No one wants to talk with me

[Earthlystar]

I'm quite new to RolePlaying in general but I feel like my character is a least relatively fleshed out, I have a backstory and a pretty consistent personality for my character,  Although I don't think my character is the problem since I'm not even getting to point of actually talking to someone.

I've gone to quite a few events and so on but I just really struggle getting someone to really engage with me, I'm not really hiding away in a dimly lit corner waiting for someone to approach me or anything and I do try to chat with people who are somewhat near me or if I see someone standing at the other side of the room alone I'll give them a /smile to let them know I'm open to chatting with them but nothing really seems to work.

It just seems like everyone has these pre-existing groups and I'm starting to get quite disheartened with the only people I'm seemingly able to communicate with being the tavern staff.

 

[Lorilae Guguerno]

Then talk to the staff!

 

Large events can be really difficult to slip into as people usually go with other they know.  But there is nothing wrong with sidling up to the bar and chatting with the barkeeper.

 

And I've been in the same spot as you,a s I'm sure as many other RPers.  Hm ... perhaps look for some smaller events to go to like a tea house.  Or see if anyone in your FC (if you are in one) will go to an event with you.

 

Don't give up!

[Faye]

Welcome! I'm sorry to hear you've been having difficulties. It could be any number of things, so some general tidbits of advice...

1) Role-players are admittedly often terribly shy/awkward, even when they're RPing, especially if they're already wallflowering at an event alone. A /smile at them from across the room may not be enough to inspire them to feel confident interacting with you. You'll be most likely to have some success by walking right up to them and engaging them directly.

2) Feel free to send someone a /tell if you haven't already been doing that. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with the chat scroll if you're at a busier event. They may miss your emote or have trouble keeping up with your posts (or you may miss some of theirs), especially if they're not expecting an approach from you, like if you're not near their character or they're busy RPing with others and preoccupied looking for their friends' posts in the chat. If you find someone to RP with at a busy event, it's not a bad idea asking them if they prefer to take the RP to /party, move to a more secluded area of the event, or go elsewhere entirely.

3) I will echo that there's nothing wrong with talking to the staff. Speaking as someone who runs a lot of public events, I know the staff can often be busy, but we're glad for the chance to get some RP in and do want to entertain anyone feeling bored or lonely. They may not be able to spare a lot of time, but RP events are a largely meant to be a hook where you can meet people to RP with more on your own and the staff are not necessarily excluded from that, so if you end up enjoying the RP, there's nothing wrong with asking them if they'd be available to RP sometime more at length outside of an event.

4) Meet people OOC first. Random walk-ups IC aren't the only way to find RP and often aren't the best way. You never know how active, available, or interested the person you're approaching will be. Knowing someone OOC first helps you gauge that, may help you both feel more comfortable, and will give you some knowledge of the other person's character and interests to work with, especially since you can find some hooks and set up some scenes or stories you'd like to do beforehand. You can try finding an RP Free Company, Linkshells, and Fellowships. The FFXIV RP community has a lot of Discord servers you can join, from general RP ones to more niche things like Discords geared toward Far East RP, Garlean RP, Miqo'te RP, etc. You can also try to find some people to RP with here on the RPC or on social media like Tumblr.

Best of luck, I hope you'll be able to get some good RP in soon!