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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5085229" data-attributes="member: 463">Re shyness - the shy person with the guts to sit down at the game table has already overcome the biggest obstacle.Beyond that, the problem for the shy player is not the GM asking them to talk in character.  Shy people are mostly not actually "low CHA" skin-crawling types, they are very often pleasant and engaging when they do have the courage to speak.  A decent GM can easily draw them out of their shell and help them enact their fantasy of being the strong, assertive, charming hero - in character.No, the big problem I see for shy players is OTHER PLAYERS.  It's very common for loud, boisterous, thoughtless players to override, ignore and undermine shyer players, especially those with less experience and rules knowledge.  My wife is not normally shy, but playing alongside a bunch of very loud young Australian males soured her on D&D to the extent that now she'll only play alongside her brother.  I've seen other shyer players, like ENW's own Randomling, face similar problems.  I thought Randomling was a very good player IMC some years back, and perfectly capable of playing a charming Rogue or Sorceress, but I think some of the other players tended to ignore and marginalise her at times.  And she didn't always communicate to me what she was looking for in my game as strongly as the more forceful players did.</blockquote>