I wish you all another pleasant Wednesday. Actually, I wanted to write a column this week about how great role-playing in World of Warcraft is and delight you with some anecdotes from the RP daily life of my youngest character. As so often in role-playing, a common enemy effectively prevented that by getting hung up on minor details instead, for note: All role-players are divas. Without exception. So you have been warned: If you don’t want to read about RP disputes and lore discussions, it’s best to scroll straight down to the comments, type “Boring” and wait for your comment to be deleted!
On the Idea of a Conflict
But let’s start at the beginning. When I created our Draenei Erelya and Darnya, together with a good friend, the basic idea was quite simple: Let’s play a loose concept that offers conflict potential and two antagonists for the role-players of Stormwind. In short, the two demons disguise themselves as Draenei and apparently worship the Light, wanting to spread this belief further in Stormwind.
In truth, they are only looking for weaknesses, especially magic-hungry mages, whom they help with demonic promises to slowly turn them into loyal servants of the Burning Legion. Sounds like a pretty simple idea with a lot of potential for exciting role-play, doesn’t it? It was for about 4 weeks while we built our disguise.
The Greatest Enemy of Role-Playing: The Role-Player
Up to that point, everything was wonderful. I (and I believe everyone involved!) had wonderful role-play and it was a picture-perfect evening as one could wish for. The problem revealed itself only in the debriefing.
Because we had begun to corrupt the novices, this of course had to be discussed with the higher mages OOC (that is, player to player), so that they at least have an idea of what it’s about and how they can get involved in the RP. And that was the beginning of the end. After we revealed that our sisters were demons, more or less all hell broke loose.
In a very exhausting discussion lasting almost 24 hours, we debated back and forth. In retrospect, it was quite silly. “My mage can sense demons right away” and “No, my demon can hide that well” – those were basically the core statements around which we spun for hours.
I’m not trying to denounce my fellow players in any way – I behaved exactly the same and did not cover myself with glory either. The situation is only a blatant example of the greatest enemy of the role-player: The role-player themselves. How stuck one can view their own point of view and how we defended each respective aspect with mutual sourced evidence was simply not nice anymore. How much energy could have been spent on beautiful role-play in the same time?
What’s the Moral of the Story? There Isn’t One…
Many will now think again: “What is Cortyn actually writing about?” and I am wondering myself a bit right now as well. I was angry and furious – especially with myself. While role-players might be able to relate to the text and see themselves in it, to the rest, I can only say: Don’t tear each other apart over unimportant things. It’s not worth it. As banal as this realization may sound, it is not easy to always act accordingly.
Next time, I’ll report on the nice and funny aspects of role-playing. Promise.
