D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Ovinomancer]

I suspect that part of this difference in perspective is explainable by differenences in when the authorship is taking place. Making IC choices on-the-fly for a partially developed NPC is a simpler task than doing justice to a fully-fledged character in a pre-written work.

The improvising GM has much less material constraining their choices--the range of plausible IC choices is quite large. Additionally, the GM doesn't (yet) need to worry about future consistency and can even make IC NPC decisions where some of the rationale remains as-yet undetermined. For example, a GM can determine that an NPC decides to lie in response to a question about a crime not because the NPC is guilty of that crime, but because the NPC is trying to hide involvement in a different, as-yet-undetermined, crime.

By contrast, in non-improv acting the actor is constrained by needing to maintain fidelity to what has been written about the character, including material presented on stage thus far and the remaining script. (And any other works involving the same character.) On top of those constraints, the level of detail required is larger, particularly if the character is a main character (in contrast an NPC, almost by definition, will never be a main character). Plus there is more pressure too, as the stakes are much higher in theater than in a TTRPG.

So while both tasks involve an element of understanding human interaction, I think the comparison is complicated by the tasks being fundamentally different in scope, and the GM's simpler task being made still easier by also possing authorial power for the NPC.

I'm a bit confused here as you're switching between GMs and players without calling out which applies, especially in the third paragraph -- are you talking about GMs here or players?

Either way, I'm not sure I agree with the general premise here -- that improv acting is easier than scripted acting. They are different, yes, but I would strongly hesitate to say easier. You say that the scripted GM/player has more on their plate because they have to pay attention to the established character, what's already happened, and what happens next, but I disagree that this is so -- it's really only the character and what happens next that matters, because of the idea of the 'script'. The next thing that happens will happen regardless of past things, so it's only performance there that matters.

And all of this only goes to expression of character (I think @Bill Zebub calls this performance) -- you're just expressing a character for others and not exploring that character in any way. The alternative is exploring the character, which involves learning about the character as you play -- you're as much the audience as everyone else. The other aspect Bill Z brought up is how much you're imagining yourself in the position of the character, or how much your sharing the emotional freight of the character in the moment. This is orthogonal to expression/exploration, I think, as I can see doing this with high/low and with low/high respectively.

 

[Xetheral]

I'm a bit confused here as you're switching between GMs and players without calling out which applies, especially in the third paragraph -- are you talking about GMs here or players?

Either way, I'm not sure I agree with the general premise here -- that improv acting is easier than scripted acting. They are different, yes, but I would strongly hesitate to say easier. You say that the scripted GM/player has more on their plate because they have to pay attention to the established character, what's already happened, and what happens next, but I disagree that this is so -- it's really only the character and what happens next that matters, because of the idea of the 'script'. The next thing that happens will happen regardless of past things, so it's only performance there that matters.

And all of this only goes to expression of character (I think @Bill Zebub calls this performance) -- you're just expressing a character for others and not exploring that character in any way. The alternative is exploring the character, which involves learning about the character as you play -- you're as much the audience as everyone else. The other aspect Bill Z brought up is how much you're imagining yourself in the position of the character, or how much your sharing the emotional freight of the character in the moment. This is orthogonal to expression/exploration, I think, as I can see doing this with high/low and with low/high respectively.

To clarify, I was exclusively talking about the comparison @Campbell made between the task facing posters who have said it's easy for them as a GM to make IC choices for NPCs without formalized social rules, and the task facing actors on stage performing a play.

 

[Lanefan]

Who does your we refer to? In the post to which you were replying, I used the pronoun "I":

We as in the rest of the PCs in the party (and thus by extension players at the table).

And the reason is the one that I already posted upthread, multiple times I think:

If I'm sitting down to play White Plume Mountain or a similar sort of dungeon crawl, I'm there to try and work out how to handle the tricks, and thereby beat the dungeon. I'm not there to hear someone complain about a fear of heights.

And if this sort of thing is going to happen . . .

. . . then I doubly don't want to hear about the fear of heights, as not only is it wasting my time within inanity but it's disrupting our chances of succeeding at the adventure.

I don't pigeonhole it that way. What you call "wasting my time with inanity" I call character development, and it can happen - and is welcome to happen - every bit as much in a full-on WPM dungeon crawl as it can in the most story-based game you can think of. (says he, with nearly 40 years of just this - character development occurring during dungeon crawls - under his belt)

And if someone's idea for character development ends up hurting the party's odds of succeeding, then so be it. I don't view adventuring parties as being clockwork-precision machines, and really dislike playing that way on anything more than a one-off basis. Characters who have foibles and drawbacks as well as all the cool stuff they can do are IMO more interesting and entertaining, whatever the type/style/focus of RPG.

 

[Ovinomancer]

To clarify, I was exclusively talking about the comparison @Campbell made between the task facing posters who have said it's easy for them as a GM to make IC choices for NPCs without formalized social rules, and the task facing actors on stage performing a play.

Okay. I didn't see his points as saying these things aren't different, but rather that, even in these different places, the ability to be able to think as someone else is not actually a thing people possess. I've been with my spouse for 26 years, and there's lots of times I can accurately predict what she's thinking from a facial expression, but she's still a great, and worthwhile, mystery. My relationship to Bob the Bartender is far more tenuous, and Bob only exists in my head, so my ability to accurately say what Bob is thinking is, well, imaginary.

 

[Scott Christian]

This is only true in games where the GM is the primary source of the fictional situations and players only react to them. It's an artifact of the distribution of authority, not anything universally true. It's largely true in D&D, though.

Of course. But seeing how we are in the D&D General sub-forum...

 

[Lanefan]

Either way, I'm not sure I agree with the general premise here -- that improv acting is easier than scripted acting.

For me it sure is. The main reason I got out of stage acting back in the day was that I was (and still am!) complete crap at memorizing lines.

Improv, however, I can do just fine.

 

[Scott Christian]

For me it sure is. The main reason I got out of stage acting back in the day was that I was (and still am!) complete crap at memorizing lines.

Improv, however, I can do just fine.

But the difference might be, can you act (all the things that go into creating that one scene) better if there are only two or three lines to memorize? I mean, would your performance be more compelling using lines (if it were easier to memorize or there were only a few) than making stuff up?

 

[Xetheral]

Okay. I didn't see his points as saying these things aren't different, but rather that, even in these different places, the ability to be able to think as someone else is not actually a thing people possess. I've been with my spouse for 26 years, and there's lots of times I can accurately predict what she's thinking from a facial expression, but she's still a great, and worthwhile, mystery. My relationship to Bob the Bartender is far more tenuous, and Bob only exists in my head, so my ability to accurately say what Bob is thinking is, well, imaginary.

I interpreted @Campbell as questioning how GMs could be so confident in their ability to make IC decisions on the fly for any given NPC when acting as a character on stage is so difficult. My response was intended to point how the scope/difficulty of those two tasks are sufficiently different to explain the GMs' confidence--they're facing an easier task.

Similarly, I would say that making an IC choice for Bob the bartender is also easier than predicting a specific person's thoughts from their facial expression. The number of valid IC decisions for Bob the bartender is huge, especially if Bob has not yet been portrayed in detail and the GM playing Bob has authorial power over Bob. By contrast, predicting someone's thoughts based on facial expression has only a single (or a small number of) valid answers at any given point in time.

 

[Lanefan]

But the difference might be, can you act (all the things that go into creating that one scene) better if there are only two or three lines to memorize?

I can mess up just two or three lines without any difficulty at all.

Far better in that case to just tell me what point you want the (one assumes minor) character to get across and let me make the actual words up myself.

I mean, would your performance be more compelling using lines (if it were easier to memorize or there were only a few) than making stuff up?

Probably not, unless the lines held key words in them e.g. a word I use is some clue to solving a mystery. But otherwise my performance is likely to be more stilted if I'm concentrating on getting the scripted lines right. (if there was a teleprompter it'd probably be different, but I've never had the luxury of one of those)

 

[Ovinomancer]

I interpreted @Campbell as questioning how GMs could be so confident in their ability to make IC decisions on the fly for any given NPC when acting as a character on stage is so difficult. My response was intended to point how the scope/difficulty of those two tasks are sufficiently different to explain the GMs' confidence--they're facing an easier task.

I guess I can see that -- it's not at all what I took from his post. To me, he was pointing out that even when everything is handed to you in a controlled and foreseeable way, understanding the character is not easy. In an improv environment, understanding character isn't any easier just because you have no idea what's going to happen next.

Similarly, I would say that making an IC choice for Bob the bartender is also easier than predicting a specific person's thoughts from their facial expression. The number of valid IC decisions for Bob the bartender is huge, especially if Bob has not yet been portrayed in detail and the GM playing Bob has authorial power over Bob. By contrast, predicting someone's thoughts based on facial expression has only a single (or a small number of) valid answers at any given point in time.

I wouldn't say that at all, unless we're reducing Bob the Bartender to a cardboard cutout who only says, "mmhmm," and "wotcher havin'." Bob as a complex character isn't any easier to grasp fully, we're just pretending we do that when we pretend to do that.