NPCing: Giving life to the Role-play World

Argent Dawn
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Hello Argent Dawn!

As some of you may know if you have browsed some of these forum posts, I was the town crier in Stormwind for a time leading up to patch 8.3, with the shouts I performed all related to the events that would occur with the patch.

From making mention of mechagnome reclaiming their city fully, to reports of vulpera leaving the deserts, to the increase in void related activities, my shouts were an intention to provide a build up of tension leading up to the release.
And this was all concluded with the events of ‘The Lion’s Rest Massacre’.
The Lion's rest massacre - #60 by Azuriida-argent-dawn

Being the town crier was extremely fun, as people moved in from standing at the sides of roads or sitting alone and came in to listen. Comments were made, input on the shouts was made, both positive and negative, and for a moment… The static role-play environments became filled with people engaging with each other.

There were negatives as well, as mentioned before: People spouting OOC laced dialogue, the constant need to have swear words in dialogue and even some attempting to prevent the roleplay all together. But they were small drips that did nothing to stop me because I was having fun, and so were many others.

Which is what I wish to bring to the table to discuss about encouraging what is essentially NPCing.
Sure, you can be unique in the form of a mercenary, a hero, a soldier who has returned from the war. That is not being shot down. But in a world of heroes, soldiers and conflict… Sometimes, people forget there is a lot more than just having a sword in hand and armor on our bodies.

Being a lowly seller of fruit at the side of the road may not sound like the type of person who saves the world, yet the role-play interactions you can have as you shout out your wares, tell a story that is more engaging than one who stands at the edge of the road, silent and unmoving.

NPCing in a city can open up a large amount of role-play that you may not have once realized could be achieved.

  • Take on the role of a vendor. You will be able to sell food, items and other fun things of your own creation to the people in the streets.
  • Be an old grumpy man, who walks around asking questions in a stereotypical manner to the ‘young’ people.
  • Be a Lightforged Draenei who is attempting to figure out how citizen life is suppose to be like, only for them to unable to cope.
  • Be a humble street sweeper, finding strange items as you pass people and make comments about it.

My personal favorite was seeing a lamp lighter, who walked around, cleaning the lights and replacing the candles.

These types of role-play ideas are great to give life to static environments where you see crowds of people staring out at nothing. Not a peep said, not an action performed. They aren’t engaging. They aren’t interesting. They do not encourage interactions.

The roleplay community is there, a powder-keg of potential waiting for input. And all it needs is that single spark.
And you can be that spark. Look to more humble roles that you could do for fun and bring life to the city.

Be the spark.
You’ll be surprised how much fun it can be.

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What a wholesome and inspirational post. It’s a shame quite a few of people seem to be stuck in their conservative lamp post RP Cathedral Square state.

I remember I entertained the idea of roleplaying a banker as an NPC, handling the money and valuable items in possession of other characters. Never got around to doing it actually, but might bother trying it again… one day.

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I always have a degree of admiration for people who play strictly non-combat characters as it always feels like it adds a level of depth to roleplay when your big tough mercenary limps their way back to town and has the ability to go see an actual, full time mender. Not saying healing magic is bad or anything, but I’ve always liked when the healing has been performed with more effort. Digging out arrowheads out of wounds, cleaning, suturing. All that.

The same goes for any non-combat roles. Like a blacksmith. I can’t recall her name right now but there was that pandaren blacksmith that did custom work for characters. Ghostforge, I think? That’s the stuff I love as these crafters and such give you these actual options for your character when faced with specific situations in RP.

Big props to all those people.

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As someone who was majorly involved both IC and OOC, I can confirm this in a bigly way. We were having a lot of fun, and more people rolled with it each passing day after they came to terms with the fact that, yes, town criers exist.

We got the wackiest stuff trying to stop us, people arguing OOC about sleeping orphans, PM’d godemote instakill attacks, guards arresting people for ‘hatespeech’, constant OOC yells, a particularly embarrassing worgen priest who IC told us to just go to Trade District.

I think that last one beats even the godemoters.

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I can say OOC I have enjoyed the initiative of all this, including the town crier. It was actually something I looked forward to hoping onto my void elf and my worgen to listen to the news my character may have missed.

Now IC, my characters you mutter under their breath and make their own comments rather than voice them.

Isn’t the rule IC is IC and OOC is OOC. Seems a lot of ‘RPers’ so they claim are taking this OOC too much than they actually should.

Just take enjoyment of the evening news and what happens in the city.

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It is very fun and fulfilling roleplay to be a non-hero character; most of my characters have been rather mundane as far as saiyan power levels go.

The issue I found [whilst admittedly small] is that certain people are often quick to try and take advantage of that and use you as a patsy to further their own roleplay. Beat you up to show how cool they are, threaten you whilst smirking around their friends to get a few more badbutt points etc. etc. It can get very grating to constantly BE the supporting and disposable cast.

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I do agree. Those types of players think the world revolve around their fantasy, sadly. Their head canon where we are to bow down to their whims.
I can say I have had people like that approach me while I was town crier. Most noticeable was a warlock who tried to god emote kill me via whispers.

He was not a happy chappy when I ignored that.

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The crier roleplay was great, added a lot of value to the roleplay amongst void elves at least.

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In fact, here is my suggestion when you encounter people who wish to bully, attack or threaten you while you are role-playing a more humble position.

The people who would go out of their way to assault people as you said for showing off how ‘dark and edgy’ their character are always share the same weakness.
Their ego.
And the best way to counter them? Humiliation.

They come out to assault your old man who just asked a question? Take your walking stick and whack them in the groin.
They are trying to bully your food vendor? Toss a pie in their face.
Street sweeper being harassed? Simply push your broom up to their boots and make a comment that this pile of trash is too heavy to move.

Their character is based on being ‘cool’. Not being a butt of a joke. Make people laugh at them for trying to ruin things.

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Unfortunately she ran into misfortune on her travels… :frowning:

The drawback of being a non-combatant.

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Exactly, and especially with the situation that there was ( Thank you Nzoth for ruining it) lots of those that returned from the war wouldve started to look into a new purpose/cause to occupy themselves with as they awaited to be called back to a situation.
It always cracks me up to see these 7th Legion commanderisq types standing about in parts of Stormwind ( mind you, not on recruiting duty) for entire weeks, and that gets worse when they seem to only interact in situations where they think to get the upper hand due to their tittles.
This is not just annoying to other roleplayers, where some just get annoyed to the point of yeah I’m going to roll a character like that to prevent being handled like that.
Either way, where I wanna go at is: It is okay to not be a hero, a veteran or have any cool tittles you don’t need to have these to enjoy a good RP.
I’d like to end with an example that was quite recent ( yesterday) we have all gathered equippment and set our way to the graveyard, counting the graves in disseray and laying flowers etc and we had a blast.
Reason I hosted that type of event was because there aren’t much people around who’d engage in such a scale of RP and its not always time for war and skirmishes so you can gladly use the time inbetween to do something more casual and perhaps it seems silly, but just do it… Even if no interacts with that… It creates much more realism to the world around.

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I like this thread and I agree with it.

I RP an apothecary in Darkshire. When I first made him, he was suppose to be a villain. My intention with him was not to be the biggest, baddest, evil guy on the block, but to spark RP for other roleplayers. But as soon as I came to town and started selling potions to people I realized that there was a lot of potential in just doing that. A year and a half later and Simon Blackberg is still selling potions and tonics in Darkshire.

I do wish to see more NPC RP. It makes the world feel more alive. I often have people purchase potions from me or send them on dangerous quests to gather reagents for my next potion. For me that is fun. Sadly, I think for others, playing an NPC type character who isn’t a hero can get very boring very fast.

If I could give advice on playing an NPC type character, I would suggest to make them more than just their trade. Instead of having a Tailor, make a tailor with a purpose and a story.
Perhaps their sister went missing in the city or a local town and they are looking for her. Or the tailor crossed a noble and is trying to make enough money to escape the city/region. Or they are a skilled mage who is hiding in town as a humble tailor while they gather information about a local warlock who has been kidnapping children for a cult.

Sadly, I see too many people who want to WIN the RP instead of contribute to it.

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It’s all about ‘My horse is bigger than your horse’ these days in RP. Heck, I have seen two people make guilds way back then and even one today that do it solely for themselves, all about them and not the members.

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These types can go step on a lego.

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can confirm, been a shady merchant for a long time, also handed out quests once in a while.

its not about leaving a lasting impact, it is about improving the immersion and roleplay one stranger at a time.

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I remember when the Horde was marching into Ashenvale during the War of Thorns rppvp stuff, I RPed a pair of Rivermane who caught and cooked fish for everyone. It was fun to not be involved with the fighting proper, but to give characters some comfort food.
Being normal and lowly isn’t boring.

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The town Crier was a great idea and you pulled it off amazingly. Also i love the idea of npc style characters. most of my characters aren’t fighters. Zee here is only a novice priestess. I’ll have to borrow the sweeping one. I know someone who would love that.

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be sure to sweep silently so u wont wake up the orphans

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Careful with the guard guilds as well. They may arrest and issue a fine for that street sweeping.

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When I roleplayed my death knight, I did a bit of both. He was a fighter yes, as he was a soldier in life and retained that in death. But he started out as a blacksmith, something that he -also- retained in death. A good while ago, maybe a year or so, my character ended up being involved in the training and outfitting of death knights. He even made a runeblade for a knight that to my knowledge is still being used by that player to this day.

So sometimes it -is- possible to both have the cake and eat it!

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