I’ve participated in a few RP-pvp events and to me, there seems to be a lack of structure. As I see it, the goal of an RP-pvp event is twofold:
Present an exciting scenario for roleplay.
Enjoy some world pvp with a narrative stake.
The problem with RP-pvp is that it relies heavily on suspension of disbelief. Few roleplayers actually want to sacrifice their character for the sake of the emergent narrative, so the whole aspect of death has to be ignored or otherwise explained. The world we see in game is not 1:1 scale, so active imagination is required regardless of what you do, in terms of roleplay. That said, I want to share an idea I have on how we can make RP-pvp events better!
I present to you a sort of template for RP-pvp. It should not be viewed as a hard template, but more like a guideline. It looks like this:
RP-pvp Event Template
An RP-pvp event should consist of these three elements:
Narrative: What’s the story behind the conflict? Where does it take place and why? What’s at stake?
PVP objective: What is the pvp objective? Does your faction have to take and hold a position? Do you have to kill a character that acts like a VIP? Are there any specific rules? If you’re dead, you’re out? What’s the win condition?
Endings: Both factions should have two endings planned. What happens if your faction wins? And what happens if you lose?
An RP-pvp event should consist of at least three phases: a pre-pvp event where everyone participating gets immersed into the narrative; the actual pvp event, and; a post-pvp event, where you either celebrate the victory or regroup after your faction’s defeat. The rules for the pvp win condition is only limited by your imagination, though I would advice to keep it simple. People shouldn’t have to read a long list of terms of engagement before participating.
Ideally, this structure will help foster a sense of narrative on the server, and should help differentiate RP-pvp events from regular world pvp events. Full disclaimer: I’m not very active on social platforms (such as reddit and discord servers), nor have I ever planned an event myself. I’ve merely participated, and I appreciate all of you who take your time to create these cross-faction events for everyone to enjoy. With this thread I want to share some ideas on how we can make these events even better!
For me a good RP event (and by extension a good RP-PVP event) is something that:
is fun, engaging (and if possible immersive) while you are doing it
does not take agency away from the participants (i.e., no pre-determined ending; everybody can improvise)
keeps on giving even after the event has concluded
I think the most salient point here is the ending part. When it comes to combining RP with PVP, there can be a conflict of interest about what makes an ending “good”.
For a PVP event, a good ending is beating the opposition, straight and simple. Unfortunately, many people can get upset trying to attain the win (e.g., perceived injustices, namecalling, bragging). The tragedy in this is that a good ending for PVP might be a boring ending for RP purposes.
The biggest question should be how does each ending enable options and nurture more RP. This can happen by creating situations that allow players to evolve their character arcs. e.g., A character can mature during a life-changing event, or they can accumulate trauma.
For me a good RP ending is not one that resolves something. Instead it should be an ending that, ideally, kicks off something else to come into the future. In-between two such events, player characters on the realm can reminisce about past events, or can start, independently working towards the next one. In an ideal world, events could form a loose chain, with each event feeding into the next one. Then, the entire chain can be the entire played-made history for the realm.
You bring up a very important point! That’s why I think it’s important to plan for the defeat as well, so that regardless what happens the RP will remain interesting. People can still get frustrated, as it is difficult to balance cross-faction pvp events. Which leads me to:
It was! It was a cool event, with so many people, but at the beginning it felt like the Alliance had the number’s advantage. We were crushed. I was thinking, then, that I kind of wanted to roleplay a retreat, but we simply regrouped and fought again.
It can be hard to make it fair. Perhaps the pvp-phase shouldn’t be finished after the first skirmish if it goes too fast. If the teams are too unbalanced it might be healthy for the event to pause, retcon the battle and try to balance the teams somewhat and then try again. It’s important that it is fun for everyone that participate, and personally I think it would be more fun if there was post-pvp RP for defeats.