You Are Not Your Character - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

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#1 iserith Jun 24, 2013 10:27:32	This blogger is rapidly becoming one of my favorites: lookrobot.co.uk/2013/06/23/stanislavski-... (Again, not self-promoting. I don't even know this guy.) This is something of a follow-up post to the other one "11 Ways to Be a Better Roleplayer." This is exactly the stuff I encourage my players to embrace when I DM except all nicely laid out and fun to read. Simply put, I believe it makes for a better, more engaging game. Do this and those boring, contentious sessions will go away. I recommend you digest it, try it out, and share this with your fellow players. (Mods: Cross-posted from What's a DM to Do? for wider audience, additional perspectives.)
#2 Beldak_Serpenthelm Jun 25, 2013 10:35:35	If I may offer a supplementary perspective, Rich Burlew (author of award-winning D&D webcomic The Order of the Stick) wrote an article here that I really like for the stories he uses to showcase his two major points: Throw Caution to the Wind: Show One of the most common problems I see is when a player thinks of "roleplaying" as what you do during a diplomacy scene, completely separated from what you do during combat. Bzzz! Wrong answer. Everything you do, when talking or when swinging your sword, is roleplaying. A well-developed character will have a fighting style that extends beyond his selection of feats, and will have a consistent and believable response to any obstacle they encounter. If you turn off your character's personality just because the dice come out, you are missing out on a whole range of roleplaying possibilities that would add depth to your character. A good place to start when thinking about your character's combat roleplaying style is to consider what your character thinks of as an "acceptable loss." Does your character balk at the thought of being wounded, running to the cleric whenever he's hit, or does he stand in melee long after he probably should have withdrawn? Is his focus on staying alive at all costs, or defeating the enemy no matter what? This could partly be determined by alignment, but a particularly stubborn character might fight to the bitter end despite being Neutral. Another choice concerns how willing he is to use renewable (or nonrenewable) resources, such as spells, potions, scrolls, wand charges, rage uses, etc. He may have a cavalier attitude, feeling the party will always be able to rest or restock, or he might never use any resource if he can win a fight without it. A barbarian, for example, might rage as soon as he sees a tough band of foes, or he might wait until he is wounded and could use the extra hit points. The choice reflects his personality: if he saves his rage, he might be a cautious pessimist who knows that things always get worse, but if he rages right away, he may be saying that he is confident that the heroes will win quickly. If he's a spellcaster, does he liberally burn a spell every round, even in an easy battle, or does he miserly save his spells for desperate situations? A sorcerer who revels in his magic and flaunts it at every opportunity probably falls into the former category, while a greedy wizard who covets all magical knowledge might be the latter. What these issues boil down to is how cautious the character is. Caution is at once very important and entirely overrated. It is important for players to be interested in the imaginary world and be invested in their characters' lives. But at the same time, too often players let caution overwhelm them, spending hours carefully proceeding in a calculated manner that may well belay their characters' stated personalities. The key, then, is to forget about succeeding. Your goal as a player in a roleplaying game is not to succeed; your goal is to have fun. An entertaining defeat is better than a boring victory, so let go of the need to always take the most effective route every time, and try taking the route your character would, even at great cost to that character. Obviously, that's hard to do. There's a natural desire to do well, and really, your character does want to succeed every time. The key is to separate in your mind what your character thinks from what you think. That's how you add texture, by giving your character views on how to proceed in battle that are different than your views. Your character will take every advantage that he or she perceives, but you, as the player, have the benefit of determining what sort of advantages are within your character's perception. Some examples might help. I recently finished a year-long campaign playing a samurai. On the very first adventure, the child the samurai was supposed to guard was kidnapped, and as one might expect, Isawa Shojo was willing to sacrifice anything to get him back. Now, the DM had set up this long series of tunnels that were trapped repeatedly. I ran right into the first trap, because we didn't know any better. Once we knew the tunnel was trapped, the prevailing opinion was to slow down and have the party rogue search for traps. At this point, though, I made a decision that would more or less define my character's reaction to danger: I kept running down the hall, knowing that there were more traps. As a player, I knew this was probably a Bad Idea, but I decided that my honorable samurai felt that getting hit with the trap was acceptable when weighed against the need to hurry. He reasoned that even if the traps killed him, he would have sprung the traps and allowed his allies to get to the end safely. By having him react without caution, I was able to show that he was a man who was willing to sacrifice his life for his duty. As the campaign continued, Isawa often ran headfirst into danger, not because he was foolish, but because he was willing to die if it meant success for his team. A caveat, however: if you decide to play a character who takes risks or acts rashly, you should let yourself get talked out of it from time to time by the more level-headed characters. Isawa, for example, often suggested wildly inappropriate courses of action, which the far more cautious paladin Adhemar would convince me to not enact. Throwing caution to the wind is fun once in a while, but if done during every encounter, it gets annoying to the other players.

Show

One of the most common problems I see is when a player thinks of "roleplaying" as what you do during a diplomacy scene, completely separated from what you do during combat. Bzzz! Wrong answer. Everything you do, when talking or when swinging your sword, is roleplaying. A well-developed character will have a fighting style that extends beyond his selection of feats, and will have a consistent and believable response to any obstacle they encounter. If you turn off your character's personality just because the dice come out, you are missing out on a whole range of roleplaying possibilities that would add depth to your character.

A good place to start when thinking about your character's combat roleplaying style is to consider what your character thinks of as an "acceptable loss." Does your character balk at the thought of being wounded, running to the cleric whenever he's hit, or does he stand in melee long after he probably should have withdrawn? Is his focus on staying alive at all costs, or defeating the enemy no matter what? This could partly be determined by alignment, but a particularly stubborn character might fight to the bitter end despite being Neutral.

Another choice concerns how willing he is to use renewable (or nonrenewable) resources, such as spells, potions, scrolls, wand charges, rage uses, etc. He may have a cavalier attitude, feeling the party will always be able to rest or restock, or he might never use any resource if he can win a fight without it. A barbarian, for example, might rage as soon as he sees a tough band of foes, or he might wait until he is wounded and could use the extra hit points. The choice reflects his personality: if he saves his rage, he might be a cautious pessimist who knows that things always get worse, but if he rages right away, he may be saying that he is confident that the heroes will win quickly. If he's a spellcaster, does he liberally burn a spell every round, even in an easy battle, or does he miserly save his spells for desperate situations? A sorcerer who revels in his magic and flaunts it at every opportunity probably falls into the former category, while a greedy wizard who covets all magical knowledge might be the latter.

What these issues boil down to is how cautious the character is. Caution is at once very important and entirely overrated. It is important for players to be interested in the imaginary world and be invested in their characters' lives. But at the same time, too often players let caution overwhelm them, spending hours carefully proceeding in a calculated manner that may well belay their characters' stated personalities. The key, then, is to forget about succeeding. Your goal as a player in a roleplaying game is not to succeed; your goal is to have fun. An entertaining defeat is better than a boring victory, so let go of the need to always take the most effective route every time, and try taking the route your character would, even at great cost to that character.

Obviously, that's hard to do. There's a natural desire to do well, and really, your character does want to succeed every time. The key is to separate in your mind what your character thinks from what you think. That's how you add texture, by giving your character views on how to proceed in battle that are different than your views. Your character will take every advantage that he or she perceives, but you, as the player, have the benefit of determining what sort of advantages are within your character's perception.

Some examples might help. I recently finished a year-long campaign playing a samurai. On the very first adventure, the child the samurai was supposed to guard was kidnapped, and as one might expect, Isawa Shojo was willing to sacrifice anything to get him back. Now, the DM had set up this long series of tunnels that were trapped repeatedly. I ran right into the first trap, because we didn't know any better. Once we knew the tunnel was trapped, the prevailing opinion was to slow down and have the party rogue search for traps. At this point, though, I made a decision that would more or less define my character's reaction to danger: I kept running down the hall, knowing that there were more traps. As a player, I knew this was probably a Bad Idea, but I decided that my honorable samurai felt that getting hit with the trap was acceptable when weighed against the need to hurry. He reasoned that even if the traps killed him, he would have sprung the traps and allowed his allies to get to the end safely. By having him react without caution, I was able to show that he was a man who was willing to sacrifice his life for his duty. As the campaign continued, Isawa often ran headfirst into danger, not because he was foolish, but because he was willing to die if it meant success for his team.

A caveat, however: if you decide to play a character who takes risks or acts rashly, you should let yourself get talked out of it from time to time by the more level-headed characters. Isawa, for example, often suggested wildly inappropriate courses of action, which the far more cautious paladin Adhemar would convince me to not enact. Throwing caution to the wind is fun once in a while, but if done during every encounter, it gets annoying to the other players.