Draenei role-play

Zaraj wrote:I like how someone essentially made up their own lore based on a few vague non-canonical sources, and how everyone around them now considers it canon. Guess there's freedom in interpretation.

Every source I used was canonical (except possibly the quote from Ixamos the Corrupted, which comes from TCG). The only quote used that wasn't from canon was Thelos', which was quoted solely because it better described what I was trying to say than I could.

Additionally, it is a theory crafting article, much like WoWInsider's "Tinfoil Hat" articles. It is a article that extrapolates from what little we have available to try and put together a logical deduction, which may or may not be wrong and of which players are free to agree with or disagree with. The purpose of the article is not to say, "this is canon," but rather to say, "based on what we have available, this might be what it all means." I suppose I'll have to put a clearcut Disclaimer there, too.

Lastly, didn't we already have this discussion? In which it ultimately ended up being a difference of opinion on definitions (of which my personal definition is the in-game one where necromancy is stated to broadly be any magic that involves the dead. Is it really unreasonable for me to assume that the raising of a spirit army is necromancy when in-game sources say that any magic that involves the dead is necromancy?)? Do we really need to go through this argument again?

Zaraj wrote:Aye, and then you have the deduction which people do regarding the necromancy parts and the Auchenai which becomes kind of ridiculous. Especially when there are already canon parts spoken by actual former Auchenai which... well...

I believe that the dead, which we have been caring for these last 500 odd years, should be left alone. Maladaar has other plans. He has retreated to the Crypt of Remembrance to start his experiments... Necromancy.

Maybe he was being sarcastic.

Just do what I do, Zaraj - treat Drustai's epic extrapolation of the Auchenai as Drustai the character defending the Auchenai against her people's rather poor opinion of them.

I've had this discussion a few times In Character and it's a pretty fascinating moral story to explore. All of the draenei characters I played, apart from the Auchenai herself, were of the opinion that the Auchenai were a crazy death-cult and was justifiably slaughtered. Just let these different extrapolations belong to characters, rather than playesr, and there has to be no disagreement or tension on the player level; just on the character level, which is a good sort of disagreement, because it's fuel for role-play.

That's something I've encountered a few times - a character expressing a view that others know oocly are -wrong- and therefore deem that the player is a noob in lore. Maybe even if he is... that wrong interpretation of lore could very well be a valid IC perspective of the char. So just roll with it!

Thelos wrote:I've had this discussion a few times In Character and it's a pretty fascinating moral story to explore. All of the draenei characters I played, apart from the Auchenai herself, were of the opinion that the Auchenai were a crazy death-cult and was justifiably slaughtered. Just let these different extrapolations belong to characters, rather than playesr, and there has to be no disagreement or tension on the player level; just on the character level, which is a good sort of disagreement, because it's fuel for role-play.

That's what I did when I started writing extrapolations, or theory-crafts, about the nature of magic in world of warcraft. I decided to write them as in-character articles because we'll most likely never know the rules for sure, but at least I can think about the ways my character interpreted the things he observes around him.

When I started writing them I was hoping it would spark an in character discussion as fierce and lively as some of the out of character discussions on these boards. But it appears people would rather talk about the opinions of players, rather then those of characters. Which is a shame.

I'm totally drifting off-topic here, but I just wanted to post that. Sorry.

Conflict is in my opinion the interesting part of RP. It doesn't have to involve swords or magic or stuff, but disagreements in points of views. Two characters discussing, perhaps realizing their difference but also something about themselves and growing is also based on conflict I'd say. Most stories whether in books or movies are based around some sort of conflict that faces a character that forces it to grow and by the end of the book be a developed character who might be significantly different from how he first started.

But since the words of an ex-draenei in-game says that Necromancy was never used in the Auchenai's 500 years of taking care of the dead was revealed and was only recently practised by Maladaar, people assume that I am attacking Drustai's OOC interpretation of the lore and saying that I should roll with it. But this is not exactly the beef I got with it. Drustai may just be an insane ex-Auchenai in the point of view of my draenei. But at the same time, this attitude of viewing it as an IC point of view was not endorsed -earlier- in the thread.

The original point of the thread was after all how to roleplay a draenei, and tips regarding it. What happened was that there was a lot of rules that were elaborated, like "every draenei is supposed to follow the Light" and how someone who won't play a light follower "should roll another race", which is the counterpart of this "open interpretation" idea and is quite frankly lore elitism.

And then at the same time, there have been massive liberties taken over how necromancy and shadow is viewed within the draenic society, with some NPC dialogue seeming to counteract it and other lines just being plain vague about it. People preach(ed) their interpretation as the absolute and that other races shouldn't roll draenei if they aren't prepared to roll with it, even if that interpretation may be a contradiction of established lore in the eyes of others, as I see it as a contradiction.

So if we are to endorse interpretations all of the sudden, then I'll say this. Draenei isn't all about worshipping Light and Light doesn't have to be a big part of it. After all, Faith in WoW is extroverted into the actual power of the Light, which is why the Scarlet Crusade were able to use the Light without actual following its ideals in reality. Which is also why I see how paladins and priests are a step further than their non-Light class counterparts in "following the Light". I.e the medieval comparison of laymen and priests doesn't work because of the actual presence of holy power in WoW. At the same time, Light has a much larger part in draenic society, and that is something that should be taken into consideration.

I'd view thus draenei "attributes" as something less actual and more subtle as many have already pointed out. Instead of rising up to ideals, they have fear of falling from ideals and falling to corruption, for instance. In this thought there also comes arrogance, which is highlighted in the faction leader short story, and the dialogue between Velen and Anduin. Roleplaying a dwarf for instance is not all about drinking ale and being a drunk buffoon, after all.

But this is my interpretation after all. If we're gonna be open minded to interpretations, the final point of the thread should be; roll draenei, do their quests, make up your own mind about the character and have fun RPing.

Zaraj wrote:Conflict is in my opinion the interesting part of RP. It doesn't have to involve swords or magic or stuff, but disagreements in points of views. Two characters discussing, perhaps realizing their difference but also something about themselves and growing is also based on conflict I'd say. Most stories whether in books or movies are based around some sort of conflict that faces a character that forces it to grow and by the end of the book be a developed character who might be significantly different from how he first started.

But since the words of an ex-draenei in-game says that Necromancy was never used in the Auchenai's 500 years of taking care of the dead was revealed and was only recently practised by Maladaar, people assume that I am attacking Drustai's OOC interpretation of the lore and saying that I should roll with it. But this is not exactly the beef I got with it. Drustai may just be an insane ex-Auchenai in the point of view of my draenei. But at the same time, this attitude of viewing it as an IC point of view was not endorsed -earlier- in the thread.

The problem is that WoW lore is exceptionally vague and often very contradictory, and it's even moreso for draenei (the amount of time the draenei have been on Draenor has ranged from 500 years, to 1000 years, to thousands of years, to 200 orc generations, depending on what source you use). The reason I wrote what I did is because, after 7 years of no lore, we've gotten to the state where the only thing we can do is dissect what little we have available and try and make deductions from that. Thelos was doing it as well in his Draenic Interpretations of the Holy Light thread, and for the most part the draenei community runs off of interpretations because interpretations are the only things we have. The article I wrote was basically the point of view I've expressed on Drustai for years, I simply eventually got encouraged by Thelos' thread to actually write it all down in a consolidated manner, showing how I came to that deduction based on what little lore we have available. It was a research paper, more or less.

It seems like that was a mistake, since it's caused more fuss than if I had just kept it IC.

But really, the only issue is what we want to call it. It's canon that they communed with the dead, it's canon that their initiation rite involved consuming a potion that allowed them to see into the spirit realm, and it's canon that they summoned the dead even before their corruption. What is left in the air is whether you'd call it necromancy or something else. Based on the definition of necromancy as 'any magic that involves the dead', I'm inclined to believe it was. Your own interpretation is that it isn't, based on Ramdor's comment and the idea of necromancy being an evil that would have never been tolerated. C'est la vie. I think I'm going to go back and edit the article to account for the differences of opinion, since I do respect your opinion and think it's a perfectly valid one even if I might personally disagree. I'll also add the disclaimer that it's meant as a theorycrafting article.

Honestly though, discussions like this are why I'm glad to be playing Areyah instead of Drustai now. There's just far too many gaps involved in RPing magic/draenei.

But this is my interpretation after all. If we're gonna be open minded to interpretations, the final point of the thread should be; roll draenei, do their quests, make up your own mind about the character and have fun RPing.

I agree with this.

This thread make's me wish I still found paying for WoW worthvile, has made me wanted to roll a Draenei again.

Zaraj wrote:The original point of the thread was after all how to roleplay a draenei, and tips regarding it. What happened was that (1) there was a lot of rules that were elaborated, like "every draenei is supposed to follow the Light" and how (2) someone who won't play a light follower "should roll another race", which is the counterpart of this "open interpretation" idea and is quite frankly lore elitism.

@1: When coming from me at least, they were tips, not rules. People asked for guidelines how to play a draenei, I provided them with some insights, mostly based on my own interpetations of the lore and experience playing my draenei. They were never more than tips, to be discarded at the leisure of those that read them.

@2: I would never say something like that - I won't ever tell somebody to play another race if they're not playing it in the way that I am playing it. So, not sure how to react to this, other then dumb amazement.

Zaraj wrote:But this is my interpretation after all. If we're gonna be open minded to interpretations, the final point of the thread should be; roll draenei, do their quests, make up your own mind about the character and have fun RPing.

Yeap. This. Everybody agrees to this. It's an indefeatible statement.

In the end, the way people play draenei will be formed by the interaction they have with non-draenei and draenei alike. Should they choose to interact with older draenei characters (or players), they will inevitably be shaped by some of the assumptions we made and take part in the lore we've extrapolated - or not, if they don't want to, at their whim and leisure. When I was role-playing in Ere Argus, there was a constant conflict of extrapolations from Sanara and Drustai that I accepted, and those that I rejected. For example, they were very keen on insisting that draenei evolved from carnivores: something I always rejected (Yes, we got into such crazy details at times. We are really quite crazy like that).

But do you want to know the most magical thing about all of these disagreements?

They don't mean jack shit. Sanara can play her character as a carnivore because the draenei models has fangs and she assumes that must mean they evolved from carnivores and, I can play mine as a devout vegeterian because it suited the Buddhist image I wanted to create for my character; and our assumptions don't even ever interact with one another. I don't think it was ever even brought up In Character. And in the end, that which is not brought up In Character, doesn't exist in any sense relevant to role-play.