NPCing: Giving life to the Role-play World

[Guenh-argent-dawn]

I’d just like to mention how much I LOVED the crier, and this post is absolutely wonderful. One of the more memorable roleplayers I’ve met was a Worgen hunter, trying to sell his furs and approaching bystanders for it. I absolutely love interactions like these.

[Karzam-argent-dawn]

This is very important tbh, you can play your hero character, your soldier & still do this ‘npc’ roleplay, from selling & buying interesting trinkets and trophies you’ve found, to a bookstore your mage might maintain in an effort to find rare arcane tomes to the hunter selling his pelts, there’s so many opportunity for your guilded ‘hero’ character to still have fun with this too!

[Megnarosh-argent-dawn (Megnarosh)]

@Karyïn-argent-dawn

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.

Surely do not hope you got this feeling from my seventh legion captain, malric. (Who is now dead anyways)

I did spend plenty of time patrolling around and asking strangers if they seen any suspicious void elves and searching for aurolenn.

[Tehya-wildhammer]

@Megnarosh-argent-dawn

(Who is now dead anyways)

Surely not as a consequence of any deed of mine

[Zizzleclank-argent-dawn]

I remember having a nice interaction with some guy selling barbeque in Boralus. Was fun.

This is kinda why I wish people would stay IC most of the time, even when questing… it makes the world a lot more interesting.

[Karyïn-argent-dawn]

Nah don’t worry, you actually did things… The situation I was referring to was quite awhile ago or so, at the beginning of the 7th legion madness

[Umay-argent-dawn]

@Karzam-argent-dawn

This is very important tbh, you can play your hero character, your soldier & still do this ‘npc’ roleplay, from selling & buying interesting trinkets and trophies you’ve found, to a bookstore your mage might maintain in an effort to find rare arcane tomes to the hunter selling his pelts, there’s so many opportunity for your guilded ‘hero’ character to still have fun with this too!

I think this is the best way to do this kind of roleplay - as something to supplement the roleplay of a main or alt, not as the basis for a new character.

Back in Legion, I was RP’ing a night elf civilian character in Astranaar, whose background had her hunting and foraging for the community. For my own pleasure and for the sake of immersion, I spent about twenty-thirty minutes one day RP’ing out the dressing, butchering, and curing of a deer carcass, not far from the main inn. I’d like to think this added a sense of life and authenticity for any RP’ers who caught the emotes in the background. It’s not something I felt the need to repeat regularly, though - every so often she’d come into the hunter’s hall with a basket of herbs or a sack of nuts and berries, just to create the impression that life is indeed happening when these characters are off-screen.

@Diamantia-argent-dawn

• 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.

I think the main difference between the examples O.P offered and her own case is that the role of town-crier naturally instigates interaction, drama and conflict - when you’re yelling out politically-charged, controversial headlines, it acts as an invitation to RP. It gives people the opportunity for characterisation - articulating their characters’ views and opinions establishes them as personalities for everybody watching/ RPing. The Lightforged Draenei/ Old man characters seem like great concepts, but they’d work on their own as the basis for full characters, never mind NPCs.

The same can’t be said for vendor RP or street-sweeper RP. It’s something that sounds good in theory but, I’ve found, isn’t remotely rewarding or engaging in practice. In the street-sweeper example, you’d essentially be RP’ing with yourself, relegating yourself to the role of background extra or prop for the setting. As a vendor, your interactions are (probably) going to be linear, formulaic, and very limited in their scope, on both sides of the exchange. There’s no real reason for conversation beyond the transaction itself, and RP isn’t the Sims. Basic needs and money are meaningless, so shopping RP exists only for flavour - and its a very bland flavour at that. There’s a reason we don’t RP out our characters brushing their teeth, sleeping, or paying their bills. It’s not dramatically interesting. There’s no stakes, no conflict, no entertainment to be derived. Speaking as someone who’s done bartending RP, retail roleplay just seems like an exercise in masochism.

[Valdanyr-argent-dawn (Valdanyr)]

@Umay-argent-dawn

I spent about twenty-thirty minutes one day RP’ing out the dressing, butchering, and curing of a deer carcass

I did something like that once, using some website to guide me through the process, but somehow ended up doing a few things in the wrong order. It was fun, though. Included a few others by having my character ask them for assistance.

[Mindare-argent-dawn (Mindare)]

I’ve immensely enjoyed the occupation of courier for the last couple of years. It’s incredibly rewarding as my job is basically go out and search for the person that I’m suppose to deliver to, be it a message, a note or a package. Entering a town I might go around asking for directions, or try to find out if anyone has seen this person around. When I’m not busy you’ll usually find me at I mailbox sorting through letters.

It’s been really fun during larger campaigns as well, basically acting as a messenger pigeon between groups and guilds, delivering orders and reports across battlefields.

It takes me across the world and puts Mindare in new situations every time. I’d love to help, and if you ever need to get hold of someone, don’t be afraid to poke me

[Nythéria-argent-dawn (Nythéria)]

NPCing as a whole has the potential to bring life to events, as opposed to fighting lifeless markers, the same can be said for casual rp as well, whether you’re npcing a courier sending mail or whether you’re NPCing a villain in an event/campaign. It can be a fun and engaging experience for people in RP. It really does make events immersive.

[Mortlocke-argent-dawn (Mortlocke)]

I once tried to kickstart a wee little initiative, many a year ago, that was essentially a list of characters that could be used as NPCs to spice up events. It was going to be a guild dubbed < Significant Person >. From more established and named characters, to placeholder characters that could suit any need required by the host guild/DM.

Alas, I didn’t have the time to devote to it - and I still wish that I did. If anyone else wants to spearhead this idea, by the way, I’d happily devote a bunch of toons to it.

[Gridcog-argent-dawn]

I realize now that Gridcog here is pretty much an NPC type character. He is a Foreman/Mechanic at Bilgewater harbor. I’ll log on, pop a podcast or something on and go take on some “urgent task”. Patch an oil pipeline, doing maintenance on a oil pump or maybe even something REALLY mundane like adjusting the suspension of the little chairs at the crab shack down by the dock.

I’ve actually had some very fulfilling RP thanks to that. Being around the harbor and getting involved in some Bilgewater Battalion hijinx that left the town square on fire and making some RP out of the situation, with blame being shifted around and trying to pin down who was going to take responsibility. Perfect goblin bureaucracy RP.