Folami's Guide to Roleplaying for Noobs (Part 3)

Part 3: Roleplay Add-Ons

MyRoleplay (MRP)

MyRoleplay (MRP) is an add-on popular with many, many roleplayers.  It's small, easy to use, and allows you to provide other players with information as a means of advertising your character and your desire to roleplay (or, as you'll see, your desire not to roleplay at any given moment).  MyRoleplay is not the only add-on for roleplayers, but it's the one I've found simplest to learn and one I feel is great for beginners.

First things first.  If you've never used an add-on, here's a picture guide on how to do it.  If that's not enough or you're not a Windows user, googling "World of Warcraft how to install addons" will bring up a wealth of helpful links.

MRP Basics

For the purposes of this portion of the guide, I'm going to be using my draenei priest Kryses.  She's someone I've had in my stable for a long while, but I never quite got around to filling out her MRP profile.  Hey, thanks for being my inspiration for completing this task.

At any rate, once you've installed and loaded the add-on from your log in screen, log into the desire roleplay character and bring up their character screen.  The default keybind for this is "c."  There will be a new tab added to the default tabs at the bottom of the window labeled "MyRolePlay."

Clicking on that tab will open bring up the screen from which to edit your MRP profile.  From here, it's just a matter of clicking on the red bar to bring up an edit window for that section.

In the previous entry, I talked about creating a character sheet.  As you can see, much of what was covered in that entry is also applicable here; however, the character sheet is for your reference.  Your MRP profile is for other players to get an idea of who your character is.  You can put as much or as little as you like in each of these sections.  At the very least you should fill out the top section and consider tossing a couple of sentences into the description section.

For Name, be aware that when you set your character status to indicate you are in character, your name in the chat window will also change.  Here's what happened when I put the name Jane Smith into the Name field and set my status to in character.

I'm creative with names.

This change is only seen by you and other players with MRP (or other roleplay add-on) and will only work for your realm and for people in your faction.  (Note: I'm unclear to how this works with connected realms, but I assume it treats it as though you are on the same realm.)  Players without MRP, members of the opposing faction, or players who are on another realm will still see whatever name is on the armory.

In the default UI a little window pops up whenever you hover over a character's avatar or their nameplate listing their name, guild (if they have one), class, and level.  MRP takes that window and adds to it depending upon what you put into each section.  Here's how each of these sections correspond to your window or "flag":

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Before I get into what each section means, I just want to note that blank sections won't appear in your MRP flag, so it's fine if you don't have a nickname or don't want to share it.

Now, what the heck does it mean by Title or House?  As you can see, Title differs from titles you earn via in-game achievements.  For Kryses I chose Anchorite as that is a title applied to priests in draenei culture (as Vindicator is given to paladins).  As with nicknames, not every character will or should have a title and each race might have different rules or even different sorts of titles for various classes or social level.

House is something I see used more among blood elf roleplayers and humans.  My impression has always been that this is more for races where noble families are prominent and there's something akin to a medieval feudal system in place.  The best example I can give is if this were Game of Thrones, your character might belong to House Stark or House Lannister.  I typically leave this blank as none of my characters belong to any such group or guild.

The section marked Currently is to let other players know what your character is currently doing in character.  Some examples are, "Grabbing a drink at the Pig and Whistle," or, "Browsing the wares in the Bazaar."  Other players will use it to note something specific about their appearance that's not normal for them or is temporary not worth changing their description.  "Her arm is in a cast," or, "His left eye is swollen."  If you're looking to encourage other roleplayers to engage in conversation with your character, offer something like "Is staring at a map and appears lost."

Roleplaying Style

The bottom two parts of both the flag and the MRP edit window tell other players what sort of roleplayer you are and whether you are in character (IC) or out of character (OOC).  First, let's talk about roleplaying style.

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Hovering over each of these options will tell you what each typically means, so use your best judgment when selecting your style.  You can also choose a custom setting which many people use to express interest in a specific type of roleplaying style.  There's no universal list of terms to refer to and one person's definition of "Mature" will vary from another's, but there are a couple of terms that you might see.

Paragraph/Storyteller: These are roleplayers who are extremely descriptive and will tend to write, literally, two or more paragraphs per reply.  Usually these players will roleplay elaborate combat scenarios in public spaces and it typically takes several minutes between replies.  This style of roleplay can be rather disruptive if done in local chat in a high population area like Stormwind where many conversations can be happening at once.  I've lost track of roleplay before due to having my chat window suddenly explode with several sentences from the same person.

Mature/Adult: As I said, this will vary from user to user, but for me it means I'm willing to engage in roleplay scenarios that might exceed, say, a PG rating if this were a movie.  Drinking, swearing, and/or mild violence as you might find in a PG-13 to R rated movie is fine with me.  For me this does not mean anything sexual, but other players may consider these terms to include sexual content.

Horror/Macabre: Pretty much what you think.  They're willing to roleplay stories with elements of horror and potentially gore.  It's not so out of place in a game with obvious Lovecraft references and Victorian styled werewolves.

Literate:  This is supposed to express a desire to roleplay with others who demonstrate a good grasp of the English language and punctuation and grammar.  While there's certainly an argument to be made for communication, I personally dislike using this specific term for several reasons.  Chiefly, I feel it can be a little alienating to players for whom English is a second language and who may not know the same language rules I learned in school as a native speaker.  Seeing this term sometimes makes a player fear their grammatical errors will be teased or used to dismiss them as a "legitimate" roleplayer, which is totally unfair.  Knowing how to use a semicolon and never confusing your and you're doesn't make you a great roleplayer, it just makes you someone who knows grammar and punctuation.

ERP/Non-ERP: This indicates the player is willing/not willing to engage in sexual roleplay otherwise known as erotic roleplay.  We'll talk about this more in depth later, but for now I want you aware of what the terms mean because it's important to be forewarned of what you might encounter.  I will also note that if you do wish to engage in ERP, keep it out of public chat.  Not only is it against the Terms of Service, it's incredibly rude and gross to subject people to sexual roleplay who have not consented to it.

These are just a few terms and it's likely you'll see many different custom settings.  See what's out there that might fit your style, or just stick with one of the styles provided by MRP.

Character Status

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Again, hovering over each of the statuses will tell you what each of them may mean.  Note that "storyteller" as a status is different from what it might mean as a roleplaying style.  Select whichever status fits you best.  Use the custom if you need to indicate a special circumstance to your being in character at any given moment.  For example, on my human warlock I tend to make a note that if she has a demon out, I'm not in character or to pretend the demon isn't there.

As with style, there are some different terms for custom status, but the most often-used one refers to "walk-up" RP.  This means a player is open to having characters simply approach them even if their character doesn't know yours.  Think of it like approaching a stranger at a party and striking up a conversation and you have an idea of what walk-up RP means.

Description and History

We've covered this in the previous entry, but for MRP it's a good idea to go with the motto "less is more" approach when considering what to include here.  Space isn't necessarily at a premium, but other players' attention spans are.  Try to avoid spending several sentences describing the luxuriousness of your character's mane and do your best to keep it brief but interesting.  Admittedly brevity isn't one of my best attributes as a writer.

Remember, description will be mostly for talking about what your character looks like and what sort of personality they have.  Here's what I've put for Kryses:

Standing at average height for a draenei, Kryses is somewhat bewildered at suddenly being the tallest person in a room when working among members of different races.  Further confounding her is the idea that her white hair sometimes gives others the idea she's venerable and wizened when she still thinks of herself as young and occasionally naive, and she sort of is, for a draenei at least.  Still, she doesn't hesitate to draw upon her life's experience when friends approach her for advice or when passing knowledge of the healing arts on to acolytes.

Pale violet skin and light blue eyes give her an almost ethereal appearance when she chooses to wear lighter colored robes while working her healing magic.  Lately she's found herself migrating toward richer colors like deep blues and purples which offsets her pale skin and brings out the light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks.

If you brush by her in a crowded place, she likely smells of flowers, a side-effect of her fondness of herb gardening and alchemy studies.

This is far from the best description I've ever written, but I'm not going for perfection.  I've done my best to give people a general idea of her appearance and offer a little insight into her personality.  I included the bit about smelling like flowers not only to enhance her description, but to also offer other players a potential conversation starter ("Is that lavender I smell?").

Go with whatever makes you comfortable here.  If you can't think of anything beyond the color of your character's hair and its texture, just write about that.  "Their hair is curly and brown" is as valid a description as "Brown ringlets frame a heart shaped face with a slightly upturned nose."  As with many things in life, this is something that you'll find gets easier with practice.

When it comes to history, there's several ways you can go about it.  Some players choose to keep their character's background a secret and will put something like "roleplay to find out" or "buy them a drink and ask."  This is perfectly acceptable.  After all, we don't tell complete strangers our life story in real life.  On the other hand, providing at least a basic background might encourage other players to consider having their character approach yours.

Again, less is more and it's better to focus on your character's most recent history than their entire life.  For Kryses, I decided to go with a basic history focusing mostly on how she got her start as a healer.

Kryses was born long before the draenei came to Draenor.  She's unable to recall precisely how long ago that was as she's lived on various worlds each with different methods for measuring the length of a year.

A disciple of the Light and the Naaru, Kryses has dedicated herself to the healing arts.  When the orcs began waging war against the draenei, she volunteered to join her kin on the front lines.  There she learned triage and how to think on her feet.  She also learned how to close her heart to the pain and suffering around her so as not to give in to despair.  Unlike many of her kin, she is a survivor of Draenor and spent several months in hiding with other refugees of war.

When the Burning Legion was driven back at last and Prophet Velen announced he believed he found his Army of Light, Kryses chose to journey to Azeroth.  She travels wherever the need for the Light and healing are greatest.  Though she calls Stormwind her home now, she resides there for only a few weeks out of each year.

Of late her greatest joy has been learning how other races on Azeroth worship and work with the Light.  She's also taken up the study of alchemy and herb gardening and will spend hours discussing fertilizer, weather, and soil consistency.

If someone asks me, I can account for Kryses's whereabouts during Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm, but I didn't feel it was necessary for MRP.  Plus, that'd be a little too much detail and wouldn't really help me in the long run.  For now I've established that Kryses is an accomplished and experienced healer who has seen war and has a budding interest in horticulture.

How does it look?

When you click on another player with an MRP profile, you'll see a little extra icon appear on their character portrait (in the default UI).  It's a small circle with "MRP" in the center.  This is what you'll see when you click on it:

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(Note: The history and description was edited for this entry after this screenshot was taken.)  As you can see, despite my description and history being fairly brief, it still takes up a bit of space in the MRP window.  Now you can possibly see why it's better to be brief, though if you feel like being incredibly detailed, that's fine too.

That's it for MRP!

Thanks for reading!

That's the basics for using MRP.  Up next, I'll dig a bit into Total Roleplay2, a more complicated add-on with lots of bells and whistles to enhance in-game roleplay.