I’ve been roleplaying on AD for a couple of years now, and It dawned on me that I’m still struggling to pluck up the courage to approach others for random roleplay. I’ve noticed that more often than not I’m stood in Stormwind standing still like one of those statues, waiting to be approached and if nothing occurs I log out.
Not only does it bore me to stand there and wait to be spoonfed roleplay, but it’s not exactly engaging or any fun. The problem is I feel quite nervous and anxious when approaching others, so out of habit I stand and wait for the roleplay to come to me. Now, I’m wanting to create a new character to combat this as I’m not that interested in my current roleplay characters - but I’m not sure how to go about it.
As someone who struggles a little with social anxiety in real life, thus making it harder for me to approach others for RP. Do I then…
A) Create a character and fake that confidence, forcing myself to approach people to get over said fear.
B) Roleplay a shy character to match my shy personality, but produce emotes to gain interest and roleplay that way.
Honestly, I’m not sure which way to go. So I’m happy to hear suggestions and feedback, because at the moment it’s crippling my roleplay…
Back when i first started RP. I started by just greeting people as they went past. I sat on the cathedral steps doing /wave and a greeting. You’ll be surprised how far that can go to starting a conversation.
I would suggest to try and join a guild or a community first even on an ooc level, getting to know the people you will rp with can help a lot with anxiety. I know it helps me as I am struggling with the same issues. Then by hanging around the guildies or friends it is easier to find confidence and get dragged into rp and slowly make contact with strangers.
I also find it easy to make a character that is naturally more easy going, as I often struggle with just breaching the barriers at first. Like going randomly to someone and say hi for no reason. But if a character is build around the premise of being very outgoing then this problem can be easier to deal with.
Roleplay a troublemaker and join a guild, I know that is hard to just say don’t be shy , but I thought the same a few months ago and now I can’t stop rping.
Of course if you’ve a friend or someone that will help you with the develpment of your character or just engage in a conversation with you , that’s a great plus, but if not, try to find one, I’m sure someone from a guild will be glad to rp with you regardless of how good you’re while rping.
I have found that joining guilds makes it a little bit easier, but until then when I’m outside of a guild and having to rely on random RP or when things are quiet, that’s when I’m really struggling. It’s finding that push to go up to people and say that first ‘hi’ but I get too nervous or second guess myself. It’s a nightmare.
Oh yeah it is. I got a good experience with playing a sort of trader character. If you offer your goods it gives you a logical reason to approach people without it being too awkward. And can generate some nice casual rp. Perhaps you could try that. Having a few regular shoppers could also expand a list of people you can rp with regularly outside of the guild.
Your love for the character should outshine any fear. I suppose you’re talking about Acende: She has her past, her troubles, things that make her smile and interests like a real person would.
She chose you as the bearer of her soul. The troubles you go through may as well be the same of your character: Isolation, loneliness, lack of confidence, frustration, a search for self-love, the meaning of strength…
Ingame RP may be a wonderful experience when it occurs but your character is an independent entity: Exploring her as a creator can also happen if you listen to what she has to say or feels in your inner eye. Poetry exists to express, so does storywriting, painting, music, animating, communities (discord?), personal phantasy - there are independent elements that can also enable other people to join in.
The more fascinating Acende becomes to yourself, the more enthusiastic you are about diving in and showing people the beauty.
I don’t suffer from this myself, but there’s a guild member or two who do. In that sense, I’d very much like to know as well how to be helpful, or mindful, towards them.
So far, the only real advice I’m able to give is to repeat what’s been said by another already. Start with simple things, like greetings. Invent one that works as a calling card for your character and practice it on NPCs first. Focus on what you love and find interesting in a character, to build your confidence. And joining a guild and partaking in event-driven roleplay may help.
Personally, I’ve always written ‘Approachable!’ in my TRP to let everyone know that there should be a low treshold to interacting with my character. However, it’s since become some kind of a trope. Sometimes I even wonder if certain people think it means ‘You can initiate OOC flirting with me’. So, I’ll have to invent something new.
Also, I feel that we should get rid of the term ‘spoonfeeding’ with roleplay. I get that it was important at a time to denote certain people who only criticized events of others but made none themselves. However, it seems to be very harmful and make a great many depressed people think that they need to be ‘spoonfed’ or are somehow ‘parasites’ to roleplaying community, just because they don’t have courage to engage in creating storylines. That needs to go. Roleplay is still roleplay, I’d be happy to interact with your character and wouldn’t feel like you are somehow leeching off from me just because you relied on my initiative.
Shyrode said it well. Create a character you could see yourself roleplaying on regular basis and that you can love regardless of what others think. There’s lots of people on the server and while finding your like-minded RP buddies can lift away most difficulties that come with anxiety, people who are totally on different wavelength (even worse if they’re toxic) can just make them worse, even to the point of you losing interest in RP generally, or creating resentment. It’s not always easy to find your group of like-minded people however. I’ve roleplayed here for ~3 years and I still find myself asking a lot whether I’d be interrupting or not if I want to approach others… even those times when I’m aware they’d be struggling with same issues! I try pushing myself OOCly past my shyness however as long as this “pushing” doesn’t become draining or it wouldn’t mean making my characters act out-of-character with their approaches. IC expressions shouldn’t be forced.
Guilds are easy way to find your folks as others said already. Most guilds will automatically invite you into guild-RP and events once you’ve joined as well as get you introduced with others. Don’t hesitate trying different guilds or RPing different types of characters either. I’ve experimented multiple ways to find out what I’m most comfortable with and what I’m okay doing even if it required some extra effort, ie. roleplaying more reserved character vs roleplaying more outgoing character (even if my character’s confidence would come off as shallow/fake to others). In the end what helped me most was to just stop caring what others think, unless we’ve known for longer time, and becoming my own judge for better or worse.
Edit:
Also, just because you’re shy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have boundaries. There can be times you can feel ignored/not included, and in long run it can result in bad choices in trying to find RP. There’s lots of this questionable ERP folk in capitals and sometimes they try “luring” people into their ways during your weakest moments. Like, if nobody else wants to interact with you IC, would their ways of “noticing” your character better than nothing. Don’t fall for it. Same goes for anything else, don’t tolerate powergaming at your expense and let people violate your boundaries for “it’s either this or nothing”.
Personally I freeze up if my character has plot holes in a weird sort of performance anxiety to suddenly improvise who their aunt is or what their favourite dish might be.
Putting too much thought into things isn’t always good. Sometimes, just go with the flow and don’t worry. I also suggest playing a newcomer; a young adventurer coming of age, a vulpera straight out of vol’dun or a freshly risen forsaken who doesn’t know jack from squat and gets to talk to others and learn.
I tried two things myself in the past to overcome it and believe both could work, maybe it’s something you can try out yourself?
Create a character with a purpose. In my case that was a cursed piece of weaponry which was a real conversation starter. Sometimes people approached me about it, other times I approached others who looked like mages and asked for help. Basically create a reason to approach others (that you also find a fun angle!).
Create a really overconfident character. Someone who overcompensates because, actually, they are quite shy/nervous. I gave the character a small job as well which was selling flowers. So the character struck conversations with random people, sometimes forcing themselves into a conversation to sell flowers/know them better/be super curious, etc…
Of course these are just things I tried and worked, but in the end it’s up to you doing something you might enjoy. If you don’t enjoy the character/concept it’s not bound to work out well.
My advice, if you have the races on horde side is:
Either create a forsaken, orc or zandalari with a very prideful attitude, Zag for exemple is very prideful and smug about his skills, but still a guy easy to talk to.
Maybe a vulpera or nightborne that just left their home and are trying to find their place in the world. (Well, a nightborne also works for a prideful char as well.)
Hope you find this helpful, and come talk to me in Orgrimmar if you decide to make a horde char.
In other news, if you want to rp a shy and withdrawn character, you can do that, but it also requires you to emote how you feel to not just be a statue, say, if someone approaches you, that you might grow uncomfortable, you may shift in place, or if you approach someone, perhaps speaking in a rather low tone, etc, or when you are just standing around you can for example, emote that your character is looking around nerveously, it’s just some of the ways I rp Yeinni… Great fun !
Thank you all for the feedback, you don’t know how heart warming it is to read them and know I’m not the only one that struggles with this. It’s definitely given me a boost of positivity and increased my want to roleplay!
A lot of the times, I’m finding myself not wanting to interrupt others when I approach, or deciding that it’s best if I leave it and not approach because of the niggling feeling of anxiousness or shyness. I’ve pushed past it before, but I haven’t experienced the right gripping character in order to give myself that extra push. So I was debating whether I should play into the shyness, or in fact play a character that’s confident in a way to trick myself into giving myself fake confidence to approach others.
This has all been really helpful, and the only thing I’m struggling with now is coming up with a character concept that matches the suggestions you’ve all given me.
Don’t rush it! Take your time to think what races you like to play, then slowly build up something. There’s no need to come up with something super detailed either, just get the basics down and fill in the blanks as you play.
I had the same problem back in time. The best thing, ingame and in real life, what you can do is ask yourself the question: “what is the worst that can happen?”.
You will quickly notice not much can happen to you once you get over the initial fear. Once you do that over and over to every person you see in SW, you will become less and less anxious. Atleast that is how I did it.
At the end of the day, fear or anxiousness is natural, especially when keeping ourselves protected. I think you know, despite it not being in real life, a lot of roleplayers often find similar issues in game. The trick is to put yourself out there, and ask yourself what you can loose from say interacting with the charming Lotheridan. He won’t gut you, he won’t ignore you, etc etc. These nerves will feel weird at first, but you’ll get used to it, and like putting yourself out there is something every roleplayer should want to do, otherwise they just become a soggy biscuit for interaction.
