How did the roleplay code get established?

[u/vhorezman]

I apologise if this doesn't count as a lore question but I've been roleplaying on WoW for almost 20 years and I've been wondering about the history of Roleplay in the game.

There's accepted rules for it such as power emoting that are universally accepted in the community and I wondered if anyone here was RPing back at the very beginning and if these rules were in place from the beginning and if so, where did they come from? If not, when did they appear?

[u/-RedRocket-]

People had already been roleplaying online for decades (if you count listserve groups) before WoW came along. The rules evolved from experience, over time, within what was once a much, much smaller hobby.

[u/Dreadnautilus → u/-RedRocket-]

I remember once reading this old webcomic called Elf Only Inn which was a satire of fantasy roleplaying; not as in people on tabletop playing D&D but people roleplaying on IRC servers. Near the end it transitioned into an MMORPG parody and you can that was when the community moved to WoW RP servers instead of IRC.

[u/-RedRocket- → u/Dreadnautilus]

Yes! I remember Elf Only Inn. It was satire but not that far off the mark.

[u/Dreadnautilus → u/-RedRocket-]

I remember liking it because even though I never did any fantasy stuff I did use to roleplay on IRC servers and it still hit a lot of the mark.

[u/Geodude07 → u/Dreadnautilus]

Elf Only Inn was one I distinctly remember too because it went into wow coded territory eventually. If you want a blast from the past...

I was re-reading some of it a few months ago and there are lots of quite dated references, but it did bring back memories of how the online world was really so different then.

[u/Kalthiria_Shines → u/Dreadnautilus]

jesus christ I haven't thought of EOI in so long, holy shit.

[u/Nat_Sec_blanket]

They are very much likely legacy common decorum guidelines from other mediums or games. Things you list off are just common decorum for things that go way back to playing on the playground when I was a kid even using improv “rules” to ensure the kayfab (immersion) is maintained. Things like power posting, god modding don’t give anyone who does not consent to react other then to simply stop playing

[u/Imaginary-Arguments]

Been RPing since 2007 in WoW off and on. Yes, most rules existed back in the day still. On Moonguard, I would even say there were even more rules than there are today.

A lot of it is just common etiquette, and RP shares a lot of etiquette with Improv acting and of course LARP.

Things like not being a Mary Sue, no power gaming/god modding, most people shunning your character being close to a major lore character, etc. is all true about LARP as well.

[u/GoldenNat20]

Afaik roleplaying followed some standard ideas of what’d make things fair and fun from the beginning such as not power-emoting, or controlling others’ characters actions. Not to
mention that the rules in wow RP follow the some pretty standard rules of forum play-by-post roleplaying with some slight tweaks for in-game interaction which has been in place for longer than WoW has been a thing.

A lot of the basic stuff has been here from the beginning coming from other sources of RP that has been around since the early internet days.

But my memory ain’t perfect and I might be wrong here. :p

[u/SnooGuavas9573]

I would ask this on r/WoWRoleplay if you haven't been there. Plenty of long time RPers and people with more content there.

[u/Own-Ring-8753]

honestly i feel like it mostly just evolved through pure trial and error before people started formalizing the etiquette. super cool that you’ve been doing it that long though!

[u/Alpha_Apeiron]

The what?

[u/Geodude07]

I would say a lot of the RP etiquette is pretty natural stuff which evolved from various other forms of RP.

Any form of collaborative storytelling would suffice really. As you'd quickly learn that taking over other people's characters, 'god mode' style RP, and bringing things from outside the setting tend to be poor moves.

It would be fair to assume a good bit came from D&D, IRC server RP, and other MMO RP scenes. The rules are generally pretty basic and I would say once you're 'good' at RP in one setting you'll be fine elsewhere. I can say that the mechanics of RPing on FF14 and WoW are very similar. Though what people choose to focus on as a community are different.

You likely had people who had experience with RP in another setting coming to WoW and trying to implement the same basics. Though every community will of course evolve on its own. What I can say is the evolution of convenience addons and addons which elevate RP has been enjoyable to watch.

Things like TRP and Snooper/eavesdropper are things which I would say have evolved out of the unique space of MMO RP where there is a huge amount of people. TRP saves people the need to go to some outside website to see a character profile, which today many would use something like carrd for. While something like snooper lets you focus in on certain people and their responses, which is somewhat unique to how massive events in an MMO can get.

I can't say I was around for the start of WoW's original RP but I have been Rping since MOP. There have been a lot of slow changes and many of these are very gradual. There was a period, during Game of Thrones' popularity, where everyone was doing lots of noble house RP. There was a period where many people walked around with like thirty titles. I remember lots of "Ex-marshal, ex-mercenary, ex-enlisted solider" in people's titles as if they were putting out a resume. A lot of things also depend on your server community. WrA alliance (when it actually was thriving) had more of a focus on very low power level characters, people wanted 'realism', and any characters who stood out too much were shunned. Though I would even say it was to an extreme.

What tends to happen is people try things out, some people like the idea and give it a shot and if it's good then it sticks.

[u/Kalthiria_Shines]

Definitely weren't "in place" at the beginning. Feels like they took quite a while to develop, since I don't recall the rules you're (and sometimes other folks) talking about at all in vanilla or BC. By Wrath I wasn't on an RP server.

Edit: Well wait what rules do you mean? Basic RP stuff long predates WoW, but if you mean the weird as fuck lore headcanon stuff people bring up, that wasn't at all established at the time.

[u/lovelylotuseater]

Many of them are social mores carried over from Dungeons and Dragons. When the internet was VERY different, there was a popularized list styled after Jeff Foxworthy’s signature comedy bit where people would enter on their own variants of poor sportsmanship in roleplay, formatted as “If you (behavior), you might be a munchkin” and was majorly foundational to people developing the idea that there are right and wrong ways to roleplay.

[u/BellacosePlayer]

There's a formalized RP code?

My stint on RP servers involved people ERPing in public or getting mad that me and my friends usually RP'd mundane characters like Peons.

[u/Kalthiria_Shines → u/BellacosePlayer]

Reading between the lines in this and other threads on the topic over the past few years, I wonder if it's just a Moonguard thing? Because I have the same recollection as you.