How I Rediscovered the Joy of Roleplaying

Roleplaying

I joined Feathermoon US about three years ago, a starry-eyed roleplaying neophyte who was too afraid to roleplay but very interested in learning how to do so and getting involved with the community. After some not-so-gentle coaxing from a friend, I made the leap to join the server, became an active participant of the wonderful Feathermoon.net community, met up with a group of people who had a roleplaying guild¹, interacted with another², and everything seemed new and idyllic and wonderful.

Now, years later, I sometimes feel like I’m barely eking by. I recently stepped down as leader of my old guild, which was originally styled as a roleplaying guild but had lost that feeling over the year and a half I was it in. Most of my time in-game is consumed by raiding with people who mostly don’t roleplay. I’ve dropped most of the standard roleplaying conventions while around them, though I’m strictly in-character outside of the raid. I wander the streets of Stormwind and Ironforge, Orgrimmar and Thunderbluff, and wonder how I can reclaim that feeling of my roleplaying youth. I push and pull, struggling to remain in-character in an environment which just doesn’t seem conducive to roleplaying any more. I sometimes feel silly roleplaying in a group of complete strangers, dreading the questions of “Why are you talking like that?”; “What’s with the weird accent?”; and “Why are you using (())’s around your words now?” Every couple of months I start feeling vindicitve and report all of the non-roleplaying names I come across: the Solidsnakes and Nubnuggz and Flagcarriers and Healplzs that I come across and can’t stand seeing.

It’s hard to remain optimistic in light of that. It hard having to explain or defend your actions as a roleplayer. And it’s hard to be a roleplayer even on a roleplaying server where — oddly enough — we seem like the minority when we used to be the majority. At least, as far as I can remember, though that could be nostalgia speaking.

About a month or so ago after a cancelled raid on Tempest Keep, I was doing my weekly stroll through the streets of Stormwind looking for something to catch my fancy. I’d already done my dailies on two characters. I was bored and even a bit saddened to not see any of the random roleplaying that used to catch my attention in years past. I crafted a couple of blacksmithing items for people and was disappointed when they didn’t roleplay the exchange with me. I saw a couple of people with FlagRSP tags, but most of them said Out of Character and were involved in non-IC chatter around the mail box or in the Auction House.

All in all, feeling a bit dejected and ready to log off for the evening, I took the opportunity to reclaim some Auction House earnings from the mailbox in Stormwind Park. While there, I was approached by an obvious roleplayer.³ He approached my perky priestess and they began talking, discussing all sorts of things that caught their fancy — as Csilla is apt to do. Moments later, an argumentative dwarf join us, and the three headed into the inn to discuss philosophy and semantics.⁴

Two hours later, as I leaned back contentedly in my seat, I thought to myself, self, that’s why you still roleplay! At a time when I’d felt perhaps the nearest to absolute disappointment about the roleplaying status of my server, this wonderful, generous, and absolutely fun person approached me and helped me get out of that funk. So I’d like to take a moment to thank Raethos, guild leader of The Paragon⁵, for giving me the opportunity to experience again that wonderful feeling!

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