Monday, June 30, 2008

The Cardinal Sins of Roleplaying - The Lesser Evils

Being that I've already covered two big roleplaying don'ts, Godmodding and the Mary Sue, I felt the need to talk about some of the lesser evils of RP. They might not be as bad as others, but they're still called "lesser evils" for a reason.

• The Love Child •

A thing you don't see very often, thankfully, are characters who are the bastard children of some of WoW's prominant canon lore figures. Though when you do, your eyes will roll right out your skull in disbelief. If you have any inclinations to ever make your toon the child of Illidan & Tyrande, Thrall & Garona (etc), then just stop... Stop right now. Your character will not, no matter how much you might want it to, ever alter the Warcraft canon lore. If there's an illegitamate child of Kael'thas and Jaina out there... leave it to Blizzard to reveal it.

Another RP no-no that's close to "The Love Child" is "The Mentor". If your character is a teacher of Malfurion and Illidan, then you might want to rethink things...

• The Slippery Fish •

The Slippery Fish is a sort of godmodder. But one that takes a loooong time at going about it. A good example of a Fish (one that I have unfortunately experienced first hand), is that someone is being pursued by a group of somebodies and, no matter what the circumstance, will not let themselves get caught (even if the odds are tremendously against their favor. IE: More people, mounted pursuers, etc...) until they deem fit. If you DO manage to catch the Fish, they will stay around for a while before making their "grand escape" and make the chase begin anew.

The Fish I dealt with took such a route...

Fish detained in Darkshire --> Fish escorted to Stormwind --> Fish ESCAPES captors and runs away --> Fish cornered and captured (again) in Stormwind --> Fish makes escape and flees to another part of Stormwind --> Captured and finally detained --> Fish still tries to make a break for it! But fails... --> A long two hours later, the Fish is ultimately transported to a "safe house" in Kalimdor to await further questioning.

And just when you thought it was done...!

Fish springs the coop and flees from Teldrasil to Auberdine --> Fish takes the boat to Menethil --> Fish flies to Light's Hope Chapel in the Plaguelands --> A search team assembles in LHC and proceeds to look for the missing Fish --> Search team catches glimpses of the Fish running around the Plaguelands, but are "unable" to catch it --> After a final confrontation, and lengthy three hours of lol!drama and needless chasing, the Fish slips out of its pursuers' hands yet again and escapes into Stratholme despite the fact that all odds were overwhelmingly against it...

So there you have it... The chase can be exciting, but NOT when it takes a total of 5+ hours to do. But when it gets that out of hand, who's actually to blame? The Slippery Fish or the people chasing it? ~_~

1 comments:

Cynra said...

Another fellow roleplayer! Huzzah an' happiness!

The Love Child is perhaps one of the funniest archetypes I stumble across and one that I use frequently when trying to explain to others the commonly accepted standards of roleplaying. The example I tend to use is the Mary Sue who is the bastard child of Jaina and Thrall, blessed by the goddess Elune herself under a full moon. It amuses me -- mostly because I did meet someone once who claimed that very same background!