Fear in RP. What I have noticed over the years is that many characters never fear death. Say, you’re a small vulpera and this big tauren guy is threatening to kill you. That vulpera should be scared for his very life, yes? Same really goes with anything. Perhaps a band of like 6 people ambush you and threaten to rob you and take your life. Your character probably isn’t scared at all and probably doesn’t even care, even though ICly there would be great risk to loss of your life. Why? I believe that this is because you know that, behind the screen, nothing can happen to you. You can just easily “/e kills u all and runs away” Your character is safe because you know that nothing can happen if you don’t allow it. This takes away the “immersion” so I think it would be good if our characters would actually be afraid for once. The opposite also applies. Commonly I see that people are willing to kill others just because they were insulted. Would your character REALLY want to commit a murder and be hung in the gallows just because of some minor inconvenience or an insult? People seem to forget that murder is illegal, yes, even in Azeroth. Just please, sometimes try to think about the consequences of what would happen to the actions of your characters, and do what your characters would do. So many characters that commit murder in the middle of a crowded city for being insulted and also not caring if they’re going to be killed because they know, that, they can just godemote it.
Sorry for rambling, I don’t know if this text is incoherent, I do not know how to write in an order that is easy to read and understand. I try to learn.
Edits: Spelling errors and also added a part I forgot to add.
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Characters being completely fearless 100% is extremely boring roleplay in my opinion, and while it exists, I think it’s died down a bit more from how it tended to be.
It’s often tied to characters who are played as just pure testosterone & or various degrees of self-inserts. I’ve also had to deal with it in the past in related to magic and specifically playing a warlock.
I like the concept & potential of the typical “Fear” spell warlocks have in roleplay, in that it seems to bring up the sensation of fear in a person.
However several times, and a few very specific incidents, I’ve had people I’ve fought in RP and used it, completely ignored it entirely because “They don’t fear anything.”
And it was/is such a cop-out, and has at-least in one occasion, actually made me leave a guild due to the circumstances around it.
TL:DR, I hate 100% fearless characters. It’s boring and adds absolutely nothing at all to roleplay.
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my favourite was seeing somebody /e your gun jams on some person in orgrimmar and they ragequit the rp
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I’ve noticed this too and I try to make my characters fearful where it makes sense (especially the less warrior-type ones) but it’s a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma for some of my characters. They are not meant to be fearless, but neither are they meant to be cowards - and yet, if they’re the only ones to be fearful, it’s what they come across as.
There’s no easy solution to that, though thankfully I am in a guild of competent enough roleplayers to consider things like this.
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The solution to a fearless character is to not engage because it’s ultimately the choice of the player and unless you plan ahead of an outcome (boring in my opinion) then you will always be served a god emote at some point.
You can try to debate what’s fear IC, or what power level your char is, or anything else, at the end if two players aren’t on the same page, it’ll be a useless debate. Move on and find people you’re in tune with.
What you can do though is to help develop awareness about this specific topic to players who may not even have considered it, roleplay isn’t easy and we’re all different in term in how serious we are.
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As someone that often organizes and hosts events, when trying to instill fear into someone’s character it feels very demotivating when they have such a 100% fearless character. Same goes with the “I’m so strong I can easily pick up and throw this ogre” character that kills the event where I’ve put so much effort in trying to make a david vs goliath scenario for it’s attendees.
Those that do allow their characters to have logical fears (or a more wide-idea, let their characters have flaws) are those that are worth your time and effort to RP with. Those that don’t respect the logic of the scenarios presented to them and just do whatever is good for their own, well I think that’s quite close to god-emoting and I’d rather not RP with those folk.
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afaik part of the blame about this is on Blizzard. Ion & his team in their eternal wisdom have made even dragons and other similar monsters a walk in the park to kill ICly, which is why instilling fear is so hard.
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I think alot of people also forget that there is a difference between being afraid of something specific, and the general sense of being scared/afraid.
Just because your character might not be scared of anything specific, doesn’t mean they wont be afraid in any situation whatsoever or is immune to the concept of fear.
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It depends entirely on the character you play. If you play an untrained, everyday average Stormwind Joe then yes, you should be pretty afraid in such situations.
If you play a warlock or a DK, who can carve easily through 10+ regular thugs as if they are nothing? That’s a different story.
It’s also up to your confidence and how good you are at combat roleplay. I’ve seen people being able to easily fight off 4-5 opponents in combat RP situations without god emoting, purely due to their knowledge of the human body, grips, moves, mechanics. And their knowledge of medieval weaponry and how to fight with one.
Different characters would fear different situations as per their own power levels. It’s entirely individual. It’s up to the player to make sure they remain IC without random displays of lollish and unrealistic idiocy.
If 5-6 thugs gang up on an “urchin” roleplayer in an alley and the urchin starts giving them lip and acting tough, then yeah. That’s pretty laughable. If those same thugs gang up on a warlock or a mage who is a good RP-er and combat RP-er? Pretty unfortunate for them.
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There’s a lot of warlock topics these days.
Anyway. I think the “fear” spell isn’t meant to show you something that scares you (ie. your character is afraid of cats so s/he has the vision of a cat), but rather to just instill an irrational sense of fear through sorcery - the emotion should possess you to overwhelm your control because “magic”.
Besides, the effect should not be countered with your character being fearless (which is not a realistic feature a strong character should display - how would your character ever be motivated to be brave if they didn’t feel fear?) but through willpower - much like the will of the forsaken ability.
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That’s correct. It installs an emotion forcefully much like a brain seizure, it doesn’t show you images of anything. It’d be similar to uncontrollably laughing or crying which some patients with neurological diseases experience.
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In the end, I just think this is what is more likely to be (we don’t have a description of the spell so I can’t say this is one hundred percent canon lore - though I recall an instance where a warlock casted fear on Broll Bearmantle(?) in the Varian comic - the dude is pretty brave, yet he the spell worked flawlessly).
Point is, not fearing dragons/being a hero isn’t a good way to resist a mental spell. And imo, it destroys a lot of good RP. I’ll go as far as to say that if your character doesn’t often feel fear, the spell should have a greater impact on that person: if suddenly s/he is gripped by fear, that should be a powerful emotion that said character isn’t used to fight at such an high level of intensity.
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Even for someone like a soldier-type character who’s job and very existence is to be brave, even those can have weaknesses that allow for moments of fear. If you fought in Darkshore IC for example at the turn of BFA, then as an Alliance character you could have a strong aversion to fire, or blight, or perhaps even azerite explosives, just to put one example out there.
It’s more characterful too. Doing something because you aren’t afraid isn’t as brave as doing something even though you are afraid, in my opinion. By showing weakness, you actually give your character more strength.
Also, an addition I just thought of: Void users and fear is a really interesting thing, because you don’t want to experience fear, which in itself could be a fear of fear, because it gives the void a method of leveraging your free will. I think a lot of void elf RPers are the sorts who actually have a lot more fun with showing their characters to be scared at points.
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I’ve referred to this as “Marvel RP” in the past, a scenario where every character will greet dangerous or life-threatening opponents with quips or snark before heroically dashing in, what with the trend of many Marvel films characterising their heroes like that.
I DM more than I roleplay these days, and I really thrive on the feedback that comes with knowing characters are reacting… Well, as intended, peering into corners, holding lanterns or torches into the shadows, jumping at unexpected encounters or even sweating and letting their nerves show. Not every character needs to be cowering in the corner at the slightest hint of danger, but roleplayers letting their characters show vulnerability, fear, worry, and concern does bring me a great deal of life.
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From what I recall a lot of Marvel characters were vulnerable to mental attacks such as fear, mind control or what you have.
Imo, it’s usually that players are too attached to their character to give him or her tangible weaknesses, let alone see them as psychologically vulnerable - how could their avatar be defeated by something as ordinary as fear?
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Have to agree. I remember the Terror of Darkshore cinematic where that troll was outright traumatised due to Malfurion’s attack. I wish some people acted a bit more like that when confronted with someone who easily wiped the floor with them.
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If only such a foe existed. Just another burden the Warsong have to endure.
On a serious note, yeah, in a perfect world everyone would be keenly aware of when their characters ought to be overcome with fear. Mind you - characters can be afraid without showing it outwardly. Putting on a brave face etc.
There are also variables to fear, such as for whom the character is afraid. Perhaps the bold Paladin isn’t afraid for his own safety, but genuinely afraid of losing the ones under his protection instead - you get the idea.
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If you’ve ever been accidentally injected with adrenaline then you know that it’s pretty easy to stimulate a fear response even when there are no underlying psychological fearfulness.
Similarly with seduction. You don’t have to be attracted to horns and whips if the neurochemicals of your body have been messed with.
It’s ironic because it feels like people are afraid of being afraid.
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When you RP a dwarf that this very evening was yelling ‘‘WHERE IS MY SOUP?!’’ icly while killing frost trolls in Dun Morogh, you don’t really fear death anymore.
I guess some characters (including mine) don’t fear death or dying, it’s mostly the fear of ‘what ifs’. Like, what if you get resurrected? Turned into a death knight? And so on. That bothers him more. It sounds weird, in a sense he’s afraid of death - but on the other hand, he’s not.
also if anyone has seen Sainur’s soup, please call 0-600-Sainur
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could have done with a bit more pepper
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