Rolecraft: Professional RP

Adventuring is the name of the game in MMORPGs. It's one of the strongest reasons so many people play them, for the ability to wander some fantastical land doing good (or evil) deeds dirt cheap, and just having fun playing a really good game. However, there is an immense cliff to beware of if you follow that trail, one I see so many players walk right off the edge of. Players who have ever said they are bored in game may have fallen off this cliff, lemming style, and not even known it.

Much of the standard fare in MMORPGs can be routine, especially after you've played the same race and class more than a few times, or waded through the same quests over and over. Even roleplayers are known to struggle with this cookie cutter gameplay, and with keeping their characters from looking and acting just like every other character in game. What to do? One sure way to avoid the pitfalls of routine is to realize that there are many other classes in game besides adventurer. It's time to become a professional roleplayer!

By professional, I'm talking about taking a closer look at the professions and secondary skills that are normally there as extras to support an adventurer-focused character, and find ways they can become your character's primary focus.

What is your character's class? Probably something like priest, soldier, burglar or samurai, depending on your game. The way many MMORPGs are designed, these all fall under the "adventurer" class by default. To gain experience points to increase your skills, and often to reach the next level, you are expected to take that character out into the wilds, questing, battling, and saving various damsels in distress, that sort of thing. These activities require skills and spells probably built into the your character's class.

What about cooking? In all the MMORPGs I play, I've never had a character die from hunger. It's not a needed skill, and many players never spend a single copper or a single second training it or other secondary skills. Such a skill is widely designed to be a support skill, something your character can do to enhance your adventuring ability, but doesn't have to. Cooking, skinning, jewel crafting, first aid, fishing, and many others can be taken out from under the shadow of the game classes and roleplayed as being a class unto themselves.

I could long lament about how none of the MMORPGs I know of have the perfect balance between adventuring and secondary skills. Instead, I have examples from three different MMORPGs showing the way they do secondary skills, and some ways they could be made to be the focus of an RP character.