Reddit reviews Gamewright Rory's Story Cubes, Fantasia - Dice Game

So this one component of Role Playing Games is the Role Playing aspect. And the funny thing about the role playing aspect is how vague it is. What they don't tell you though is that is boils down to one word: listening. You don't have to be an over the top thespian to play the game: you can be interesting in smaller ways, but listening to those around you clues you in on how you can fit in. Also it sounds like you're doing this more from a players perspective right? I mean most of the DM and player role playing can be interchanged, but wanted to make sure I'm reading this right.

The DM has the your character start interacting with NPCs and asks you a question and you're deer in the headlights stupid at what to say. Yeah, I've been there too. The easiest way to do it: what would you do in that situation. That's the easiest way to do it, just be yourself.

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Mostly it's an acting thing. You can find different actors on their technique and style on youtube, but also take note that some actors make a whole career on just being themselves. Harrison Ford, Jack Nicolas, and Sean Connery come to mind. Hell, Conner was a Russian with a Scottish Accent! And an immortal Egyptian with a Spanish name and a Scottish Accent and a Japanese sword. You don't have to master any of it, just have fun with it! So if you feel more comfortable being yourself, then do that.

But the big secret of acting is listening. You don't try to control the table or be highly animated. Really, the best actors are those that listen to everyone around them. Then they know their cures, how the scene is playing out, and how to respond to everyone around them. Think about a normal conversation you have with someone: if you're not listening to them it's a pretty one sided conversation. If you are listening to them, then you can have a very in-depth and great heart to heart. So always listen to everyone around this. This goes double for DMs. You can speak and listen at the same time: you just pay attention to those around you, to their body language. Also you don't have to speak to be a part of the RP: you can act. You're character might find it better to just do. They might be the type of person who will just dive in and figure out the solution later then try to debate it now. That's an OK player to have.

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What can also help: making a character that is fully fleshed out. There's always the "what's your characters backstory?" like where were they born, what did they do as a kid, how did they become an adventurer, what is their goal as one? Those things, things that can help with plot hooks. What is also equally important, and often overlooked by everyone is: what do they do in their downtime? What do they do when not being an adventurer? Do they like cooking? Do they like painting? What is their favorite color? If you had to pick a theme song to the character what would it be? What do they think is best in life? Those details can help flesh out who you are trying to be and give gateways of things to do. They also can open up great RP doors: instead of just sneaking up on guards, ask them what they are saying and doing. Then, when the DM says something like "....uh... they are talking about... puppies?" because you caught them off guard you can be like "hey! I just happen to have an opinion on puppies too! And I am pretty good in [insert social skill here]. I'm going to talk to them to try to distract them so everyone else can get inside."

Also find ways to describe your character without using what they look like, what costume they wore, and what their profession is. Red Letter Media did a Phantom Menace review that hits on the importance of these traits. You're now describing the person your character is, not the paper they are on. If your fighter the strong silent type? Cool, what does that mean? Does it mean that they are straight forward and honest with their dealings of others, and joined the group because they were originally a servant of another [evil] race that felt slavery was the best thing since sliced bread, and could not unit the two competing attitudes? Or are they a starship captain who is on the far side of the galaxy and has to make tough decisions: a cool as a cucumber attitude but stern attitude. No one out here can fail, so they'll hold the crew to the highest standards, but if/when we do the buck is going to stop right at their feet.

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Another way to do it: Rory's Story Cubes. I use these as a GM when I'm stuck or a player starts talking to an NPC I didn't plan on or what not. There are a couple different sets out there, and you don't need all of them. You don't even need to roll more then one. Just grab a few, roll them, and starts talking about what comes to mind from what you see. They're meant for kids to tell stories with. You roll them and start telling a story. Super useful for RPGs as well. The players start talking to the bar maid more then I expected? Well it turns out (rolling some dice: jester cap, harps, mirror, gnome, frog) she's a little racists to gnomes and calls them frogs. The rest of the dice, don't really care about, the only two that helped me were the gnome and the frog.

You could use them as a player too: stumped as to what to say? Roll them and see if anything comes to mind. Try to apply it to your character. You don't need to roll all of them, you don't need to use all of them, just toss them and see what comes to mind. You might pick one up and have a thought.

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As you do it more you'll get better. The main thing is listen to those around you.

>So this one component of Role Playing Games is the Role Playing aspect. And the funny thing about the role playing aspect is how vague it is. What they don't tell you though is that is boils down to one word: listening. You don't have to be an over the top thespian to play the game: you can be interesting in smaller ways, but listening to those around you clues you in on how you can fit in. Also it sounds like you're doing this more from a players perspective right? I mean most of the DM and player role playing can be interchanged, but wanted to make sure I'm reading this right.

Listening shouldn't be a problem really, if anything it's more that I don't stop listening in some cases. I am generally GMing at this point but yes the game that prompted this was a con game where I was playing. In general though I'd say I'm really bad at coming up with ideas fast enough that the conversation hasn't moved on by a couple of steps by the time I have a relevant and good idea. Other people just beat me to the take and then I don't feel there's much for me to do. I'm also just really bad at accepting the spotlight, but some games kinda demand it.

>The DM has the your character start interacting with NPCs and asks you a question and you're deer in the headlights stupid at what to say. Yeah, I've been there too. The easiest way to do it: what would you do in that situation. That's the easiest way to do it, just be yourself.

I think in this case the issue may have been more the type of game we were playing. It was fairly open and not a lot of structure, and the conceit of the game is basically that you stay in a scene until each player has roleplayed their own scene. The other players are able to spend points to intercede on the scene and change things (in ways I admittedly didn't fully understand, which didn't help). The game was also a bit pvp and the characters have their own secret goals as well as the group's collective goal, the personal scenes are supposed to advance or in some way tie into the secret individual goals.

Part of the issue I think is I'm bad at coming up with things without much of a prompt to work off? When the responsibility of launching and interacting with the scene is more largely on me than the back and forth of more traditional games I find it uncomfortable and hard to chain things together in a way that's meaningful or advances things, if that makes sense. Feel free to ask if I've explained anything badly..I couldn't really nail down the words I wanted. If I had to nail it down to one sentence I find it hard to take the sole spotlight in games where that is what I'm supposed to do?

>What can also help: making a character that is fully fleshed out. There's always the "what's your characters backstory?" like where were they born, what did they do as a kid, how did they become an adventurer, what is their goal as one? Those things, things that can help with plot hooks. What is also equally important, and often overlooked by everyone is: what do they do in their downtime?

That's fair. In this case it was a convention one shot game with premade characters in a system that was very mechanically light so the characterization was pretty much purely being developed during play.

That said you're very much correct that this type of thing is something I typically struggle with, I'm not great at creating deep characters from a story perspective and I'm not really terribly sure how to improve at that either. I guess in that case it would be more writing advice that I'd want to solicit.

>Also find ways to describe your character without using what they look like, what costume they wore, and what their profession is.

Yeah, I think this too is definitely something I struggle with.

>Another way to do it: Rory's Story Cubes.

Thanks, I'll take a look at these and see if they help out.