“So yeah, you’re gay.”
Now playing: Metallica - Enter Sandman.
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give them the luigi drive-by death stare, walk on by, whisper them “your not him.” and go about my day
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I usually avoid people who play outright lorebreaking stuff. That is, physically: I go away from them. If I can’t be left alone, then it is an ignore.
In-game, and it may surprise people who know me on the forums, I don’t believe a lot in discussing things: they are almost always a waste of my time, that person’s time, and in general don’t improve stuff.
For example, during Legion I met the Deathlord in Silvermoon, who claimed to wield the swords of the fallen prince ICly.
My reaction was the following: “That’s quite impressive. Now excuse me, deathlord, but me and my friend must take our leave.”
And I never saw him again.
A lot of these people behind the screen are insecure individuals trying to overcompensate, so often whispering that they got it all wrong is a bad idea, because you trigger exactly the kind of thing that they are trying to overcompensate for: their self-esteem.
This is a bit more problematic, but imho often, in my experience, being angsty about the problem does not help, especially if said individual is a long-term friend and you’re kinda new.
Though it -is- a problem.
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It depends a lot on the character I’m rping at the time.
Most of the time I try not to exclude everyone from RP regardless of how outlandish it is, but I feel that with my ‘meme’ Stormwind character it’s easier to engage/call someone a loony IC then never engage again, vs. my main rp character who’s more reserved and wouldn’t engage at all.
I think it’s hard to have a solid response to the kind of rpers you see rping things like werepyres etc, as a it’s either they don’t know or just simply don’t care.
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I certainly understand with much of what is said above, though I do not agree to all of it.
There is such variety amongst RPers and what they deem befitting the lore. I’d like to think I keep an open mind but there are some concept too outlandish even for me. (think anime powers, characters that mastered every spell, mastery and profession at the age of 10, all that permit nonsense and purge squads out of the wazoo, people claiming to be family of lore-established characters, claiming to own an imaginary country, etc.)
If I do encounter a person whose concept is a bit too spicy for my liking I first try to determine whether they are new to RP. If so, I try to politely address that their concept will severely limit interactions with other players. If I get a rude reply, that’s the end of that, but I cannot recall getting an overly hostile reaction.
If their concepts are daring but not too outlandish with what odd lore Blizzard has bestowed upon us over the years (evil shadow twins, portal/time travelling hiccups, goo gnomes/people, possessed machines/golems, weird science experiments, etc) my character usually takes it as an opportunity for some amusement and lets them do their thing, even though she may believe them mad.
This only applies if I deem the person behind the character having no damaging intentions, such as wanting to be the constant centre of attention at the cost of others or only having certain abilities in order to belittle, in their eyes, basic people who stick to a more rigid setting. The RP community is small and divided enough as is and we mustn’t give way to grievers or reward entitlement.
At the end of the day us RPers tend to be passionate geeks who put time and effort into our characters (I’m looking at you, person with 10+ art pieces in their TRP) and no one wants to be told that their precious characters are impossible or you should be excluded for RPing them. We’re looking at 20+ years of lore, retcons and otherwise unexplained occurrences which is all we’ve got to make the magic happen.
Besides, for all we know the person behind an outlandish character is only a child or someone impaired. Who are we to berate them if we do not seek to aid them instead?
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Honestly, it depends on the approach.
If it’s someone I can see knows what they are doing and they are just roleplaying something from a different game because that’s what they want to? I’d likely ignore them and carry on my day.
However, if their English is a little incoherent and if they have the newbie tag on them. I can play along and pretend they are something else in my head or what my character sees and whisper some friendly advice after the matter if I think I can help them to a better place.
I find the latter more enjoyable because I loathe to break character for anyone but sometimes it can’t be helped.
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I have run into several over the years slash the time I was gone from the RP scene. The likes of half-succubuses and or human cyborgs, the like you know that stretch things a bit to far.
As the others here have said it is just best to ignore them and move on.
If it is a newbie then you could potentially guide them if they are open to such but many are not.
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RAM RANCH IS UNDER SIEGE.
I used to tell them that their concept is unsuited according to established lore and generally that’s where I left it… Until a meltdown ensues. If they are away from the general populace and in their little bubble, I hardly feel like doing that but if you’re general public area, yeah it has to be said.
If you don’t want to RP a suitable concept in the WoW universe, why even be here? Go do this on DnD or DoS/PoE (I forgot which one allows for your own custom dnd campaign).
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/ignore
The only real issue arises when you have to interact with it second-hand by virtue of other players recognising it, and my solution to that has just been to avoid places I know I am likely to encounter things that will break my immersion
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They do not exist, and if others insist they do I suggest they seek medical attention for their apparent visual and audio hallucinations, if they insist then I simply leave them also.
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Same as when I meet a person I don’t want to talk to out in the real world. I smile, nod, and then suddenly remember that I have to be somewhere else.
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If we’re talking about something so inexcusably outlandish so as to seem removed from the Warcraft setting entirely, chances are that I will find a way not to engage with the person on an IC level. The social contract on the server is, more often than not, that of role-players united in their fondness of that very setting. To distance oneself from that setting is to distance oneself from the community in my books.
This isn’t to say that one should get overly, pro-actively picky however. These days I am seeing a rising tendency towards “ignores X,Y,Z” disclaimers in TRP profiles, wherein said X,Y,Z more often than not boils down to things that simply don’t interest the player, rather than things that don’t belong in the setting. At that point I would argue that similarly, the player is distancing themselves from the setting to some degree, and therefore the broader community.
Obviously there’s the “you don’t pay my sub” angle, as has been covered in the thread already, and it’s a valid argument. It comes with its own caveats however, no matter on which end of the abovementioned spectrum one might find oneself.
This concludes my TED talk.
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Can I ask for a concrete example that would not fit?
Without names, of course, no need to name and shame.
Based on previous replies, I’m inclined to not interact, or make it IC clear that my character has no intention of entertaining you. If possible I’d tell them OOC that I do not wish to interact with their character concept and ask them to move on if they do not get it.
depends, I don’t mind people filling in the grey areas of the lore but I’m not about to humor the blood elf Sephiroth when he points his Katana at me and accuses me of stealing the planet from mother
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Are you asking for examples of what is an outlandish concept that wouldn’t fit?
Races not native to the game. Death itself. Impossible hybrids. Things like that, really.
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Yeah. Some people have brought in races from other games. I’ve seen people RPing as a Lombax and a Lalafel, which do not have any place in WoW.
Impossible hybrids, or half-breeds in general are often an example of taking something with some lore backing and stretching it too far. Something that should be remembered is that hybrid races are rare, but that’s a note for RPing one, rather than ‘is it possible?’ And currently, there only exists 4 “known” half-breeds combos. So anything else either falls under ‘impossible’ or ‘unknown’ which should generally be avoided.
We also have people with modern day technology, or technology which would not fit to be in the setting or even as an every day item. Things like automatic rifles, hand-held radios and similar items.
There are examples of ‘similar’ items but that is not what is being argued. There is a difference between a Warcraft Buzzbox (which are as big as a dwarf) and a handheld radio (Which get weirdly used a lot).
RPing as other characters. I’ve seen someone RPing as Ratchet and Clank, Geralt of Rivia, Karlach from BG3. Not RPing inspired by them but rather AS them.
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I think I can use a good example here by referrencing the Scarlet Crusade guilds we’ve seen now and again.
You see Scarlet guilds which stick very close to what we see NPCs do, where they’re hostile to outsiders and are basicallty ostricized from most villages, towns and cities. Most people would consider that a valid interpretation of what we see in-game.
You see Scarlet guilds which try to gentle the concept a little bit. Maybe they don’t preach to the same extreme degree, recognising that to survive they have to adapt their ideology to fit the Alliance’s general view of the Light. People might be critical of that because it takes away from the zealous nature of the Crusade, but I think it’s still a reasonable interpretation of the in-game concept of the Scarlets.
Then you have this group of individuals who used to play on Moonguard. I don’t feel like I need to elaborate further on why this is different from the two examples I previously gave.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/424587690017685516/938571574884323358/IMG_2224.png?ex=65fb6c65&is=65e8f765&hm=b7c787d5ef57f571b5ea662016fda4b67ba62eb67aeebae23c61d28f35fac26a&
I think as long as you’re not breaking so far away from a concept that exists in WoW, most people will happily accept you. People who adhere incredibly strictly to the lore are, in my opinion, just as boring and uninteresting to roleplay with as people who actively ignore it or choose to disregard it.
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what. i
i dont wanna know
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