Sewer Swimming: A Guide to Sueism, Godmodding and Clichés

[Arrillion]

While I do agree with the point that Blizzard's groundwork shouldn't be absolute, there are limits.

A few things set aside.
Night Elves and Blood Elves BFF? that's a nono.
Night Elf who eats meat? Wel perhaps on a rare occassion.
Night Elf engineer that makes steam and dirty stuf.... neither.
Trolls that like elves, not possible, maybe because they taste good.
Troll Engineer? Definitly not a Darkspear, but a Troll that has spend considerable amounts of time in places like booty bay or ratchet might become an engineer.
Paladins that huddle around with warlocks and other evil people, not likely either.

Of course, a lot is possible, but if you want to have your character be something out of line with Blizzards lore, you should be able to explain it.

[Jeff]

Night Elf who eats meat? Wel perhaps on a rare occassion.

Troll Engineer? Definitly not a Darkspear, but a Troll that has spend considerable amounts of time in places like booty bay or ratchet might become an engineer.

These two do exsist. Night Elves have plenty of meat based recipes in low leveled lands. Not to mention they are exceptional hunters. Ashenvale, by actual lore, was abandoned and only used for hunting. There are quests to thin out populations of over-growing predators. I am sure Night Elves wouldn't let the meat just sit around for worms.

As for a troll engineer, it should not be in the same way other races view engineering. To trolls technology is magic. In a sense a troll mage may take up the craft to improve their magic. It wouldn't be (normally anyways) to build the biggest robot around.

[Piroska]

Night Elf who eats meat? Wel perhaps on a rare occassion.

I feel like Chris Griffin from Family Guy. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

To my knowledge, the only portion of their diet that may be restricted is alcohol. There's a series of quests in Darkshore in which a gnome asks you to fix buzzboxes. He eventually reveals that not only do the buzzboxes allow long-distance communication, but they also distill liquor. The gnome apologized for the deceptive; the locals didn't like him peddling his wares.

Though Brann did claim to have drank moonberry juice in the Alliance player's guide while visiting a small handful of Darnassian taverns. It's fermented and distilled juice, but apparently it has quite a kick. So maybe they frown on it or just have stringent laws about importing alcohol. The drink was described as having almost spiritual impact on the imbiber, so maybe it have religious significance -- which would probably be entirely different from what the other races drink.

Regardless, I can't find a single reference to meat and kal'dorei anywhere. In fact, the presence of a number of butchers, meat vendors, and innkeepers that sell meat within night elven lands in the game leave me with the impression that this isn't really truth. Is there any way that you could reference where you learned this?

I'd also like to point out that just because norms do exist, it doesn't mean that there is absolutely no circumstance in which the opposite can't exist. I do agree that there should be a reasonable explanation, however. Given a little bit of time and effort, I could probably come up with lore-bound reasons (or examples!) of each bullet. I think it's important to give people the opportunity to try new things rather than have all of us play the same types of characters over and over and over and over. Being unique and different doesn't necessarily make you a Mary Sue.

[DarthNader26]

As for a troll engineer, it should not be in the same way other races view engineering. To trolls technology is magic. In a sense a troll mage may take up the craft to improve their magic. It wouldn't be (normally anyways) to build the biggest robot around.

Again, this is the very character I RP. I have a whole backstory written up (waiting for my peon month to be over so I can post it) as to why he would have such an infatuation with technology, and he spent several years of his life apprenticed to a goblin engineering firm.

I understand the need to draw the lines with stuff like being related to main characters or being incredibly overpowered, but characters that bend or even break the established conventions are what adds spice to the RP realm.

There are plenty of generic troll NPCs wandering around spouting on and on about da voodoo and dancing around campfires, and tons of Night Elf NPCs wandering around not eating meat and being hippie bastards. Our characters are meant to stand out, within reason. We should be more interesting to interact with than the NPCs around us. This is not to say that every character needs to bend or break rules, but it should be allowed to throw that dash of Tabasco into the gumbo that makes it all the better to eat.

A super-religious gnome who fears technology as the work of some subversive alien Illuminati bent on subjugating the Alliance? It's not a "standard" gnome, to be sure, but you wouldn't forget your interactions with him.

An almost nerdy orc who wanders around killing creatures then taking careful note of their biology and anatomy based on some bizarre obsession with believing that living things were simply really complicated machines? Again, not exactly canon, but interesting and memorable.

We have loony people in real life. People have character quirks, believe silly things, have ludicrous behaviors, and defy the norms. Our characters should be able to do this, if we so choose. Again, not every character has to be an extra special Jesus child who was delivered to the Horde/Alliance on the wings of a golden Pegasus drawing a chariot made of diamonds and pure benevolence, but each and every character should be uniquely identifiable. Each character should have something that makes them, them. Otherwise, we might as well just be NPCs.

[MellasFenixxes]

In my opinion roleplaying is like writing a book, a story together, making it! No one knows what will happen, but they have a character that reacts in a certain way. Do we want a book to be predictable?
No right? Then why would we read it?

Though there have to be those that stick to the norm (mainly npc's) every book has a various bunch of fascinating characters that stand out. Because that's what we want to read about. There's this really normal main guy that hangs out with weirdo's, or gets to realize he's actually very brave, or he is very talented when it comes to herbs.

If I walk up to a character, I don't want to go like - oh, you're a troll. You hate almost all races and love your voodoo and trolly dances. No, maybe he was held captive together with a gnome, so that he actually responds well to that specific race now. (Just a random, quick example xD of course there needs to be a solid reason for them to have been held captive together).

Blizz lore GUIDES us, it doesn't CONTROL us.

~ Just my two copper coins *don't shoot the newbie* *runs*

[Piroska]

A super-religious gnome who fears technology as the work of some subversive alien Illuminati bent on subjugating the Alliance? It's not a "standard" gnome, to be sure, but you wouldn't forget your interactions with him.

Oh, goodness. You just described in almost perfect detail the gnomish cult I used to co-lead. Subtract the alien but toss in a conspiracy theory regarding what really happened in Gnomeregan and you've hit the nail on the head. My character within that guild was actually the first of my toons to bear the name Piroska -- and, like most of the cult, they absolutely refused to speak anything other than Gnomish. I used to love her Charge macro: "Your knees are mine!" In Gnomish, of course.

You wouldn't just happen to have roleplayed on Feathermoon, did you?

There's a point at which trying to be unique falls into the realm of being a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. However, this doesn't apply to everything that deviates from a very specific mold. The Warcraft universe is far more forgiving than many players realize and there's much more flexibility in what we can portray than we, as roleplayers, give credit. The DnD-variant roleplaying game (which, loathe as people are to admit, is still considered a valid source of lore) encourages this belief. The same arises from the comics and the books.

It's still important to have your character -- history, personality, beliefs, likes, dislikes, and so on -- grounded in lore, but being different isn't a sin. Just make sure that you've somehow managed to justify why this is so and in ways that have concrete, lore-based reasoning.

[Aphetoros]

Troll Engineer? Definitly not a Darkspear, but a Troll that has spend considerable amounts of time in places like booty bay or ratchet might become an engineer.

Amid the Horde, the few who have the knowledge and inclination to become steam warriors are mostly hired goblin mercenaries, although, oddly enough, trolls also seem to take to the life of a steam warrior. Source

[Arrillion]

Anti-techno Gnomes would actually be plausible, after the destruction of Gnomeregan, and quite cool too.

As far meat-eating Night Elves, I'm not entirely sure, maybe I've been influenced by Oxhorn somewhat.

[HelveteSong]

Night Elves eat meat. Yes, they love trees. Yes, they communicate with nature. Yes, they're basically hippies, in a sense. But don't eat meat? That's silly. Night Elves are HUNTERS. They hunt, go pew pew with a bow. It's not like, for example, Larshka (<3) goes to Ashenvale, sees a bear, shoots it with an arrow, kills it, then...leaves it. No, she'll probably skin the bear, take its flesh, and enjoy a nice chunk of bear meat for dinner.

In the end, it's just a common misconception. Like someone mentioned on this guide earlier, the stereotype for dwarves is that they're burly alcoholics, or how orcs are savage monsters, or gnomes are cutesy tinkers. Trust me, after hearing what Rofupi, Piken, and Babbakin say what they've said to my or other people's characters, they're no longer cute. Kind of scary, really. XD

[waffenbaum]

...

At the same time, many of these stereotypes have at least some root in facts. Most dwarves do enjoy a good beer, and orcs do respect savage strength as long as the warrior is in control of it (and not the other way around). Straying too far from these stereotypes just to prove them wrong can sometimes lead to the characters becoming unbelievable or silly if it's clear that this deviation from the norm is just for the sake of being different. Unless of course the player is playing a teenager who does everything differently just to stick it to the man/his parents/general authorities.

I don't advocate against characters being unique, but I think you see what I mean.

[HelveteSong]

Yeah, my point is that there are certain stereotypes that are not factual, just believed. Yes, a dwarf is known to drink ale. It doesn't mean they're slamming them down non-stop just to be a drunkard. There has not been any sort of indication that Night Elves do not eat meat. Like I said earlier, they are hunters. They shoot down prey with the bow. I do not believe Night Elf culture to be wasteful, so they would use their prey's 'gifts', so to speak, to their advantage. Make a fur cloak, eat the flesh, etc.

[waffenbaum]

But then you are naturally assuming that a "hunter" is someone who hunts animals. It seems that they actually hunt monsters and people more than anything else. When and if they do kill animals, they likely thank Elune for the bounty, and then proceeds to use every single scrap of meat, bone and fur. If you look around Darnassus, there doesn't seem to be any skins or trophies around. But on the other hand they readily dress in leather, or feathers. So it seems that while they do hunt, it's only on such a small scale that the "hunters" would be better categorized as "manhunters" instead, since killing animals seems more like something done very rarely and only out of strict necessity (or for when the druid absolutely MUST have a sweet reindeer-antler helmet)

[HelveteSong]

When I say 'hunter', I mean someone who hunts for meat. I mean, not like it grows on trees. Agh, off point. Point is, night elves eat meat. XD

[Miah]

I never understood why anyone would want to deviate from a character steriotype so far, I mean, there is a race that seems perfect for every kind of character in my opinion, and it seems weird that not many seem to stick to the steriotype of their own races. I mean, unless you just had an absolute dislike for a certain race (I personally could never play a night elf) Seems weird not to pick, say, a dwarf or gnome for an character who is a gifted engineer, cause that way you likely wouldnt have to explain to everyone you are, they could likely guess. Only one I can really understand doing that is the troll enginneers and such, cause the horde don't really have a tecnology obsessed race till cataclysm.

Don't see the point in being different to the norms of a race just for the sake of it, the best characterts ive come across generally are exactly how you expect them to be, gnomish enginners, rowdy dwarves and such. A tecnophobic passive agressive gnome, or a polite and teetotal dwarf is just...odd :P

[DarthNader26]

Ever played Oblivion? Look at the difference between Tamriel and the Shivering Isles.

I can't recall a single NPC from Oblivion (aside from a few quest givers). None of them were interesting. They were all bland little blobs of pixels who ran around doing exactly what they were supposed to do and adhering to the "realism" of the game.

Then you go to Shivering Isles, and it's like someone put fireworks in the punchbowl.

I remember TONS of NPCs from SI. In fact, one of my characters is suffering from a disease loosely resembling an NPC from SI. Right near the beginning, where you meet the guy who's obsessed with stripping the bones out of the flesh. You had the guy who wandered around the capital city and refused to sleep in his own bed because he was positive the walls were going to fall on him. You had the Duke of Mania and the Duchess of Dementia, both ridiculously interesting and colorful characters in their own right. You had the Khajiit who was obsessed with finding her magic pants. Finally, you had Sheogorath himself.

I mean, seriously. All of these characters were realistic. They all had mental problems, but that is beside the point. They each had their own quirks, motivations, beliefs, likes, dislikes, and passions. The grey little NPC blobs of the overworld may have been realistic and stuck to strict canon, but they weren't interesting in the slightest. Then you go to the Shivering Isles and you meet all these characters who bend canon a bit, but are fascinating to interact with and be around.

It's worth bending a few rules for the betterment of all.