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It Not Easy Being a Skilled Practitioner of the Arts
#1
It Not Easy Being a Skilled Practitioner of the Arts
A yadda yadda by Moose

Well, hai there guise. Guess what I have for you today? That's right, it's another guide! What a surprise, Moose! Thanks so much for . . . whatever, I don't care, I just glanced at the menu, this is way too long. I'm not reading it, I swear. I'm just going to go look at this section here because it seems kind of interesting and I have an hour or so to kill. So y'know, maybe I'll just read the rest of this introduction or skip it because what you write is usually pretty straightforward. Actually I've stopped rea

Today I address something more positive than what I've been doing lately, mostly because I'm getting bogged down in negativity from it and no one wants to read a pessimist's words all the time. So instead, I'll talk about a subject I love (and know way too much about): the arts! I feel art can really help supplement a character and add the occasional piece to their RP. We're all writers, which means our characters can be decent poets or writers themselves, which extends to spoken forms of writing and, for a lot of us, music and artwork as well.

The menu system seemed to work pretty well last time, so here we go again:

[1.0]
Musical Instruments
[1.1] Strings
[1.2] Woodwinds
[1.3] Brass
[1.4] Percussion
[1.5] Voice and Body

[2.0] Writing and Poetry
[2.1] Short Stories and Sonnets
[2.2] Writing Plays
[2.3] Characters, Plot and Complexity
[2.4] Journalism and Speech

[3.0]
Acting and Performance Arts
[3.1] Acting Out Plays In-game
[3.2] Off the Set
[3.4] Professional Bards and Jokers
[3.5] Finding Material

[4.0] Artwork and Photography
[4.1] Rough Street Sketches
[4.2] Composite and Collage: It's Legit!

[5.0] Converting Concepts to Roleplay
[5.1] Songs: Lyrics and Melodies
[5.2] Stand-up Comedy and Journalism
[5.3] Supplementing RP With Flavor Items
[5.4] Don't make the mistake of. . . .

---

[1.0]
Musical Instruments

Music is something anyone can take up. All races have a musical inclination of some sort. Some, such as gnomes, would be more inclined to compose and obsess over the mathematics of music, but others just enjoy improvisation and making tunes up on the spot.

Below I've got some speculation for you on what should/shouldn't be seen.

[1.1] Strings

It's reasonable to assume that Warcraft has guitars in it. While I wouldn't go so far as to believe electric guitars and the metal culture are present in lore, I would easily accept a guy with a guitar sitting around a campfire. Just stick to the acoustic guitar, please; your gnome doesn't need an Arcanite Ripper. This sort of is typically paired with singing and can be turned into a bard; you can also take a look at mandolins, lutes and banjos. Those things.

Races with classes of nobility are likely to have orchestral strings--violin, viola, cello and contrabass. Most of the Horde likely doesn't have the pleasure, but I'd go so far as to accept upper class humans as having musical instruments as well. Strings seem like a very elven thing. The same principles can be applied to the piano, organ and harpischord; nobles get all the fun things.

Harps are likely played by elves and the occasional human; we all know that ethereal picture of a blonde-haired elf in a vibrant, emerald forest running lithe fingers over the harp's taut strings. In other words: play something else, you jerk. Harps aren't very portable unless they're hand-harps . . . whatever you call those.

Chances are, if it's not electric but it uses strings, noble humans and elves have access to it.

[1.2] Woodwinds

We have concrete proof of flutes in-game; Hearthsinger Forresten acknowledges that there are those of us out there who want to play bards. There's a chance, though, that most of these flutes will be made of wood instead of the metal we're used to. Flutes are likely an elf thing, but there's a chance human commoners and even members of the Horde have managed to craft cruder flutes.

Slightly more dubious is the clarinet. It's more likely to see a recorder or an ocarina than a clarinet, simply because of how complex the instrument has become in terms of creation. By a similar token, you ought to stay away from saxophones entirely. As much as it pains me to say so, the sax does not belong in Warcraft. Warcraft is not prepared for the might of the saxophone.

[1.3] Brass

Brass seems to be the domain of humans and short folk. Being the loud, obnoxious group of fellows they are, humans and dwarves have good lung power and air to spare. Brass is a natural choice for them, though likely bent towards the dwarves as their stout little bodies are close to a variety of minerals. It also seems as though goblins would enjoy playing brass instruments, though they'd sooner swindle a musician than become one themselves.

Trumpets, coronets and bugles would likely be the most prevalent. Portable, small and not too complex; they can be picked up and learned with some difficulty but are easy to take around. Deeper brass instruments are also viable. Humans may have trumpeters to announce the entrance of a King or particularly wealthy (and egotistical) nobleman. Dwarves may have buglers doting out chirpy little tunes at three in the morning when everyone's awake anyway. And who knows what those gnomes do with their time?

[1.4] Percussion

Finally, the Horde gets some love. Its races have a very strong bent towards drums and battery percussion, their music based strongly around an inner pulse rather than a flowing melody. Percussion carries a primal feel to it that is hard to leave behind when you get behind the set and start bashing down on beast's skin.

Drums and other items crafted from animal skins can likely be seen throughout the Horde and into the Alliance, though the nature-loving night elves may not have an interest in skinning animals for their music-making properties. Most mallets are also made through animal skins, which makes way for the good old wooden xylophone. Trolls in particular would have a love of drums and tribal music, given their heritage.

Drumline music should be strong and powerful, with an animalistic feel to it that reflects the raw nature of the Horde. Most characters have enough of a sense of rhythm to join in a bout of smashing down on drums, even if they may not have the requisite skill to perform amazing feats of music. Repetition and a strong downbeat can do the job for you; when you describe a Horde character beating down on the drums it isn't going to be a wilting, melancholy cry for help.

[1.5] Voice and Body

Music based off the body is rarely heard of these days. You and your fancy musical instruments don't remember what it's like--there's an old saying. "If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing." This could not be truer, though it fails to mention the part about having talent to do these things. Horde characters likely hold a beat close to their hearts if they're musically inclined. They may hum a nameless tune or snap out a beat with however many fingers are on their hands (here's lookin' at you, trolls).

Operatic singing is something elves do. Humans have their church sermons that may have a choir attending, possibly accompanied by an organ. If you make your character a singer, try not to overdo their talent. Having an outstanding voice is something few have achieved in real life, and so being particularly memorable is unadvised thanks to the individuality of voices. Well, unadvised by Moose. My word isn't dogma or anything.

Also, since I didn't get around to it, poor gnomes don't have much besides the constant churn and click and whirr of gears. Maybe they like percussion-style music too, or maybe they have some form of mad musical creation churning around. Gnomes seem like the sort to have record players, but I'm not sure how far down that line I want to go.

---

[2.0]
Writing and Poetry

Portraying writers in your writing is a touchy subject. People might consider your character a self-insert, or centered around you, or any manner of unwanted traits--but writing has its place in roleplay. While it does carry the slight stench of metagaming, the occasional piece of writing presented to another character can start up some interesting RP. Poetry, writing and extensions of such are all nice, especially when you consider practical applications.

But before you make a character centered around writing, or give one of your other characters the talent, give it some careful thought. Many people who don't like your RP may call you on your position, and it's easy to get defensive and blow up about it. If you can't handle that, you might want to move on to a more disguised subject of the arts like music or painting. One other thing to consider: how much writing do you plan to /do/?

You can spin a writer or a poet in different ways; you don't need to have actual writing on hand to play your character as one. This is a mistake I've seen a lot of people make--remember that being a writer affects how you think, speak and act, and personality generally has a lot to do with things. Chances are, you can understand a writer better than a criminal, so it might seem boring. Thus, why not a writing criminal? Or an artist who creates forgeries in his spare time? Writing is generally something you add to a character, but it can give you a reason to write to the extent of your vocabulary and separate you from the crowd in a good way.

The downside to writing is that actually /doing/ it stops roleplay dead in its tracks. Writers need solitude to write, and typically spend most of their time alone. It may just be a case of "the pirates who don't do anything," but most things surrounding writing and the arts in general will pause RP when not done right. Handing someone a GHI book that's ten pages long and expecting them to read it before they respond? Not gonna happen. But hey! We can dream, right?

[2.1] Short Stories and Sonnets

Chances are, you're not going to write a novel unless your character's storyline is all about their writing a book . . . that actually sounds kind of neat. Travel across the world . . . ehm, I'm getting ahead of myself. The most you'll have the patience to write, I'm betting, is the occasional story or poem that you feel like churning out. And that's great, because we all like to read things, although sometimes it can be an RP killer to hand someone a GHI item and tell them to read it. Sometimes.

When writing short stories, keep in mind that most stories are apt to follow Warcraft lore. While in fantasy this isn't the case, we don't really have an "alternate" fantasy to rely on and unless you go out of your way to make up feasible lore, you won't get anywhere. As such, it's likely best to place your writing within the Warcraft universe--please don't allude to, say, Mass Effect; while it's a good story you probably shouldn't be thinking those things up. Remember that space travel is much more feasible in Warcraft, for one thing, and we know of aliens (if draenei count).

Otherwise, short stories ought to be standard fare. Sonnets and journal writing are much the same, in their own forms. You may want to look up mentions of poetry and such if you haven't taken any classes in them before; there is math behind creativity. Everything is formulaic.

Which reminds me, stories tend to have a beginning, middle and end. Even in short stories, this is true--you might just start right in the middle of it, but there's still a starting point. Try to keep exposition out of your writing since it's going to interrupt RP (unless you hand it to someone to read during their offline time). Be as minimal as possible while holding true to your character's writing style; the less someone has to read before they can post a response the better. And no, you're not allowed to quote me on that out of context.

Poetry, on the other hand, is a favorite medium of mine because it only takes a few seconds to glance over. It's written in a way that helps a reader's eyes glide across the page and can be recited by the character if need be. Generally, poetry isn't as long and can be impressionistic; it doesn't need the same structure a story does. Poetry can be done on a whim and is a useful excuse to go "look at what I made." Characters can be a poet without devoting their whole life to it.

[2.2] Writing Plays

When you intend to have your writing reproduced by characters in-game, you need it to go /fast/. You want hard-hitting lines and more speech than actual movement. Emotes take time to draw out and don't always add that much when an audience is watching what's going on--they're like an unconscious observation.

Generally, no one wants to sit quiet in an RP. Just look at arena spectators--thus, plays are mostly for the benefit of the performers rather than the audience, and so you should tailor it to fit. The audience will only sit still for maybe three to five minutes at maximum, so your play should either have multiple breaks and fast typers, or something that can be wrapped up in just a few. Otherwise, why would you host a play in character when you could just write up a forum post accomplishing the same thing?

Characters that show up in plays are best left sketchy when it comes to their general nuances. Take a look at Greek plays if you haven't read any of them yet, because that's likely what you would find in your average Warcraft play. There are conflicts and resolutions as is with any piece of formulaic writing, but it doesn't get into a character's favorite color. Unless it's truly important, you should leave character appearance out of the equation; casting is going to be troublesome enough for you as it is.

Plot should be kept simple, or separated into acts that only take a minute or two each. There should be breaks for players to interact with each other and react if you intend to produce what you write, just to keep the audience from getting bored. The more actions you have, the harder it will be for the audience to keep up, and the more complex a plot gets the more players will feel like they're studying bookwork instead of enjoying a performance. Don't get wrapped up in your own art if no one else will latch on.

If your character is a playwrite that has no way to get their plays published, go crazy.

[2.3] Characters, Plot and Complexity

I touched on this earlier, but didn't go very in-depth. If you want to TL;DR this section, go ahead; it's primarily reiteration and philosophy.

People want to RP. When you present them with a story instead of a chance to interact, they grow restless and eventually bored. No matter how interesting your plot, well-written your story or lovable your characters are, people read novels for a reason. They're out to roleplay for a reason. You can have your poetry collections and your sweeping, epic sagas that span more than one notebook, but very few people will have the patience to read them. You're better off keeping it simple.

There's plenty of books on proper characterization, plot and setting. When writing novels or detailing characters you plan to RP with, use these as much as you like. They're great resources, but don't get wrapped up in them--when you want to create a character through your own character's mind, it should be as recognizable as an archetype as possible. Here's why:

If you put all that effort into creating a character just so your own can write about that one, why don't you just make it one of your own toons? It saves you the step of having to write everything out and come up with your own ideas, and gives you the opportunity to actually RP as a character you've put time into.

No one is going to be doing an extensive analysis of your character's writing. It's there as a flavor item at best; essentially it is your writing disguised as someone else's. But roleplaying is your writing, too, and that's where the real details should lie--put more effort into the characters you actually play, rather than the ones that help support your one character through their incorporeal existence.

By the same token, keep your plot simple to follow and easy to understand. Include a plot twist or two to hold it fresh, but don't try to bog down potential readers with unnecessary levels of complexity. It may be exciting to you, yet anyone who's faced with a wall of text (like this one) will probably turn and run. I recommend hitting up Google and picking out the first website you see that talks about master plots; pick out one of those and then slap a few characters into it. Your writer doesn't have to be talented, and if they /are/ talented then they don't have to show it in everything they do.

[2.4] Journalism and Speech

There's a place for writers here, too. Whether you're trying to be a reporter, someone who runs an underground rebel paper or just your average commoner writing in his diary, you have some writing to keep in mind yourself.

Diaries are often seen by writers (especially ones with a creative bent) as boring and mundane, much like their own life. Some peoeple let these thoughts influence their writing, which may sound more cynical or bored than the character himself--your journal may not accurately reflect your character all the time. Sometimes, characters that are normally quick to react may have time to think, reflect and look back at their earlier actions and make amends through their journal--leaving an entirely different impression on any reader in the process.

Objective journalism obsesses over facts and getting the whole story so that writers can present an "unbiased" explanation of the latest happenings. It likely has your character running around and interviewing locals, noting things down and getting their nose in business that they should have no rightful idea about. Some of the nastier sorts of journalists are likely to have a wide variety of contacts, and to a lesser extent you could apply these ideas to a spy.

Opinionated journalism, for lack of a better word on my part, is more likely to leave out parts of the story its author doesn't like. This is much more common, and often done unconsciously, though it can be on purpose--for, say, the Hand of Rommath censoring public happenings. It can also be applied to less sinister cases, such as persuasive articles and written speeches. Guess what the enemy is going to say so you can refute it, but don't mention their arguments when trying to make your own case.

Good writers tend to have large vocabularies, and their speech should reflect as such. Most writers that consider themself "good enough to be published" also have a grasp on grammar, and likely have stifled any speech inflections they may have (with the exception of Moose). Your character is probably most proficient in their native language, and less so in others, so keep that in mind when you make your posts in /say. Because of how well writers and speakers in general know their language, it can be difficult for them to branch out into others.

Creative writing is a solitary thing (as you probably don't have communities of roleplayers inside your roleplaying characters; a bit much metagaming there). As such, most writers are intraverts. The extroverts occupy the position of journalists; they're much more likely to find their own lives and the world around them interesting than the one who drowns himself in fiction. Keep this in mind when you make your character: most writers can't work without peace and quiet, and you'll be seeing a lot of that if you insist on RPing out your writing.

---

[3.0]
Acting and Performance Arts

As roleplayers, we're already acting out something in-game, but we don't work from a script. We make it up ourselves, which is likely the most interesting thing about roleplaying for a lot of us. So why make a character for the purpose of reading from a script? There's several things that go into play production that I know of off the top of my head, which have all been bastardized here for the purposes of simplicity.

Acting is a world filled with drama, or at least that's how we see it. The people that don't get the roles they want will likely whine, while the rest will get a small ego boost (until they realize just how much work they're going to have to do). People everywhere are faced with stage fright and the worries of screwing up royally. Thus, the world of acting is an excellent place to RP. It's not used much, but it can provide some good opportunities--mostly off-set.

[3.1] Acting Out Plays In-game

If you've ever been to an arena match, you'll know it's boring for a lot of people to sit and do nothing. They like to react and be loudmouths instead of sit there quietly and politely while holding whisper conversations and going AFK every thirty seconds. This will be the same for any plays you put on, as I've mentioned elsewhere in the guide. You need to focus on getting through the acting part as fast as is humanly possible, for the sake of moving on and letting someone else be in the spotlight.

The real merit in acting comes from setting up and finishing, not the stuff in between. Thus, some tips for getting through quick without boring everyone else:

-
Type fast. As fast as you possibly can, without typos. If you need to, prepare your lines ahead of time and copy/paste.
- Don't improvise too much or add unnecessary flourishes. I love to do this myself, but when people can't react without being called rude both IC and OOC you should avoid drawing things out.
- Keep a mockup of the script, if you don't have the whole thing on-hand, so you're not playing from memory.
- Select plays that are either real-life converts to WoW or at least very identifiable with by the audience.
- Don't get offended when people start to get antsy. Pick up the pace or do something stupid (e.g. fumble a line) so that the audience can react. No matter what you do, no one is going to sit still and read what's essentially a simplistic forum post made in real-time.

Having done this before myself, I can safely say that the part where you read off a page in front of an audience is horribly boring unless you take the initiative to make it fun. And that requires a lot of skill, a great mind for improvisation, and the willingness to play a character that's bad at what he does--if you can't post hard-hitters at the same rate your average person posts a single-sentence answer, you're not going to be paid much attention to. While you don't have to settle for never performing your plays, be ready to accept that your play will not be the main spotlight--always make way for the audience.

[3.2] Off the Set

There's lots of jobs for a theater sort to have on-hand besides acting, though that is the one that springs to mind. Maintenance, stagework, costume designers, playwrites and pit musicians are just a few of the jobs I can pull off the top of my head. A lot goes into the play itself besides this silly thing called acting, which turns a group of whiny nobodies into a group of whiny professionals. Off-set, you have many opportunities for character interaction.

IC drama between actors can spread and flourish, though they'll end up having to work together in order to pull off anything respectable. The director may be sharing a drink with the playwrite every other day because the actors won't stop crying about who got what part, and the stagehands might be involved in a feud with the pit musicians because somebody said something about someone else's mother. Though I can't tell you if this is the case IRL, it seems as though the drama department can get horribly clique-ish because of its high emphasis on skill.

Actors have to read and memorize scripts before they can actually perform them. This takes a lot of work and time, most of which may be spent procrastinating, then cramming to meet the deadline. Directors have to get on the actors about what they're doing wrong, and try to get them to fix it. Everyone else gets to be jealous of the actors and jeer from the catwalks. A dysfunctional family may very well be best when you look into theatrics--nothing better than drama in the drama department.

[3.4] Professional Bards and Jokers

When you don't act off a script, it requires a swift brain and a penchant for funny (otherwise, you're just doing regular darn roleplaying, dagnabbet). As such, it takes a certain skill to play a successful stand-up comedian. You'll either end up copying others' material or making up your own, the latter of which can be very difficult to do unless you have a natural bent for it.

Normally you could take advantage of WoW's in-game items, but there's a good chance a lot of these don't work on the emulator. You'll have to make do with descriptions, which means typing f-a-s-t. People have very short attention spans, you know? Professional jokers are likely more accidental than made to be such; characters probably won't work out if they're designed to be funny when the player isn't. If you want to play something funny, make sure you've got a lot of humor prepared or can come up with it on the spot; otherwise you're just taking up space.

I will say this, though: if I see a character making fun of their mental disorder or serious addiction problem, I will scream at that person. The moment you use something that is completely serious and try to make it light-hearted or "funny" for whatever sick reasoning you have is the moment you've gone too far. Just bite down on your tongue, look at what you're doing, and ask yourself if someone with those problems would laugh at your rendition.

If they would, maybe you're doin' it rite.

[3.5] Finding Material

Whether you're playing an actor or a comedian, you need material from somewhere. This also applies to bards and musicians: should one use real life resources, or make original material? Original material is always welcomed in roleplay, as it ought to be. But there's no shame in pulling from real life and modifying your material to fit the Warcraft universe, since not everyone can come up with great things all the time (otherwise they would do it for a living).

The question is, where to look? The internet gives you a great many leads, but there's definitely ways you can go wrong with real life material. Comedians nowadays generally can't relate to Warcraft, so their material is out the door. Most modern-day resources will either be too recognizable (thus breaking immersion) or will have absolutely no place in the Warcraft universe. And as fun as it may be to rickroll your friends ICly, random strangers probably won't appreciate the break.

Spend a little time digging. Don't take the obvious routes when you need ideas; Shakespeare may be a great guy to quote but he's also done to death. Everyone will recognize your using him and call you on it--if you don't have the time to come up with things yourself, make sure other people can't tell you're copying. Or make it really obvious for teh lulz.

---

[4.0]
Artwork and Photography

Artists draw the middleground between writers and speakers. Their work can be punctuated by silent conversation or pleasant chatter, perhaps with the smell of coffee in the morning and a confectionary treat at the side. It can be done in solitude, with no one around to see them paint flowers, or it can be amidst a bustling city, sketching the passersby. Artwork is incredibly versatile and a very broad subject.

Just about anyone can spend some time doodling. Not everyone has a talent for art or any particular interest in it, but many of us IRL are prone to drawing smiley faces in our notebooks. Or maybe that's just me. Your character that has some sort of artistic talent doesn't need to devote their life to such toiling, but may be able to show a friend their occasional doodle. Art can add to an RP without getting in the way.

[4.1] Rough Street Sketches

One of the more popular portrayals I've found is a character that wanders around people-watching and drawing what they see. They typically carry a sketchbook and charcoal, quill or writing implement here with them at all times; this book may be very important to them and filled with heartfelt drawings. Or it could be a pot of useless doodles that don't even look good, or barely filled at all because the character can't commit and has several sketchbooks as it is.

Your character might ask other players to stop and pose for them, though you should consider whether or not /you/ would stop and pose for a stranger if they ask. They'd be more likely to seek you out while you're busy and sketch you without your knowledge, or at least ask politely if they can do so. Sketches made this way likely have poor quality to them as people move and get out of the way quickly. Your character may end up working from their imagination quite a lot.

[4.2] Composite and Collage: It's Legit!

Photography exists in WoW. There's items/quests in-game to support this, and if goblins can build rocket ships they can probably make quirky cameras, too. This doesn't mean the photographs are of particularly high quality, but one can assume there's some group of people out there who want to use their gritty, faded pictures for artwork. Maybe they draw people, but are tired of using live models for references and instead hold a few photoshoots so they have pieces to work off of.

Honestly, there isn't much else I can say in here. I would get into three-dimensional forms of artwork, but you can look those up yourself because there's not that much different from everything else.

---

[5.0]
Converting Concepts to Roleplay

Well. All that wall of text you just read? It's outright pointless (unless you like to read) because there's no way to implement it in roleplay. Except--it is, you just have to think for a while. I've taken the liberty of removing that part of your brain that CAN think for itself, which leaves you with a pot of stew and maybe a carrot. Read onward, boyo.

[5.1] Songs: Lyrics and Melodies

Writing music in-game is tricky. With lyrics, your choice is obvious: one or two sentences describing tone, and then lolspamming the lyrics. Or gliding over them with something like "He begins to sing a song about a farm." You know the deal. It's not too hard to skip through a song with lyrics to support it, because people tend to focus on the words anyway--so then, how do you emote a song without lyrics?

Description is your friend here. You can't draw out songs with no lyrics like you can a typical folk tune, but you can certainly try. The number one thing to remember, as with all performances, is to give the player a chance to respond: don't push the text limit beyond a reasonable five-sentence paragraph. If you even get that far, it's definitely enough to get the song's melody across.

A method that I've found works is to post a couple sentences about the song, let them react, and then either change it up with a hitch in melody, failure to play write, or a general change of tone. If the piece is a longer one, you may just want to glaze over it, because you don't need to RP out ten minutes of silence that can be handled in thirty seconds of writing. (hurr, I should take my own advice)

[5.2] Stand-up Comedy and Journalism

If music wasn't bad enough, acting and research are even worse. How do you produce a paper in a police state? How do you make the funny happen when everyone else is too busy being serious? It's hard to do, and playing characters based entirely around a profession like this is probably not the greatest idea ever. Comedians are difficult to keep fresh; journalists will spend much of their time sitting around writing forum post equivalents.

In terms of viability, most speech-based types aren't going to happen. So why does Moose bring them up in the first place? Because with time and effort, they can be done right--anything can. Take your time, research material and settle yourself in with the lore because you'll be spending a lot of time bending to its will.

Well, maybe I'm being unfair here. Journalism, detective stuff and the like isn't that bad to try out, but it can be difficult to keep a character up and running. You'll have to take the time to write out articles (as well as research them) and think of real material that you may as well get on a stage and talk about if you're going that far. But look on the bright side! When all else fails, you do have that delete character button over in the right hand corner of your screen.

[5.3] Supplementing RP With Flavor Items

Some amazing things can be done with GHItems. Just ask Duskwolf and QuantumLegacy. But there are limitations--you can't have brand new images in-game unless they were already in the WoW folder, and it's very difficult to get the addon working when you need it to. It's hard to say when you should/shouldn't make use of GHI, but here's a decent rule of thumb: if it's in writing, make an item. If it's not, don't.

[5.4] Don't make the mistake of. . . .

. . . thinking you need to create a character based entirely around one of these subjects.
. . . thinking you need talent yourself in order to create an artist (or something similar).
. . . spending too much time on something that should be a more minimal aspect of RP.
. . . copying or alluding to real-life works in an attempt to be funny or classy.
. . . referencing lore aspects of other games and claiming it as "something your character came up with."
. . . standing in a tavern, book in hand, and expecting to get some work done.
. . . turning serious life issues into things of ridicule.
. . . approaching random people and asking them if they'll pose for you.
. . . assuming your character is excellent at what they do (like everybody else).
. . . getting overly descriptive with music, or taking too long to post emotes others can't react to.
. . . writing as much as I do and expecting people to read it all in one sitting.

Because I can't be arsed to write in real paragraphs any more.

---

Was this post pretty pointless? I bet so, considering how few of you will actually make a character related to the arts. Maybe it'll help someone?

Whatever. Happy roleplaying, guise.
Moose
[Image: lichkingfell.png]
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#2
The Moose strikes again, epic guide at the ready!

'Gratz' - aw'sum'.

I'm sure it's useful, if you're stacking 8-9 characters, it'd be very weird for this post to not apply to at least one or two of them.

Random stuff that I would still be curious about - (mainly because the lore's rather vague on them) -
-Something about magical musical instruments mayhaps? And magical means on-stage perhaps (like illusions).
-Something about the techincal printing-press aspects of journalism? What level of technology should be relied upon by "the journalist" in terms of actual printing.

With all the wonderful guides popping up, people will soon be starting to run out of excuses for their bad RP moments, tsk tsk tsk ^^.
Spoiler:
[Image: Boys.jpg]
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#3
Nice work, another great guide by the Mooseman (Apologies in advance lol).

I was wondering whether or not to start a Journalist/Thespian guild, but I thought it may be fairly tricky without some definite guidelines. Thanks to this guide, Its starting to make sense.

The one setback here with Journalism in this server, there wouldn't be much to report on, what with the player peak of 40-something people on in a huge world.

I suppose you could send the news via the mailboxes, but I'm a bit of a lazy guy, so no dice.

Back to my first point, nice guide.
"... And we're off to another exciting adventure!"
[Image: 8LlaM.jpg]
"No we are not!"
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#4
The only way to counterbalance the pure volume of wordery in this is to respond with a single phrase;

"Ahmagawd"




Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds,—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved—still warm—too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth’s sleep at all?
[Image: 62675bf4fd.jpg] [Image: 0e7357dcfe.jpg]
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#5
Moose, I think it's time to simply let you start threads in the Guides section. Hehe.
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#6
Kretol Wrote:Moose, I think it's time to simply let you start threads in the Guides section. Hehe.
Urhurhur. I wouldn't abuse it, officer, I swear!

@DaveM: I'll give it some thought and add something when I'm in a more coherent state of mind. I wanted to get this off my desktop before I went crazy.
[Image: lichkingfell.png]
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#7
Quote:Moose, I think it's time to simply let you start threads in the Guides section. Hehe.

So true..

So vote Moose as your number one guide master!
You'll probably win... because you're the only candidate.
"... And we're off to another exciting adventure!"
[Image: 8LlaM.jpg]
"No we are not!"
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