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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6458210" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, I'm not a professional actor or even someone you'd want to put on a stage in a school play, but as I understand it, the trick is to act as if the camera (or audience) is not there.I'm saying that I have personally witnessed players whose play was, at times or regularly, improvisational theater and was entertaining in the way that live theater is entertaining.&nbsp; Ironically, more often than not, I've seen it from people who don't regularly play RPGs...Much has been made of Chris Perkin's skill at making NPC's come to life, doing voices, giving them individual traits and personalities, and so forth.&nbsp;&nbsp; Well, sometimes you have players that do the same thing for their PC and interact with the other PC's as if they were NPC's and you get out of that actual theatrical banter and dialogue which is entertaining in the way that theater is entertaining.&nbsp; But to do that you need players that care about timing, pacing, and immersion as much as a good DM does.&nbsp; And that requires both players of a certain skill and a very high comfort level with that, because your fellow players are an audience.&nbsp;&nbsp; As a GM, the players are an audience.&nbsp;&nbsp; There may be some differences in dynamic and style related to play acting together and play acting for an audience, but when I've seen play acting together done well, the differences in dynamic and style seem to disappear.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6458210, member: 4937"] Well, I'm not a professional actor or even someone you'd want to put on a stage in a school play, but as I understand it, the trick is to act as if the camera (or audience) is not there. I'm saying that I have personally witnessed players whose play was, at times or regularly, improvisational theater and was entertaining in the way that live theater is entertaining. Ironically, more often than not, I've seen it from people who don't regularly play RPGs... Much has been made of Chris Perkin's skill at making NPC's come to life, doing voices, giving them individual traits and personalities, and so forth. Well, sometimes you have players that do the same thing for their PC and interact with the other PC's as if they were NPC's and you get out of that actual theatrical banter and dialogue which is entertaining in the way that theater is entertaining. But to do that you need players that care about timing, pacing, and immersion as much as a good DM does. And that requires both players of a certain skill and a very high comfort level with that, because your fellow players are an audience. As a GM, the players are an audience. There may be some differences in dynamic and style related to play acting together and play acting for an audience, but when I've seen play acting together done well, the differences in dynamic and style seem to disappear. [/QUOTE]

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