(no subject)
Dear people that whine a lot,
I am going to use an overcomplicated metaphor to make my point.
Part of the joy of baseball is that when you are batting you do not know what will be pitched to you. You have to be ready for anything. Part of the joy of roleplaying is that you do not know what will be given for your character to react to. Sometimes, if you're a really good baseball player, you need to be thrown that curve ball to really hit it out of the ballpark. Sometimes, if you're a really good roleplayer, you show it best when you handle something completely unexpected with style and finesse.
Don't see something completely wierd and unexpected as something there to make you screw up, make you fail, or something that will always foil your plans. See it as an opportunity. This is perticularly annoying to me with the people who roleplay World of Warcraft and whine that Blizzard is 'pulling a George Lucas' because they're elaborating on their world with the expansion pack. Look. Dudes. It's Blizzard's world. They can change it around every-which-way they please. Personally, I think it's going to be damn fun to roleplay the lore changing - the idea that the Light, the force that the paladins use, may come from a race of alien-energy-people called Naaru instead of from the natural divinity of paladins. There's going to be drama and my little dwarf paladin who loves the Light more than she loves herself would rather die than accept the idea that she gets her powers from alien glowy things. Add to this Draenei paladins who follow Naaru with great conviction, and that's a great setting for in-character conflict. That's a great setting for character devellopment. That's the best setting for the BEST kind of roleplay, the kind of roleplay where you have to be on your toes thinking hard about what your character would do and say, instead of Just Another Drink in the Tavern.
The unexpected is NOT something you should avoid because it'll fuck you up. The unexpected is what you should seek out in roleplay because it will make you think harder about what's truly in-character for your character. I probably have a pretty bad rap because sometimes I'll hang out in Goldshire, WoW's notorious town of newbie roleplayers. But you know why I do? I don't know what to expect. I have to think a lot more about how to respond to rampant godmoding in-characterly or things that don't quite make sense lore-wise. But it keeps me on my toes. And when I start roleplaying well, people around me start roleplaying better, which is always extremely satisfying to see.
So go out there and stop being wusses. Go out there and roleplay and THINK! It's fun, trust me.