Poll: RP Flavours

[Loxmardin]

So, in order to gauge interest in various directions and set the tone for my forum storylines, I need some feedback on what people enjoy the most and what sorts of "ingredients" tickle your fancy, so to speak. Help me make my storylines more interesting for you!

... After you vote in the poll, I'd appreciate some in-depth feedback in a post, as well.

Things I know I forgot that didn't fit in the poll:

• Business (Merchants and that stuff.)
  
• Navy/Pirates/On the High Seas (Ships. And stuff.)
  
• Day-To-Day (Kind of fits in a bunch of categories at once, though.)
  
• Apprenticeships (Learning is fun, right?)
  
• Schools (Same vein as the above.)
  
• Slavery/Indentured Servitude (Fits under Horror and/or Family, in a sense.)
  
• Witch-Hunting (Have a favourite enemy? Let's kill them all!)
  
• Organizations-For-A-Cause (Cenarion Circle and Argent Crusade being good examples.)
  
• Racial Politics (City Factions and stuff.)
  
• Global Politics (Dalaran, Kirin Tor, for example.)

[Maulbane]

Ooh! Of the things listed in the poll, I picked travel, mundane and family. I like all them RP listed above, but those are probably the most poignant and potential-filled for me. I also picked politics, but I only have the stamina to write paragraphs for three of them!

Spoiler:

• Travel RP is awesome! It's about challenging your character in ways not instantly visible; unlike straight-up adventures, it's a more insular test of character and less immediate one. It also encourages vulnerability of a kind you really don't get anywhere else - whether you're in a desert, in a boat, in a forest or on a mountain, nobody's going to save you for some time if you mess up. That's way scarier than having your buds around you, singing war-songs as you smack another bad guy, to me. It's not all dangerous, but the mundane also provides countless RP opportunities - due to the constant movement, you have an excuse to conjure up new characters to meet and new situations to come across every time you stop, unlike more sedentary town RP. It's also, obviously, the sense of discovery!
   
  
• I resent your implication that family RP has to be middle-class! You can be poor as dirt and still have your family. But I like this too - it's a kinda bond you really can't replicate without lots, and lots, and lots of RP. It's hard to say what's great about it in terms of themes, since it can be whatever you want. I know some people have played devious siblings (looking at Karl and Cerb's Gilneans), but there's also more innocent relationships (like lil' Vedajo and her brother Jarokk). I dunno, family's just a really easy way to make extremely strong character connections, and the RP that comes from it is generally more complex. The characters know eachother, usually extremely well, therefore subtlety is rewarded more than other kinds of RP - body language, expressions have far more mileage, and I guess that's why it lends itself to intrigue and politics more than other types.
   
  
• Mundane! I love ordinary stuff. My god, I love it. With WoW, you have so much silly, high-fantasy stuff going on that taking a microscope to the setting and actually tackling things like 'what do they eat?' 'how do they live?' 'what kinds of people live around here?' 'what's this city look like in-character - is it more or less flashy?' is pretty much a past-time for me at this point. Almost all my characters are subdued, even the big ones - my human noble is literally just a human noble - he grows crops and takes pride in his heraldry; my other human is a traveling peddler who sells wool and copper ore; my tauren runs fast but is naive, weak and a little xenophobic. My orc is an exception, but even his 'big events' are firmly in the past - now he just kinda shouts at people all day and engraves tablets. I do find joy in giving my characters less emphasis aesthetically and letting them forge their own little, adorable paths, even if that means getting obscured by death knights and what-not.

Of the stuff in the thread itself, I like almost all of it - schools/apprenticeships (jeez, just look at my guild), business (big surprise) and racial politics (especially when you can fit it into places where people think politics doesn't belong, like orcish society).

[Stealthscout]

This is excellent. I am so happy. Finally I can use my Worgen as a proper criminal

[Mathias]

Since I would probably vote for them all, I'll just vote for other and say "I like them all, even if I don't RP all of them all the time". Muh famerry and mundane is always fun, and I do like debate RP, like Matthew arguing with random person about his racism, or Felfire club. It's always nice when players can disagree about something IC and spark a nice, long discussion about it, especially if it brings up other topics over the course of the debate, and then you realize that you're tired because you've been debating ICly for a few hours.

[muhaha8]

I voted for five things! Dunno really how to go about explaining my thoughts on most things, aside from to give examples where I can.

Out of almost four years here, I think my love of horror has only grown. That's probably got something to do with a lot of really good events being run (@Loxmardin I'm looking at you), and a lot of awesome locations. By far the best, though, is good old Northwind. Simply an amazing place. Rigley's events there had me quaking in my boots IRL as I played through them. I don't think anything since, regardless of setting, has given me that sort of feeling. Probably among the best RP I've ever had. Only ever reinforced my love of the stuff.

Looking around, I've had so many good family RPs before that it's made me love the stuff. However, as Maulbane has said, it's incredibly hard to replicate the feeling. It's not something I recommend doing with a person you've never RPed before with, or even someone you don't know too well. It takes a lot of trust and back-and-forth dialogue to make it work, and that doesn't show up over-night or anything. It's a slow to build thing, really.

I've always liked combat stuff, but I didn't put it on the list (because at first I didn't read that it said one-on-one or war). I have always been a large-scale battle person, but the limiting factors of our ability to really conquest always turned me off to it. As I've been away for a while--and only back in a limited fashion recently--I don't know if that's changed or not.

Adventure RP is adventure RP. There's not much more to say. It's awesome.

Politics are always cool. I like the nature of the political arena, and it gives me the ability to exercise that side of my personality without engaging in it in RL spheres where I might actually screw something up big-time. Really, I've been a fan of the "us-versus-them" political RP that's occurred on CotH in the past. I point to the two Rs, Rosencrat and Rigley (again!) for their Commoner's Party reincarnated and Solidarity, respectively. Even though the last incarnation of the Commoner's Party didn't go everywhere it was supposed to--and Solidarity ended relatively in IC disaster for the group, as I recall--it was amazing RP throughout the whole thing. The mentality that is built out of it for characters is something that I feel is extremely lacking in any other field.

[c0rzilla]

I voted for all of them. I'm not picky. Anything can be awesome.

[Jonoth]

I voted pretty much for everything. I like variety in my RP, and I don't mind experiencing all the mentioned (even the ones that didn't make the 'official' poll but were mentioned in the OP) on any single character. I'd love to even see one link into the other, in a way that any character can join the ride at any point, but you get the sense that a choice made in one affects the others. For example, you stop that pirate ship from destroying a merchant vessel, only to later discover that the pirates were the good guys and the vessel you saved was run by an noble looking to usurp the throne of one of the kingdoms, so the characters end up discussing if the government is worth saving, then they act on that, but to stop the usurper, they end up in some crazy horror survival scenario to retrieve the secret weapon that was on the ship.

...a bit off the deep end, but yeah, that's what I think!

[Loxmardin]

Just wanted to say that it's best if people post along with voting (to include the others mentioned in the OP, for one). It gives me more to work with, as well. ... And other potential future DMs, because yay.

[Ironhide]

Sheesh, when was the last time I had a good, unsettling, horrific RP scenario?
It's been a long-ass time.

[MstrCorvus]

I like pretty much any type of RP in moderation. Like if I do nothing but nitty-gritty survival RP for three months, it gets old. One thing I find I cannot stand however is anything along the lines of abuse/sex slave RP. It boils my blood and churns my stomach. Voted for everything because variety is the spice of casserole!

[Beltharean]

I'd always considered myself kind of picky as far as RP goes, but then I found myself having checked off basically every box. I've done them all at one point or another and enjoyed each, but for the most part it's best when you mix multiple themes together. Adventuring, combat, and travel usually go hand in hand. Family RP is usually centered around nobility these days, so that ties into politics and a lot of more mundane stuff. I guess for me, in the end, it comes down to who I'm doing it with and if it's quality RP.

Half the fun of playing a character is seeing them grow, and I've had experiences where a friendly drink in a tavern has given more progress and development to a character than twenty events on another, and vice versa.

[daysleeper]

I voted for everything except Romance/Family/Mundane, but honesty I'd be down for those too if the scenario or people involved sounded intriguing enough.

I have a long-standing love of criminal / political RP, an itch that never got scratched as well as I'd have liked back when I was on live WoW. I think racial and global politics will fit in here as well, obviously; many such organizations tend to be divided along racial or faction lines, rather than necessarily ethical ones. Messing around with shades of grey and exploring characters' (mine and others') lines, and when they're willing to cross them, has made for some of the most compelling RP I've experienced.

While I was trying to think of something more to write I came to the realization that the type of RP doesn't matter so much to me, so long as I can make a character fit into it. Which is totally doable, if somewhat difficult: saying "no, this character doesn't fit" is easy and effortless, saying "yes" might require some logic-fudging as far as justifying your presence.

I'm still new here, but I thought I'd get my opinion out anyway~

[Sorum]

The antihero[1] or antiheroine[2] is a leading character in a film, book or play who lacks the traditional heroic qualities[3][4] such as idealism,[5] courage,[5] nobility,[6] fortitude,[7] moral goodness,[8] and altruism.[citation needed]
Whereas the classical hero is larger than life, antiheroes are typically inferior to the reader in intelligence, dynamism or social purpose,[9] giving rise to what Robbe-Grillet called “these heroes without naturalness as without identity”.[10]

I dunno what you had in mind when you wrote that poll option about antihero.. lox..

But besides that.. I can do all of them, and they are all just as fine.

[Loxmardin]

@Sorum: I pretty much meant all the characters that aren't heroic. Maybe I used the wrong word. But yeah, as long as people understand what I meant...

Thanks for all your input so far, everyone. It gives me a bunch to work with, and I think this can be used by other DMs as well for inspiration. If you have any more requests or suggestions so I can help make the storylines more fun for you specifically (if you're at all interested in the forum RP I'm planning), make sure you tell me! I want to do this to entertain y'all, after all.

[ImagenAshyun]

OKAY. I promised an explanation in Skype, so here it is.

I voted for -everything- in that poll, and I'd vote for the ones left out in the poll as well. Why? I treat RP like it's food: I'd get sick if I'm stuck in one type of RP all the time. I sample almost anything and everything, even setting locations I'm not particularly fond of (modern day RP, hard science, military).

For me, the most consistent aspect of RP is community and connections with the other RPer. I actually don't care too much about WoW as a setting; I mostly use it as a vehicle for interactivity besides text RP. Otherwise, I'll RP anything and everything--just give me time to research and read about it if I'm relatively unfamiliar (such as wartime RP or segments of lore I have no idea about).

Of all kinds of RP I'll say that tickles my fancy the most often and most consistently, it's story RP. Just any story, regardless of genre or thematic elements. The characters I roll and the scenarios I RP in often rely on a story to take place, and if no story is happening, then I won't RP it. It can be mundane, it can be fantastic. It can be short, it can be long. If it'll have a sad/bad ending, I'll gobble it up like it's the best dessert in the world. If I'm to get a happy ending, I better damn well earn it through trials and tribulations rather than be handed it on a silver platter. Even anti-climaxes are fine with me as long as it's strongly justified, and the same goes for twists the DM/storyteller has in mind. Simple, mundane casual RPs are also cool with me as long as it contributes to the story in some way. Otherwise, I despise stagnancy, and stagnancy is usually the reason why I would drop or retire characters as I do (Bastos and Dino, for instance).

I hope this justifies why I voted for everything in the poll, as story RP encompasses and sometimes demands everything there is to offer as long as a narrative is present in some way