Filed under: RP

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

I think it is long past time for another results edition of Drama Mamas. Some letter writers have already sent me the outcome of our advice, which is always wonderful. But we could still use some more. If you have written the Drama Mamas and we have answered you in print, please send us an email at robin@wowinsider.com. We will compile the responses in a future column, once we get enough of them.

On to the drama ... This week, we have another RP romance conundrum.

Dear Drama Mamas --

I've recently started roleplaying on Wyrmrest Accord, and I really love it! It's a fun way to meet new people and really get into your character, even if I only do it somewhat-casually. However, I have an issue that I need some help with. When I first joined my roleplaying guild it was fine and dandy, but one person in particular gave me more attention than anyone else. I was fine with it, as we were in character and my character was single and all, so I flirted a bit and over time our characters started a (somewhat) romantic relationship.

From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.

Your days are numbered.

It takes you a moment to realize that's all that's in the letter you just opened in your in-game mailbox -- that, and the Hangman's Noose ("It's shiny with blood!") attached at the bottom. You flick open the guild roster, but nobody's online yet. You run the sender's name through the Armory, only to come up with ... nothing. You're not involved in any active roleplaying storylines, and you can't think of anyone you've roleplayed with recently who seems threatening in the least ...

Fine, then. You take it to the forums. You're met with the usual banter for a page or so -- but then another player reports that a friend received a similar note. Then another shows up. And another. Before you know it, the entire realm, Alliance and Horde alike, is roiling with intrigue. Hundreds of players are sucked in. Who are the letters from? What is the threat striking again and again at seemingly unlinked players? What is behind the unfolding string of horror unfolding before you?

Who is The Broken Doll?

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Let's face it -- most roleplayers are heroes, villians, peerless veterans, or other Mary Sues. We want to feel awesome from time to time, and games let us do that. But after awhile, it gets old. Every guild leader you meet seems to be the head of a secret organization, the leader of one of Thrall's elite group of warriors, or a famous mercenary group that, for some reason, only works for the Alliance.

But they're not all like that. I'm not on an RP realm, but I've had a guildie who has been lightly roleplaying a simple Undead priest hell-bent on making babies with a Dwarf warrior. They both keep things within the game's context -- they don't speak each other's language but (not so) secretly try to meet up and communicate. It ends rather badly when the guilds shows up to kill the enemy lover, but the two still press on, shouting in Common and Orcish and emoting strange gestures in order to better try to express their love.

I've had people from RP servers try to get me to rally to their cause in the random Dungeon Finder, but they get shot down fast most of the time, and ... well, the game already calls me a hero every other quest, so it's lost its shine. However, when my guildie cries about seeing her potential Dwarven lover with another woman, then later finding out it was his evil twin, I can't help but chuckle a bit and even do some very light roleplaying myself.

Have you ever met someone who RPed something unique? A seer who was always wrong? A farmer's guild? A hard-working peon?

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All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Two races were equally shaken up with the Shattering. The first are the Tauren, who lost their beloved leader Cairne Bloodhoof when he challenged Garrosh Hellscream to a duel that he subsequently lost. The second are the Dwarves of Ironforge, who also lost a leader -- though it wasn't because of duels, political tensions, or anything of the sort. Instead, the Dwarves lost Magni Bronzebeard when he attempted to try and save the world.

The crux of the problem with the Tauren was that their leader was killed in a duel due to interference from the Grimtotem tribe. With the Dwarves, the crux of the problem began after Magni's death. After all, Cairne had Baine to step up and take charge after his father's death; but Magni Bronzebeard ... well. He had a daughter and a grandson, but both were sided with the "enemy" -- the Dark Iron Dwarves. What does all this mean to Dwarven roleplayers? Plenty.

From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.

Back in October, we profiled triple-threat collector Drrum's coordinated armor, pet, and mount collections, meticulously assembled and screenshot in complementary in-game settings. Last week, we chatted with collector Moonjade of Twisting Nether (US-A), who focuses on items somehow linked to game lore. This week, we complete our trifecta of collectors with an interview with a player who's assembled an actual in-game museum -- yup, curator-led tours and all -- of unusual gray items and assorted oddities. Now, we get crazy emails all the time here at WoW Insider about all sorts of weird things that've been found in game ... but man, I've never even heard of some of this stuff!

Pestle, who's also GM of Infinite Asylum on The Scryers (US-A), manages the massive, multi-bank collection via Riplington E. Winchester III, the museum's intrepid gnomish curator character. The list of random items that she sent me is so long that there's literally no reader-friendly way to display it here (let alone the fact that it would take days to slap Wowhead links on all of it); we'll stream it for you in paragraph form just after the jump. For a visual idea of the scope of this massive collection, click through the gallery below before joining us to chat with its curator after the break.

We've talked about Pox RP workshops on WoW Insider before now. The goal of the workshop series is to help new roleplayers pick up the techniques and skills that empower you to really get into the role of your character. Silvermoon and one-hand jokes aside, roleplaying adds a lot of depth to WoW and can keep you with the game even if you feel like you're getting bored with the content.

The thing that makes Pox RP workshops great is that they bring together a surprisingly large chunk of community. I've heard the workshops get up to 100 attendees, and that's a lot of people to help you pick up the skills to be an elf. It's a great way to learn some nice RP tricks and meet new people to play with.

This weekend, on May 7, Pox will be covering the infamous Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is a character who essentially is an idealized projection of the author's self, serving as a sort of fictional wish fulfillment. Mary Sues run rampant in roleplay and are nearly universally hated. They're not great characters, and they tend to disrupt other people's fun.

The Pox roleplay workshop is at 6 p.m. Mountain time at the Thunder Bluff campfire on Shadow Council (US-H). If you've not attended one of these roleplay meetings, make sure you check it out now. This is the last workshop until August, since Pox will be taking the summer to relax.

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Don't worry; your fellow roleplayers want to help. On Saturday, the guild <Pox> on Shadow Council (US-H) is holding a roleplay workshop. This event is the first such workshop, and for now, they're focusing on how to emote. Emoting really does go beyond /train and /flirt, and Pox will help show you how to get it done.

The event takes place Hordeside on Shadow Council (US) in Thunder Bluff on Saturday, Feb. 19 at 6 p.m. server time (Mountain Standard). Check it out, and let us know what you think.

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Mr. Gray isn't here today. I heard some sort of rumor that he was competing in a chili cook-off, but that could be entirely fictitious when you consider the sources (he who shall not be named ...). As such, I jumped on the opportunity to cover his column for the weekend so that I could return to my RP roots. Taking over WoW Insider for a good four hours on a Sunday is also pretty fun.

Anyway, I jumped on the chance to write this column today because I actually used to type out an emote or two on my old server, Sentinels. Oh, the good old days of being a tyrannical cult leader; how I miss them! These days, though, I don't do much RP other than a little bit to weird out my fellow guildies (you must make an offering to the god of raiding before you pull a boss!). Despite this, I still feel very inclined to RP, and as I travel around the Cataclysm beta I often found myself thinking, "Wow! This would be a great place to RP!" So I've written this article with my top 10 picks for new RP hot spots in Cataclysm.

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

Throughout history, there have been more songs written about love than any topic. Sad songs, happy songs, angry songs -- all of the facets of love have been and will continue to be explored in popular music. And as long as there has been roleplaying, people have been falling in real love with each other through playing fake characters. Keep reading for fake love turning into real love and me going off on a tangent about love songs.

Dear Drama Mamas,

I've been a roleplayer for several years, and for the first time I developed a crush on my character's in-game partner. Our characters have been a couple for six months. While their relationship evolved from flirting and banter into deep, passionate love and then sharing a home, our out-of-character relationship tightened too. We would flirt, exchange secrets we told no other soul, pull all-nighters chatting. He really is a charming, understanding, considerate and giving person.

This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider.

We've all experienced it: You're walking into Orgrimmar or Ironforge, intent on visiting the auction house to spend that gold jingling in your pocket, when suddenly you stop dead, dumbstruck. Your jaw goes slightly slack as you /awe in wonder. A strange creature unlike anything you've encountered before is dancing in the town square and emoting kisses to everyone nearby. A crowd has gathered. People are cheering. "That's neat ... and maybe a little weird," you silently muse as you crack a smile and continue on your way.

I'm talking about player costumes. When the skin of your orc, troll, gnome or draenei becomes too heavy a burden, plenty of opportunities exist for a brief stay in the body of another creature (unless you're a druid, in which case you change forms all the time). These devices, elixirs and enchantments come in many shapes and stack sizes, but one key element runs through them all: They're a blast for the light-hearted player inside each of us.

Ever wondered where they're from and how to get them? Wonder no more! Without further ado, I present five of the most delightfully awesome, portable, use-anywhere player costumes of all time. With Hallow's End just around the corner, you're sure to find something here that will suit you as you strut through your city of choice, sipping from a bottle of Autumnal Acorn Ale.

For the longest time in vanilla World of Warcraft, players were content with collecting the dungeon set 1 pieces from Stratholme, Scholomance and Blackrock Spire. A purple item was a incredibly rare thing to see in the early days of WoW. It was a status symbol, a badge of pride for raiders who managed to band together to defeat Onyxia or brave the depths of Molten Core. With epic items soon came epic discontent, largely from casual players who either didn't have the time or the inclination to raid. As time went on and more raid dungeons were released, the complaining continued; players who were unable to dedicate the time needed to successfully complete a 40-man raid dungeon felt it was unfair that they could not obtain epic gear.

It was a valid complaint, but it took well over two years before Blizzard finally did something about it. About four months after the release of Ahn'Quiraj, Blizzard implemented Patch 1.10, "Storms of Azeroth." Among the fun changes like the introduction of weather in Azeroth and quest-experience-to-gold conversion at level 60, casual players finally received what they'd been asking for: a quest line that didn't require raiding and would allow them to upgrade their dungeon sets one into new ones that included epic gear. This set is called, appropriately enough, dungeon set 2.

New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

Back in the day, I never would have believed that players would be so willing to up and transfer realms. It's not just the $25-per-character fee -- it's the loss of your alts and all their skills, as well as your friends and social circles. Yet here we are, with players hopping from one realm to the next at the drop of a hat. This apparent willingness to pay to move from realm to realm in search of an optimal play experience has forever altered the solidarity of the realm community experience. Today's players are much more likely to view a fresh start on another realm as merely one more way to chase down the precise playstyle they're after.

In the face of such a massive list of available realms, how on earth can you start whittling down the choices?

1. Read our basic article explaining the different types of realms.
2. Join us after the break for more specific tips for realm-hopping players.

Set collecting is one of those things that you either love or hate -- either the thought of running around in old gear is curiously nostalgic, or you simply don't care to fill your bank with a lot of useless junk. With the introduction of Cataclysm, a lot of these old dungeon sets appear to be changing or disappearing entirely, making them a hot commodity for set collectors. Since a lot of players these days picked up the game in the BC or Wrath eras, not everyone knows where these pieces come from and how to get them.

The first of these sets is the Dungeon Set One. Obtained through various level 60 instances, these blue armor sets were the top of the top before the days of Molten Core and purples everywhere. Originally, these sets had very boring graphics, until a patch was implemented in which all sets got a shiny new graphics update. In the early days of vanilla, these sets were pretty much all players needed to farm for, and the +8 to all resistances that served as a set bonus for each was handy in places like Molten Core, which was nothing but a fun fire factory in which you wanted to stack as much fire resistance as possible. There are nine sets to collect, and each set is class-specific. All set pieces can be found in Stratholme, Scholomance and Blackrock Spire (both lower and upper).

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.

Ever since I first looked at my character's skill list (almost six years ago now) and saw there was actually a skill bar for languages, I have had an idea planted in my head. If my character has the technical ability to learn languages in WoW, why couldn't I choose to learn Orcish? This notion led me further to ask, "Why can't I be in a cross-faction guild consisting of both Alliance and Horde races, working together to accomplish great deeds?" When I relayed this idea to my guildies at the time, one guy actually told me it was the stupidest idea he'd ever heard. Really?

There has always been precedent in the game for this kind of cross-faction cooperation. We can see it in groups like the Argent Dawn and the Cenarion Circle. Hell -- even the Twilight's Hammer is more racially progressive than the Horde or Alliance. And don't even get me started on that racist jerk Varian Wrynn. Oh, I know he was mistreated in captivity by orcs, but his mistreatment is nothing compared to what Thrall endured at the hands of humans, and Thrall's first instinct has always been of peaceful resolution rather than conflict (and for reference, I'm an Alliance player, folks).