Having spent some time as a fiction writer, I can't help but see RP through the writer's lens. When you write and are showing your work to others to read, it becomes quickly apparent that there are two very different speeds of reading and interpreting your work: your own speed, which is slow and often based on your typing and writing speed, and that of the reader, who by comparison blazes through the work and potentially reduces its size and scope in the process. Ideally your critical beta readers will show you the gaps and flaws of your work—those things to which you were blind while you were in the thick of writing it.
Now add to this elements of theatre and social psychology. You write for only one character in a dialog with other characters who each are directed by another writer in a collaborative dance. However, you likely did not discuss the subject or direction of the dialog before you started writing, and you will not be able to edit it. On top of all that, there still exists the need to be accepted, the fear of rejection, and the desire to make the best impression when meeting a new person. No wonder we newbies are terrified of approaching others to RP: whether it's real or imagined, there's so much pressure!
I wandered into a tavern in Stormwind, normally unmanned by NPCs, but this time run by two players RPing the roles of host and waitress. I played along as best I knew how (with my experience in western restaurants, as I had never been served in a medieval market to my memory). The gentlelady offered me a haunch of meat for what I knew to be at least five times the cost from any NPC vendor.
What do I do? Everything in me, Rachel, the girl typing away behind the balding little gnome is screaming "What the hell? Are they trying to rip me off? Do they think this is the alt of a very rich level 80 on the same server?!"1 And all at once, I've run into a problem. I knew I was getting ripped off, but did my character know? How would he know? Does he visit Stormwind's taverns enough to know their rates?
I apologized for not having enough money and instead, offered my own wares to the waitress "as a tip and to help with the business": conjured muffins. It's good to be a mage.2
I felt like I cheated. I didn't even entertain the idea that my little gnome might be gullible. I was too mad about the idea that I (or my toon in my stead) was being swindled.
I've seen people with sketchy back stories, and even some "die-hard RPers" with no visible back stories at all. I wonder if they know their stories and simply choose not to readily reveal them or if they're figuring it all up as they go along. If the latter is true of them, I wonder how often they run into a problem like mine and how well—if at all—they can draw the distinction between themselves and their characters.
In preparation for future such quandaries, I've been deciding, bit by bit, how much my characters ought to know about the world and therefore, how much they don't. Currently, the most naïve of these is Sapsorrow who is exceptionally young for her race (just over two hundred years old—not yet a true Night Elf "adult") and is exploring the world prematurely. Already, she finds her way into trouble,3 and I have to fight the little urge to impose my omniscience on her and protect her from her own ignorance. Yet, because of this whispering conflict between my brain and the entity I've created before me, I feel a familiar thrill: a story is unfolding. I think I want her to struggle, learn, and overcome, and become a different person by the end of her story. I wonder how it will unfold.
1Typically, players will reach the maximum level with one character before starting another. They will use the resources of the max-level character (money, access, tradeskills, etc.) to supply lower level characters with an abundance of them.
2Mages have the ability to conjour food from thin air (using up magic resources instead).
3Moonbrook is actually a human town overrun with bandits.
1Typically, players will reach the maximum level with one character before starting another. They will use the resources of the max-level character (money, access, tradeskills, etc.) to supply lower level characters with an abundance of them.
2Mages have the ability to conjour food from thin air (using up magic resources instead).
3Moonbrook is actually a human town overrun with bandits.
