The basics:

• Transmogrification is intended to bring more variety into WoW gear and let players choose how their gear is going to look, especially if they’d like to use a now outdated dungeon or raid gear set.
• You must own the original item currently to be able to make another item look like that (to have Judgment Looking Pants, you must actually own the Judgment Pants)
• You won’t be able to change the appearance of your armor into another armor type or class armor set
• The system will be rather conservative to start, eventually building to include more items and types of transformations.
• You will not be able to transmogrify TO or FROM a legendary item.
• Eventually there may be a way to get favorite items that are no longer available (dungeon sets that are gone, quest gear, DK start zone gear).

Good places to look for RP gear in general, Transmogrification gear in specific:

• WoW Roleplay Gear – sets and where to get them, as well as how hard they are to get. Sorted by armor type, as well as seasonal gear and robes. Useful!
• WoWHead’s Transmog Set Database – searchable by name and item level/type. Also useful!

You all probably know all this, but I’d not actually looked into it all that much, so now I know.

The biggest criticism is that really, the progression of gear towards a set is an identifying marker – gear from Firelands is fiery, etc. That and people don’t really care or aren’t interested – which I can understand a bit. I like my characters to have the option of looking like the content they’re clearing is appropriate for their gear. On the other hand, for example, there aren’t matching boots to go with the Ret Paladin PVP set – the plate DPS PVP boots match the Warrior set. So being able to get the healing boots that DO match the pally gear and then mog the actual DPS boots to match … just makes sense, if it’s a little convoluted to type out.

But from a roleplay perspective, I really like ‘mogging. Being able to do an in character dungeon run while wearing armor that is appropriate for the character is kind of a huge thing, and something I’ll definitely be using.

For me, the most attractive thing about transmogrification is the ability to change weapons.

Aely still has her Verigan’s Fist, Sword of Serenity, and several 2H Swords she’s really proud of, and she would never use anything other than the shield that Jolstraer gave her when he died, so the ability to ‘mog things to look like the weapons she would ALWAYS use is nice. I also like, for a non raiding character, the ability to match up her armor sets – especially some of the rarer ones like Soulforge – instead of having to wear a leveling mishmash of assorted gear.

Angoleth still has her Rhok’delar and Lok’delar – she intends fully to use them, especially since ranged weapons (guns, bows, and crossbows) are considered interchangeable (as far as I know *fingerscrossed*).

Weapons seem most useful and wide ranging as transmogrification targets, especially if you have a brawler character who can use two Barman’s Shankers instead of regular daggers…

To be honest, the gear thing seems more useful in RP for cloth and leather wearers, since my cloth/leather wearers typically don’t change into “RP clothes” the way my plate wearers do. Aely only wears full plate to RP night when she’s feeling like there’s a threat, so I’m still carrying multiple sets of gear around for her. But Annata being able to avoid looking like a typical Outland Clown and wear truly rogue-looking gear all the time? That’s a big draw! (Especially since, at level 60, she’s got at least three complete sets of rogue looking leather… ) I can also see the draw of mages looking truly magey, and priests looking priesty, and warlocks looking warlocky with transmogrification of gear into former sets or items. Sometimes the look isn’t what you want for a character, and for some reason I find it easier to imagine swapping robes than I do changing out entire plate armor sets.

Mail is more in between, but while I have lots of ideas for fun things for Annorah to wear, I think she’ll still probably wear robes most of the time for RP, and Aely will still wear boots, pants, and vests.

Still, I’m definitely looking forward to transmogrifying stuff. It’ll be fun to be able to actually use the gear and weapons I’ve squirreled away for the last 6+ years…

What kind of things are you planning to transmogrify, if anything? Are you farming for gear sets to be able to use?

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

Stylin’

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

This is one of those amorphous blog post ideas that I’ve had rattling in my head this week. It may or may not make a successful post – I’ll leave that up to you guys to decide. (Or rather, I’ll wait to see if I get a bunch of confused comments. )

Character strength can be a really hard concept to define. Sure you can pick up on a few things that make characters “strong” – defined, consistent personalities, depth of personality and story, the ability to be an agent of change and to change and grow themselves. But those are all pretty “fluid” topics, and we could go into huge lists of ways to make a character stronger, or ways to increase their depth, or whatever.

A lot of times, though, people suggest giving your character a weakness to make them stronger.

Which seems, quite honestly, counterintuitive.

It’s not.

Giving a character a weakness doesn’t mean necessarily that they become weak. It’s almost more applicable to say “give the character balance”, but since people usually have no trouble giving their character awesome-traits, the discussion usually boils back down to giving your character some not-so-awesome traits. While you can always throw an unrelated weakness into the mix, it’s possible to have weaknesses grow from strengths (and not in that really kitschy way that people talk about for job interviews).

One way to do this is to take an event or situation and answer a few questions about the character, to see how it works out.

As an example, since this sort of thing came up in RP this week, let’s poke around in Aely’s brain a little (if you don’t mind my presuming that Aely is a strong character).

Aely’s backstory contains some pretty dark times. That’s not unusual, since most of Azeroth has been involved in wars for all of recent human memory (the Elves get a bigger perspective on this one). Within those dark times she experienced some pretty heavy trauma that left her both physically and emotionally scarred.

That event left her stronger – she rebuilt herself physically and mentally, is a much more solid, stable person, and has very concrete beliefs because of it. She also has strong motivation for being a better healer, particularly of certain types of wounds, and is extremely protective of the people she cares about. But that event also left her weaker – heavy trauma like that has far-reaching mental implications, and if she is surprised by someone else suffering from something like what she went through, it makes her extremely upset. If that person is someone she cares about, it’s worse, because then she feels guilty for not being able to get past her own physical and emotional reactions to be able to help them. She wants to be able to protect the people she loves, and when she fails to, compounded with her own mental issues getting in the way of her being able to care for people, it makes her pretty upset.

Looking at the description of Aely, there’s kind of a formula that can go towards helping other characters:

1. What is the event? (Obviously this should be something significant for the character – either good or bad)
2. How does the character react before, during, and after the event?
3. How does that event make the character stronger?
4. How does that event make the character weaker?
5. How does the character think about and relate to what happened? How does that affect future events (if it affects them at all)?

From that formula we can take an Orc that spent time in the internment camps (a horrible event). He suffered from the lethargic lack of energy and mental fog due to lack of demon blood. During the internment, he became almost mindless, afterwards he hated himself for not fighting more strongly and developed an ingrained hatred of Humans, and a distrust of all Demonic and Shadow magic. He also took to training himself in the shamanic arts, and is extremely loyal to Thrall and to his comrades in battle.

This, in the end, makes him a stronger character – he is thinking about what happened and reacting to it, being introspective about his own reactions, and acting on what he finds. He is stronger physically and mentally, and will be very hard to dupe into any sort of subservient position in the future. But it also makes him weaker – hatred and irrational fear can blindside even the most stable of characters, and while that might not come up in every single story or situation, if he is written and played consistently with those traits, then that one event is responsible for character growth, character depth, character strength, and character weakness.

When people talk about how to build good RP characters, they often suggest creating “balance”. Hopefully this will help spark some creativity towards dealing with character creation.

Life-defining moments don’t all have to be good, bad, happy, or sad – but every life has a few defining moments and experiences. (Obviously not every event will be life-defining or life-changing – that will depend entirely on the character.) Sometimes those happen over a period of time (like both Aely and our Unnamed Orc), sometimes they happen in a sudden moment. Either way they can affect a character from that point forward.

Thinking about a character’s defining moments (and how they react afterward) is a good start toward creating depth and believability.

Since it’s Friday, feel free to take the formula and use it like a “Friday Five”, either for a character you already have developed and active or for a new one you imagine up in your head.

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

Strength and Weakness

Other people will write stories in which you will not participate, and they will be awesome and amazing, and you will want to play too, but you won’t be invited, even if you ask. People will leave RP gatherings to do things “in private” and you will get left behind at the bar with nothing to do.

This sounds doomy and gloomy, but it is not at all either of those things, because it is realistic and true to actual people – a sign of characters who have depth and who are tangible and relatable. It happens to everyone – even the so-called “popular” people, and it bugs everyone sometimes.

Don’t let it get you down. Left-out-ness is normal, and not necessarily bad.

Why?

RP groups are like groups of people. They’re like real friendships.

You have a best friend or two who are very close, and possibly a spouse or significant other that’s as close or closer. And then you have an ever widening net of friends and acquaintances and random people you saw at the park one time. Each of these relationships has a defined role with your character – and every other character has those relationships as well.

In real life you’d not become instant best friends with someone after a two minute bar conversation or spill out your most intimate and personal secrets to someone you hardly know, so your character probably doesn’t want to do those things either.

So what do you do when left-out-ness happens? (Because it WILL happen)

Use it.

Let it help your character.

Does it make them angry or sad or lonely? Are they jealous of the close relationship between two very good friends or within a couple? Do they resent being left at the bar when someone leaves with a close business contact for a delicate conversation? Do they get warm fuzzies from knowing that the cute elf couple who just left are head over heels in love? Do they try to figure out how to get involved anyway, or what they need to do to find that kind of closeness with another character?

I actually regard left-out-ness as being a hidden, silver-lining kind of benefit to RP groups. It does a couple of things, even beyond character development.

Left-out-ness gives you something to talk about.

If your character is involved in everything, he or she never gets to ask someone else what’s going on, and becomes something of a meta-dictionary. Nobody ever knows everything, and your character won’t suffer from having to ask occasionally, “So what’s up with Jimbob?” Occasionally, gossip can be a really fun part of RP.

Left-out-ness helps you control what your character is or isn’t part of.

Nobody can do everything, and your character will eventually break if you throw too much stuff on his or her plate. Too much drama will result in reclusive behavior – which is great, if it’s a character trait, but not so great if it means a mental breakdown. The natural self-selection of relationships keeps things balanced within a group, and keeps any one person from being too involved in too many other stories.

Left-out-ness lets your character connect to other characters.

When two people leave the bar for a private chat, everyone else there is “left out” of their private conversation (as you’d expect, given the “private” part of the description). This is an RP opportunity, NOT an RP snubbing. Have a conversation with someone else there; chances are, they’re feeling a little left out too, and that’s an instant connection.

Being left out is part of RP because being left out is part of life.

Embrace it, use it to your advantage, and keep it all in perspective.

Yes, I know left-out-ness isn’t really a word. I like it anyway. I didn’t want to use “being avoided” or “being excluded” because of the negative connotation, and because I think a lot of this happens in the mind of the left-out person instead of in the mind of the person(s) looking to have a private conversation.

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

Being ‘left out’ is part of RP

World events, faction leaders, holidays, and quests are all potential roleplay sparks. But given the “whole world” aspect of such events and characters, there are some things that you’ll want to avoid when you’re picking up that kind of roleplay though, usually where it starts to impact things that are out of your character’s control.

(There’s been a lot said about claiming relationships with NPC’s in your backstory, so I’m going to leave that part alone.)

Say you want to write a story set in Icecrown, about the Argent Crusade. It’s possible that Tirion Fordring might make an appearance in your fic somewhere – after all, he is the leader of the Argent Crusade. If you hang around there long enough, you just might see him! And, since he’s a charismatic leader, it’s not out of the question that your character might drop him a salute and have him smile and salute back, or say something encouraging. Tirion’s a nice guy, you know. Even if he is a badass too.

Where you run into trouble is if your story forces weakness on Tirion Fordring without his or Blizzard’s “consent.” If your character is a disillusioned old soldier and hates Tirion, and they charge into the Argent camp like a madman screaming challenges for a duel – which he accepts and then your character beats him soundly and injures him? That pushes the envelope too far, for a number of reasons. Tirion’s essentially a faction leader. He’s got guards. Someone running in screaming like a madman would be forcibly removed as a threat to his safety not allowed to run loose, let alone allowed to challenge him in a duel. And then to assume that your character is such a badass that they would beat him up and win?

There are a number of problems with this, not just in that you’re kind of pulling a “I beat up a lore character so I’m awesome”.

Those NPCs are there for everyone; Blizzard writes them, and all of our characters interact them. If your story backs one of those NPCs in a corner and forces some form of action/response/whatever on them or their organization, that story is now influencing the RP that everyone else has, and creating a situation that will cause conflict for every new RPer you encounter. If you have to explain to every single character that you run into that “No, Sylvanas really isn’t the leader of the Forsaken anymore. That guy Jimbob over there killed her last year,” you’re probably doing it wrong.

What’s the solution then, if you need a fall guy?

Write your own.

An NPC that you create or make up has no such complications. People write up, characterize, and then kill off/torture/do horrible things to their own personal NPC’s all the time. The difference is that YOU create these characters, and ultimately control them. They have no bearing on other players.

Once you start creating NPCs, it becomes kind of addicting! You’ll want to keep a list of who you’ve created (and who’s been killed off). That’ll help you manage where NPCs are at any given time, and help you remember which is truly a badass NPC and which is just a foil or a fall guy for someone else.

Blizzard creates and controls their own NPCs, and as such, you can’t just up and kill them. Or take their place. Or beat them into a bloody pulp and make them unable to do their jobs. How does this actively affect your RP?

Let’s take an example from my own RP:

Bryan and Elizabeth Cross, the proprietors of The Silver Shield in Old Town.

The Silver Shield – as a shop – exists. Bryan Cross is a Blizzard controlled and written NPC as a sheildmaker and blacksmith. Aely rents an apartment underneath their shop. If something were to happen in that shop, Bryan Cross couldn’t be harmed in a way that would make him unable to do his job… because he’s still there in Stormwind. I couldn’t kill him, or cut off his arm. (And I especially couldn’t get mad when someone else brought up that Bryan Cross was standing in his shop selling shields, because OMG I KILLED HIM NO HE’S NOT.) When I write things about Bryan Cross, he’s doing blacksmithy or shieldmakery things – or he’s being a responsible shopkeeper that’s looking out for his and his family’s interests.

His wife, on the other hand, is entirely fictional. Elizabeth Cross exists only in my RP and in the RP of people that choose to use her in their stories. If something terrible came of Elizabeth Cross, it wouldn’t affect other players at all. Should a story demand it, she is, essentially, disposable – not that I’d ever want to get rid of her. I rather like Bess Cross.

But anyway, I think that illustrates the point pretty well.

It all basically boils down to this: Blizzard NPC’s doing relatively ambiguous things consistent with their roles as NPC’s are fine in roleplay.

Matthias Shaw is a sneaky bastard without a lot of scruples – having him do sneaky scruple-less bastard things in a fic is pretty consistent (though it’d probably make more sense to make up a henchman of his). Varian Wrynn has a temper when it comes to Orcs. Thrall ultimately seeks peace for Azeroth. When you take NPC’s out of those roles and force them into your story (particularly as a way to increase your character’s Absolute Badass Value), you start to get into the realm of lorebreaking.

So use Blizzard’s NPCs wisely. They’re there as “untouchable” leaders for a reason; they’re the consistent thread that holds this world together. Taking them out, putting them down, and reducing their influence isn’t a particularly good way to get your point across, because it forces your story to be accepted (or rejected) by other players.

Write your own NPCs instead! And always be aware of the laws of Absolute Badass Value (if you’ve not read that post, you really should). Your fellow RPers will thank you!

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

Off Limits: Blizzard NPC’s in Roleplay