So, my character Chester has a couple hounds which are reflected by his hunter pets. I’ve noticed that people tend to ignore their existence, however, wondering if that’s an issue for anyone else who tries to RP with pets? I’ve also just noticed that I generally get approached less with my pets out.
Both of my pets have detailed TRP3 profiles, I don’t see the issue. There has been a few nice encounters with them, but it’s very few.
Then I was thinking, some people roleplay as animals, it’s generally seen as pretty ‘cringey’ but I feel like if it’s done properly (ie. No magical talking dog) it could be a great way for a hunter pet to not go ignored. I can RP my pet myself, but it becomes a little overwhelming to RP two characters at the same time.
Anyone tried RPing as a characters’ companion animal before? I would be interested in finding an RP partner for that, but then again, I’m just not sure how fun it would be to RP as an animal who cannot talk.
I think this depends entirely on the people you RP with.
On my Nelf and Mag’har hunters, their owl and wolf respectively are ‘npc’ types I’ve worked into both their characters and interactions, and its worked out fine. Sometimes it takes patience or persistence, sometimes a change of crowd tbh, if other are ignoring them (or may not have TRP)
To me that depends on what the owner makes of them, the context and how busy it is!
Some don’t even have TRP for their pets, just have them passive next to their character, or make much out of them so I simply take it as it not being a big part of their character concept.
Some people, and myself included, use the NPC option in TRP to make the pets more interactable and fun!
Sometimes people just miss out on it in the chat.
As for meeting others with pets, I just don’t always feel like making a big deal out of the pet.
Such as ''Yes, cute dog, must be nice to have around" and then the conversation moves on.
Just like in real life, but I can see how that is a bit disheartening of that’s the primary interaction you come across and it’s a big part of your char concept.
As someone who roleplays a character with an animal companion, I find that these pets are best used to provide flavour. Interact with them with your own character and respond to yourself using the NPC speech feature of TRP3. An example of this could be a huntsman throwing a bone to his hound, who proceeds to catch it and runs away to gnaw on it, tail wagging all the while.
Using the Move To feature a lot can help as well, it creates personality when a pet moves around in a certain way. It can obediently wait by a post where it has been tied, or you can make it run all over the place in an over-excited frenzy. If the pet just mindlessly sticks to your character’s side, it seems less like an actual entity and more like a game mechanic.
But people aren’t going to focus exclusively on your animal companion and treat it with as much importance as a player-character, no matter what you do. They may interact with it, they may ask questions about it and pet it, it makes for a good conversation starter and ice breaker. But if you spend more than ten minutes writing out an animal companion doing animal companion things with little input from your actual characters, it may start to lose its magic.
So they can be useful and they can interesting and they can be fun to play with, but they should ultimately serve as accessories for your actual characters.
I love the people who either don’t use the addon despite having it installed, or use it but forget to switch back their languages because then you get situations like this:
On any character with pets that I have played it never happened that they have been ignored. It was more the opposite in fact - people approached my hunters more because of the pets. Even when its somehing like a grizzly bear and more exotic beasts.
But it also really depends on how you roleplay your pet because you are roleplaying two characters at the same time whenever the pet is with you. And that can be overwhelming of course. But in the end I would say its worth it.
And having your pet do things on their own, emoting through the npc-speech-feature while making a clever useage of the “move to”-ability can really bring the flavor.
Having the hound wag its tail, that your character ruffles their fur or scratches behind their ears with the pet reacting to it once your characters emote went through, giving the pet treats and so on. And also having your pet walk on its own instead of being in the “pet passive walking beside hunter” can make a difference. All that shows effort on your part. And people will recognize that effort. Not always, but they will interact more with your pet when they see you treating your pet like a second character.
What I do as well is to use that “currently”-window for my pet as well as the hunter. So having sboth of their moods in there etc.
Especially in Stormwind it can be funny as well as overwhelming with companions like that as people will latch on them like wasps on sweet baked goods in late summer. People love pets they can actually show affection to.
I really must do something wrong then. Might also just be Stormwind or something
Honestly, I have had people who ignore them, casually acknowledges them or full on RP with them!
But it all depends on how I use my pet at the start of the RP! And not only on Hunters or Warlocks or Death Knights, but I also had it with pets I use with the growth cookie(My DK’s his Frostwyrm Whelp, or my Highborne his Arcane Eye familiar have been acknowledged in many a RP!).
So personally, I feel like it depends on how much effort you put in the pet and its interaction with its surroundings! Ofcourse some people just do not want to acknowledge pets in any way, shape or form and thats fine aswell.
Somethin’ off about a man who plays the part of a dog.
NPCing your pets? Good. Aye, that works.
Cat-form saying “meow nuzzles you”? Walking about in spirit-wolf form prowling the city? Putting ‘good pupper’ in your TRP? Nay, lad. Nae good. Don’t do that.
It can be difficult to keep up emoting for both a character and his companions, but I don’t think it’s so difficult as to warrant enlisting another player to do it. That, and you will get some absolute specimens volunteering if you’re looking to get someone you don’t know to do this.
I think once you can set in place an interactive gimmick or two that doesn’t really take much thought to write out, that suffices to make companion animals feel alive and flavourful. This guy has two hounds who I’ll mostly describe in one emote, prone to bickering over kills and anything given to them by player characters, and my mage keeps ravens that mimic others’ speech (because they’re spies, but it’s all fun and games until that gets figured out).
I can never unsee the addon approximating a russian accent by turning H into Kh for draenei.
It’s also responsible for troll RPers thinking little is pronounced as lickle by way of some abominable interpretation of caribbean english. Bouansamedi take ya.
This is my experience as well. There’s been plenty of times I’ve had interactions with my Night Elf Priestess of the Moon almost entirely because people stuck around with her Saber.
I don’t think that you need someone else to play your pet animal. It’s more work but it’s perfectly doable.
I’ve seen people play ravens and other messenger birds on the occasion! It’s cool to watch them drop letters off to other players and see them perched atop lampposts.
I think that some of this stems from general RP taboos about what you do and don’t with other people’s characters. The pet is an extension of you and emoting around it is a challenge not everyone is up to nor equipped yo handle. Then you have the other side of that coin who happily force kill your pets because it’s “just a fog” and your actual character was unharmed.
