“I want us to be a little more popular, but I refuse to budge on our policies that keep us safe, in our own self-run bubble,” they tell Fanbyte. For Talon, who runs a bar and restaurant called Rhalgr’s Rest, it’s all about creating a tight-knit group. One of the things that makes virtual venues unique is that you don’t have to pay bills to keep the lights on hobbyists don’t always need to focus on scaling out. Other players have a smaller audience in mind when they’re building a venue. Allison’s bar, for example, started as a place for people - including those new to roleplaying - to hang out and make friends in a low-pressure environment. These venues tend to be focused on social gatherings. Some roleplayers open a venue, advertise it, and hope it’ll pique people’s interest when they’re flipping through community Discords or browsing Party Finder (an in-game tool players can use to advertise for content or social activities). You can also find cult-run churches, teahouses, clothing stores, pirate ships, libraries, apothecaries, lounges, bathhouses, maid cafes, host clubs, casinos, or brothels.Īnother key difference between venues is scale. The establishments run by the half-dozen or so venue owners I talked to for this piece include nightclubs, cafes, restaurants, taverns, bars, and fight pits. Just the breadth of types of venues is impressive. And, of course, there’s the resident sin eater who serves tea. At the table next to them, someone complains to a mercenary about their ongoing voidsent infestation issue, while in the back booth Estinien Wyrmblood has a quiet drink with his friends. In the Gin Ironic, for example, you might find a group of friends ordering drinks and then sipping on them while discussing their dating lives. Upon visiting, you’ll find places very similar to their real-life analogues, with a few Final Fantasy twists and a whole lot of character. Venues are usually located in players’ personal housing, each decorated for the purpose of hosting visiting roleplayers. In tabletop gaming, it’s often done in real life or via voice chat in FFXIV, it mostly takes place via text in-game. Roleplaying is a collaborative creative exercise in which people create and act out different characters within a shared world setting to tell a story. A wonderful, tedious joke that her regulars suffer through every Sunday night.Īllison’s bar is one of the many roleplaying venues in FFXIV there are hundreds, all with their own unique stories. It’s a joke between myself and my friend Allison Brown, one of the owners of the Gin Ironic. on a Monday morning, and I’m performing my weekly ritual: playing five different arrangements of “Despacito” in a row at closing time in a Final Fantasy XIV roleplaying bar.