And to this day I remain thankful my character’s healing is so incredibly specific the majority of the time it is not called upon. 
Shadow Mending money gang.
2 Likes
Your character spots a wounded character.
Be…
Lawful Good Healer Character:
Heal Wounded Character
Get punished by accidentally enabling a nursing fetish
Is weird, ruins RP
Makes your character look like a tool
Chaotic Neutral Mercenary Character:
Loot the wounded character and run off with his wallet
Is funny
Get richer
Won’t get into someone’s nursing fetish while still making them more of a victim
Might cause a Morality VS Existentialism debate,
You can rebrand yourself as an ‘Anarchist Criminologist’ instead of a ‘Thieving Scumbag’
Makes you both richer and look smart
Still makes you end up in prison just the same
11 Likes
Some time ago I got into a race specific kind of guild, appreciating the lore of a unique community. As time went on, I noticed that one person in this guild was getting inordinately interested in my character.
Yes, it’s that sort of RP horror story, bear with me. This wasn’t a particularly bad situation as they weren’t pushy or excessively weird and didn’t try to manifacture some contrived opportunity to get with my character but expressed a consistent interest IC and OOC. Just a friendly sort of atmosphere with a certain vibe that I made sure didn’t go anywhere. Unrequited, you might say.
Eventually I just went my own way, flipped factions and that was that.
Some time later, I was in a similar situation with a new character, running into the same player’s alt in a different guild. I knew this first by their vibe and later by other means, and they expressed similar interest in my character to a very familiar degree.
Wanting to keep a comfortable distance as I did before, I didn’t lead them along or anything of the sort but they did become more personal with me. Eventually it became clear to me that they knew who I was but didn’t know I knew they were who they were and that’s where things got weird.
In their attempts to get closer to me, they told me things about themself, all in a friendly context but as details piled high it became clear to me that this person was lying to my face. They’d made up an alternate new personality and IRL backstory, including where they were from, all to have another shot at charming me OOC.
So they knew who I was since before in that other guild, and in not knowing that I knew who they were, tried to pass themself off as someone else entirely all for another go at the off chance at an IC (maybe OOC) relationship.
This of course made me very uncomfortable and I logged on less and less. Other things happening brought more unfortunate details to light and apparently I was far from the only person they’d try this with.
Naturally, I stopped playing that character too shortly thereafter but I’d hate to think they’re still out there doing this to other people, picking favourites to pursue and pretending to be anyone they need to be to get their way. Whether the old or new persona was real or neither, what they did was deeply creepy and haunting.
7 Likes
If I try again with a more interesting backstory, will it work?
You need to become Cooler Loras
Ooh 2 in 1 deal for you!
This was years ago when I still regularly RPed. I was rping as worgen beast master. And I joined a noble house guild that was led by a lady whose right hand man was trying to start relationship with her. Let’s call them Kate and Buck. Turns out they were also erping and used discord for more “irl experience” I guess.
I joined the guild during this and had no clue. But the lady started to show interest in my char, and was really “friendly” ooc. Me being dumb 17 year old ignored all red flags. And went along with it. Thought it could make interesting dynamic. I admit. I even did more adult rp…big mistake. Don’t do it kids. Well Kate chose my char over Buck. And Buck went ballistic. Ooc and IC. Threatening harm to me, harm to himself. Even called out country where I lived because I mentioned something in my native tongue and he figured it out. Still trying to keep irl stuff with Kate going. Well he got blocked, reported and ignored by most of the guild.
Now Kate said she cut all contact as well.(was not true). And wanted new boy toy. I was supposed to be one. My 17yr old self being pushed into sending pictures and stuff to 30yr old woman. When I refused because I had some brain left. She went even more ballistic. Self harm, gaslighting, emotional blackmail. All was on the table.
I noped out real quick after I sent the screenshots to group discord. And it exploded. Nobody had a clue about any of this. Guild did not survive.
Bonus:
I ran into Buck again around a year later. And his in-game crush chose my char over his again. Because he creeped her out. And he went off again.
1 Like
Just ask me out directly, gosh.
Jokes aside, this was a really unsettling experience that’s partly responsible for me keeping most online people at a distance.
Back in Legion, when I was a pre-teen, I did cat RP in Stormwind.
End of story.
2 Likes
Why are all horror stories about ERP? Damn it. I will write something original now! Like… Okay, let me write about ERP and disasters.
My character was an old man - which I ironically made old because I wanted to avoid dating and all that jazz. I start to get very friendly with someone, a kind person, great role-player, always ready to support me in my RP. Let’s call her Nancy. Nancy is awesome I think - little did I know, this person wanted to turn us into some kind of couple, with blackjack, ERP and hookers… and our characters getting married. I suspect something, but Nancy is not exactly explicit, so I keep RPing until the day in which it becomes too obvious.
I tell them I am not interested, I do not do romance or ERP, and all of a sudden that character becomes extremely hostile and cold. I am a bit disappointed because until now, the RP has been enjoyable and I was able to draw most boundaries.
From now on, it all goes downhill.
Two days pass without me hearing from Nancy, and all of a sudden my character’s IC sister asks me to come and visit. You have already guessed, haven’t you?
In literally two nights she met Nancy for the first time, already ERP’d in all possible ways (read: non-disguised, if you know, you don’t want me to type that, if you don’t know, you don’t want me to type that), and became an official couple. To this day, I always had the impression Nancy did that to spite me. But I did not care so for me it was a way to get out of all the uncomfortable red flags and leave them to their thing.
I see them occasionally: they are this cheesy couple that keeps holding hands, giving each other magical gifts, and organize events together/RP in private until late hours. Anyway. They last for about one month until the IC sister goes on a holiday and apparently Nancy couldn’t stay alone for a weekend, hence she begins another relationship with an alt. The problem was: Nancy also made a rule that while in their relationship, the IC sister could not play other alts… so she hides the new relationship for about a week, until it is discovered. Then all hell breaks loose. Too bad they just married - their characters have to divorce after only two months of relationship. Alas, this is the life of virtually married characters.
The lesson I have taken from all of this is: no relationship RP. No big family RP.
Because correlation between self-inserts, weirdos and ERP is way too high. I rarely see ERP relationships work out long term
And this is what I consider big brain decision.
1 Like
I will not pretend this isn’t something I wanted: WoW does not vibe with me as the place for that sort of escapism. But I speak for myself, and nobody else.
Did I read that right?
during
?!
The real horror story is realizing how old I am becoming.
Like. Stop. Bad cat. Bad.
Stop making me feel old.
We have a baby in our midst.
Or maybe you should stop playing WoW and go open a bookshop already.
(edit. I’m sure you are more-or-less as old as me)
I was 20 when Legion came out and am 27 now.
1 Like
Indeed, you read it correctly. People who claim children don’t play this game are seething and fuming rn.
3 Likes
This one is not really horror but more just “Urgh, why.”
Long story short, this one took place yesterday. A friend of mine’s character with a tongue that sometimes runs faster than her brain, apparently kicked another characters dog a few weeks ago because she thought it was going to bite her. Not very nice, but that was all that happened.
Now back to yesterday evening, my friend’s char and the char with the dog meet again, and verbal insults were exchanged once more. All fine here. The horror however begins when another char walks by, only -heard- that my friend’s char kicked a dog, not only starts to threaten my friend’s char’s life, but actually goes as far as to attempt murder. Des being nearby doesnt let that happen and stops the attempt by summoning a shield that blocks the attack, and afterwards the attacking char goes away.
So in short, we have someone who decides to try and murder someone because of a situation they weren’t even part of, that wasn’t even as severe, and which they’d only -heard- of because they heard part of a conversation when they walked by.
And so we once again come down to the problem of some roleplayers being far more confrontational and escalating things far faster than they would IRL because they know they and their characters are untouchable.
5 Likes
Baba Yaga… John Wick…
Another story for the sake of venting.
Long ago, in the land that was once proud Gilneas, my character returned to her old homeland to help the few that dared protect it. This was soon understood to be a mistake as the area was filled with nothing but bandits and ruffians claiming ruins as their fiefdoms while discarding all dignity and their shirts while titling themselves after greek letters.
So anyway, trying to make the most of it in these, the twilight days of my healer career, I ended up knitting wounds of the participants in the numerous turf wars as a neutral agent.
One eve, my patient was the main squeeze of one of these savages and her alleged owner didn’t appreciate how slowly I was working and shoved me hard with all his giant wolfman might. Against a stone wall. Naturally this ended with an unconcious healer with a head wound and nobody to fix any injuries that night.
I ceased to take any of this seriously when I learned the rival gang’s leader was now a half-vampire, fighting her evil twin sister while pregnant.
As a fellow medicine man, I feel your pain.
I remember in the Ghostlands there was some event or gathering, and I was there. There happened to be an elfo who was shot by an Amani troll’s arrow. So I went there and got ready to do some medicine.
Not magic medicine, mind you. There were no spells or incantations, it was just practical medicine using what Gosh put on this Azeroth.
So as I tend to this bloke, it happens that the arrow’s tip was poisoned, and I was getting ready to identify the poison, mix up something that might help the guy get unpoisoned, it was all very detailed and thought out.
As I do this, another elf, a paladin, walks up and begins trying to help. I don’t mind it, even if my character does. I tell him the business. Poison arrow, deep wound. Now, what does this guy do? He immediately does the “Places hand on wound, sends Light healing into wound to remove poison.”
Now I’m not going to say that that’s something paladins CAN’T do, but what I am going to say, is that it was very boring. The man wanted to snap his fingers and wisp away the problem like it was nothing.
Needless to say, it made me grind my teeth, because I HATE HEALING MAGIC! I HATE HEALING MAGIC! STOP TRYING TO RP USING THE LIGHT OR DRUID POWERS TO FIX DISLOCATED ARMS, AND REMOVING DEBRIS FROM WOUNDS!
2 Likes
I’ve seen a few different iterations of healing magic that I quite liked in RP because it made it very distinct from one another and still gave some flair to healing RP. The first was Light being quick, but almost temporarily. It got people up and back into the fight but afterwards once the battle and danger was over, they’d need actual medical attention to mend the actual wounds and injuries when the power of the light was no longer carrying them through.
The second was shamanism/restoration being used to heal up open wounds, a little slower and required a bit of ritualism from the Shaman to ask the elements for assistance.
Last was druid/nature magic which I saw portrayed as slow working, meditating but essentially guaranteed to work. It just needed time and concentration as nature restored balance to the body.
1 Like