Now, I’ve seen this on many occasions where people have been disregarded entirely when an “Event” is taking place.
The infamous “Sorry, we’re in an event” line.
This is completely ruining the nature of an RP realm in it’s entirety, in my opinion.
We’re all in this server to RP, no? (OOCers 
)
I encourage more guilds to welcome spontaneous conflict should two groups who are hostile to each other. This only makes the world feel more alive and more enjoyable for everyone.
I’ve not ran that many events, but the times I have been and someone random has walked into the area for whatever reason, I have always reached out to them to give a quick TL:DR of what is going on and then asked if they wish to join or not.
Many of my friends have also done/do this, and I encourage it alot. I’ve been in many fun events where other DM’s have done this and it usually leads to new friendships being formed and it also makes for a nice change in the dynamic from time to time.
Pretty much the biggest advantage we have in using WoW as a medium for roleplay is the potential for unexpected roleplay with strangers. The chaos and unpredictability of playing with many, many other players is what we pay for in the end. There are far better options for anyone who wishes to segregate themselves inside some bubble away from anyone else that don’t require you to pay a monthly fee to Blizzard.
I have a little story. It’s not long, but it’s a nice one. It was before I joined Dirge, and after I had dropped off my Draenei due to inactvity.
I’d decided to send my Worgen to Hyjal, the long way. Full on travel RP mode. And while I didn’t find much, which is a huge shame, I did find something unique and entertaining.
I bumped into the Order of Oranaar in the middle of an event at an obscure shrine to goldrinn in Ashenvale. The Howling Vale? And it was purely by happenstance, since that place was on my list of places to visit IC.
But it was an event, and they dragged me into it and we beat up a couple evildoers! Events can easily be part of organic RP and IMO should be where possible. Sure, not everyone’s using weird and obscure /roll setups but it can sometimes pay immeasurably to drag in people who stumble across your event.
Counter argument: With the game world being limited as it is, there are only so many locales one can use for events, there comes a point where one is bound to use a location as a placeholder for whatever they’re doing IC, and therefore are not necessarily present at the in-game location depicted.
While spontaneous RP is great and I greatly encourage it, the limits of the engine and the game world sometimes force you into a position where interacting with someone out and about in X or Y does not fit into the narrative what so ever. Say you’re investigating an abandoned town with its people having disappeared without a trace and it’s the setting of an eerie Halloween-themed storyline, using a village in the Ruins of Gilneas, Drustvar or the little Gilnean village outside the wall in Silverpine as a placeholder location.
A random guy who TRP scanned on the map comes in all “Hey fellas! What are y’all doing here?” oblivious to what’s going on, having decided he doesn’t need to communicate with anyone.
You’re left with
in an effort to salvage the atmosphere.
Or you could design events in a way that account for random appearances in areas that are often used by other players as well
and perhaps don’t pretend that the daily used Pyrewood Village is something else than it is, especially the Silverpine Forest zone seems to attract bad event design choices even though I can think of at least three long standing guilds role playing in or next to it almost on the daily
I have mixed feelings about this. As a rule you should be able to join events however sometimes it just breaks the flow and you can’t let that person inside without sacrificing the current narrative/immersion.
I recall being in a cave fighting cultists with my guild, the exit/entrance locked by a collapse, and suddenly a random merchant appears and asks if we want to buy his items. Right in the middle of the fight with the big baddie.
We were like: “ehr, wait your turn, we’re in an event right now”. I understand why including other players and giving positive feedback is important, but if you approach a group of people you may expect them to be ineligible for casual role-play.
I am not the DM of my guild, so that is unfortunately not up for me to decide. If you do however see a guild in the middle of nowhere clearly having an event, the polite thing to do would be to ask what’s up and if there’s any way to tag into it within the premise of their on-going story to avoid conflict.
Just one of the few examples came to my mind off the top of my head that were abandoned towns with a run down aesthetic. Personally I have never conducted an event there, and I wouldn’t know of any guilds who actively make use of it. I am not a Silverpine RPer really
Don’t think this thread is about events “in the middle of nowhere”, if the “sorry I will blank you because this is an event” would take place in zones/ locations that are far out there, I doubt the OP would have made a fuss about it/ even encountered that in the first place
As someone who role plays in Lordaeron a lot if I have recently encountered this myself, guilds role play in places like Strahnbrad, Fenris Keep, on roads between cities pretending no one but them exists – very bad!
Think people just need to read the room, obviously running a bubble event in some remote area of Drustvar or w/ e is fine
yeah agreed, that’s weird + bad
Basically true that if you’re using some super obscure zone and you’re RPing something that can’t accomodate extra attendees by story design - ie. you’re using the zone as a standin, you’re in some evil dimension, whatever but I think if a popular location is being used it is reasonable to make it as open as possible and if the event is something that is more mundane / can be stumbled upon IC it’s nice if people RP out those encounters
It’s more of a problem if it’s a super mundane event - ie. you stumble upon a group of guys fighting gnolls or w/e and rush in - and they say ((sorry guild event)). I guess there are situations if a big number of people turn up that NPCs you’re using will be overwhelmed etc but in my experience stuff like that you can fix by saying to the guild that stumbled in “yo … you’re welcome to join but it would be sweet if you threw some NPCs in to the pot so as not to tip the balance loads”
Of course, I agree. Using popular RP hubs and essentially pressing claim on them and ignoring the existence of others as you bubble in the middle of a hub is frankly weird I think poorly of anyone doing that. Even mundane events in the middle of nowhere ought to accommodate others stumbling into it to make the world feels more alive, if the story allows it.
One of my favourite events involved randomly stumbling into a troll ambush by the Duskwood-Stranglethorn border, and all I had heard about it prior was “There’s trouble to the south”. Spawned a long standing IC friendship from that.
Whilst I agree it should be encouraged, I’d also make the arguement that it shouldn’t necessarily be expected. People doing the whole ‘sorry, in an event’ line aren’t doing it out of spite or malice, or out of a want to exclude others, it might simply be that they don’t quite know how to manage an additional person or additional people when they’re already DMing for a group of players as-is.
Though it’s also often a good idea for a DM to move somewhere relatively obscured if they wish to minimize the chance that others come accross them, but similarly there’s occassions where that’s just not fully plausible.
For sure talented and experienced DMs should absolutely push for this, but to those who are a little more inexperienced or uncertain of themselves I think it’s a lot to put on their shoulders when hosting the event as-is might already be a difficulty.
As a bit of an afterthought, I think putting the expectation on people DMing events to accomodate others might ultimately lead to less events overall. The higher you push the baseline expectations of people, the harder it is for newcomers or worrywarts to jump up to that baseline, and the less likely they’ll be to bother in the first place. So yeah again, encouragement but not expectation.
I agree and good sentiment, another thing to add is some guilds run storied events that take time over a loner period of time, while i do indeed like the ideas of organic RP and letting people into the event it runs a problem if a storied event is based off certain characters obtaining certain items or having a certain role, and said person not showing up next time because they feel they have no obligation to.
Today, in Orgrimmar, I hosted a small event in Orgrimmar of some cultists coming in to plant plagued goods into various spots.
As soon as they were discovered, they attacked… And the response from the majority of role-players was clear.
People stood clear of the bodies as they leaked plague. Healers took to the call and tended to those affected.
Forsaken individuals came in and cleared the area, being immune to the disease.
People were talking, confusion. Panic. As it should be when an attack occurs.
People interacted with event and made it all the more better. One orc even became gravely ill when the (infamous) mailbox also infected him with plague.
The only case of those who tried to ignore it were the ones inside the tavern, who… despite plague and screams… were more concerned about their ‘how’s your day’ conversation as they drank weak ale.
Today was a great example of organic RP.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/609750074356137994/775462563722559528/unknown.png
In fact… as the event went on… It evolved further with another attack (Not planned by my group), resulting in more role-play occuring.
There were:
Just people. Reacting to a small event that occurred. In response to a soon to be here invasion.
It’s amazing when roleplay generates more. It’s occurring in Stormwind now, and it’s very amazing!
Yo Tenasa add me on Bnet I’ll give an invite to the pre-patch server if you’d like that, Hombrelob#2327
I’ve been hosting all of the prepatch events in Stormwind for the coming Scourge invasion. Its been a lot of fun and created an atmosphere that would not be achieved by second life RP. If you don’t enjoy it thats perfectly fine but we’re all in an MMORPG server to interact with one another.
I’ve hosted a few server events now all of them with great success. Legion invasion in Hillsbrad, Escape from Teldrassil, and this one.
Not only that but I remember when I was running the Sons of Menethil that I always allowed folks to join in with us. For example a guild known as the Lightsworn or something similar were travelling down the road. While I was DMing a our group being attacked by Dragonmaw Orcs! I told them in a /w what was happening IC and if they’d like to join. They said yes! It was amazingly fun and resulted in our groups being friendly, conducting RP more, and it brought the Wetlands to life.
To avoid rambling there were multiple other occasions where the same thing happened that I listed above, more then I can count with my fingers, and toes! Basically… If you’re a guild walking down the road and you see other RPers walking down the road, say hi. It makes the realm more alive and hey? You might make a new friend.
I appreciate the offer, but I got a few things to address elsewhere and other events to plan. You keep on making these events.
But this is something that should be encouraged. I’ve said it before:
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.
Let the organic roleplay just roll. You aren’t forced to commit to it.
Pop that bubble.
i think theres nuance to be had here. When I dm events, a lot of the time we use locations as stand ins for other places on azeroth, or are simply in the middle of large fights where a random person joining would be super weird to say the least. I think, ultimately if you run across people in a non-hub area who are obviously in an event it costs nothing to just drop a whisper saying “hey can I hop in?” so their dm can accomodate you without you showing up like “hey lads!” when they’re deeply in character trying to kill a demon or something. Its not that its bad or impossible to join someones event when theyre in the middle of something! just, as someone who does a lot of dming, a courtesy whisper beforehand goes a long way for everyones enjoyment