I wish my group was as cool as this...

[Nebulous]

That OP was really funny. We tend to fall out of character a whole lot too, and funny quips and South Park epidodes and video game news will crop up. It's inevitable, but we almost always have fun anyway, even when it comes in the middle of a fight. I've resigned to the fact that my players are not the best rpgers, never will be. ONE of them is great at coming up with character quirks, and sometimes a unique voice, but for the most part they are walking stat blocks. Still...wow...some of the examples above are scary! Like not even deviating from the iconic names

 

[atomn]

I try to go over names before the game to avoid this.

I'm pretty terrible with names (of people, places and organizations alike), so I like to jot notes in the edges of my character sheet. Sometimes it takes a sec to get my bearings because of the many arrows connecting the notes:

(Darkenthorn: city where Morgath said he'd meet us)
^
|
|
lives in
|
|
(Rengar Dragonslayer: city magistrate, a jerk)---secret leader of--->(Black Lotus:assassins)

But it helps me stay more in character so I avoid referring to "you know, that one place", "that jerky magistrate guy" or "the assassin group".

 

[Piratecat]

I've never, EVER, had a group, in 19 years of RPG, that acted like the examples given in the books.

Ever.

Mine does, a little bit. Of course, that's after a decade or so of negative conditioning and electro-shocks every time someone mispronounced a NPC name.

Heh - except for last night. They're facing Ephemelon, the immensely powerful red dragon who is Tiamat's consort and the father of red dragonkin. I was going for scary and uber-powerful, which would have been much more effective if the paladin hadn't kept referring to Ephemelon as "Effeminate." Sigh.

 

[Stormborn]

I have a player that does a session summary between games, which helps. But for a while we had a player who barely payed attention while we played, much less to any handouts between sessions. By mutual decision he doesn't play RPGs any more but still does when we take a break for something like minis, cards, or boardgames.

 

[Cedric]

Hehe...I was playing in a group once where the GM emphasized roleplaying excessively. One day his wife was frustrated and didn't really feel like roleplaying.

Finally she just broke down and said, look, just tell me when I need to roll to kill something.

So, the GM kicked his own wife out of the campaign.

We always thought they had a comfortable couch, I'm betting he was appreciating that couch then.

 

[Gez]

Dm(me): You are all standing in front of a tavern, called "The bloody muddy boar" the sun is starting to go down.
Krusk: I check it for traps.
DM: The tavern door?
Krusk: Yeah.
*rolls a 1*
DM: You find a tavern.

Classic!

 

[KB9JMQ]

DM (me): [shouting] You cannot interrupt the DM's description of the room in order to gain a surprise round!

That absolutely made my day. It also pretty much sums up some of our sessions.

 

[Dr Simon]

In the RuneQuest 3rd Edition rules there was one of those samples of play, although that was slightly more realistic with one player who keeps interrupting the GM and trying to attack the bad guys out of turn. We read it out as a play once, for fun. What a bunch of saddoes!

Signy: I attack with my axe
GM: You're in the [ship's] cabin, you don't know what's going on yet.

 

[Zaukrie]

In case you missed it, this site has great examples of how games "really" go.

Go all the way to the beginning of the LotR examples:

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/

 

[TheNovaLord]

On the name front..

I played in my first ever Living Greyhawk scenario a few nites ago. (after being a rpger for 25 yrs)

In the module one of the charcaters was called Zoltar!! Who comes up with the names....you cant help but address such a character in anything except an OTT camp sci-fi sort of way

Monty Python quotes are by far the worst interferences in our game. Plus our punning was truly awful last session its a wonder the DM didnt give up

JohnD