Post by Aldrannath on Nov 1, 2009 14:14:31 GMT 1
If you're new to roleplaying in WoW, start here - this is for you. If not, you won't need most of the guidance here, but please take a quick look through it anyway, just to make sure we're on the same page.
Character
We will carefully read and offer feedback on your character concept before we start RPing together, so if this is the first time you've written a character profile, there's no need to stress about making it perfect in the first draft. That being said, these are the main things we look for:
Roleplaying
In-character behaviour to avoid
Death, resurrection and healing
Character
We will carefully read and offer feedback on your character concept before we start RPing together, so if this is the first time you've written a character profile, there's no need to stress about making it perfect in the first draft. That being said, these are the main things we look for:
- Lore-correct. Obviously, take a look at the relevant lore and make sure your character and her history make some kind of sense. If you're new to Kaldorei lore, just read this article and you should be fine:
scarteleu.wikia.com/wiki/A_Guide_to_Roleplaying_a_Night_Elf_character - Game-correct. Your character must be, pretty much, what it says on the tin: no Demon Hunters, High Elves or Druids of the Fang. Druids are normally "of the Wild"; "Druid of the Claw" or "Druid of the Grove" are also acceptable, but remember that this will significantly and permanently limit your options. Your character's abilities, for roleplaying purposes, are pretty much the same as their in-game abilities, with a couple of exceptions (see below). Level 80 means an able, highly-trained, very experienced "professional". Anything more powerful than this is not acceptable, but equally, you should make sure your character can progress to this stage if you intend to level up. Extreme youth, strict pacifism or permanent handicaps are not normally acceptable. If your character is low-level, consider an illness or injury that has temporarily robbed them of their strength; or make them able-but-untrained, so that coaching and experience can lead (relatively) quickly to expertise.
- Adult. For Kaldorei this means at least ~110 years old, and preferably over 300. Be warned that any character younger than several centuries is not going to be taken very seriously by the Elders, who are several millennia old. In any case, the Way of Malorne is not for children. On the other hand, the older your character, the more challenging it will be to portray them well; only relatively experienced roleplayers are encouraged to play millennia-old characters.
- Acceptable to our characters. Only Kaldorei are permitted to join the Way of Malorne. Death Knights and any hint of the Arcane (including of course mages) will be sent packing in short order. Even associating with Death Knights or Demon Hunters is bizarre and highly suspect behaviour for Kaldorei, and unlikely to be tolerated. Your character should also be basically willing to observe the tenets of the Way of Malorne, so for example, characters in intimate relationships with other races, enthusiastic engineers, or hunters who insist on using guns, won't last long. (Engineering and guns are just about tolerated, if they're used only when necessary for war, and never for hunting.)
- Willing to do, or at least tolerate, what we do. Our characters kill animals and eat meat. They practice blood sacrifice in honour of Elune, which should be at least a bit shocking to most Priestesses. They also kill Dragons and Dragonkin (on orders from other Dragons or the Cenarion Circle, never on their own initiative) and are not shy about using deadly force against Kaldorei they consider evil and dangerous, such as Demon Hunters or Death Knights. They don't make a habit of attacking friendly races, but would tend to take the view that humans or dwarves killed by Kaldorei in the remote parts of Ashenvale or Darkshore have only themselves to blame. If your character has a serious, non-resolvable problem with any of these, she won't stick around for long.
- Distinctive in some way. Think in terms of personality: what makes her tick? What does she love, and what does she fear? Why? We can help you out if you're stuck on this; the idea is not to make your character exceptional, but to make her somehow memorable and different from the dozens of other Sentinels, Druids and Priestesses our characters have known.
- A balance of flaws and strengths. Look for a very rough balance of "good stuff" and "bad stuff" in your character's abilities, and in their history. Hopes and fears, joys and miseries, things that move her and things that irritate her - don't make her all light or all dark.
- Not too special. Simpler is better. Some rules of thumb:
- a maximum of one thing about your character can be "very unusual" (NOT unique) - everything else should be more or less normal;
- her role in the Way of Malorne should be more or less as important as anything else she has ever done;
- if she has leadership experience, she generally shouldn't have led a group of more than, say, about twenty - unless the character has actually led larger groups of other player-characters in previous RP;
- her status in the Cenarion Circle, the Sentinels, the Sisterhood or any other important hierarchy should be no better than "fairly well-respected but still quite ordinary";
- if she has met a lore character (Remulos, Tyrande, Malfurion, Shandris, etc.), there should be no particular reason why that character would remember the occasion. Remulos seems to be on first-name terms with every single druid, but still, being his personal student or protege is not acceptable. However, NPCs who have no particular importance in lore, such as in-game class/profession trainers, are fair game as friends, mentors, relatives, etc.
Seriously consider playing a perfectly unexceptional character. The simplest things ("she likes to wear flowers in her hair" or "she can never resist cracking a joke") can make your character special, as will the stories we tell about her together as she follows the Way of Malorne. Making her a superhero to start with just means that everything that we do in RP will be a disappointment. - Not too tormented. Your character will have troubles enough walking the Way of Malorne. There are of course some shared traumatic experiences all Kaldorei have in common, such as the loss of their immortality and the death of countless Kaldorei in the Third War. Apart from this, don't invent a lot of suffering for your character; at most, one sad experience, tragic loss or failed relationship is plenty. Your character should not be seriously depressed, traumatised or mentally ill, and must not be a victim of any severe, long-term, emotional or physical abuse.
Roleplaying
- Using emotes (/e): The best RP happens via emotes; your character's actions and reactions are probably more interesting than her words. Even when we tell stories, our characters' reactions to them are frequently more interesting than the stories themselves. It's perfectly possible to have an interesting character who never speaks, but emotes are fundamental. We want to know what your character is doing, and how she is reacting to the events around her and the words of others; this is how we get to know who she is and what makes her tick. You can emote very subtle actions:
Vaelitha raises an eyebrow minutely. Her gaze flickers over to Caliyen for an instant, then settles on Celegil again, a little more sternly than before.
...or huge and dramatic ones:
Galapheral, soaked in blood, lightning crackling in her hair, comes charging down the corridor, and a dozen Death Knights come clattering round the corner after her. Treants rage amongst them, raining down blows from their branches, obstructing their paths, and one by one being cut down by their heavy swords.
This second example is just about at the limit of how powerful your character should seem in emotes; check OOC before allowing your character to do things that aren't among her in-game abilities. When your character does something to another character, be careful to describe the action in a way that gives the other player a chance to decide whether she is successful:
Vaelitha smiles calmly as she nods to Tenderleaf, raising a hand to anoint her face with blood.
Tenderleaf closes her eyes as the blood is smeared over her face.
Be careful to include in emotes only what a reasonably perceptive observer could recognise. "Tholanos watches, waiting" is fine, as is "Tholanos watches, awaiting his turn to speak." After all, we're talking about a perceptive observer; other players can always decide whether their characters notice a particular detail. However, "Tholanos watches, wondering who will speak next and reflecting on the difficult day he has had" is wrong, as it implies an observer who can read minds. OOC remarks should also be strictly avoided: "Tholanos watches, but no he's not thinking about that so don't be dirty" is just plain silly. - Using /say (/s): There's no need to say "prithee" any more than you usually would. If in doubt, just write as you would speak - but please avoid abbreviations: you don't ever say "lol" out loud, do you? Remember you're writing a kind of transcript: whatever you put in /say is spoken out loud, it's not written English.
If you're confident about your English (bearing in mind that for lots of roleplayers it's a foreign language) you might want to think about how your character expresses herself. It's nice to learn a couple of phrases in Darnassian, but the main aim should be to create the kind of impression in English that you think your character would create for other Kaldorei. A youngster with a colloquial style might say "Hi there!" - but if they're being very polite they might also say "I greet you, Elder." Older and stuffier characters might have a more formal or literary style, but don't overdo it. Above all aim for a way of speaking that feels natural.
Useful Darnassian phrases:
(exact translation in quotation marks, functional equivalent in brackets)- Elune-Adore. = "Elune be with you." (Hello/Goodbye)
- Ishnu-alah. = "Good fortune to you" (Hello/Goodbye)
- Ishnu-dal-dieb. = "Good fortune to your family." (Hello/Goodbye)
- Ande'thoras-ethil. = "May your troubles be diminished." (Goodbye)
- Shan'do = "Honoured teacher" (A form of address: "Yes, Shan'do." Less often, a title: "Shan'do Remulos told me." It is not a general term of respect, but specifically means "my teacher".)
- Thero'shan = "Honoured student" (a form of address)
- Fandu-dath-belore? = "Who goes there?" (a challenge to a stranger)
- Bandu Thoribas! = "Prepare to fight!" (a challenge to an enemy)
- Andu-falah-dor! = "Let balance be restored!" (a war cry)
- Tor ilisar'thera'nal! = "Let our enemies beware!" (a war cry)
- Kaldorei = "children of the stars" (Night Elf/Elves)
- Quel'dorei = "children of noble birth" (Highbourne, High Elf/Elves)
- Elune-Adore. = "Elune be with you." (Hello/Goodbye)
- Other channels (most often /raid, but also /g, /p, and /w): Any other channel is normally out-of-character (OOC) unless clearly stated - usually with a flag like ***IC*** (IC = in-character). So, no need to worry about roleplaying here; this is where we crack silly jokes about whatever our characters are getting so serious about, or try to figure out a good IC reason for a character to leave before they actually do so (because it's your dinnertime). Just remember that not everybody understands chatspeak (zomg, lol! nubz) and try to be nice.
In-character behaviour to avoid
- Childishness. Things considered shamefully childish among Kaldorei include: promiscuity (which for Kaldorei should mean anything less than several years between relationships); hedonism; any form of addiction; self-harm; rebellious behaviour; general lack of self-control; disobeying Ancients (such as Remulos); disrespecting elders. One of these might be acceptable in one character in the guild, as long as it's understood that most of the other characters will seriously disrespect her as a consequence.
- Romance. Well, actually this is okay as long as you keep the bedroom door very firmly closed. Cybersex (cybering) in WoW is a seriously bad idea (given that your interlocutor may in fact be only 13), it's also frankly not much fun, but most of all we just don't want to know about it. Meanwhile, bearing in mind the timescales Kaldorei live on (centuries) and the timescales most of us roleplay on (months, or at most a year or so), your character should not have more than one romantic relationship, ever, in the course of RP. Anything more is, from a Kaldorei point of view, outrageously promiscuous - not because they are prudish, but because that's just how long these things take when you measure your life in centuries or millennia. But besides that, we really don't want to roleplay about lovers' tiffs, who's sleeping with whom, or anything else to do with "romance". We're just not that kind of guild.
- Seriously disrespectful behaviour. The Way of Malorne has no rule of obedience - except in combat, of course, where the character in charge must be obeyed without question or hesitation. Otherwise, discussion and dissent are welcomed, Elders accept criticism, and even insults are often forgiven with an apology. Nonetheless, seniority is seniority; Elders are invariably (if sometimes grudgingly) treated with respect, and the Rites are held to be sacred. If your character just doesn't respect the Elders (especially if she is one herself), or if she doesn't respect the Rites, why would she join in the first place?
- Genuinely stupid actions. There's always room for debate about whether a character's decision was a smart one, and all characters can (and should) make mistakes. But take it as a starting point that your character is far more grown-up, far more competent, far wiser and, yes, quite possibly even more intelligent than you, the player. Aim to make your character seem sensible and competent in most situations, and think carefully before you (knowingly) let her make a mistake. If you the player can see that what your character is doing is just plain stupid, negligent or incompetent, it probably doesn't make sense for her to do it at all.
Death, resurrection and healing
- Resurrection is impossible (or nearly impossible) in lore, and we don't want to recustomise our characters after every bad pull. Instead, we interpret in-game death as an injury; in-game damage short of death is disregarded for RP purposes. Injuries need not be severe (especially if you want your character to carry on fighting) but usually require some kind of medical attention, which of course is roleplayed along with the in-game "resurrection".
- Healing in-character is not easy - otherwise every injury would be trivial. There's an excellent guide to RP healing on the wiki:
scarteleu.wikia.com/wiki/Guide_to_RP_healing
We like to make plots out of serious healing, so feel free to let your character get seriously injured in climactic battles - but then run it by us OOC to make sure it's not too severe. - Death is a part of life, and every good story comes to a glorious or tragic end. After RPing with us for a long while, think about letting your character die. You can always recustomise afterwards, and come back as a different character. It only costs the same as one month's subscription, and if you do it right, you get to upgrade your character from "memorable" to "unforgettable".
