Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Marrimar Most Magnificent 01-26-04, 08:59 AM	Heya, Last weekend I did my second session with my new FR group (2 players new to d&d and 2 veterans). I started it all off with a mission given to them by a friend of a pc in the party. This particular friend is a merchant in Sundabar dealing in ore and silver and sent his son out to reopen a new found goldmine near Avandell, close to the border of the Nerther Mountains. Anywyz, he hasnt heard news from his son in a few weeks now and ask the party to investigate. Mean while a undercover zhentarim agent acts as a merchant to take over all minig activity in the region of Auvandell and intercepted the son of the merchant and took over the mine. My players are picking up the lead pretty ok, but 1 of my veteran players "complained" to me there wasn't to much roleplay to be found among the group and I have to agree with him somewhat. Could you guys give me some advice/tips perhaps, how to stimulate roleplay among new players? I have some ideas of my own, but i would like to know how you all think about this... Thanx alot!
Kash Darreder 01-28-04, 06:03 AM	Well the lure of roleplaying Xp-rewards is usually enough to get people started. Otherwise I like to play a few days out, from morning to evening and then encouraging those of my players who do roleplay inside the group to start talking with the not-so-vocal guys about their characteres goals etc. Beside this I often let NPC's be interested in the characters for their personality not just their importance to those NPC's objektives, once you can talk with a stranger, conversation with your friends come pretty easy. KD
King_Sloth 01-28-04, 11:13 AM	Originally posted by Marrimar Most Magnificent Heya, Last weekend I did my second session with my new FR group (2 players new to d&d and 2 veterans). I started it all off with a mission given to them by a friend of a pc in the party. This particular friend is a merchant in Sundabar dealing in ore and silver and sent his son out to reopen a new found goldmine near Avandell, close to the border of the Nerther Mountains. Anywyz, he hasnt heard news from his son in a few weeks now and ask the party to investigate. Mean while a undercover zhentarim agent acts as a merchant to take over all minig activity in the region of Auvandell and intercepted the son of the merchant and took over the mine. My players are picking up the lead pretty ok, but 1 of my veteran players "complained" to me there wasn't to much roleplay to be found among the group and I have to agree with him somewhat. Could you guys give me some advice/tips perhaps, how to stimulate roleplay among new players? I have some ideas of my own, but i would like to know how you all think about this... Thanx alot! ======================================== ===== Well, for starters you have the perfect sized group to actually 'Role-play' encounters . My problem of late on my Tuesday night group at our local comicbook store is that I average 8-10 people in my group . And the store rules are 'I can not refuse anyone who wants to play.' So I'm stuck. You get 10 real people around a table or 2 and it is Heck trying to actually role-play. Usually it disintigrates into hack&slash pretty quick.:confused: Focus the attention on the new players. Make them aware that good role-playing is as important as combat . Give out random exp. for good role-playing . They will catch on. Sometimes you have to "Drag them out of their shell" in order to get them to talk and interact. Make them find a clue, or talk with a NPC that has info. Let them ask the questions and get the answers for the group. You have a good plot going, just add a little more 'Spice' to it. Let the newbies do some 'Gather Info' and whatnot and let it grow from there. :cool: :king:
Lashan 01-28-04, 08:00 PM	If your players are very new, they might not know how to role play very well. There are a few things that you can do to help them out. One of the things you can do is have them in a tavern. Ask them what they want to drink. Sometimes, people never know what their character would drink. It might get them thinking about what their character is like. Will they drink wine, spirits, ale, or even mead? Also, what do they do with their money that they get from adventurers? Perhaps they can purchase some jewelry or cloaks or something. What color do they want? What type of jewelry? Those types of things can help bring into focus what their characters look like and what they like to wear/eat/drink. It may be a little thing, but I have found it helps new players figure it out.
Marrimar Most Magnificent 01-29-04, 03:09 AM	Thanx for the tips!
Autosponge 01-29-04, 01:59 PM	RP starts with the players. First, they all need to write up background stories. Next, the GM (you) and the vets (not vets of D&D but vet RP'ers) need to set the examples. When someone sees others talking in characters and rp'ing their background, they'll get the idea.
kedi 01-30-04, 04:16 AM	The RP starts with a full desinged background. Pc should be able to create a full detailed background, write down their PCs' personality, appearance etc. This how you can get to know what will your PC do next, and this would improve the RPing. Since I always play deep-immersion games, RP is really important in our group, our DM has very cool house rules like: You need to move your hands as if you were actually casting a spell, and speak the verbal components, if not, the spell will surely fail. You recieve penalty to checks when saying "I'm giving a look, what do I see?" and recieve bonus when saying "I'm looking at the left side of the room with my torch in my right hand, readying my longsword for any possible danger, wandering the stones" Shaking your hands and cursing someone if you are a cleric means you cast bane, if you dont have the spell, target becomes hostile, if you have the spell, you succesfully cast the spell and roll initiative :) If you RP good, it'd force your PCs to RP good, too. Arrange the veteran PCs to RP hardcore. :D The bard has sung!
ender 02-01-04, 11:05 PM	This is a tough problem, and I have a situation of my own that I could use some help with. I am DMing four FR veterans. We have all been playing since 1e and have played anywhere from two to six campaigns (depending on the player). Most of us have been been playing since we were very young (I myself since I was eight). We have paid our dues through the "my next character is a gold dragon!" stage to become relatively sophisticated players. However, all of them are very shy about roleplaying. One of them in particular refuses to play any conversations and universally washes over such scenes by saying "I talk to the guy for a while." I have done a lot of things to try to draw them out, including roleplaying tavern scenes and recuperation stints in the towns (a very good suggestion, by the way, Lashan); giving NPCs specific accents, voices, mannerisms, and verbal tics; rewarding them for finding roleplaying well; even once making a plot hinge on them roleplay certain encounters well (which was a disaster, excruciating for all and enjoyable for none). I wish to encourage roleplay as much as possible, but there is no point to forcing them against their wishes. My purpose is to enrich the game, not make it painful. Any ideas as to what else I can do to encourage more immersive play without becoming tyrannical?
Thegreatgreymoose 02-01-04, 11:29 PM	Yeh im have the same problem except when i go through some descriptive storytelling or whatever my players will just stare blankly and look at each other. Ill ask them what they want to do and theyll shrug and return to staring blankly. A lot of the time theyre okay but sometimes i just have trouble getting them to respond. any response will help
Lashan 02-01-04, 11:36 PM	If you have experienced players who don't like to roleplay, but you would like to encourage it (without forcin it), then I have a plan. Offer them extra tid-bits of info that would really help if they role-play. In other words, when you design an adventure, let there be a chance that they could learn vital clues. Of course, these things shouldn't be life or death situations, but they could help with a clue or even avoid some really tough monsters. Give them the chance to learn this via role playing. If they don't bother, then they don't get the clue. When the adventure is over, let them know that they could have gotten the clue through the role playing attempt. You know how old players are. They love to take every advantage that they can get! If they have a chance to learn something vital, then you will at least see some attempts at role playing. Hope that helps.
ender 02-02-04, 12:26 AM	Lashan, that is an excellent suggestion. I have tried allowing them to gain advantages by roleplaying before, but simply let them suffer when they breezed by it. But if I tell them afterward, dangle it in front of them... that just might be cruel enough to work. :behold: