The dilemma of choices

Argent Dawn
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Writing this up has felt like crazy ramblings, but has anyone else been in/is in this predicament?

I have to say that I have been utterly remiss with my participation in RP over these last many years. However, there remains a constant nagging feeling of wanting to get back into a hobby that I once enjoyed, to enjoy the game and stories with others rather than just logging in daily to farm achievements and do some daily quests as part of the grind.

I will admit that past choices have seemingly limited my participation in the RP community, and that is the consequence. But I feel a fear that maybe I’ve simply become too old to actually enjoy RP anymore? That perhaps, I miss something that I never truly had.

Of all my characters, Liao (this toon) has been my most enduring character. Ever since MOP, he has managed to avoid the dangers of my constant habit of my indecisiveness. And yet, I no longer feel the vibes of enjoying RPing with him anymore - even at the recent Lunar Festival, I felt like his story has truly drawn to a close such that he no longer feels interesting to me.

I don’t plan on killing him off, that is certainly off the cards. However, I feel like my skewed sense of loyalty to the character is preventing me from seeking out anything different. That I am too loathe to even retire him

And then there’s the reason why I initially planned to post this topic: choices…

There are so many concepts I want to dip my toe into, but feel as if I might waste my time or risk losing interest. Human/Blood Elf/Draenei Paladin (because I’m digging the Light vs Void stuff), Blood Elf farstrider, military RP… these concepts are admittedly generic, but are mostly alien to me who has been so used to sampling the most beige of characters in the past.

I admittedly have played a Night Elf sentinel back during late-Legion and into BfA, or when I had my main mage as a Nightborne. I did enjoy these concepts tbh but I hve never been able to enjoy mage RP, and I’m so unfamiliar with a hunter, that the option is only to start from scratch.

If anyone can make sense of my ramblings, I’d appreciate the advice.

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My advice?

I think what you need to do is understand your worries are normal, but they don’t have to hold you back.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind, there are few.”

On Boredom
What you’re struggling to deal with is the fact you’ve been roleplaying the same character, in the same game, for a very long time, and the experience has grown stale.

You want to play as a new character, but you’re bound by indecision. In essence, you’re trying to overengineer perfection. Your well-developed character probably wasn’t that way when you first started playing them.

Every oak tree grows from an acorn. You should start simple. Just pick a race and class that appeals to you, something unlike what you’ve had before. Keep the backstory simple but interesting, I quite like mysteries and amnesia, as they allow you to retcon and alter things as you improvise and work the character out.

The rest will unveil itself with time, as you interact with other characters, and they interact with you.

On Time Wasting

If you’re worried about wasting your time? All Roleplaying -is- a waste of time. We could be reading books, learning new skills, or exercising. But that’s not the point. It’s meant to be a relaxing hobby, becoming someone else so you can be, even in a pretend-space, somebody different.

If you risk losing interest, trying something new? You’ve not lost anything. You’ve just learned that isn’t for you.

You can use that knowledge going forwards. Point is, you’ll never know unless you try. And if you never try, you never will know.

Alternate Approaches

Worst comes to worst, you could go with the Final Fantasy approach. Excluding the MMORPGs, one of the keen aspects of the series is rather than making a character a la The Elder Scrolls a character is already there for you - you just step into their shoes. The character becomes your own.

In Larian RPGs such as Original Sin and Baldur’s Gate 3, you can make your own character, but you can also choose to play as any of the companions, having the rich context of their established personalities and backstories.

If the problem is too many choices?

I’d say this -
Think of a metaphor. All good characters are metaphors. You can make an entire story, even a game, from a single word or concept. Think ‘Hair’ for example.

If you’d like me to, I’ll give you one word, and I’d like you to try and think of a character from it. Any of these catch your fancy?

Metaphors to Build A Character From

Teeth
Yellow
Torn
Regret
Atonement
Orchard
Help
Bow
Mercy
Denial

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If a characters time feels over, then it’s probably over. I played this character since tbc or round abouts, letting go was difficult so I think I get you.

But if you the player feel the stories been told, then it’s been told. Fondly remember the character but let yourself explore a new one.

Make a new character, blank slate, don’t try and force anything on them. Remember you can always change class, your character is not their class and their journey can change.
But forgot every idea you have, go blank slate with a character. Any character. And see where it goes.

Heck roll 12 of them if needs be, you’ll connect with at least one if you throw them into the wild.

1 Like
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Echoing the above sentiments - when you feel it’s time to call it a day on a character, it’s probably best to listen to that little voice and explore why you feel that way. The same thing happened with my RP main, who I had been playing since mid-wrath and I finally felt I ran out of steam for him during, err, SLands I think? There weren’t any more stories I felt excited to explore with him, so I had him killed off during an RP-PvP campaign.

Unfortunately, as contented with the send-off as I was, there’s always been a niggling doubt at the back of my head that I should’ve kept the door open just ajar. At the time, I didn’t want myself to have that opportunity to undo things, so I’m glad to see that you’re not going to go down that route with Liao there - I think it’s important for you that Liao will still be there, like a comfortable warm shoe to slip into again, even if you feel his story is well and truly told.

I don’t think you’re “too old” to enjoy RP. I don’t know how old you are, but I myself am 37 (“in a row?” - real ones will get this reference) and doubtless there are older RPers on the server than us, but I don’t think age is a factor here. I think the more pressing issue is your indecision which I fully understand. We’re cut from the same cloth in that way. It seems like you have some themes that you’re interested in exploring, which is cool to have as a starting point, but maybe a more productive way of approaching your predicament would be to keep an eye out for realm events and RP hotspots and use those as a testing ground for any ideas you have? Tishamaat is coming up very soon, and one of the ideas you expressed interest in was a paladin of Some sort to coincide with the current light/void story - what better opportunity to see if draenei paladin, or draenei anything, appeals to you? In that same vein, if I was in your shoes and wanted to explore specific RP concepts like military RP, maybe reach out to those guilds and groups who have experience in that RP and just ask questions. If you’re feeling bold you could perhaps ask to tag along for one night of RP to get a feel for that type of RP, while keeping in mind that every guild approaches a universal concept like a Farstrider guild differently.

The point I’m laboriously getting to is - you’re in a place where you’re indecisive about how to proceed, and it’s perfectly okay to sit there for a while, but you’re uniquely in a position where you can test new character concepts to see if they catch your interest, with nothing to lose. Take advantage of that! Nothing says you have to commit to one character there and then on the login screen as your new RP main, so spend some time floating around until you find something that sticks. It’s not going to happen overnight - I’m only now just starting to get comfortable with a character myself - but if you allow yourself to ignore that pull back to Liao you can find yourself enjoying concepts you never thought you would. The only wrong move is absolute inaction.

Best of luck, Krasarang. Hope you get your mojo back. :slight_smile:

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Understand that you’ve been around long enough to have made plenty of OOC friends and OOC connections, and that there are plenty of people on this server who would enjoy having you along and showing you the ropes of a new concept.

As someone who has recently killed off a character because of the realisation that the concept wasn’t suitable for Argent Dawn and became too difficult for me to play, I don’t see my time spent on that character as a waste. I roleplayed with various people, had a great time with them and produced great memories with them. A character doesn’t have to go on forever for it to have been worthwhile.

So, just think of the communities that you have ties to or had ties to in the past, and reach out to them if they are appropriate for your character concept. Throwing a fresh character into a hub like Stormwind City and stumbling around in search of RP has a high chance of failure, compared to hooking up with a guild full of people who you know who are absolutely willing to give you a chance.

If Liao’s time has come, just put him on the shelf for now. You’ve made great memories with him, now it’s time to try out something new. Even if some of these new characters end up being duds, at least you’ll have experienced something new in the company of friends, which is a worthwhile experience in and of itself.

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I know that feeling you describe very well.
My old main, Oari, has been around for a long while.
I had many ups and downs with her, great events, wonderful memories.
But over time it became a mixture of to much due to real life, being a guild leader and ooc problems, so i took a break from her (and WoW) for a while.
Yet i still find myself drawn to her, the memories and all the history she had collected in the years she was alive on Argent Dawn.

For me, setting out on a new adventure with Eunti, still sometimes leads to my mind trying to log back onto Oari, to maybe rekindle the things from the past, and yet part of me feels like she deserves her time in the sunset of the dunes of Vol’dun while other characters take her place for the upcoming adventures.

I know i will maybe one day wake her up again, but there knowing that she is still there, happy and what she lived trough, those memories, gives me a bit of comfort in going forward as others.

Sometimes viewing things from a different pair of eyes, can help re-ignite the fire.

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Tldr.

  1. You dont have to give up your old chars. You can always go back to them

  2. Try different classes, once you find one you like ( the feels, the looks… ), turn it to rp char

  3. Make the character so that it works in solo rp aswell as a member of a guild

  4. Try your characters in new enviroments. This goes to your old characters aswell!

I can’t decide which character to play either. I have two different rogues. I have a human warlock, who has alter ego as traveling magic vendor and treasure hunter. Then there is my orc warlock. He is as loathsome and shady as possible and his very existence stirs conflict among many. Then there is Rippa. All my previous characters were rational and cunning type, so I made Rippa superstitious and straightforward type.

I like them all and they play different. To the advice part. You don’t have to let go of your old character, but you can still try new ones. My newest char is Rippa. I tried monk in Legion and I fell in love with the class. I think liking the class is important, since I dropped my rogues in WoD, because I disliked the class design, so I think it matters. Then when I found a class I liked, I designed a transmog (looks are important to me, it makes my char feel my own) and after that came backstory and simple character concept. Try to design the character so that it is fun to play in random rp as in guild/group rp to avoid being rp-starved. Be open minded to different kind of groups and guilds. My human warlock’s first guild was a guild of do-gooders who didn’t even recruit IC warlocks so we agreed on ”sorcerer alter-ego”. My lunatic, superstitious orc monk who revers bloodthirsty spirits by causing flashy carnage joined in a pirate guild. Both guilds were complete coincidence and I had never planned to join such guilds in advance and they were the best time I had with those chars so far at least.

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Thanks for the advice folks. It’s a lot to ponder what to do, but I’ll definitely find the time to try levelling up a character or two whilst the exp buff is live. Like, I’m keen o sink my teeth back into some RP.

And you guys are right I guess that I don’t have to completely shelve Liao; he could become more of a touchstone for RP instead

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I figured I’ll offer my two cents as well.

From the end of MoP till the end of Legion I had a main character who hit the point of feeling like her story was over. Combined with the fact that another character took my attention, I put her on the shelf for a long time, even going as far as renaming her and being certain I’d never RP the character again. Years later, a chance was presented to rework her a little so to fit a new concept, a new story, new goals, without erasing at all who she was before, or retconning. Just progressing.

I’m not saying you should set aside your OC for years of course, only that taking a break, big or small, from a character can always then help you return to them with renewed interest and fresh ideas. You mentioned having a lot of ideas for other characters as well, so I’d say give one of them a go as an alt - unless of course alts aren’t really your thing.

Returning to the title of the post, it really is a curse that we have to choose and that there’s only so much time and creativity we can spare for our creations and I think all that you said resonates with most RPers at some point in their journey. I hope you work it out in the way that makes you happiest.

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Honestly wouldn’t worry about the former at this point lol, the server’s nothing like what it was 10 years ago. As for the latter, I don’t think this is true. As someone who thought the same thing about a year ago, I’ve really enjoyed coming back to RP with a clean slate. Just gotta log in and find what’s right for you, no harm in alt-hopping until you find somewhere to commit to.

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