I expect some people do the same. They act tough, but their characters inside are freaking out. But it wouldn’t hurt for some unease to slip through every now and then.
I guess it comes down to more than fear for me. It comes down to the character having a believable emotional reaction to the world and events around them - and in this regard, I do tend to agree that fear is often overlooked. Then again, we’re talking about a setting in which near-apocalyptic events are - literally - a yearly occurrence.
This isn’t to say that there’s no place for fear on Azeroth. Far from it. But when other emotions such as avarice, wrath, love, joy or pride are shown more often, I consider it a more or less natural adaptation to the world in which our characters exist.
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When I played my rogue I used to RP fear all the time. He would show a brave face of course but he would sweat, his would shake, maybe a tremor in his voice…but he would try and appear fearless.
My Death Knight has no such issues and it has been a while since I had to deal with such issues.
I have noticed that tendency before with characters just doing something really risky or out right stupid at times because ooc everyone knows they just can’t die and get away with it. As a result it felt a bit disappointing. I understand there are characters that can be scarred by different things and may need more extreme situation to be scared or to actually show it. Yet I find it quite intriguing myself to rp my own character being scared quite often, especially for well being of his friends.
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My character’s not touching the Oribos portal with a ten foot pole. He believes all Demon Hunters reincarnate in the Nether and is afraid that one of them ending up in the Shadowlands might have the same effect as dividing by zero.
And while we’re on that, anyone else think Argus somehow got to the Arbiter and bluescreened it?
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Its funny, the few characters I’ve met with a sense for their own mortality and preservation are undead characters.
I was guilty of the fearless character trope to begin with, and I do think a lot of new roleplayers can fall in to that trap of “well I decide when my character dies”.
Telia here is scared of undead. She will hide from them and actively try to avoid them. It’s lead to some awesome RP with forsaken trying to show Telia there not evil or scary. Fear can lead to some amazing RP so I wish people would use it to improve there characters more.
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Lest we forget; some characters are full of stupid bravado, unable to recognise when they should be scared and others might be terrified but laugh in the face of death to prove something.
Why do you think I wield a rifle ?
It hurts when you get hit ! I’d rather spam /cower in the backlines !
Aye !
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That is one of the main issues - the concept of ‘You cannot roleplay that I die’. No matter the circumstances.
So there are individuals of FactionX that go to Picnic in homeland region of the other Faction and expect hugs and welcomes, instead of death.
Or doing silly things in DM events. Whereas it’s only healthy to inform others their characters can die (in general not out of poor unluck but of bad decision making).
A healthy character going in a fight against an enemy, that rolls poorly gets defeated. The DM ought to give them chance to flee somehow! (Usually anyhow players are in a team so…).
But if an already injured character decides to start a new fight; or even to pursue a fleeting enemy in unknown territory (maybe even the den of the creature), that’s putting that character’s life on the stake.
Some players are sensible enough to take in account the ‘risk of character death’ and act accordingly. But it’s a rare thing.
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Fearless characters are best handled through mechanics-driven RP events.
When they act out their surreal bravery, they get into positions where mechanics are skewed against them. Mechanics ensure they can’t just dodge. After spending a few events on the ground, players learn.
Had a Draenei in the past lose a tail, then an arm. Next character of the player wasn’t cocky.
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Oh how I wish we could visually represent such losses on our character models.
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Following many years of guild leading on this realm, I have seen many examples of players being afraid of character development, whether that be by them learning something new like a new trade or skill, or suffering consequences for their actions or similar advances of character. And in some ways I get it, I know this applied to me when I was a younger role-player.
But I think that there’s a group of role-players that are terrified of having a character show weakness, fault or making mistakes. And in turn those players then rarely allow for any sort of consequences to their characters. Based purely on observation I’d say they want to be in full control. It has usually connected to concepts such character growth as well from what I’ve seen of it. Some don’t even want to see change by their own hand but especially not by other’s.
When a character becomes sacred—which can be understandable—they do everything they can to stave off anything that infringes upon it.
Personally I believe this is tied to OOC insecurities and whatnot, but that’s only speculation and subjective opinion on my part.
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I have this unfortunate weakness of becoming recklessly attached to my characters and never really wanting them to die, thanks to the irreparable trauma of my favourite character getting crushed to death by accident in Minecraft RP years and years ago.
That being said, I really enjoy sensations of fear and big emotions - awe and terror at seeing the Firelands for the first time, for example, was one of the big changing factors in Sathrynn’s personality. I don’t get how people can RP butchering people combat RP in the afternoon and then go home and act like nothing happened afterwards. It doesn’t even have to be an immediate reaction, Sathrynn became intensely zealous and murderous over a long period of being surrounded by IC fanatics and spending outrageous amounts of time killing people. There’s no real thinking in the big picture and it strikes me as so bizarre.
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So I think this is a two way street. You can’t just say a thing is scary, you have to show why it is scary. You can’t just say your character is scary, you need to establish that they are scary and how they are scary, what do they do that is scary.
The same goes for situations - you need to establish what’s scary about the situation or people won’t treat it as scary. Is there peril? RP the peril or I won’t react as if the situation is perilous. Is there a creepy vibe? Tell me there’s a creepy vibe. Sometimes this is obvious but a lot of the time people get upset that a situation which they feel should be scary isn’t being reacted to as if it is - because it’s never been established what’s scary about it.
There’s another reason fear (not the spell) tends to be downplayed which is that one of the more logical reactions to it is “run away”. Now I’m not above characters* just running away from things but when your character runs away that tends to just abruptly end the RP. Which gives people pause before doing it.
The last thing that often doesn’t get taken into account is what characters are. I currently mostly play a warlock who does evil warlock magic. Now she’s actually generally a pretty frightened person, but your average thug or bandit? Not going to scare her overmuch, she willingly deals with demons and travels to the darkest parts of the world for the purpose of mastering evil magic. Your guy with a knife? Not that scary.
*with Jenit after sneaking and hiding behind a big character running away is one of her top ways of dealing with things.
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After many boat related mishaps in the 7th Legion, my character is definately afraid of boat travel. Does he show it, no he soldiers on, chugs sea sickness medicine and hopes to not get attacked by a kracken this time.
I believe even the most heroic character may have fears, and a notable fear for them, which I included in most of mine, is fear of falling to darkness and evil, which has been a common thing, especially through Undeath. Surely a noble, brave soul wouldn’t want to become what they fought against.
Another type of fear, can be the fear of the past and events which still haunt your character to this day, and often when a fear spell is casted on a character of mine, I have it happen in them, all those memories living in their mind again.
Of course, it doesn’t limit to these but these are examples of where Fear does not exactly equal cowardice, which those with more heroic characters can have.
i have never experienced fear in my life sorry i’m afraid i’m too cool to rp my characters feeling fear hope you understand
Jokes aside, it’s a bit 50/50. Yes, people have too much of a habit of failing to fear ever at all.
On the other hand however, 80% of the time the people demanding fear are just edgelords that really desperately want a win without actually thinking about what they’re asking for, like a DK expecting a p stereotypical Paladin to be scared of him.
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I’m just a DM hosting an event and not wanting my army of [NPC monsters] bullrushed by a single character. :withered wojak:
your monsters aren’t scary enough
make them scarier