Sound Off: What is "Role-playing" anyway?

[Quicken]

For me personally, roleplaying means viewing and reacting to things from the perspective of my character, rather than from my own. It means divorcing player knowledge, beliefs, and expectations from the character's and only using the latter. Since my character is made up of a lot of numbers and attributes which don't match me in real life, roleplaying involves a fair bit of dice rolling too.

I couldn't agree more. For me the line between role and roll playing is:

Roll playing
Player: I bluff the guard into looking the other way

Role Playing
Player: I say 'Would you look at that! It's the dutchess riding nude!' while looking past the guards shoulder

However the more you go into Role playing the more important it is to reward the players for their effort. A half-decent bluff like above would get a +2 circumstance bonus. The dice are still rolled but the statement used is factored in. Something like 'Could you look over there please?' may well suffer a -2 circumstance penalty.

 

[Wombat]

But what the heck does YMMV stand for? Much less "usw"?

Quit confusing the newbies please. Oh, and my apologies for the minor thread highjacking.

My apologies, I did not mean to be overly confusing -- I just wasn't thinking quite clearly when I posting my answer.

"usw" is und so weiter -- German for "etc.", "and so on". I have had to do a lot of translation work of late and I sometimes slip up

I am about as "un-l33t" as they come...

 

[simmo]

Bill Bailley said: "...acting is dressing up and pretending to be someone else..."

I said: "...role-playing is rolling dice and pretending to be someone else..."

To me the the distinction between 'rollplaying' and 'roleplaying' is an artifical one. People engage in both to varying degrees.

When in character I speak in the first person. I sometimes use accents and I try to portray characters who are different to with regards to personality and world-outlook.

 

[WayneLigon]

How do YOU define role-playing in character?

Do you talk in the 1st person? With accent? Do you have intricate backgrounds? Form bonds with NPCs? What does it take to be a "true" role-player? What draws the distinction between rolls and roles anyway?

I bounce back and forth between first- and third-person, depending on the situation. Rarely will I ever do an accent, mainly because it makes little sense: most of our PC's come from the same area of the world, so to each of them the other people have no accents.

It doesn't take an intricate backgrounds that would make a novelist weep with envy, but it does involve having some kind of background. A basic sense of what has come before in the person's life, because everything builds on the past. What is he used to? What will he do and what will he not do? You're looking for a few 'hooks' to hang the large character upon. A few basic questions can provide a wealth of info to use:

What social class are you from? Are you from a large or small family? Do you have any brothers or sisters? What did your parents do for a living?

Just those four questions can provide a tremendous number of 'hooks'.

I think there has to be a sense of the character as a person, and usually a person different in some way - preferably in more than a few ways - from the player. I'm not talking about the stereotype of the 'method actor' (And trust me, most people who do this are acting out a stereotype they'd been fed) who has to have 'motivation' for every time action.

I'm talking about taking some time to sit back and think, really think, about the character. Think about the ways he's different than yourself. Don't go overboard all at once, but play characters that are slightly different. Then progress from that point. You'll eventually find a zone of comfort. There will be some things you won't be able to play convincingly; some people can't play characters that are the opposite sex from themselves. Some can't play characters that are more liberal or more conservative than themselves. You'll eventually find what you are and are not comfortable doing.

The character should react in ways that are consistant for him and the knowledge he should logically possess, not in ways that show 'meta-game' thinking. (Having Bertrand the Small immediately whip out a mace when encountering skeletons for the very first time is 'game' thinking: the player knows maces do better against skeletons. Bertrand, unless he's a cleric, or has some in-game reason to have that knowledge, should not know this until he's fought them a couple times).

A lot of role-playing involves thinking on your feet. Recently in a game, we were confronted by a creature that brought our worst fears to life. That was an instant challenge for me. I had no idea what in the world my characters worst fear would be. It took a few minutes for me to formulate one, then I thought of the reason at a later time.

Don't be afraid to add detail at a later time. Not everyone can think on their feet. Sometimes it takes me several sessions and several encounters to decide what a particular character is like. Sometimes a concept will appear full-blown, but that's rare. I look at the situations he encounters and how he deals with them, and how everyone else deals with that situation. How does he deal with being robbed in the bazzar? How does he deal with having to kill his first goblin, or be killed himself? How does he feel when the party splits the loot from some expedition and suddenly he has more money than his father or grandfather made in their entire lifetimes? Things like that can shape a character. The key is to sit back at some time and reflect about the PC. Talk with others about their characters. Talk with the DM. I'll ask questions like 'OK, Mirid's probably not going to like orcs a lot after that encounter in the slave market, but I (the player) know that orcs are tolerated here: what are socially accepted ways that the orc-haters in this city express that dislike?'

Another misconception people get about 'role playing' is that they must create an extreme aspect of a character and always take the expression of that aspect to illogical levels. Such as 'I hate orcs - thus - I kill any orc I see'. (1) this isn't a personality trait, it's a stereotype. Almost no-one acts like that in real life, movies, TV, what have you. (2) you haven't created a personality trait. You've created a walking, talking problem for the GM and the rest of the players. There are many, many ways you could express that trait without becoming a burden on everyone. Seldom do I ever create such an extreme aspect of a character without a lot of thought or a lot of provocation. Think long and hard about creating such a personality trait, esp. if it will add unwanted friction to the party.

I say 'unwanted' because sometimes, a certain level of interparty friction can add to the experience for everyone. But be very careful about it. 'But I'm just roleplaying my character' isn't an acceptable excuse despite what some people might think. It's just problem-causing no matter how you dress it up. Don't do it.

Those are just some thoughts off the cuff. I'll probably think of more, later.