Role-Playing, Serious Business… for some
My first experience doing the dirty
For a vast segment of the MMO community, role-playing as their created character is never a consideration during the creation process. However, for some players, role-playing provides them with that extra “push” into a more realistic experience – allowing player and character to unite as one personality. It’s a silly notion for most, but an experience I had to try.
I’ve never considered myself part of the role-playing crowd. Having never rolled a saving throw in D&D, or clad myself in a sexy cosplay outfit, the notion of pretending to be something you’re not is completely foreign to me. For this particular experiment, I opted to use the ever-popular and persistent MMO, World of Warcraft, which is home to a handful of role-playing servers.
When logging on as my newly created avatar, I had no idea what to expect. After all, I was no longer Beau Rosser, but the fledgling warrior, Rossmarn. How was I supposed to initiate conversation? What kind of dialect was I supposed to use? How the heck does this role-playing thing even work? I soon found out.
Initially, I was having a difficult time breaking into the scene. I tried to be as affable as I could when speaking to other questing players, but most of the time my questions or greetings would go unanswered, which led to some frustration on my end.
Sadly, when the eventual response was given to my questions, the answers were not in character at all. Usually, I’m the kind of person that pokes fun at role-players, but when someone didn’t respond in character while I was playing, it felt extremely discouraging.
For instance, while talking to a fellow warrior, he began to shout. I let him know that he didn’t need to shout, and his response was, “my bad.” Now, I’m no historian, but I don’t think “my bad” is proper vernacular given the medieval styling of the World of Warcraft.
After struggling to find anyone worth conversing with, this little role-player decided to try his luck in the big city. There had to be someone in the city playing part in this charade.
During my jaunt, I was asked to join a guild by a very outlandish individual that was definitely role-playing. His tone of voice and style of speaking was the affirmation I needed to prove that people actually do role-play on this server.
When I asked him (in a special “out-of-character” chat area) why he enjoyed gaming on a role-playing server, his response was simple – it’s fun. When I prodded him for a more detailed response, all he could tell me was that he didn’t know any other way to describe the experience.
My role-playing adventure started out as nothing but frustration toward the other players, but if my new guild mate tells me it’s fun, then there has to be something there worth continuing to explore. With the help of my brothers and sisters of the GoldenSun Guild, staying in character might be easier than I thought.
