A roleplay addon is just like regular addon; small programs added into your game to improve certain aspects of it. It’s no different with roleplay. And below I have gathered up some of my favourite ones for you.
Beyond Basics is a series of posts that delve into different aspects of roleplay beyond the basics of character creation within an MMO setting. For our purposes, this setting is World of Warcraft but it can be useful in others too. This series will look at things like plots, storylines, and conversations. As well as the world and community around you as a player in an MMO. Explaining how you can best make use of that; and how it might differ from roleplay on tabletop games for example. You can find the rest of the series here: Beyond Basics Series Index
First of all however if you don’t have addons, or don’t know where or how to get them let’s get you sorted. You can get addons in several places but to keep it simple I get almost all of mine from Curse.com. If you go to their website you can download the Curse Client, which is not a Twitch App since they recently merged. That app is a small file that works on your desktop and will be super useful to you. It will allow you to search and install new addons without having to extract files and find folders. It will also tell you when your addons need updated and let you update them with one click. I recommend grabbing it if you don’t already have it. Once you do you can search and install any of the following addons. You can even find the roleplay section on there and browse yourself.
Top Three Roleplay Addon
Total Role Play 3
Total Role Play Extended
The main and most important addon for any roleplay is something that allows them to create a character profile and description. Total Role Play is the addon that I am currently using for my profile, it’s a little heavier than the other options but I like what they are doing with it and the innovations and additions being made.
I will do a more in-depth guide to this addon at a later date and when it comes to writing the actual description for your character; we have you covered. In short, TRP3 allows you to write a description of your character, fill in their basic information, add some at-first-glance notes and a ‘’Currently’’ section.
TRP3 also has an easy little interface that you can use to set yourself as IC/OOC at the click of a button, along with changing your language and setting yourself to away. You can customize the buttons in this bar, I only have the status changing ones and the languages one, but you can also have here the items back and all sorts.
Other options include:
SoDEndlessChat
This one is small and sweet. EndlessChat basically enables you to type beyond the normal character limit of 250ish characters. It will split your emotes up for you, but it means you are not just as constrained by the character limit. It also means that when typing two emotes you can have them delivered at once rather than folks waiting for you to type the next bit.
Elephant
This addon is my lifeline. This is a chat log. Plain and simple it logs everything in the chat interface into separate channels. You can click the button and open up a log of everything said and choose your channel of choice, you can also use it to copy and paste sections of chat if needed. You can also edit the options for this to enable file logging so that everything Elephant logs will be saved to a file on your PC.
Other Useful Roleplay Addon
Gryphon Heart Items
GHI is a toolbox. Some use it some don’t. I did not use it for a long time as the code is known to conflict with some other things I was running. Then I did for a while and didn’t much use it. These days I don’t have it but I do have the extended TRP which works in a lot of what GHI was offering and is perfectly enough for me.
GHI allows you to create items. It gives you a little bag icon on your screen where you can store these items and create them. They can be anything from books to booze and you can trade them to other players using GHI. You can even wire them to have some little effects, like the booze when used/drunk can make your screen all blurry, etc.
You can also add custom buffs to your character with it, but that again is a feature offered just as well in TRP 3 Extended. The reach of GHI for the creative mind is limitless, but it does require everyone else you are intending to RP with to also have the addon, and that seems to be 50-50 in the community at least where I am.
Mispelled
Exactly what it says on the tin, a little addon that acts as a spellcheck. This is not perfect by any means there are words in misses and gets wrong but for the most part, it’s a solid addition to your toolkit, especially if you are not a native speaker.
Prat
Prat is a chat addon, there are many like it but this is the one I use. Others might be better if they are and you know about it, leave me a comment and let me know. But as for prat you can do a hundred different things with it in the options, it allows you to format and customize your chatpanel. Change the font and size, add or remote timestamps and channel names, colour names, click links, remove spam. All kinds of little quality of life quirks that just make the chat interface smoother and as all RP is based there, this is a big win for roleplayers.
WIM
Warcraft Instant Messenger is one of my absolute favourites. I would be lost without this thing. As a GM I get a lot of whispers, a LOT. From guildies, other collaborating guilds and prospective applicants etc. And when you are trying to roleplay all that pink can spam out your chat box fairly quickly. WIM pulls all your whispers and battle net whispers out of your chat interface and drops them into separate individual boxes like the old Windows Messenger of old.
It is neat because you can close/minimize these boxes so they don’t clutter your screen. When you need them you can reopen them from a button on your mini-map.
They will also pop automatically when someone replies. They won’t, however, pop up when you are in combat but will print to chat or show a little Unread Message marker when you are done.
The little box interface also shows you the person’s level, guild, class and race without clicking them. You can also ignore or add to party as well as see that player’s location from the message box.
Tweet ThisWhat are your favourite addons? Would you have any to add to this list? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
