How many times have you logged into the game excited to roleplay, but logged out some hours later vaguely disgruntled at having spent your time with your character sitting in a bar somewhere, sipping drinks and swapping shallow conversation with strangers who you're ambivalent about ever interacting with again? How many times have you found yourself longing for a deeper, more substantial roleplay experience, but at a loss as to how to find it?

Those are questions I pitched to the staff here as the basis for a series of articles I was interested in writing. They found them provocative enough to take a chance on me as a Reporter -- an opportunity for which I am profoundly grateful, given that I don't pretend to bring any special insight to the table. Indeed, to some extent I'm going to be chronicling my own journey as much as I'm proffering advice: my online roleplaying background is predominantly in MUDs and MUSHes, and while I've dabbled with roleplaying on MMOs before, SWTOR is the first MMO in which I've found a real motivation to -- if you'll forgive me dropping my catchphrase -- escape the cantina.

Let's be clear, though: "the cantina" isn't a concrete in-game location. Interesting, engaging roleplay is rarely venue-bound, and it's certainly possible to have one of those exhilarating-but-exhausting scenes while sitting smack in the middle of a well-travelled RP hub. "The cantina," for my purposes here, is a metaphor for the mundane. This column is about figuring out how to banish the banal from your roleplay sessions -- to build the sort of connections, and come up with the sort of stories, that allow you to eschew idle drink-sipping in favor of compelling scenes that leave you satisfied, if not yearning for more.

Whether you're a novice trying to soak in as many ideas as possible, a journeyman looking to broaden your horizons, or an old hand with wisdom to share, I hope you'll join me. Next time, for my first "real" article, I'll be talking about the value of having a plan or agenda for your roleplay sessions. Your thoughts, suggestions, and criticisms are always welcome.