Welcome to another chapter of Hyrkanian Insight where we’ll go over more RP (role playing) for yet another week. No, don’t panic, this won’t become endless, as part III will be the last of this series. Or at least the last for now; being a role-player I won’t discard the chance of talking about it more in the future. Raiding, instancing, crafting and almost every other area of game content calls me with equal strength, (except maybe PvP, but that’s mostly because I’m terrible at PvPing and the people I tend to play with prefer the PvE content over PvP, but that’s another story.)
This week I want to talk you about RP Events, which was what I originally had in mind when the Behind the Scenes series started; taking Age of Conan as my base, as usual. Walk with me after the cut and let me guide you through backstage of RP.
The thing that differentiates what we could call standard, or normal, RP from an event is that the latter has an organizer, the equivalent of a Dungeon Master/Game Director in pen-and-paper RP games (for example, Dungeons & Dragons, Vampire: The Masquerade, Stormbringer, Cyberpunk, Lord of the Rings or whatever other game you may have played.) The organizer is the one who produces a plot, thinks of a story and develops its details, and the roleplayers follow that plot to reach a goal. Someone leads the action, so to speak.
So what one has to keep in mind when organizing an event is:
– What is going on and why
– Where the event will be happening
– Who can participate
– When it will happen
– What is needed for the event to be successful
The answer to these questions will vary greatly because RP events are very different from each other. For a Storytelling Night you’ll need a storyteller, and probably it doesn’t matter how many people attend; the more the merrier as they say. For a Tavern Night, just attendants are needed. Though having someone to act as serving wench for the night will make the event more lively. Also, if you also bring some player-crafted food that the waiter/waitress can offer to the customers it’ll make the immersion better and will offer more interaction and RP opportunities. Also having some scripts prepared will give dynamism as you won’t have to spend as much time typing that way. A script with the story to be told, for example, or scripts with emotes for cleaning the tables, or the counter, or maybe a script with the menu of the day as probably that will be repeated throughout the night, just to name a few.
But those are examples of the simplest events. To organize a Slave Auction the organizer will need collaborators, to act as guards during the auction, will need roleplayers willing to act as slaves being sold, (for whatever reason) from virgins to be sacrificed to Set, to thieves caught and sold as punishment, or house servants, scholars or soldiers… For this one, specific rules regarding payment have to be sorted out and clarified to the participants/possible buyers in advance, to avoid problems during the event itself. It’s also important to set the limits of what’s acceptable and what not; always, always, always respecting the roleplayers wishes with regard to what they’re comfortable roleplaying and what they’re not. And a time limit should be specified as a general rule. Maybe there’s a gamer that doesn’t mind roleplaying the slave for a longer period in a personal plot, but usually slaves are played with alts and for a limited duration, unless both players agree to something different; but establishing certain limits is needed.
Other examples of RP events can be Hunting Parties, where two groups are formed and one group has to “chase” the other within a set amount of time, after which the groups swap roles. There’s Dueling in a PvP area (or if it’s a PvP server in any place suitable for such encounter), Horse Races, Charity Stands, Rescuing a missing friend… in truth, anything can be turned into an RP event, because the limits are our own imaginations and creativity. There are lots of examples of this in the forums.
For those of you interested in trying this out, it will be interesting to keep an eye on places that look ideal for an RP event of scene. Surely you’ve sometimes seen camps free of mobs, or secluded spots, suitable for a certain type of event, but then after a time, forgotten where that special spot was. Well, using map customizable notes, you can add a dot on that place you’ve found for future use, identifying it with the name you want so it won’t be a problem finding it later.
Also keep a record of what’s happened, (maybe just some notes of who was where or maybe prices of drinks) so next time you use the same prices for consistency. I could go on forever and never cover all the possibilities, so take this as a starting point instead of the whole of what RP events are about.
[singlepic id=2775 w=320 h=240 float=right]One last thing I would like to talk about, and I don’t think I can highlight enough, is emoting. But this time I’m talking about emote fighting. Confrontations and fights (or even battles) sorted out through emoting have a dangerous tendency to become stupidly long and, on a great number of occasions, the source of misunderstandings and arguments. Why? Because every gamer will see things from their own point of view and rarely (from my own experience) will one accept the superiority of another; thus avoiding, evading, parrying, deflecting and dodging the other’s attacks while at the same time counterattacking thrusting and swinging with deadly aim at their opponent. How to sort this is tricky, but if players have role-played before and know each other, it probably won’t be necessary to set too many rules. But if it’s an open event, or the organizer doesn’t know all the participants, it’s advisable. One system would be to use rolls, but since Age of Conan doesn’t have a /roll or /random command, using dice could be a way to sort it out; both adversaries declare their intentions, then roll the dice. The one who gets the higher roll is the one that wins. It’s quite random and probably some (or many) of you will be shaking your heads disagreeing with it; but let me tell you that it’s simple, quick and doesn’t require much thinking nor time lost deciding.
Of course, in the end, and I have said this before, whatever system the players agree to will be as valid as the next one, as long as everyone, or the majority of the participants agree to it. Or, if it’s an event organized by someone, the rules set by that person will have to be accepted beforehand to take part in the event.
And with that we conclude the RP subject for a while. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and that at least some of it was new or offered a different view on things. Leave your comments and opinions for a broader picture. See you all next week with more Hyrkanian Insight. *Bows down and retires to plot the next subject*
Hyrkanian Insight updates every Saturday.