Roll Playing & not just rolling dice

[Talon5]

(reading the rants from another thread gave me this idea- hope I can get it out the way I want)

Roll Playing-
To me means pretending to be someone you are not. Acting as that person in a situation that the GM/DM sets up.

If your playing a big and mighty leader dude/tte then expect to have to give a rousing speech, don't just say your gonna give a cool speech. Course if the GM asks you to play that character and everyone knows your not the player for it then.... well it might not be right for you.

Sure you can say- "gonna roll here, what I want to do is give a cool little talk here to my men, get them to want to follow me through the gates of Heck," the player rolls and the the player goes off on some long winded beautiful rant about how great his men are, how they know what has to be done and how they all must sacrifice for the good of their country and their friends/family/etc. The DM knows this guy sucks at this whole thing, but lets him go because the Player is trying- that to me is good roll playing.

Some times thats not possible, some times the Player can't get their mind around what they are seeing or what needs to be done.

Knowing the expertise of your character is part of it- knowing your character is an expert in something while you are not is a point to make- "I am not an expert climber and my character is, my character needs to climb this cliff then get seven people up it that have little to no climbing experience. He will keep that in mind while he's making this climb." That should be okay, its honest and its clear.

Another example is the rousing speech- the Player knows it has to be done but doesn't have a clue as to how to do it. "I want everyone to follow me into Heck, I have no idea how to do it- get them to follow me, can I just roll?" If the GM says "no," then more then likely the campaign will suffer and no one is going into Heck (its a dimension near to Hell- just not as ugly).

Enough of the rant, hope I didn't bore you all to much, just got tired of the whole ranting on the other thread and thought I would speak my mind somewhere else.

 

[Wolffenjugend]

I think you mean "role-playing."

"Roll-playing" is the opposite of what you're talking about.

 

[Crothian]

In cases of speeches, I encourage the player to give a speech if they can, but sometimes its just not easy to ad lib one. So, if they have trouble and perfer giving the Cliffnotes veriosn of the speech, I don't mind. Then they roll diplomancy and I'll modify the roll based on their speech and ideas.

 

[Snoweel]

I guess it's up to the group, but I've got no problem letting a socially inept player run an inspiring, charismatic natural born leader.

Player (staring at the floor and mumbling): Umm, ok, umm, I make a, umm, inspiring speech to try to get the knights to follow me to, umm, to the City of the Dead.

DM: Make a Diplomacy roll.

Player: Umm, 17. Plus 18 ranks plus 5 for Charisma... Umm, 40.

DM: Those knights are so inspired they'd follow you to Heck!

Player: Umm, kewl. (Nervous grin.)

But I've never been a big fan of deep immersion roleplaying.

 

[barsoomcore]

DM: Make a Diplomacy roll.

Player: Umm, 17. Plus 18 ranks plus 5 for Charisma... Umm, 40.

DM: Those knights are so inspired they'd follow you to Heck!

Yeah, that's pretty much how I do it. I try to provide a hefty chunk of "flava" right there, thought:

"Okay, well as you start speaking, the knights are looking pretty unsure. Heck is an ugly place (nearly as ugly as Hell) and they're tired, but you start, you know, really getting into, and you climb up on a ruined tower nearby to wave your flag -- "

And usually around there even the most socially inept player will jump in:

"Yeah! And I wave the flag and I start yelling, 'FREEDOM! FREEDOM! FREEEEDDOOOOMMMM!!!!' And we charge! Straight into Heck! Yeah!"

NOW we're having fun.

Word booty.

 

[smetzger]

"Yeah! And I wave the flag and I start yelling, 'FREEDOM! FREEDOM! FREEEEDDOOOOMMMM!!!!' And we charge! Straight into Heck! Yeah!"

I thought it was "For GONDOR, For GONDOR..."

 

[barsoomcore]

I thought it was "For GONDOR, For GONDOR..."

Only if you want to avoid mixing a GREAT moment in the Lord of the Rings movies with a SAD and LAUGHABLE moment in Braveheart.

Meant to be sort of an "in-joke" -- only fatally crippled by not being funny. I hate it when I do that.

 

[Snoweel]

And usually around there even the most socially inept player will jump in:

"Yeah! And I wave the flag and I start yelling, 'FREEDOM! FREEDOM! FREEEEDDOOOOMMMM!!!!' And we charge! Straight into Heck! Yeah!"

Well... ye-es.

It works like this for an inspiring, charismatic DM like yourself, barsoomcore, but I prefer to deadpan stare, slack-jawed at my awkward players, Tom Green-style, thus making them even more uncomfortable and awkward.

And then I giggle myself to sleep about it afterwards.

Remember, we game to have fun, and I make damn sure I do.

 

[Salad Shooter]

We in my game usually provide, as Crothian called it, the cliff notes version at least. We'll ATTEMPT, occasionally, a whole speech, but unless the speech we give is so completely amazing it leaves the DM speechless (and if you know my DM, the probability of that is somewhere southward of nill) a roll is still required.

 

[Talon5]

Well... ye-es.

It works like this for an inspiring, charismatic DM like yourself, barsoomcore, but I prefer to deadpan stare, slack-jawed at my awkward players, Tom Green-style, thus making them even more uncomfortable and awkward.

And then I giggle myself to sleep about it afterwards.

Remember, we game to have fun, and I make damn sure I do.

In my experience the Players generally never ever try again to be the leader type that makes big speechs to lead people into Heck if you make fun of them for trying to make the speech that you want them too. What helps is positive encouraging words.

Being an ass or having funny on someone elses expense- not really good at getting people motivated to being open and speech free in the future.

90% of gamers I have met are lcaking in the confident, lacking in social skills and lacking in serious amounts of confidence (I must really be tired I think I repeated myself).

btw- yes, I can't spell. Years of reading and writing have only partially defeated my Dyslexia, and when I am really tired (like now) I tend to get worse.