A question from a reader:

Hey Anna!

Lately, there seems to be a trend of sites popping up that make fun of bad RSP flags. What are your opinions on sites like these that ridicule the rsp for either graphic content or minor nitpicking.

- A Nonny Mouse

To be quite honest, Nonny (I hope it’s alright that I call you Nonny), I’m not fond of sites devoted to making fun of RSP flags. For one thing, I don’t think they do anything productive, or offer any kind of help to any of the people that are “offending”. I also don’t think they’re all that useful, given that you can get everything from  the nitpicky “OMG Stormwind was destroyed and rebuilt, how could they not know that!!?!!eleventy1″ to the more egregious examples of erotic content in RSP flags, posted for either shock value or validation.

Are there some really bad RSP flags? Absolutely. They’re often full of purple prose, gravity defying sexual organs, robotic body parts, and “I’m not really a …” types of silliness. But you really can’t tell much about a character – or how well that character is played – from an RSP tag.

Here’s why.

Aely, my main, whom you’ve all read about and who I’m quite confident is not a “mary sue”, is a 6 foot tall, red-headed warrior goddess built like a professional beach volleyball player. If you read her RSP, you could come away with that, and I could show up on a website getting made fun of for playing such a stereotypical “mary sue” character.  Except that Aely is more than just her appearance, and I’ve never had anyone tell me that she’s a hollow shell of a character created for my own self aggrandizement.

Bricu, who writes for WTT:RP (and who has given me permission to do this), plays a stereotypical “not your typical paladin” character. He’s gruff and unusual, and could easily show up on a website getting made fun of for not playing paladins “properly”. Except that if you’ve ever interacted with Bricu, you know that he’s a bastard AND a paladin, and he manages to wear both hats very well. The character fits and works and isn’t a shallow RSP tag.

Seylon, one of Yva’s characters (who also knows about this post), is a tall, totally hawt night elf warrior with a gorgeous body, who wears really skimpy armor, flirts with anything that moves (of either gender) and drinks hard. If all you ever saw of Seylon was a brief encounter in the bar, you’d probably think she was worth writing up for one of those websites. Except Seylon is also a hard working single mom, an incredibly well developed character, and not at all a shallow RSP tag.

Yes, sometimes it’s incredibly frustrating to try to RP with people and get yet another “I’m not really a death knight and my boobs are so huge they’re like watermelons but gravity doesn’t apply to me and I sparkle and smell like jasmine” encounter. I’ve laughed those situations off with friends, in private, because there’s not really any other way to deal with the frustration. But, as I’ve mentioned before, not everyone starts out good at RP, and public humiliation doesn’t help anyone.

The best reaction, when confronted with something that makes you want to roll your eyes, is to either gently approach the person about it, or – if you don’t think it’s worth trying or don’t have the patience to try – to ignore it and move on. If the person is actively griefing YOU (and I have seen situations of extremely off-kilter RP turn into table dancing), then it’s time to get a GM involved.

If reading RSP tags makes you think that every roleplayer you encounter is going to be a terrible one?

Stop reading RSP tags.

You can turn the addon off, or just turn off “mouseover pop ups”, and then all the people passing by that you don’t actually interact with will never intrude on your screen.

You can’t judge a book by its cover, and you really can’t judge every roleplayer by his or her RSP tag.

For full disclosure, I’m not even running an RSP addon right now. I love them for their naming abilities, but I find that the description boxes aren’t that helpful. And besides, I’d much rather interact with people than have to read their RSP first!

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you***

Ask Anna: RSP Websites

Dear Anna,

My wife has left me (for the week) and I’m a bachelor once more. (Technically, I have been for the better part of 2 months, what with travel and all. But we’ll avoid that fact for the purposes of comic relief.) She’s taken my son and left me with two needy dachshunds. Needy in that they need to be fed daily. How’s a man supposed to handle the stress?!

Anyways, I was writing for some advice. See, I have these chicken filets that have been sitting in my freezer for God knows how long (3 days). I know I should probably eat them at some point, but I’m culinarily-challenged. I was told eating it straight out of the freezer probably isn’t the wisest choice, but I can burn water putting it on the stove. Any suggestions for a kitchen neophyte?

Sincerely yours,
Utterly Lost Without A Female Around To Keep Him Fed And Showered

Dear Utterly Lost -

As a gamer, you’re more than capable of reading up and doing a bit of research on your class. Cooking is not that much different, it’s all about following a basic rotation! Granted, you’re probably not wanting a really fancy recipe that involves deboning a whole chicken, stuffing, and roasting it, but chicken breast fillets are easy to cook and quite delicious.

Also, I emailed you back, and you mentioned that you’re comfortable with a grill, but unsure about this whole “oven” thing. As such, we’ll cover both the vanilla recipe and a heroic version.

The Basics:

1. Defrost the chicken - either in the fridge (for probably 24 hours if they’re in a package from the grocery) or sealed in plastic under cool running water. The latter is faster, but requires more babysitting. If you choose the fridge, place the chicken package ON A PLATE, and keep it at the bottom shelf of your fridge. Chicken Juice + Anything Else = BAD. You want to avoid cross contamination, if you will.

2. Turn on the oven to 400F, and let it heat until the little “I’m heating up” light turns off, or it beeps and says OVEN READY or whatever your oven does.

3. Get out salt, pepper, and spices that you find tasty. For this recipe, look for a bottle of Italian Seasoning (usually a mixture of spices like Basil and Oregano) and a bottle of Garlic Powder. If all you can find is Garlic SALT, do not add other salt to the chicken.

4. Get out a large baking pan (I like a 9×13” glass pyrex dish, but anything with sides will work) and line it with aluminum foil. Put a little bit of olive oil in the bottom and spread it around, or spray with nonstick spray. Spray carefully, so that you do not accidentally get non-stick spray onto your floor. Trust me.

5. Carefully arrange the chicken breast fillets in the pan so that they are in one layer, and not too smushed up against each other.

6. WASH YOUR CHICKENY FINGERS. Warm water. Soap. Salmonella is full of fail, and you don’t want it (nor do you want to give it to your family, or have it growing on your spice containers).

7. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and the seasonings. If you’re worried, go easy – you want to lightly dust them, not dump so much garlic powder on them that your coworkers will smell you coming tomorrow.

8. Put the pan in the hot oven for about 30 minutes. Use a timer. Use a NOISY timer.

9. After 30 minutes, check the chicken to see if it is done. If you have an instant read thermometer (See – cooking is appropriately geeky, you get to use cool gizmos), you want it to read 165F. If you don’t have such a device, carefully remove one of the chicken fillets and cut it in half through the thickest part. If the juices are clear, you’re good to go. If they’re still pink, back in the cooker they go, for another 5-10 minutes at a time.

You can, at this point, enjoy your chicken just like this. I suggest eating it with a vegetable or a delicious salad and some vinaigrette… or Ranch Dressing, if that’s how you roll. Also, once you remove the chicken from the pan, the aluminum foil can be tossed in the trash, and you don’t have a pan to soak and wash.

You can also vary this recipe by using different spices – cumin and chili powder will get you a “southwestern style” chicken, for example. Basically any spices will work here!

If you’re looking to try a HEROIC version, you can do the following:

Take some tomato sauce and spread it over the chicken, right there in the pan where it already is. (The plain tomato sauce in a can is fine, add a little bit of that Italian Seasoning and give it a stir before you add it to the chicken) On top of each chicken fillet (that is now covered with a spoonful or two of tomato sauce) add a slice of mozzarella cheese – or a handful of the pre-shredded stuff in a bag. At this point, you can add a few pieces of pepperoni to each chicken breast if you like.

Now put the whole thing back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese is all melty and delicious. (Use your eyeballs. Look at the cheese. Is it melty and delicious after 10 minutes? No? Then set your timer for another 5 minutes and check back! If the cheese is getting toasty brown in spots, it’s /definitely/ done.)

Yes, I’ve just given you a recipe for Pizza Chicken. Enjoy, and try not to burn the roof of your mouth on the molten cheese.

Let me know how this turns out – hopefully you end up with a delicious and satisfying dinner! (If not, well, you’re home alone, and nobody ever has to know but you!) Just make sure to use a timer that you’ll hear, because while melty and delicious is good, blackened and smoking is not.

As with things in WoW, you don’t want your dinner standing in fire either.

Good luck!

Pizza Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 slices mozzarella cheese (or 4 handfuls of pre-shredded)
1 cup tomato sauce
salt, pepper, garlic powder, Italian seasoning blend
pizza toppings (optional)

Preheat oven to 400F.  Line a 9×13 baking dish with aluminum foil and spray lightly with non-stick spray. Arrange chicken so that it is not touching/smushed up. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, italian seasoning.  Bake for 30 minutes or until juices run clear.  Place 1/4c tomato sauce on each chicken breast, top with 1 slice mozzarella cheese, and a light sprinkling of other pizza toppings. Bake for another 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is melty and delicious.

Makes 4 servings, and can be adjusted to serve more or fewer people relatively easily.

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you***

Ask Anna – Hungry Hungry Gamer

Dear Anna,

I have decided to get back into role playing. It has been about two years since I last role played. I will admit I am a bit rusty, slower to respond then I was, but I have been having a blast. I decided to roll a blood elf hunter. I love the blood elf lore, and feel the most comfortable rping one. (I love rping trolls, but they always end up comedic relief.)

My problem is this: Siouxsie is a complete bore. I didn’t want to create a character that is some sort of super hero, super villain, the most beautiful, smartest, ect. I wanted a normal girl, with a normal background. I am afraid though I may have made her too plain.

She is about 5′8, 147 pounds. She is a little round, and a lithe hunter. She loves to change her hair color, just so she can gossip with the goblin hairdressers. Her hair is short and choppy. It looks more like it was cut with a dagger then shears. She has a dark golden complexion, fell green eyes and friendly gap tooth smile.

Her history is, well I think it is mostly normal… (but too long for me to post in its entirety). She spends a lot of her time just watching and listening.

Personality wise she is pretty kindhearted with her own race, naive, a little on the dumb side, though more for lack of education then anything else. She has a sarcastic sense of humor, prefers to be more in the crowd the the center of attention. She is not at all comfortable around the other horde races, she isn’t rude, but she isn’t friendly to them either. She also loves bubblegum, and has a weak spot for anything sweet. She is a hopeless romantic, but she has learned everything about romance from a few of her mothers old romance novels. She isn’t quick to anger, but she will hold a grudge until her last breath.

And that is Siouxsie. I have tried to involve her in some role play, but the most I have gotten with her is some DK wanting to marry her after they spoke for 5 minutes. And a bit of a romantic intrigue with another blood elf. It is very nice, and cute role play and has some nice story potential. I just want more, and want to really make her more dimensional. I guess I just do not know how to do it, I want to involve her with more rp without making her seem to over the top, mary sueish (if she isn’t already), or a demon girl who does odd things with her tail. Though I will admit when I watched that RP it did make me laugh.

Can you help me? Advice, criticism, eyerolls anything would be great! Thank you, and take care.

I’ve opted to post most of your letter, since I think it gives a pretty good idea of how much time and thought you’ve put into developing Siouxie.

Here’s the thing. She doesn’t sound boring at all to me. She sounds like a character with some little quirks and flaws, and a healthy start towards a defined personality. It’s entirely possible to have a “normal” character that’s successful in RP – but it does take a bit of work, and it usually takes having other people around to help her develop a voice.

Her background is not the same as her personality and how she interacts with other people.

However – if the only RP you’ve found with her is someone wanting to marry her after 5 minutes and someone else wanting to be in a romance with her, you’re probably not seeing much of her personality! I think you need to give her a chance, and get her into situations that aren’t either awkward (”Why no, I don’t want to marry you, I’ve never seen you before and don’t even know your last name”) or floofy and sweet and sappy romantic (which is fun RP, but not exactly character illuminating).

As such, I think this is both a question of character and of finding solid RP experiences.

In all likelihood, you’ll run into lots of superficial stuff, which is totally fine – even the Riders have a good bit of “superficial” RP time each week, because everyone always being tied up in OMG DRAMA is exhausting.

As you’re just getting started, you’ll have a lot more “run ins” and a lot less consistent RP with the same people. Use those quick RP run ins to figure out who you might want to have extended RP with, of the not-romantic variety, again – romances are TONS of fun, but friendships, enemies, working relationships, and guilds/organizations are all much better ways to discover character development and personality, unless you’re willing to throw a lot of horrible obstacles into the romance, which can also be exhausting.  Also, if the only thing connecting two characters is a romance, when the romance fizzles or waxes and wanes and loses the high of “new RP”, things will go south pretty fast.

Consistent RP partners and friends will help Siouxie develop her own voice and her own mannerisms beyond what you’ve created, which is essentially her backstory.

Backstories are great, but they’re not what make characters interesting or fun. The interesting and fun part comes out of the interactions you have with others.

Another way to bring out her personality is to throw trouble at her on your own, if you’re of the fic-writing persuasion (not all RPers are).

The best way I know of to find out how a character reacts to difficult situations is to just put them in one and see what happens. It can take a bit of “heartless” sort of writing – putting horrible things in your character’s path can be hard, especially if you know it’s going to cause them some heartache or pain – but it’s definitely worth it in the end. You also have to be strong and not let them take the “easy way out” (summoning in a Magic Dragon to take all the trouble away doesn’t count as problem solving!).

Don’t give up on Siouxie yet. She’s got a strong foundation to become a character that you love. Remember that RP happens WITH you, not TO you, and seek out some more consistent opportunities, whether that’s in guilds, through your server’s “open RP gatherings” (like pub nights and such), or just through running into random people and figuring out who you do and don’t want to keep RPing with. You might get frustrated, and you might not find the best opportunities right off the bat, but you can find a good group for her, or just a few other unaffiliated people that can help her find her voice.

As always, if any of you (my readers) have other comments or suggestions for Siouxie, please leave them in comments – whether those are character specific suggestions or ways to find quality RP environments. I’m not particularly well versed in Blood Elf lore or RP, so my Horde readers will likely have better suggestions on that front!

Good luck, and may the Loot-Fu be with you!

Note: I’m posting this because I think Siouxie has a common problem – lots of backstory but not a lot of interaction. Only she can actually “un-boring” the character, and her backstory isn’t really the way to do it. As such, these are hints that I think can help a lot of roleplayers. If you’ve got lore-specific or character specific questions, I can try to answer them, but this space isn’t generally for “PLZ FIX MY CHARACTER” advice (otherwise I’d totally bore all my readers!).

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you***

Ask Anna – Help for a “boring” character

As an aside, I am absolutely intentional aboud avoiding the terms “hardcore” and “casual” in this post, because I think they’re pretty useless.

To someone who logs in one or two nights a week and only plays by themself, a person who logs in most evenings and runs 5 mans and heroics is “hardcore”. To someone who logs in most evenings and runs 5 mans and heroics, a person who raids a few nights a week in a 25 man raid is “hardcore”. To someone who raids a few nights a week in a 25 man raid, a person who raids 5-6 nights a week on bleeding edge progression for many hours at a time is “hardcore”. To someone who has only one character, someone who has 12 alts may seem “hardcore”. It’s pretty arbitrary.

As such, I’m purely going to address people’s varying willingness to endure certain things, and different goals within raiding. Yes, it means this post is a bit wordier, but it avoids a lot of the ambiguous crap that goes along with trying to make predefined stereotypes fit.

ANYWAY!

Kharasa asks:

Hey Anna!

I have a quick question for you that is … honestly.. neither really easy nor, in the end, really quick.  In short, however:  how can I get started in the whole ‘raid’ thing?

I am a dedicated roleplayer, and firm member of a roleplay-centric guild.  We have raiders who are a part of this guild, but the guild as a whole is not dedicated to nor interested in the raiding ’scene’. In fact, some of my guild’s roleplayers ultimately have problems with the basic “don’t stand in the fire.”  This is not universally true, but from a raw numbers and ability standpoint, most are not interested in actually learning the skills (or minmaxing to the potential) necessary for raiding.  Our guild is about half full of members of this sort – this isn’t bad, and is a perfectly fine playstyle, but our guild isn’t gonna be taking down the Lich King anytime in the next decade or two.

I have no interest in leaving this guild – and I know that already limits my raiding potential.  On the other hand, I’d really like to see this endgame content before the next expansion drops.  How can I make the leap?  How can I get into a raid group where people are asking for experience and gearscore that implies you’ve already cleared the darned thing, when I’m not there yet?

I’m full ilevel232 geared (or better), badged to the point my wazoo is out, sporting best-I-can-get in just about every slot  and putting out massive DPS and solid healing.  I don’t stand in the fire.  I make no pretensions of knowing all the fights, but I also don’t claim to be more than ‘new’.

How do I make the leap?  How do I get people to give me a shot?  How in the world am I supposed to get from here to there?

Ok, a few things.

First, you’ve correctly addressed that this is not at all about roleplay vs. not roleplay. Your guild, as it is, has two groups of people in it. A a group of people who are interested in raiding to the point that they’re willing to do the out-of-raid legwork to be “good” at it. And a group of people who want to go on a raid, but don’t wish to do a lot of “other stuff” outside of raids. They think raiding is fun – and that’s all they really care to invest.

And, as you also correctly addressed, this is absolutely fine as their choice of playing. Yeah, it probably means they won’t kill Arthas, but for some people, raiding isn’t about killing bosses as much as it is about having a good time. That’s totally fine. (Some of the things we do outside of raids are occasionally un-fun. I really am not that fond of farming, but I do it because I know my raid expects me to show up with flasks, for example.)

The problem shows up when not everyone in a guild or raid group feels the same way. When you have a group of people who are OK with the “un-fun” out-of-raid commitments because they want to beat more difficult content mixed in with people who just want to show up, clear what they can, and not worry about it… you get head butting and discontent.

All that aside, down to the actual meat of your question:

First, you might consider if it’s possible to continue RPing with your friends in your current guild without wearing the guild tag on your one main raiding character. Not every RP group is “guild only” either, and I don’t know enough about your group to say either way.

For now though, you’ve decided not to leave your guild, because you like them (and their RP).

That will, as you’ve mentioned, make finding a raid group more difficult, but not impossible. Not all raid groups are guild exclusive – and some servers are more friendly to this than others. (Feathermoon, the server I play on, has a number of non-guild raiding groups, as well as raids that are run by guilds but that have no “guild exclusive” requirement.)

All you can do is apply.

You can’t “make” people give you a shot.

Put together an application for guilds that interest you and are recruiting – if you’re not sure about guilds, check your server forums and the guild recruitment forum. Keep an eye out in trade chat (I know, I know, but you never can tell!) for groups looking for people of your class/spec and ask if this is a regular raid or a PUG. You say you’re regularly running heroics – if you see other people in a group that are from your server, ask them about your guild. Same goes for PUG ICC raids, especially 10 mans. I found TRI through Feathermoon’s IRC channel, where someone was bemoaning their lack of a healer for a Karazhan run.

Put your best foot forward. Obviously, by your email, you’re quite capable of complete sentences and clear statements – that’s a good start. At this point, the best you can do is be the best applicant you possibly can. Bellwether has a great post on How to Ace your App that’s a good read if you’ve not seen it yet.

Finding a new raid is work, and they don’t often fall into your lap. You’ll probably go on trial runs with groups that make you totally crazy or that can’t even clear what you’re already doing with your guild. You might go on runs with groups unwilling to explain new fights who then tell you you’re not a good fit because you can’t meet XYZ standard.

Obviously, if someone approaches you to say “no, we don’t think you’re a good fit”, you should be gracious about it. Whining, yelling, and being argumentative isn’t going to change their minds – and besides, that’s a good time to ask that person if they know of a guild that might fit better! Burning a bridge isn’t going to help you in the long run, and being gracious might mean they change their mind later (especially in the raiding climate that exists right now).

After all that, you may even decide that you’re not keen on the hassle and would rather stick with the group you’ve got. That’s fine as well – sometimes it takes getting into other groups to realize what you like about the raid you’ve got.

A lot of raids are winding down right now, between the summer lull and the impending expansion pack.

While that might mean it’s hard to find groups that are still active (I know a few that threw in the towel and are on break until Cataclysm already), it also means other raid groups are trying to keep their rosters full enough to raid. It’s a bit of a toss-up, but now can be a good time to find a new group willing to give you a try, especially on already learned (for them) content.

I wish you the best of luck finding a group that matches with what you’re wanting to put into raiding. It can be frustrating, and for a lot of (perfectly valid) reasons, sometimes we all agree to put up with one or two things we don’t like in order to stay with the things and people we DO like.

Also, as usual, I’m sure you all (my readers) have other advice to give Kharasa – please do so in the comments!

Good luck, and may the Loot-Fu (and Raid-Fu!) be with you!

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you***

Ask Anna: Guild and Raiding Help

Anslym, from Totem Tossing, sent me an email (during the whole computer fiasco) with a couple of really excellent Ask Anna questions. I’ll be tackling them this week, since I think the answers are useful for other people as well.

He writes:

Dear Anna,

In my What-up weekly post I was mentioning about writing some stories involving my characters.  A reader suggested that I visit your site and take a look around.  Once I read a few of your posts and some of your character back stories . . . I was hooked!  I thought I would ask you a few questions.

First, can I involve major lore characters?  An example would be if Tyrande Whisperwind could send me on a misson?

{redacted for later posts}

Excellent question, and one that comes up frequently. The major lore figures are big and important in the greater WoW storyline, so it’s only natural to want to include them in our own stories.

However, this is fraught with some roleplaying red flags, because it can be used as a reason to not develop your character, or to “force” your character’s importance on other players. In short, you can do it but you have to be really super careful about it.

If you just need your character to go on a mission for the Elvish army, create a “dummy” NPC  as your character’s commanding officer – He/She can have a bit of personality and maybe a few quirks, but you won’t have to add any more depth. It’s a fun way to create a little snippet character without having to develop him/her. That way, you still have the “Elven Army” story and key back story element without implying that your character is SO important and SO special that Tyrande herself would send your character on a SPECIAL MISSION.

Basically, it can be done, but it’s VERY hard to do it well without coming off like you’re trying to make your character sound special and important by “name dropping” in their backstory – and you can have the same effect with a non-lore NPC in most cases.

Another thing you could do to avoid this (and this relates to the creation of a stand-in NPC) is to relate your character to an event, rather than to a person. There were lots and lots and LOTS of elves that served in the War of the Shifting Sands and then again at Mount Hyjal.

Fitting your elven character into those stories is relatively easy, and easy for other people to believe. Then, with your stand-in NPC, you create a little bit of the structure of the elven army, without having to say your character was special enough to go on a secret mission personally ordered by the leader of the army. (You can kind of think of it this way: if your character was around and Tyrande had enough of a relationship to trust him/her with a secret mission, your character would probably get mentioned in the lore itself!)

Finally, if you still really want to have a major lore character interaction in your character’s backstory, make it an impersonal one.

The lore characters are Important People – think of them like celebrities or high ranking executives/officers/politicians. They can be really important to a lot of people that they barely know. While your character might really admire and respect a faction leader, their personal relationships are already pretty well set up in the established lore. So keep things impersonal, like the relationship you might have with a celebrity, or someone many ranks higher than you at work – they might (at most) know your character’s name, if you’ve done something spectacularly noteworthy in the past, but they’re not likely to be your character’s best friend or someone they’d trust explicitly, etc.

I hope that gives you some guidance on the subject!

If you guys have any other suggestions, feel free to leave them in comments. I’ll get to the rest of your questions at another date; if I tried to answer them all at once, this would be a pretty confusing (and novel-length) post.

Good luck, and happy writing!

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you***

Ask Anna: Lore Characters in Backstory?