Help a roll-player role-play!

[Kahuna Burger]

In addition, role-playing can even happen in the middle of combat. It's taunting your opponent, casting that Fireball with a flourish, or even charging that troll because it just has to die.

As a somewhat sidetrack and somewhat advice I think roleplaying during combat (literally as playing your role) is possibly the most neglected aspect of RP even by dyed in the wool Drama Queens*. So many times I've seen PCs who are constantly at each other's throats outside combat, even sabatoguing each other's plans or plotting against each other form up into a perfectly oiled buffing/flanking/healing machine as soon as initiative is rolled. (to say nothing about nameless NPCs who try to get in the CdG rather than taking full defense and retreating at 2 hp remaining.)

*who like to call themselves Real Roleplayers in those 4 types of gamers jokes.

So if combat is the part of the game you most enjoy as a player or a DM, try to roleplay within combat. Think about character motivations rather than just pure tactics. Who leads the goblin band, and is it through fear or loyalty? If you take out the leader will the others scatter like sheep or suicidally try to kill the one who slew the Great One? Decide in advance and roleplay it.

Who knows, if you play enough enemy combatants acording tot heir motivations, your players might get curious enough about those motivations to question one, and then you have the perfect "talking RP" oppertunity.

 

[Asmor]

Thanks for the advice everyone...

I guess I should mention that I'm trying to do this as much for myself as for my players. I like the idea of roleplaying, I just tend to be too focused on combat and such.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I'd suggest reading a couple of story hours to see what other people do in their campaigns. I'd start with Piratecat's - there's a lot of descriptions of social interaction in various contexts and it's a fun read. The only caveat is that you shouldn't compare your own games to what you see in story hours. The important thing is to improve your own game, not to copy or match someone else's.

 

[WayneLigon]

Don't focus on 'political intrigue' too much; that is a very, very hard style of game to pull off- if even one person isn't all-out interested in it, it will spell the end of the campaign quickly. So don't get worked up over doing an 'all interaction' campaign any time soon.

Instead, focus on the character. How do we do this, though. Take a walk or something and think about that characters past a little bit. I don't mean every piddly little incident and I don't mean 'write up a ten page essay on his life'. I mean think about his reactions to things.

Let's start with Class.

Let's say he's a fighter. Why did he choose to live by the sword? Where did he learn his weapon skills? What was it like the first time he killed a man? An orc? A woman?

Answering questions like that will let you into that character's head. Let's say he learned his weapon skills at a fancy training school. That answer opens up more questions. Were his parents rich and sent him to learn a fancy sword style, or did he manage to impress the leader of the school? Does he look down on people who don't have his level of training?

Now, all this is a fair amount of work; we want to do this kind of up-front work for a PC, but seldom does an NPC merit even the broad strokes we're talking about up there. That's where the use of stereotypes comes in; they're useful for a very good reason - they give other characters an instant handle on how to react to them.

More advice: read more. Pay attention to how incidents in a character's life build on each other. Watch more movies and steal NPC's from them. The next time you need a French waiter, slip into Bruce Campbell's portrayal from Spider-Man 3. Need a stuffy british hotel owner? Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers. Don't be obvious; steal parts of the characters and mix-and-match. Otherwise your players will get to talking about the movie or show.

Another thing to do: look at a good book for writers on character development. It will describe the process in better detail but also teach you how to do it quickly and easily, so you don't get bogged down in endless detail.

 

[LostSoul]

How do you resolve social conflicts in your games?

 

[masshysteria]

I think it is a noble goal, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.

I recently played my first session of Dog in the Vineyard and while I'd love to gush about the game, I found it was great for helping develop role playing. Each time the players or GM performs a see or a raise with their dice, they must describe in-character what is happening responding to what was previously said. This results in a back-and-forth conversation/description of the action. So, try adding in-character descriptions every time you roll dice.

The second thing I noticed was how NPC motivations help in determining how to "play" the NPC. Dogs has the GM do a little exercise for the town the PCs visit. Basically, it asks what each character wants from the PCs. Instead of just thinking of NPCs as walking adventure hooks (people that give "stuff" to the PCs), retool them to want something from the PCs. Maybe it is nefarious or maybe it is noble, but this give a reason for the NPCs existence and interaction with the PCs. With this motivation it is the easy to ask yourself how this character would act. With that answer, just act it out.

Oh, and I forgot this in my original post, but it is quite helpful. Never use 7 NPCs when 3 will do. It is easier to come up with and play 3 NPCs than 7.

 

[moritheil]

Don't focus on 'political intrigue' too much; that is a very, very hard style of game to pull off- if even one person isn't all-out interested in it, it will spell the end of the campaign quickly. So don't get worked up over doing an 'all interaction' campaign any time soon.

Alternatively, it will simply spell the end of some players' interest in your campaign, which is not necessarily the same thing as the end of the campaign.

Another possibility is that you should game with a different system to take your focus away from the mechanics of combat. DnD is very "crunch" oriented; many other systems are far too simple for combat to hold one's attention for any real length of time.

 

[Pbartender]

Also, if you're not keen on NPC's "on the fly", you can always fall back to stereotypes. Take the Archie folks, for example:

Archie Andrews: clean cut all-around good guy; loves cars and two women
Jughead Jones: quirky best friend; lazy, loves food and hates women
Reggie Mantle: cocky, snarky prankster; loves bugging Archie and showing off
Veronica Lodge: snobby Daddy's rich-girl; loves money and attention
Betty Cooper: tomboyish girl-next-door; loves Archie and being nice

and the random crew:
Dilton Doiley: brainiac, short, nerdy
Moose Mason: duh Jock, strong and slow
Big Ethel: tall, lanky, awkward, ugly
Chuck Clayton: coach's son, cartoonist and athlete... arguably the "token black guy".

... and that's just off the top of my head. Building "on the fly" NPCs with these (and similar) basic guidelines, you can develop more details as you go... and as you go, their stories get more interesting, and longer...

Quoted for Truth.

I have a tough time getting into characters when I GM, and I often use simple stereotypes to help me along. Add to that a short list of major motivations for the main players, and you can roll with anything the players come up with on the fly.

Another big help for me is thinking up a Real World actor or actress to fit the part (it also helps as a way to describe the character to the players).

For example, an IH adventure (Dark Harbor) that I'm running features a bookie who runs the betting table at a gladitorial ring. The adventure described him as a rather weasely character... Steve Buscemi was the first actor to pop into my head, so I roleplayed him using a bad imitation of Mr. Buscemi. It worked great, and the players immediately got a feel for what type of character they were dealing with.

 

[Asmor]

How do you resolve social conflicts in your games?

What is this... "social conflicts" you speak of? x_x

Yeah, never really comes up. My adventures, currently, are almost exclusively of the "Go to dungeon A, retrieve McGuffin B, return to Benefactor C" cliche.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

What is this... "social conflicts" you speak of? x_x

Yeah, never really comes up. My adventures, currently, are almost exclusively of the "Go to dungeon A, retrieve McGuffin B, return to Benefactor C" cliche.

Why do the PCs do any of this?
Why does the Benefactor need the MacGuffin?
What happens once the Benefactor has the MacGuffin?
What are the consequences of failure (assuming the party makes it out of the dungeon alive)?

Or even: What's the MacGuffin doing in the Dungeon?

Once you start asking and answering these questions, you're adding role-play.

How about a quick check: what do you have planned for the next adventure? Let's look at it, ask questions, and answer them. That will immediately add role-play to the game.