seem to pick up on that, but she is...Uh, back on topic. I actually play most of my characters with some prejudice towards certain things. Actually, my nelf pretty much hates all young nelves, since many of them are disrespectful and are a shame to their race and culture.
More tension. It makes interesting RP, if ya get my drift.
Also...Tauren RP. I was starting a storyline with it, but it was pushed to the side since so many events were back to back. I hope to get some going on really soon.
Sounds awesome

My human pally is a scholar, so he just might hit up your character sometime.
And the Tauren probably get RP worst than anyone else. They missout on racial and faction RP.
(08-03-2011, 11:18 PM)Ural Wrote: [ -> ]I am guilty of this, you get some kind of desperate when there isn't much dwarf RP. I am also in support of this, as mentioned elsewhere.
Like I said, the partying hard and drinking is perfectly fine and fun, but there should be more to dwarfs than just that. Let's work to change that in the future!
(08-03-2011, 11:27 PM)Xigo Wrote: [ -> ]Racial stereotypes are fun, and I wish more people would roleplay them.
*Nod*
Allow me to elaborate though.
Most of my characters have started as a racial stereotype.
Arianna was your basic BElf mage.
Xigo was your basic Vindicator.
Versich was your basic Deathguard.
Mundo was your basic Peon.
Sindri was your basic Sentinel.
And so forth. When they did things, you wouldn't bat an eye if you knew the race/profession. You'd just say 'yup,that's right'. Their backstories give them unique quirks and what not, but ultimately they are fine examples of their race, IMO. They start as stereotypes. Different in their own ways, but ultimately they were rather close to their roots as far as race goes.
Now a good number of these characters have developed into something else. They change over time. They push away from their stereotypes slowly, and subtley. It's due to their constant attachment to their 'roots', simply by being part of the race, do they remain believable. True, some have developed beyond their racial stereotypes, but a lot of them are their own characters who are obviously elves or dwarves.
What I dislike are characters that are essentially a concept tossed into a pot that could come out as -any race- from the get go. I understand development, but I dislike it when your character comes out of the box as a super unique dudette who is totally progressive and everything. It irks me, because it seems like to many people, the key to having a unique character is to completely deviate from your race. I'm okay with the special snowflakes, so long as when I roleplay with them I can confidently say 'yes, this is a human' or 'yep, that character's a troll'.
... Also, being racist in characterly is like pulling teeth. 99% of the character population isn't racist. 98% of them will shout their progressive words at racists until they go away. All my characters are racist in one way or another, but they've ultimately discovered it's best to just shut up about them, because everyone in a ten mile radius will come over to tell you that you're wrong.
Stereotypes are great when the character is more than just stereotypes. They provide a good starting point for a character, but should be expanded on as well. Again: see the dwarf RP crisis.
As for concepts that could fly with any race, I feel this is only problematic when there is an overabundance of characters like that, or when the characters have nothing to anchor them to their race/class. At the least, special snowflakes should feel the weight of being a special snowflake.
As for racism, it doesn't have to be loud or obvious or even inciteful. It can be subtle as well. Going back to Hrodebert and his elf wife, I wasn't so much looking for people to get up in arms over their union, but just some acceptable gut reactions. Most of the time, though, other characters didn't even bat an eye at a dwarf and a blood elf sharing each other's company, not even disapproving looks or general cold shoulders. Really, that's why I said "prejudice" RP instead of "racist", because even the most accepting minded of people will have social norms that can be betrayed and cause some slight prejudice. And yes, having progressive characters constantly berate the prejudiced ones is annoying if the progressives don't have a reason for doing so. Its fine for a character to defend the elves from a racist who hates elves if he likes elves or has friends who are elves, or in general is just a rational minded intellectual, but when everyone does it, its annoying.
(08-03-2011, 11:42 PM)Grakor456 Wrote: [ -> ]More Horde RP. We're starting to get more of this going on with the Ashrunes and all, but there's still not a consistent Horde RP presence, like there is with the Alliance, which makes me sad. Especially Orcs/Trolls/Tauren.
Being the utter softy that I am with regards to love and romance, more of that as well. Particularly less sexualized, more actual relationship RP. Part of me actually wants to see what a relationship with, say, Balgarn would look like, something completely non-sexual but still possibly interesting to see work.
Maybe I'm rambling there.
I'll come up with more later.
I agree on the romance deal. A lot of the romance RP I witness (just as a third party) seems to be more sexual and steamy in nature. The more platonic, relationship side of romance should be explored as well. Hell, it should be explored even for people who aren't in love: bromance is awesome.
(08-03-2011, 11:44 PM)Kaghuros Wrote: [ -> ]It's not that racial stereotypes need to be clung to like a crutch, but if characters are going to be divorced from their race's social norms they need to have some blowback from that decision.
Fraternizing with the unholy as a Draenei or getting intimate with a magic-user as a Night Elf are examples of things that will practically exile you from your society. The key to making these sorts of radical diversions from the norm useful (and believable) story additions is to make sure your character knows the gravity of their actions and suffers the consequences if they become known.
By no means does RP have to be average. People should be exceptional if they want to play exceptional characters. They just need to RP the costs of their actions too.
Totally agreed. My dwarf who married an elf had to go live in exile of the wilderness of Arathi because of their union and has gone to great lengths to keep information about his personal life private.
(08-03-2011, 11:45 PM)imagenashyun Wrote: [ -> ]For IF RP: I already have Pulla for this, and Diawata comes by on occasion. I do enjoy Ironforge as a city: it's easier to navigate than Stormwind, to be honest, even now despite the fact I have come to familiarize with SW due to Beez. In the case of IF vs SW, I just RP where there is RP available. The thing is, for IF RP, my Alliance character availability is cut down by two, namely in Kapre and Kentado (especially gnome/dwarf-hating Kenny). Given they're both in the matchmaking business, however, perhaps I should bring them over there too. But IF is love.
Horde RP: I think we're starting to see an improvement on this, namely through the Ashrune Pact. Nowadays, Mahentosh is starting to see as much RP as my Allies, and that's not just because I kidnapped Kapre. I think the main reason we hardly see Horde RP go on is because there is more interracial conflict among the races within the Horde whereas the Alliance, more or less, all get along mutually well, most of the conflict coming from Night Elves' xenophobia and just plain Human ignorance (to my knowledge, at least. Still working on my lore). I do want to see more Horde RP go on, however. I made Kaldereto for the sake of Tauren RP, but even that hardly ever gets on. A shame, really. However, with my own Torr storyline, I do hope to alleviate that soon. I want to provide a story where we see some more Horde RP, and from there it can branch off to situations where Horde individuals start their own stories. Either way. More Horde RP. Yes.
Prejudice RP: This is among the biggest reasons why Dia is hard to RP. As a stark contrast to super-nice, super-accepting Kapre, Diawata is staunchly anti-Horde and especially racist against orcs and blood elves. So far, the only one who gets to see the face of prejudice RP is with Kentado, typically versus elf-racist Jean. And... that's just about it. In fact, most if not all of my characters save Kapre and maaaaaaybe Mahentosh have some racism in them, and I want to RP it out more. Conflict RP is fun, but I don't want to see all of it directed at night elves, blood elves, and Forsaken. Every race has valid and potential reasons to be hated, even, hell, the Tauren and Draenei.
Dwarf RP: this is RP you won't see me doing, mostly because I'm trying to curb my altoholism. I have an idea for a dwarf character who is rather mild-mannered for a dwarf though she's still a hearty drinker. Her name is Lola, a sorta Alliance counterpart to Mahentosh but with less dirty-old-man and more nagging-grandma. But.. yeah. Too many characters already, really. I'm happy using Pulla for IF RP. I'll probably only make Lola if I kill off someone in my current list, and I have a couple I don't intend to resurrect should they get a CW and be killed off.
(08-03-2011, 11:42 PM)Grakor456 Wrote: [ -> ]Being the utter softy that I am with regards to love and romance, more of that as well. Particularly less sexualized, more actual relationship RP. Part of me actually wants to see what a relationship with, say, Balgarn would look like, something completely non-sexual but still possibly interesting to see work.
Matchmakers to the rescue! That is really the main reason I even made the business: to incite more romance RPs. It can range from casual short term sexy to long term and meaningful. Even RPers who would rather avoid IC romance can have some fun here. So far, however, business is lagging, but it'll pick up soon enough once I announce some matches.
As for RPs I want to see more:
Personalized RPable storylines. Most RPs I encounter are either tavern RPs, guild rendezvous RPs, and the occasional event storyline. By far, the only recurring story I would come across is the Marianna/fel-sworn story. I would like to see more stories where we have heroes and villains, conflicts to overcome, etc., that doesn't need planned events to happen. I absolutely love it when I see characters converse of events that happened in each other's lives, even if I wasn't a part of it--just witnessing Kelarria/Sathia and Cristovao/Valon/Matthew/Saronsen brought me satisfaction despite not being able to follow all of it, and I was sad I didn't get to be a part of when Matthew and Saronsen learned of their relationship together. The drama doesn't have to be soap-opera-like to be enjoyable. I just want a story.
That is all, really. All other RPs, I actually make efforts in creating. If I have more, I'll add more.
IF RP: Well, I hope to one day migrate Cristo into Khaz Modan permanently as his IC residence instead of Stormwind, so Dia will have to come along once that occurs. As for Pulla, I'd like to see more of her. Didn't know Kentado hated dwarfs though. Now he has to meet Hrod
Horde RP: The horde in some cases has more and less conflict with its races. While the alliance races are all generally well-mannered, their bonds are weaker all around. Humans are bros with dwarfs, dwarfs are bros with gnomes, Draenei are sorta bros with humans and night elfs, and night elfs aren't really bros with anyone. By comparison, while there is a schism between the Trolls-Orcs-Tauren and the Forsaken and the Blood Elfs, the Troll-Orc-Tauren triad is VERY strong.
Prejudice RP: I hope to bring out more of it Horde-side with Du'Guro. He's racist as hell with a superiority complex and is very shallow about hiding it. As for Diawata, she allows a more complex look into prejudice RP, because her prejudices are pretty damn justifiable (as opposed to Du'Guro who just thinks anything not trollish sucks). Hopefully we can expand more on that.
Dwarf RP: You don't need a dwarf to jump in on dwarf RP. Pulla fits in as a gnome, but I also want to see Dia come along with Cristo and see what happens as well.
And more personalized storylines would be excellent. I am quite proud that the Cristo-Matthew-Saronsen-Valon storyline has kept up as long as it has, and just by unrelated continuing events. And I hope to keep taking it places as well.
(08-03-2011, 11:47 PM)Xigo Wrote: [ -> ]My issue is that every single player character acts like it's the end of the world and you should be put in jail whenever you point out ICly that their actions aren't Humany or Dwarvish or anything. All they care about is good/evil.
I wish we had more stereotypes because it would hopefully balance the obnoxious number of characters who are all 'progressive' and 'see past race'.
Again: progressive characters aren't bad so long as they've got an IC justification of some kind or another for it. Problem is most of the time they don't. Maybe players are just too afraid to step on people's toes? They really shouldn't. OOC drama over IC drama is the least rational thing possible.
(08-03-2011, 11:56 PM)Grakor456 Wrote: [ -> ]Actually, I thought of something else to say.
I'm running into this point with Gunnar. As some folks know, he has a certain...attraction to burly green men, and he's *terrified* of that getting out and other people knowing. This is one of those things that actually becomes harder to RP when people are too nice and accepting...if no one cares, then it's hard for that fear, which should be legitimate, to really seem justified.
On the other hand, I can understand why you don't see this happen too much. Folks just don't like to RP characters that are that prejudiced. I even sound like a hypocrite with this, because my own characters haven't been RPed as being particularly bothered by this (Gunnar obviously has an excuse, but my orcs don't really have that.)
I try to balance this out by assuming that most NPCs would form lynch mobs against Gunnar if he was at all open about it, to give the threat of that getting out to have some bite. Best you can do in this situation, really.
The problem you have with Gunnar is what I had with Hrodebert. I also justified it by assuming most if not all NPCs around would flip their shit if they learned he was married to an elf, but its nice to have PC feedback as well.
It is understandable why you don't see much prejudice RP going on, and again I'm not asking for characters to get up in arms and form angry mobs who spout hateful words at everyone, but some semblence of prejudice should be abound, even in the more rational minded characters. Thragash, for example, seems to be a level headed (and of course romantic minded) individual, and I'm sure he bodes no personal ill towards humans, but if he saw one walking around, he wouldn't just be all "HEY BUDDY HOWSIT GOING?", would he? Even if he has nothing against humans, he still has the cultural stigma on his shoulders and the prejudices that come with that. I would imagine if it wasn't to save Kapre, Thragash would be feeling uncomfortable about working with Cristovao, but that's just me.
People should realize that again: being prejudiced doesn't mean your character has to be a hate-monger. Some hate-mongers are fine and we need more, but this is not a black and white issue here.
Damn this is a long reply.