Roleplaying in the closet

Could there be a little roleplaying creature living inside of me, just waiting to be let out?

Sometimes I think about it. What would have happened if my sister hadn't been playing on a normal PvE realm when she talked me into starting playing? I only did as I was told - rolled an alliance character on a certain EU server. If she had told me to start out on a RPPvP server as a horde I would just have obeyed since I didn't have a clue about what kind of game I wanted to play.

Until this very day I haven't played Larísa in any other way than just like the average PvE player. Even though I may be a little more sentimental about my char than many other players I know - for instance I would never dream of logging out Larísa being dead or unrepaired, and for a long time I always tried to make her go to sleep in a decent bed - you can't say I really play her in character.

I've never even tried to invent a story for her. The only time she actually is acting like a character it's passively, when the script makes it happen - like when the ogre masses bowed and celebrated her as a queen after completing the Ogrila quests to open up for the dailies. (I've always loved any dialogue where NPCs actually address me with my name).

Still I can't help being a bit curious. Maybe I could become a closet roleplayer from time to time, just like Eye for an Eye, who recently wrote about his experiments in this area. Playing in a normal raiding guild on a PvE server, he has been sitting in his chamber, trying to put together some kind of story or information about his character. He's tried out two different ways to do it - one by just putting together a little story about his char - where he comes from and what he's up to - the other one by using a kind of form that he had found on a RP Forum.

This post is actually quite inspiring. It revealed to me that you don't have to put up a black-or-white-attitude towards role playing. Even if you're in an environment where it would look a bit odd to act in character, there's nothing that stops you from enhancing your own gaming experience by using your imagination. It dawned upon me that while pulling all those trash mobs in a raid instance you could very well think about what brought your character to this situation, what she feels and thinks about it - and not only about boss strategies, possible upgrades or your current position on the dmg list.

Lately I've been starting to think a little about the former life of Larísa, trying to find some kind of story that would fit the kind of activities I usually take part in when I'm playing. I can't say that it's easy - on the contrary. The main challenge I think is to find up something that feels the slightest original, and not just like another copy of all the long time ago worn out clichés from the fantasy genre.

I'm not an easy judge to please. So far everything I've come up with has been classified as "rubbish", "seen it a thousand times" and "too plain and predictable". So that's why I have no inclination whatsoever to share it with anyone else, not even the readers of Larísa's Corner. Not yet at least. Maybe one day I'll be ready to share some stories - if anyone will bother to listen - but for the time being I'll keep investigating the life of Larísa in secrecy, for my own pleasure, roleplaying all on my own in a locked closet. That's probably the right place to start anyway.