Subscribe if you want more lore, collabs and writing in the future! So long as you all want content I'll be happy to bring it!

Roll for initiative, and front row seating.

Is the Great Goobue Wall a good example of RP becoming canon? Because that’s pretty cool of the devs for them to do stuff like that. Acknowledging the player’s achievements outside of conventional gameplay.

The "Warrior of Light" may be OP, but I don't think that would make it boring to have as a character. I don't RP with others but I write about my WoL, and I like to write specifically how being a Warrior of Light affects him and how he slowly buckles under the weight of his ever growing titles and responsabilities.

As twenty five year veteran of role playing, I love this video. The flow between the two VOs how normal and right the ideas are presented as... this is an incredible video...

I love rping in FFXIV. It's such a fun setting because it has just the right amount of hard bones and open questions. It's broad enough to let wizards and engineers both exist separately and together. See Matoya helping cid with a mechanical device. I also love how I can tell that your walk through the quicksands probably wasn't my server since I don't recognize the people about. It also probably wasn't balmung because people were dressed, and you could load in.

I wish I could upvote this video more than once. I've been a part of the RP community for a while now (And I've been writing long before I played 14!) and everything you've said thus far hits the nail right on the head. From respecting boundaries, to the unwritten rules. It's surprisingly rare for someone to shed a light on these things for some reason, writing like this always feels like a somewhat obscure hobby despite the community being as large as it is! Oh, and it should be worth mentioning the art gave me a good chuckle as well. Especially the two images picturing Victor's interaction with Scribe at the library, and that lovely in-character drawing (I assume that's Catti?)

The funny thing is I have declined invites for D&D for years because I believed I just couldn't rp a character then realised over time I was making an entire background and personality for my 14 character and aspects of it ended up making parts of Endwwalker hit me even harder and man that was a great feeling.

It's so wonderful seeing the Roleplay community talked about positively as opposed to the butt of every joke. Honestly, roleplay has enhanced my writing. It's a really cool way to sharpen your skills in building stories in general. I run a roleplay guild on my server and it's just so much fun. The ability to constantly build stories and lives of characters is too fun, and there's so much in depth scenarios to play out and write. Many which go completely left field, be it due to those involved, or the dice. Just like Dungeons & Dragons (which is also roleplay yet not made fun of nearly as much anymore :P ). I love how you're encouraging people, that makes me so happy.

A Crap Guide to FFXIV RP, featuring the inimitable Synodic Scribe. Hah... oh, this should be good. Funny thing is, I actually came across your work from the auto-play feature while listening to JoCat's CG's to DnD. I was in the kitchen preparing dinner when suddenly Joe's voice became... rather subdued. Well! Imagine my surprise coming back to the office to find a whole new lore channel to check out, eventually becoming the only one to have earned my subscription. Come to think of it, I'm not even subbed to JoCat, I'm that picky. Anyway, you can bet Bahamut's sweet ass I'll be coming back to see this!

Been Rping for a very long time, through multiple MMO's, currently even RPing on XIV as we speak, mostly adventuring out in the world. it's genuinely nice to see some attention brought to the hobby that isn't just mocking it. I appreciate this greatly.

Love hearing you two talk about lore and RP, and the general cozy pace of Scribe's editing bgm! Great video and chemistry.

A longtime fan of both your channels, and this was an absolute treat. I hope that videos like this help people understand why those of us who roleplay (be it in FFXIV or elsewhere) do what we do. Because it's just as you said, creating stories in collaboration with others through roleplay is incredibly fun and rewarding.

I don't know if what I do is considered the typical roleplay, but I have stories for my characters. Two of them are fully fleshed out 'retellings' of the MSQ, which follow the canon plot as the WoL, but with certain tweaks here and there. Then I have a couple that I just have percolating in my mind that have Vibes. I write for myself, and I agree that I like the challenge of making my story mesh with canon in a believable way. For one of my characters, I was hitting a brick wall with the whole Azem thing. And then I realised...she doesn't _have_ to be that in the ancient past. So now her past is that she was something else living on the Star when it was Sundered, and she got caught up in it. I love when things click like that.

Always loved watching roleplay, even when my nerves get the better of me and I freeze way too easily at any attempt. Support to all the roleplayers!

As someone still trying to find their place in this game after 2.5 years, this was extremely helpful to understand possible reasons people play this game.

Teach and Jocat? AW HELL THIS IS GREAT DAY. KEEP IT UP, YOU TWO!

I met my husband through RP :) when I started playing ffxiv, I saw it as just a game. But as I got to know my character, I started to solo RP in my head, knowing what she's saying and feeling throughout my game play. She don't have a house yet in game but no matter where she is, at the end of the day she makes sure she returns to the forgotten Knight or the pendants to take stock of the day before going to sleep. I honestly want to write a fan fiction for her. I would love to RP with others I'm just super slow at typing as I'm a PS4 player and I dunno how that would work 🤣

I'm so glad to have watched this! Both of you have excellent vibes when it comes to discussing lore and roleplay related matters and I hope to see more if possible! Also, this video helped me refocus as a roleplayer in my group. I've been falling into that hole of hating roleplaying because I was so focused on my own characters' issues (in and out of the story), or forgetting that our GM has a few different rules she has set as boundaries for our group. Thank you for helping me put this into perspective! Not just in FFXIV but roleplaying in other games too!

As someone who plays almost all of my RPG characters, the "older brother" of most groups, I loved seeing how people acted, mainly in FF14, seeing and having experienced randoms asking for help with XYZ and endgame players who so happened to be nearby dropping whatever they were doing just to help a random quest or dungeon. Seeing things like that made me love being apart of this community. When I started to get into roleplaying in FF14, I took that "older brother" persona and made it apart of my current character's lore, often making sure new players had the gear they, needed to better themselves for the next dungeon run, or even running, content over again with them to help them settle into whatever class they were playing and I was often the person they'd come to if they needed someone to talk to and or rant on about how bad something went to which I was always willing to listen them making sure everything was right in the end.

I have yet to interact with the wider rp community in 14, but I basically have gotten to use my previous role play and world building skills to get me and my partners' entire free company on Ultros into it. We've been roleplaying our characters through scenes and arcs for months now and it's absolutely wonderful. ^-^ Glad to see another cool video about roleplaying within this game!

I do confess to the sin of creating my Sun Seeker Miqo'te before I learned about Miqo'te culture and lore, but at the same time, once I learned more, I developed her better, created backstory that explains why she was a Ninja, and integrating my involuntary hiatus as a means for why she returns as a Samurai. And I'm figuring out more, little by little, her smaller developments as I keep playing. I just started Stormblood, and meeting M'Naago gave me inspiration, "Oh! She's from the M tribe and her hair is THAT color! I can do something with that!" and proceeded to give my Miqo'te highlights of the M tribe hair color (or as close to it as I can make it, lighting and shading is hard) to reflect her heritage. I love using Role Playing as as an extension for creativity, it helps me as a writer figure out aspects of characters I play in game, and later use to apply to characters in my own, original works. I was drawn to it in World of Warcraft (No, I didn't play on Moonguard or Wyrmrest Accord, I played on Sisters of Elune, which was far tamer by comparison), and was so happy when I found it alive and thriving in FFXIV.

You absolutely nailed the reason why me and my tabletop groups have gotten obsessed over the game's lore, and the looseness of it is what helped me expand the Viera I play. Aetheric weaponry is hardly touched upon and only used in one scene, so I used that loose nature to make it so my Viera uses aetheric weaponry to conjure different weapon types, and as a result, she's become something of a Fighter in that she can be proficient in multiple weapon-types, and it only grew from there. I hope the lorekeepers for this game continue to give us more and more to work with, 6.1 and 6.2 already gave us lots of fun new content, and I'm excited to see how things are further expanded upon.

Great video! I also don't actively role play with anyone however my fiance and I make intricate characters and personalities for every fanta we have, giving them their own unique style, names/titles, and glams. We made a big picture collage of all our fantas and various FFXIV characters we've made over the years drawing lines between the characters like the red string cork board trope, describing our characters maze of relationships they have with each other and how they know one another in our head canon. Some are married, some are enemies, there is an overarching antagonist and their minions, different groups of heros, and also some betrayals in this silly narrative. Very fun times, XIV lends itself and its world incredibly well to this sorta thing.

I got sent this video by friends on the Chaos side of the RP community, and I have to admit this is a beautiful, constructive overview of how the RP community operates. Hope this one takes off and much ❤️ from the community for this. 100% got my sub for this one, looking forward to seeing your other videos over the coming weeks.

I’ve been roleplaying for a long time in mmorpgs, WoW, SWTOR, Wildstar and FFXIV. To me, roleplaying is like writing a character (and story arcs) pretty much on the fly with others who are doing the same all within a set of guidelines (like the ones briefly mentioned in the video). I find that it’s very reactive and improvisational most times, especially when mingling with Rpers from other social circles. Roleplaying is so much fun and I doubt I’d stick around any mmorpg for long without a roleplaying community.

That was really insightful ! I haven't actually engage with the RP community, but i do have my own RP for my character that i follow when playing. It's nice to see that many people play that way, and push this beyond a simple headcanon by blending their RP with others. Might give it a try. Also love your videos JoCat ! Actually helped me improve as a tank when i first started playing !

looooved this video! I love roleplay and it's exciting to hear some really insightful commentary on what it is all about!

I must say as a huge jo cat fan I can think of no better 5 seconds of clips to show to convince flocks to watch him then what you showed

That ending conversation got me thinking about match ups.....Thanks for that.

Great video! I'm glad two of my favorite creators got together to talk about a topic I love! I hope you two make more videos together!

I love how Soul Stones also implicate that you aren't restricted to exactly your class's abilities. I have a Paladin whose soulstone came from ancient Ivalice, and is more or less the same as Agrias from FFT.

First your artist really killed it this ep! Great to see JoCat here! And now for a long ramble cause I just have so much fun. My main is a daughter of pirates of Limsa that fell in love with Ishgard and the Machinist guild. Sometimes I retcon her as the pirate teacher of the guild or other times follow closer to the story only she sticks around to teach gun play. My alt [yes I couldn't stop at 1] is a former Gunbreaker of Bozja hailing from a tiny frozen mountain top village that was blasted off the face of the world by the empire, and because he failed as a protector of his people he went on to learn healing [all but Astro cause I suck as Astro] but keeps his blade close at hand. Due to him being the last of the village he threw his name away and took the village name as his own but most call him Doc. My main is the bigger hero, though flawed in terms of being a bit too pirate like, racist, quick to vices and answers most problems with either her gun or axe. She being from Limsa only calls Y'sthola, Sthola as they've worked together so long. She's even married a friend's character and we often game side by side so the wives are often there to back each other up. Even if my character is polyamorous in nature while I'm ace. Doc being so old and lost it all is kind and forgiving even to the empire well minus the 4th legion where even then his old wounds can't let him move on. When I feel the need to be less cut throat and gentle Doc is there to be a grandpa figure to all. Adopting NPCs as extra grandkids to protect and mentor even if he should long ago have retired as he's nearing 100. I got into an argument once that Bozja has no snowy mountains or least none we can see but that is the closest to anyone being upset at role playing. In my small group we ended up evenly splitting stuff. Zenos "befriended" my main, another of the group is the sundered Azem, and my main's wife is void touched thus they worked together, one took the light in, the other cut the darkness back, while my character sat there and smoked worrying about the two during all of ShadowBringers. I normally got to lead the group so taking well third string hero was refreshing and fun! Also random joke but as my character as tough as she is LOVES Carbuncle and is not a sundered a ancient and is a warrior on top of machinist I joke her unsundered self is Proto Carbuncle and we ran with it.

I've been doing roleplay since I've been in cactuar I do venues and stuff. I got really hooked creating my character who's a voidsent that lost her memories living in a humanoid form

A great video as always, truly a treat

I loved my FF character so much... I wrote her into D&D as an NPC as the Warrior of Light that helps the party in the beginning of thier campaign. And she was supposed to become the villain of the story based on opposing conflicts. However, she was killed early by a soul stealing weapon due to a crit by the mob and a crit fail by her for the save. This allowed for the party to expand further, miss the npc, and do what they could to try to speak with her again. Now in the final chapter of our long story, the world is ending, and the party brought back her spirit for one fight and some dialog. Just for the closure of it. It was amazing and made me cry. In the next campaign I get to be a player. And I am playing as her long dependent reincarnation as a humble adventurer. No longer burdened with the mantle of Savior.

I like the mention of using the tools provided by the setting and writing to shape your character. I made a Highlander almost at random when I started, partly because I knew nothing of the lore going in. I've since given him a fairly complete history, and can even nail down the year he was born back in the Sixth Astral Era.

A roleplay venue that used to be around became my entrance to the scene and I've been building my character long after its closure. Kiemi'a is a Hearer, a Keeper of the Moon born and raised in the Black Shroud. I even keep an indigo robe on my person just so he can be in uniform when the need calls for it. He is also a Pugilist practicioner because his husband is a fistfighter from the Azim Steppe. He learned his moves from him.

thank you so much for shining such a fun and informative light on the amazing RP community that FFXIV has.

I love you both so much with this video.

I've been Roleplaying for most of my life, and I LOVE FFXIV! I have several characters, RP with several groups and individuals, and we all have a ton of fun!

As someone who loves roleplay, I REALLY enjoyed this one. ^_^ I even learned a few things (like people generally avoid calling themselves the warrior of light). My headcanon was more that everyone appears to undergo the same events, just from their own perspective, on their own personal timeline, meching into and out of other people's personal timelines. So just about every adventurer with the Echo was some flavor of warrior of light. ...And that there was the understanding that messing with the natural flow of events (ie, spoilers) was highly dangerous.

I've gotten into RP rather recently in XVI even if I've been RPing for like 3 years. I live my Au'Ra DRK, wandering Eorzea, accruing knowledge, and training up the Midlander she practically adopted after saving him in La Noscea.

Fantastic collaboration. I love RP in this game and absolutely love the light you two cast on the community in this!

Thanks for this video, it was very interesting! I have been playing/storytelling Werewolf: The Apocalypse games and a few others for over a decade and have a huge document with infos about the backstories, actions and opinions of my FFXIV chars. And yet I have never taken part in FFXIV roleplay, but couldn't really grasp why. Your video made me realize it's the "fuzzy" rules of what you can or cannot do, and also contradicting how my FFXIV characters are created. When I play in two groups of WtA, both groups rely on the same core system (WtA), but how each group's world looks and feel likes, how strict rules are, what the house rules are etc. can still drastically vary, and it is part of the fun of being in different groups. However, each group still has their own house rules made clear at the beginning and everyone could talk about their veils and lines and all and even how close you will or will not stick with the core rule book. When I hear about FFXIV roleplay, e.g. like in this video, it seems to me however that the core system in itself is heavily altered to a point where I'd have to heavily adjust if not rewrite the concept and backstory of my own character to fit in. (So it's not just a few houserules here and there, it's more like having a rule book with "WtA" on its cover and half the pages replaced.) My characters are shaped by the gameplay and the MSQ though and saying "nobody is the WoL" (which does make perfect sense, don't get me wrong,) would basically set them back to a level 1 character with rarely any advanced personality. xD (In my head canon, all characters are WoLs but only my main is "the" main character WoL. But they all do the journey together etc.) Also the number of people you are about to interact with is probably much larger than 4 or 5 and often changing, so getting to know each others boundaries is a lot harder than in a pen and paper game where you discuss this at the start. So although you probably intended it otherwise, your video helped me realize that it's better for me to stay at the sidelines and develop my head canon for my own (and I am grateful for that. ^^) And maybe share it one day once I got rid of that art block. xD

Thanks for this. Lore is great and expansive and interesting, but ultimately useless if you dont use it for a story. Its what you do with it that matters, what narrative purpose it all serves. Your short stories are what got me to sub in the first place, love the way you distill the essence of a particular subject into a couple of paragraphs in a fun and engaging way. Keep up the great work dude.

This was a great video :) I don't RP with a larger group outside my FC, but my WoL has a whole headcanon backstory, and I love writing out his adventures, and using the lore to work out what his powers and limitations would be, why he has so many jobs and how being the Champion of Eorzea is both a blessing and a bane. It's great fun for me as a writer. I also run a D&D group with modified 5e rules set in Eorzea. None of my players actually play the MMO for various reasons but this is another way I can share my love of the world and lore with them.

This is the collaboration I've been dying for.

I tend to have two characters I technically RP as a Raen Au Ra and a Viera both hailing from the far east, sisters united not by blood but by the same self same shared sense of adventure and desire to see the world, one is a small angry scaley lady and the other who will pick up the tiny ball of fiery vengeance swinging gunblade and dragoon jumping off to places unknown... Truly the best duo....

I used to RP in WoW back in the day, but haven't found my footing in FFXIV's RP community just yet. Brilliant collab, and thank you for the video!!

Me and my friends have our own little version of the MSQ where our characters assit the Scions and take on certain traits of the story and other questline's but for simplicity's sake we have Meteor and THE WoL and it's so much fun making up scenarios with everyone. We also used to run an rp bar and occasionally visit other venues and rp locations. After being out of Rp for so long then getting into FFXIV it feels so nice to see how open both the game and community is to it.

I'll never forget when they released Bozja, and it basically 'canonized' the semi-elaborate backstory I made for my Helion. An old Bozjan conscript who served as a pilot in one of the Imperial Legions, who defected after the Bozja Citadel incident and came to Eorzia. I embraced the IVth Legion wholeheartedly, it was perfect for everything I had imagined my character to have been through. I've never played a single scene of roleplaying between players in FFXIV, but writing my character into the world like I did, helps me breathes life into every cutscene I sit through, and enriches the already significant emotional highs and lows of the MSQ. Roleplaying is not always a group activity.

This entire video has made me really want to get back into ffxiv, especially with being someone who enjoys RPing and character creation in general. My character was an Au Ra Dragoon for those curious.

The Goldshire bit about made me spit out my energy drink. As far as roleplay goes, I love roleplaying and there is a lot of unspoken etiquette when it comes to playing a character. Also, I love how MMOs that dont have specified RP servers generally start to create a server that is more RP-focused, and, roleplaying outside of those servers never fails to bring in that one Sprout or person that runs up to you in chat and is like: "Holy crap, are you roleplaying? That's so cool!" then you have to awkwardly /tell them so you're not breaking character XD

I roleplay a fair bit in this game as an idealized version of myself so it's heartening to hear that being accepted. I have two - I guess, versions? of myself as the character. The version for interacting with players, and the WoL version. The latter is self explanatory but I do still have a solid vision of her. But as the former, I mainly style myself as a Red Mage but still a person who has dabbled enough in the disciplines of the other jobs to grasp the fundamentals. Such as knowing enough about the Scholar job to cast Adloquium (spelling?) for example. But the big thing that sets my character apart from others is that I also focus on the practical side of magic. The little bit at the start with the crystal and using the aether from that as opposed to the surrounding ambient aether is actually huge for me and has been a part of my character for quite a while now. Generally nothing so powerful or potent as to need crystals of high purity, but that makes it much easier to source the crystals I require. The size of the crystal determining the magnitude of the effect. I'm also working on complex spells combining aether of differing aspects in different concentrations to get unique effects such as a magical soundproof barrier around a room.

This happened a long time ago when Heavensward was still a couple months fresh. I queued for the Aery and ran into another player who’s character had the same last name as mine. It was cool to see, but I didn’t expect her to be a role player and she basically started role playing as if we were sisters!! It took me by surprise but I just went along with it! We basically role played as if we were sisters who haven’t seen each other in a while and we’re catching up while killing dungeon mobs! Sadly I haven’t seen that player since then, but I’ll always remember that dungeon run! It was a fun, impromptu role playing session! 😊

Tbh one of the biggest assets for RP in FFXIV is kinda doing what the writers do in this game; drawing from previous Final Fantasy games to use as plots or just a bit of lore flavor. One of the RP venues I play staff at is a rare tomes and books store where my character helps customers looking for books in particular. Because I've been playing Final Fantasy games for almost my whole life, I have a pretty extensive knowledge of the stories and lore inside each game, so I often end up applying that when finding books for customers. If they're looking for fiction, I'll use stories from earlier Final Fantasies as mythical tales within the filter of XIV's world (Ivallice stuff in particular is my fave to work with just because how deep lore is in that setting). Because I portray them as myths, it makes playing with that lore a lot more fun but also gives me enough wiggle room in case the dev team end up using that material down the line it. So yeah, my motto is that if Square can pull material from their older games, I figure RPers should be able to play with that as well. It sure beats dealing with other RPers who wanna act like they're the lore police 😂

Fantastic video as always! I still want to here your character’s story though.

Bro I absolutely love your videos

i remember just chilling in goldshire and watching everyone rp walk around the inn lol never got into it, but loved hearing my sister speak about a few of her sessions :)

I am trying to make a backstory for my catboi who is a seeker from the V tribe. I have quite the hard time making backstories for characters even if it is given XD I guess the simple thing to do is what would your character be doing if they weren't the WoL in general like what job or work or whatever they had dreams of before being the WoL. It is nice to see others talking about it, it really does make me want to continue coming up with something more for him.

Great video and I have been a roleplayer in FFXIV since ARR's beta and started my own roleplaying community then, which is still going strong and now I admin a couple of others. It is a fantastic game to RP in and yes, there's a whole plethora of types of RPers and flavours to it, some of them arguably bad whilst others great. I've generally liked writing different characters within the world often with interlinked stories and with other people and it's a lot of fun. And it's a great way to fill content lulls. For me, I've always enjoyed writing and RPG's, so really, it's a good way of tickling both interests, especially as Final Fantasy has long been my jam. And I've made good friends along the way. It is interesting you talk about the open-ended writing, and I think that is a valid point & it can be both a curse and boon, great for creativity but sometimes annoying if you're trying to tie down some specific lore points you'd like to know that'd help keep consistency in canon between players. But testament to that: one popular theme for RP is the Azim Steppe (of which the community is huge), each tribe has their own flavour text but not a lot of detail on lore, but it opens the floodgates for creativity yet gives enough of a hook to think "this is an interesting concept" and people run with it. And to continue on with that thought. One other benefit is that it has ended up inspiring another interest. Way back in Heavensward all we got for Xaela was the flavour text on the different tribes and it was obviously Mongolian inspired. So in order to fill the gaps in creating my first Xaela character I looked into inspiration from Mongolia and ended up down a rabbit hole and falling in love and was relieved when Stormblood came out that I didn't have to retcon anything once we got all this lore, my character was even a Morin Khuur player and you can imagine I was very happy to find that it was added as a housing item and legitimised my choices. And now for years, it has been an interest as well as surrounding (but related) cultures (like Altai, Kazakh, Tuvan, Siberian etc). I ended up discovering a lot of music I like, which started off with Mongolian metal (before The Hu got off the ground) and has continued through to Tuvan folk. And now I have a Morin Khuur that I'm learning to play, am learning Tuvan throat singing (with a tutor who used to be in one of the aforementioned bands) and to speak Mongolian and Tuvan. I'm in a Mongolian Discord and I aim to visit the country in 2024, and already have been offered to be shown around and for help learning the language. And I'd like to visit Tuva when things are calmer in Russia. I've also started up (and am behind on) a blog for the real-world steppe references in FFXIV. I also took a big interest in Tegrism and have spent time learning about Shamanism within Mongolia and Siberia and came across a handy book written by a Tengri shaman, which included some of their rituals and lot of the meaning as well as their beliefs about the cosmos. And naturally this is all stuff that has come back to influence my roleplay, heck, I am putting together an RP event inspired by The Golden Eagle festival. And to think that all started just because I needed inspiration for a character as lore was barebones at the time. So er...credit to their writing team I guess.

Something I feel really cemented ff14 as an *RP*G to me was how in later expensions they started to customise the experience more and more, we still have the same story but what side content you did tweaks some scenes a bit to reflect your story better, you get to pick your line and define how you feel your WoL is rather then a bank or imposed character. It's not a huge deal but it adds so much to the rp flavour!

this. all of this! who did i miss this video

This was an amazing collaboration!

I do like to RP in FFXIV, and am trying to get my character much more established. Though I've got a couple of tropes/quirks. Namely being kinda quiet and shy when visiting a place for the first time, becoming an unapologetic flirt once comfortable, and having a serious wander-lust to the point that she'll just run off wherever her heart decides to go the MOMENT she decides. With or without any sort of preparation.

Heck of a way to get me..Scribe. Here I was, sat down with lunch, ready to chill while munching and watching this. Then I heard "Goldshire", and my monitor also had lunch..

I actually really miss roleplaying and will get back into. I own a small lounge out of my Apt in Ada and it's the best feeling to not only have customers but regulars as well. Two of my goals for my lounge were to host wedding parties and date nights for couples- both of which I've already achieved and it filled my heart with joy. I love seeing people enjoy the space I've built and what's even more fulfilling is the amount of stories you hear from others, really gave me a "If walls could talk" moment. My lounge even became a hangout for my friends, I worked for months getting together the furniture which thank God i know an omni-crafter. But it's nice seeing old and new faces almost like owning an actual business, the feeling of accomplishment is further reinforced when you realize how big FFXIV roleplaying truly is when you take into account the party side and the horny side. People who chose to visit your quaint hole in the wall could've literally gone *anywhere* else but they stepped through your door. Of course with cross travel things have become slow, also other games took my attention. But I've been aching for more bar rp for a while now. I'll open back up soon and see what changed. Funny story, one day I hadn't gotten on to open the bar so one of my regulars said she'd waited in the venue for me to open, sweetest thing I've ever heard. Roleplaying even in FFXIV has its flaws, there may not seem like a group for you depending on your preferences or the whole concept may seem awkward but I encourage anyone to try and find their crowd. Though I will say that my Hroth alt *not* meant for rp had been hit on more than I'd like to admit, so be careful.. Happy storytelling!

lol, slapping the foam noodle out of Mat Mercer's hand as a introduction, what a flex!

finally 2 of my favourite content creators do a mashup =D

Ahaha, my husband and I brought our D&D characters into FF14 after their campaign ended, I also made their first daughter. A friend that played with us made the child they adopted while taking their "vacation" in Eorzea. It's actually carried over to the new campaign they're involved in currently. Without spoiling much ff14, let's just say they'd be considered well-disguised aliens in this world if their real forms were discovered. The outfits, like you mentioned, is involved with both my husband and my characters. Unfortunately we didn't join one of the more RP active servers, so we can't do TOO much with it. We've had our experiences, though! It's fun. :)

The thing that makes RP such a unique thing, is that there's so many different ways to do it, and FFXIV caters to multiple types. From the slightly vague lore being open-ended enough for interpretations to make your own creative ideas, to glamours, jobs, emotes, etc., The sky truly is the limit. Even I was not immune, for example. My character is Wriggle Nightbug on the Leviathan server in Primal DC. Some of those saw that name and instantly knew the reference, others are probably now knee-deep digging through the even more confusing lore of the Touhou series from their initial Google search. I have a Private house in Lavender Beds, since The Black Shroud is so reminiscent of The Forest of Magic, and I even main BLM, since the ambient magic or "aether" is so much more plentiful in Eorzea than in Gensokyo. Perhaps one day I might dig deeper into trying it in game for myself, but between having my own WoL be a crossover in and of herself, and some confidential interactions in my discord DMs, it truly goes to show, no matter how minimal, everyone likes to do a little bit of RP in their own ways

something I've fully taken advantage of that's in this video was the vagueries of how things were described. back in stormblood, I tied my character's backstory to old sharlayan, and a small hamlet in the old world I referred to as "Thamasa", and really, when the devs did start zeroing in more and more on life in Sharlayan, I was only able to better reinforce my character's backstory, as well as that of her family's.

This was a really great and honest overview of XIV's roleplay community. XIV was my first MMO, and when I first started playing, the MMO part of it terrified me. I loved the story, but because I started out as a tank, I felt a lot of pressure in content and it made me really nervous to do any duties. I wasn't into rp then, but I made friends with a few people who were, and they were the ones who really brought me into the fold and made me love the game for the MMO it is. Now I'm an officer and DM for an rp FC, created a combat system with the in-game dice, and I do savage raids with a static twice a week as a warrior.

this is golden!

For that final conversation: Let's also remember, WoL beat Raubahn before having run into Ranjit, and when we run into Ranjit, he did fight and win against not only the WoL, but also the twins, MiniFilia, and Lyna, then afterward would have likely pounded Thancred down on his own with everyone else downed around him. On a serious matter, Great vid with great content and very valid and true opinions/statements.

Very good vid on roleplay. I roleplay in any game where I can create characters, and FF14 is no different. I do some light roleplay with all my characters in FF14. They all have a backstory and a personality that I try to stick to when the MSQ gives me the option to say stuff. It's really fun having a bunch of characters to play as.

This came out at a very interesting time. I tried to get into RP again a couple days ago with a friend's help, but my social anxiety took over leaving me a crying mess for the night and had to leave. I was so excited too and spent hours getting stuff for my outfit for it... I love RP but between the bad experiences and fear of judgement, have such a hard time enjoying it.. So I return to sitting with all my stories in my head an no one to share with

The crossover i never knew i needed

I have a whole backstory for my Miqo’te! She’s from thavnir and grew up in one of the hilly villages where her parents have a very small farm. When she was 17 she met a traveling dance troupe and learned to dance from the leader. She then joined them and traveled around Thavnir. One day they got the amazing opportunity to travel to Limsa where she met a young monk. She left the troupe to travel to Uldah to learn the how to be a monk and fight with her fists. After a few years she met up with her dance troupe again who had learned combat dancing. She joined them again and has been a dancer ever since.

I think it's really cool that your character has some similar motivations/ideas that my main does in FFXIV: Basically, Laura has fully embraced her role as Azem, is in the process of building a New Convocation of Fourteen (we still have like 6 positions open) and am using my Island Sanctuary as a research facility/hq for the New Convocation that has been (unofficially) dubbed, "Nea Elpis." In other RP that I'm involved in in-game, my FC is called "Hogwarts" and I'm the Head of Hufflepuff House. We actually have sorting ceremonies for new members, and our large FC house has been meticulously decorated to match Hogwarts Castle as closely as possible (including such iconic things as the Whomping Willow & Goblet of Fire hedge maze in the yard, and a re-creation of the Great Hall, Dueling stage, Library, Potions Class, Charms Class, Prefect's Bathroom, Herbology Class & Defense Against Dark Arts Classrooms, among others inside). I also want to note that I didn't start as the Head of Hufflepuff when I joined the FC, but was asked to take that role after the previous Hufflepuff head had to step down due to, for lack of better work, being the Hufllepuffiest Hufflepuff in the FC....

I hope jocrap will also take part in this

I adore the lore of FFXIV, and I have multiple alts for the stories and characters I've thought up over the time. I'm too anxious to roleplay in-game, but I have written plenty about my characters just for myself, and it's so much fun. I even made my main into a character when I started out, and ended up having that branch into a WoL version of the character and an OC version of the character, because the OC I created didn't fit the Warrior of Light's journey.

The Scholar and the Bard! This video was fun and interesting!

Great collaboration video!

I usually don’t RP, but there was this one time I was wearing my pirate glamour in Limsa and another player who also happened to have a pirate glamour walked up and waved. We complimented each other, but without even saying anything beforehand. We did it in pirate-speak. And then we carried out a normal conversation… but all in pirate-speak. It was fun.

His clothing example is a great example of why i chose to give my miqo'te (who is on the gridanian detachment of Machinst sent from ishgard aftet they reopened their border to assist with the ixal.) Wear a leather vest and goggles as well as metal boots for marching through thr snow and grass of the twelveswood and coerthus.

Personatly, it started with having my character react with her class for the MSQ She first started off as a thaumaturge from Uld'ah, learning she had the capacity to become a great magic user. After a while and joining the scions, she then made the discovery of a certain Samurai coming from an Eastern Land. She gave it a try and instantly absolutly loved the philosophy of Musosai, and became her pupil. Growing stronger, she then finally defeated the Ultima Arma as a Samurai. After that, the rest of the MSQ she stayed as a Samurai... Until the Vault happened. "A smile better suit a Hero." She wanted to smile, but something was definitly destroyed. And then she saw a body with crystal right next to it in Ishgard. She then finally became a Dark Knight and since then hasn't moved from that. As for my non WoL character: a Viera born and raised in Kugane, fighting first as a Samurai, she came to Eorza to discover more about the world and basicly just went with the flow,acting as bodyguard, convoy escort and even had a face to face against a Dark Knight. After a few months, she encountered a Red Mage from Ala Mhigo and quickly got an interest in that particular way of fighting. Since then, she's currently a red mage apprentice, trying to become more efficient each and every single day. As a sidenote: she has a gigantic sweetooth, love to tease people more shy than her around. But is actually pretty damn insecure in places she doesn't know.

JoCat is amazing I swear and awesome vid

One of my favorite characters I made on FFXIV is an Xaela Dark Knight from the Dotharl tribe, speaks broken common but understands it well enough to know if she's being insulted or not lol, she can also write in the common tongue but it looks like chicken scratches

I love to role-playing my half Lalafell half Kitsune, granted not very many people like to rp with me, but that's fine, the character is one I want to play as ^^

I'm not sure but I'm just scared that I might have taken too many liberties when it comes to character backstories and that fear prevents me from opening up to others. I'm only roleplaying with my closest friends and so far I'm having a very good time ♥

I very much appreciate mentioning the importance of consent when it comes to RP and how to navigate relationship between players. But I would like to add that among the many wonderful original characters people have created, the game does have a community of RPers who RP canon NPCs and that consent MUST be extended to them as well. While you are free to have any sort of relationship you wish with an NPC, please understand that an NPC RPer may not wish to, and that's okay. Just like how cosplay =/= consent, playing an NPC =/= consent. I have two NPC alts and have had very wonderful and fun experiences with players. I've also had some very uncomfortable encounters, but those are so few and far between, I won't let that dissuade me from RPing.

I've been actively RPing since 2012 on WoW and 2021 in FF. I love the community here, and I can clearly see why some rules are set-in-stone with the community since that's been more or less the rules as well with WoW RP. The games had some crossover population, which may have helped set the rules in FF's community too. And since the wow exodus? You can bet that several guilds moved over to FF. There's even been threads on WoW groups from RP servers announcing their departure to FF.

I have two separate canons I swap between with my character depending on if I’m the “main character” or if I’m just showing up in someone else’s story. Usually among friends or when I’m writing my own story she’ll be a WoL - but with others she’s just a Maelstrom officer with a past as a pit fighter in Ul’Dah. The only msq bit would be having met Zenos because he beat the shit out of her and took one of her eyes. Both are *her*, but one meshes well with anyone who wants to interact or make a story with her.

This made me happy to watch. I don't actively roleplay in xiv but the "canon" that I have in the collaborative story telling I do with my friends is a lot of fun. Rather than their being one warrior of light we've established a AU based on 1.0 where there are many warriors of light but a certain one of our characters is at the forefront for certain expansions and the "face" of that expansion. We like to make jokes that there are a lot of conflicting stories about who the warrior of light is because, well...they all are. When we learnt of the sundering it was just a natural extension of our lore to be like "okay rather than merge together like other soul shards during the calamities, they became seperate people who share the same soul.". And there is probably another WoL in their infancy around after being reborn in the calamity at the start of ARR

I didn't know that the foremost rule of "your character isn't the WoL" was pretty much established even though I stuck to it myself but it makes a lot of sense so that everyone can have their own original character. But yeah, even though I didn't do a lot of RP in FFXIV itself, I do remember one game from 2000 which multiplayer component very much enabled and naturally allowed people to roleplay : Neverwinter Nights. For those who don't know, it was kind of a 3D spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale series of game in that you'd play in a D&D ruleset setting. The major difference however was that the game with 2 very important tools : the Aurora Toolset and the DM Client. The former let you easily create, using a tileset system, game assets and C++ based scripting, completely original worlds and settings, allowing you to bend the rules and use custom content to enhance what was already implemented. So, going into the multiplayer browser was less looking to join the shipped campaign to play in co-op (even though you could do that as well) but more like having a list of worlds to visits. They were categorized within a few general categories like "Action", "Social" and "Competitive" but there was also a very common category called "Persistent Story". That category itself was the key as those worlds would usually be persistent, ongoing custom "D&D" campaigns where most of them expected you to play "in-character" (aka, roleplay). And since characters were saved server-side, that meant that each server was kind of like its own little, roleplay-centric MMORPG setting. This made it so that characters usually became friends (or enemies), worked together or against one another, sometimes joined factions the developer for that module had put in place or even make their own. It made it so playing a character meant that you may well spend more time roleplaying setting up an adventure into a dungeon or relaxing after coming back from it. Often, people would RP in downtime between encounters in the dungeons themselves and kind of went out of their way to explain problems (like status effects) in ways that made sense from their perspective. Example : party is new, low level adventurers and they come across giant spiders. After the fight, one member is poisoned but instead of just saying "I'm poisoned, please cast Cure Poison on me, Bob!" they say "I'm really not feeling good... feels like my blood's on fire after that spider bit me... can you do something, ser Thomas?" and that would naturally prompt someone to help remove the poison with a spell or healing kit with the appropriate skill. Then the DM Client... it was basically what GM are in FFXIV except with (I assume) a lot more freedom and a good dose of trust involved. It allowed someone (or some people) who had the DM password (provided usually by the dev that elevated someone to DM-ship) to log into the world as an invisible avatar and teleport to all existing areas. However, they also had access to the entire bestiary of monsters, all gear that could potentially be dropped or found (and even some that couldn't). It allowed DMs to take control not only of NPCs but also monsters themselves. It allowed DMs to not only monitor for troublemakers but, like DMs in tabletop campaigns, initiate events they had planned out while also making it possible for players to interact, through their characters, with NPCs in non-scripted ways. It allowed DMs and players to create dynamic storylines and quests (since the DM could reward players afterwards as well with experience, gold and sometimes items) that both could help further develop the PCs backgrounds and accomplishments. I did DM in one server once and what I did was quite indirect but the players caught on. Basically, a group of PCs were near the gate of a city talking amongst themselves. What I did was that I spawned a guard that came from outside the gate to replace the static NPC guard and chat him up, having the two guards speak between each other casually enough that one let the other know a carriage had been attacked and some valuables lost to bandits. I swapped both guards then waited. PCs started thinking they could go and look for it, asked the guard about it who gave them an approximation of where they though it happened. Then they headed off in that direction. In the meantime, I spawned some bandit NPCs inside a cave I knew was in that area, as well as some hostages and a chest with goods in them. Then the most unexpected thing happened : a pair of low level PCs wandered into the cave and as they noticed that the bandits weren't outright hostile (monsters usually were, those were neutral), they ended up getting captured themselves after a few dice roll checks. I had those PCs held with the hostages, letting them know out of character this was actually an event I was making and that another group of players were already on their way here. 10 minutes later, the other group arrives and when they confront the bandits, it turns into a fight. The large group not only rescued the NPCs but the other two PCs as well while recovering the loot which, later, was split between the large group and some given to the low level PCs (with the hostages' approval of course). That unexpected turn of event led to those two PCs becoming friends with the original group which may not have happened at all otherwise. I played NWN for nearly 20 years, having multiple characters have their own storylines on several different worlds and the only one that stuck throughout was "Wiegraf Tal'mehr" which, through a DM-led event, learned a spell to let him travel the planes (aka, give me a story-explained reason why he'd show up in other servers) though the spell would each time drain him of his power immensely. Add to that he accidentally became almost immortal, it meant that character had a very storied background. Once I came to FFXIV and created the character there as well, I simply made it so that upon his actual death, instead of his soul being claimed by the usual D&D Gods, his soul was instead swiped into the setting of FFXIV where he would be given a new life without the background of an immortal being. The only thing original about his past self is his soul as he has no recollection of his previous life. The only thing he DOES retain is his martial prowess and affinity to fire. ... and by typing that, I just realized I actually pretty much made an isekai plot for my character ending in Final Fantasy after decades being in Dungeon and Dragons settings! :D Only difference is that unlike most of those, he doesn't know who he was before so no, he's not some kind of invincible immortal god at low level but more like an old hero's soul given a new start without the burden of centuries of existence.

Recently I rendomly started a Solo Roleplay... Let's just say I got my Bike after Being an Islander for a while and I started doing the Hildebrand Quests because I left them out for quite a long time. I realized that I do not really need to use the Aetherite much since I have a lot of free time and I decided, With my new Garlond GL-II Duocycle, I would go on a journey. As of now, I'm on my break, but via moving through zones I realized I missed a lot of minor details I never saw in my 1st time playing because I was so focused on the quests and the Story [and rushing through ARR] like how Areas such as the transition between Thanalan and The Black Shroud. For examble, from Thanalan entering Blackshroud, The number of trees and the amount of grassy areas around rises the nearer you get to the zone gate. and on the Flip Side, The closer you get to Thanalan from the Black Shroud, the more big Rocks sticking out of the ground there are. It is a very interesting journey. which i might once in a while add to my Lodestone Blog.

Thanks for reminding me about Ran'jit, it got me thinking about Pandæmonium and the entire people fused with monsters, unless Ran'jits dragon is a sin eater/ voidsent this is what Ran'jit is doing only in a safe way where he remain sane, and if he can why not us? so perhaps a new class/job? Maybe even a vampire one. What do you think?

Going back to this video after some time. TLDR former RPer doesn’t RP in FF14 but knows what RP is like. I was an RPer in an art site, and… the stuff that happened in those RP sessions, I hold them in the same spot in my head and heart, as the stuff that happened in video games and other stories I love. I often point out X reminds me of Y thing that happened in one of the RP sessions I was in, or how A character reminds me of B character from an RP session. Which reminds me…. I’m rambling at this point, but uh, I had a bunny eared character in one of these RP sessions. His bunny ears are actually a result of some manner of experiment. And then the SGE quests happen, which features… a bunny eared character who was subjected to experiments. While that bunny’s ears are natural (Viera and all), I still can’t fxing believe how my concept came back to me in an utmost unexpected manner! And that Viera happens to look suspiciously identical to my WoL. So uh… I’m just chalking it up as they come from the same village, and probably have the same dad, but different moms. I still don’t know whether bunny boys who come back to the village every five summers or so hook up with multiple girls, one at a time, or just one for as long as they live, or whatever they prefer. But considering male population among Viera is quite small, I am inclined to believe bunny girls get on with a handful husbands at a time.