RP Question related to Lore.

[Jackthegreat]

Hey all, I'm a noob poster to the forums and I've really taken a fascination to the roleplaying forum. I'm also interested in starting up my own character to join in. I've done some character backstories before but no actual forum RPing. The problem I'm seeing is that, in the previous games I had written backstories for, the world was more open and less reliant on the lore of the particular world, (it was still present but to a much lesser degree).

So my question is, how much should I know about WoW Lore in order to make an effective roleplayer? I've read all the "noob roleplayer" threads and I didn't see much mention or emphasis on the actual story of the world besides age and naming structures.

I'm planning to make a Gnome character. If that makes a difference.

Thanks in advance.

PS: If this is in the wrong area please feel free to move it.

[Mistress Elizabeth]

In my opinion, the urge and desire to RP is all you need.

In my story, I'm using a lot of lore from the humans that I really don't know, what I usually do is, when I hit a block or want to start using a new pre existing character in lore (or in game), I go to WoWwiki, search for him, and apply what I read from him there.

For example, I did knew stuff about SI: 7 working in information gathering over the Defias Brotherhood, but I hadn't imagined they also gathered Undead information. A fact I used in my story to make Benedictus, who is a lore character that hates the undead, be easily coaxed into doing something after being promised information on the undead.

[Jackthegreat]

Alright cool, I've always wanted to try RPing, I used to lurk a RP website/forum a while back for the previous game I played and have wanted to try it out.

The reason I was concerned is that I've only been playing WoW since end of December, I've experienced a portion of the game, (currently stuck at 70 due to lack of WotLK) but I never really took the time to read the quests I was doing. I didn't want that to hinder my RP experience and I definitely didn't want to wreck things for others by not knowing enough about the world.

Thanks for your response.

Any other opinions?

[Mistress Elizabeth]

Some times, playing the game should teach you a lot about lore.

There's a lot of information that you realize yourself after reading a quest, a good example about this is Gryan Stoutmantle from Westfall.

The guy in vanilla is the leader of the people's militia, but in Wotlk, your given a quest to report to him. He is the Captain of the Westfall brigade in Grizzly hill. Knowing who he was in vanilla allows the thought process of "hey, this guy is captain because he was in Westfall helping the farmers in the people's militia!" and so on.

Also, reading quest text help a lot in actually playing and enjoying the game :]

[color=red] And in a certain expansion, his story gets 'progressed'. Let's just say...errrm, fire? And...a daughter of his enemy??

[Garots]

This guide has a lot of useful links that can teach you about lore and stuff =P

[Mistress Elizabeth]

[color=red] And in a certain expansion, his story gets 'progressed'. Let's just say...errrm, fire? And...a daughter of his enemy??

:c

[Jackthegreat]

Well thanks for the responses, I've decided I'm going to write up bio. I noticed that in some other peoples bio threads, people have come in to help adjust it to lore and such so I'm going to use what I know and then look for criticism afterwards.