M Speaks (And Speaks, And Speaks, And Speaks ...)

I've been told it's my turn to post, and so post I will, because I'd rather not annoy my meatshield. So I figured I'd follow time-honoured tradition and start with an introduction.

Hi, I'm M. I've been playing WoW for about two and a half years now, but I'm still very much a newbie, mostly because I'm kind of antisocial and shy and nervous about fucking up, especially in PuGs and (ohgod) BGs, and thus my WoW experience has been limited mostly to levelling alts (yes, of course I have altitis!), doing dailies, and grinding for epic flying mount money. Rerolling on an RP realm was probably the best thing I ever did in WoW, because I have a much easier time coming out of my shell when I'm actively pretending to be someone else.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying you probably won't see me post about PuGs that often, unless I can bring myself to recount the Deadmines run that soured me on not only PuGs but also my now-retired pally for months, or if I have some really godaweful experience on my baby warrior at some point. But mostly, I'm going to be usurping the blog on Tuesdays to talk about roleplaying, because roleplaying with random people is kinda like PuGging, right? Right.

So, to clarify where I'm coming from with regards to roleplaying, a few things you may need to know about me:

• I've been roleplaying for about six or seven years now. I've played in fannish LiveJournal games (yes, it was a Harry Potter game), I've LARPed (the mainland Europe, full-immersion, weekend-in-the-woods, hit-people-with-sticks kind), I've tabletop gamed in sysems ranging from World of Darkness through Seven Seas to homebrewed SciFi systems. My point being, while I have my preferences, I'm really not that picky about systems or settings, in the end.


• Related to that: I don't realy have a problem with ERP as such. It's not something I do, unless it's with someone I know very well and trust. But for the love of god, people, keep it to /w and /p, not /s, because I really don't need to see you doing the nasty in the SW Mmoonwell when all I wanted was to purify some felcloth into mooncloth. (True story!)


• I don't understand the appeal in playing a character who's the strongest/smartest/best/prettiest/whateverest/most important characer EVAH. It's one thing to play Lord Whatsisface in a game that's set at court, with everyone playing courtiers and such, or to play a character starting out as Miss Whosit and following her in her ascent to Lady Whosit -- although I think the latter can be quite tricky if other players are still entering the game as "base level," so to speak. (This was a problem in the LARP I was in, in fact.) But why would you want to play Lord Thingumy in a game/guild where most or all of your fellow players are common soldiers at best? Where's the fun in always twisting things to make things go your way? This may be because my favourite RP memories are not "My Awesomely Cool Character Saves The Day," but rather, "The Dice: They hate Me And Want Me To Die," "That Time Rocks Fell And Everyone Died, No Really," or even, "And That Is Why You Should Never Overestimate The Smarts Of The Average LARPer," and as far as I'm concerned, if I can't turn it into a drunken war stry at a geek party, it's not a fun game.


• I'm kind of a huge feminist. I'd not call myself a hardcore one, but I'll take it as a compliment if someone else were to describe me as such. I'm also a lesbian, and I try to be a decent ally in the anti-racism fight. This doesn't necesarily mean I think someone playing, say, a sexist, or a homophobe, or a racist, but I do think it's quite difficult to get right, and I tend to avoid those characters unless I know the player and thus know they're not just using the character as an excuse to be sexist/homophobic/racist. In short, it's complicated, and I'll likely have a whole post on this at some point.


• I have a whole bunch of quite irrational, very subjective pet peeves about which I nevertheless feel very, very strongly.

So that's me. I'm working on my first Roleplaying Tuesday post, which will probably be about physical descriptions and will hopefully be up this coming Tuesday. After that, who knows. I take requests. :D