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Thanks for the advice so far, everyone. I know that at its core, it's a bad idea but the problematic nature of it is counteracted quite strongly by a couple of things;

Right now as I learn the ropes of RPing outside of videogames, it's just me and one friend playing Pathfinder. I ended up GMing for various reasons, but I also wanted to play a character at the same time. In some ways it's a bad idea because your character knows what the GM knows, which is unfair, so you have to kind of "nerf" your character's decisions in many ways. In other ways it's a good idea because it gives you an in-universe, in-character way to drop hints to the player and enhance his experience - kind of like being Midna to his Link. Not to mention, it's a way of having more than just a solo adventure and a way for me to learn about playing the game as well as GMing it. But naturally, it's in regard to the bad side of it that I come to you for advice...

The idea struck me to make my character mute - it would be convenient because as GM I can't have my character saying "Hmm, I have a strange feeling there's a hidden passageway here!" and things like that. If she were mute, it would naturally explain why she doesn't have much direct, explicit input to the player's actions and would also get me out of having to talk to myself, as my cleric talks to the innkeeper or whoever. But as you may have just noticed, I said "cleric". A cleric that cannot talk cannot cast most (any?) of the spells, and that's quite a problem.

I've toyed with different ideas, from her having a bird on her shoulder - like Mormont with his crow in A Song of Ice and Fire - who says the components for her, deducing from her somatic gestures which words he's to say, or the same basic idea but my friend's character filling in the verbal component for her. There'd be some rule, like he'd have to spend a free action and possibly be within so many yards. So most importantly I'm wondering does that even make sense? Can someone else offer the verbal component? Secondly, do you have any other ideas to get around the whole mute/verbal component issue? Thirdly, can you think of another way to explain why my character never offers any advice or anything? I've thought of "strong silent type" and "vow of silence (apart from spells)" but they both seem a bit silly and don't really explain why she'd remain silent in a perilous situation when her very life is at stake.

Wow, thanks for all the great advice. I would have responded sooner but on Friday night I went out to the pub and played my first game of Pathfinder after that, and on Saturday night I went to see a musical with my parents (it was pretty cool, but that's another story...)

I found it easier than I expected to GM. Improvising and creating fun little non-standard events came more naturally than I expected, though it was only a 1-on-1 session which I found put a lot more pressure on me to nudge my friend into doing things. I'd often describe a room only for him to go "Hm" and say nothing else. "So what would you like to do?" I would say, trying to avoid explicitly saying "Like maybe SEARCH FOR TRAPS or something?" and he'd seem... well how do I put it? Kind of like he didn't get the possibilities. He made out like RPing is something he's done before online with American friends, but seeing him play the other day it seemed more like he was expecting something like Hero Quest.

He did warm up as it went on and some nice moments happened spontaneously, but it took all my effort to not say "You know you can search the room? You know you can ask for more details, right? Arrghhh!" Like in the first room of the premade beginner dungeon, there are two straw mats and a locked chest. He didn't show any interest in the mats, and when I told him the chest was locked he was like "Hm," long pause "Can I bash it open?" and I tried to be subtle and say "Yeah... and of course you can look around the room and any other action you like..." and he just said "I'll bash it open then". More people would definitely be good but sadly no one else I know would even be remotely interested in RPGs (not even videogame ones, let alone PnP).

Thank you for all the considered answers so far. I've taken in and appreciated all of it, even if I don't directly refer to it in this post. I think my problem is definitely coming at it from a cRPG angle because, as some people have noted, in a cRPG it's all concurrent events and when you walk down that empty country lane, you are manually doing that, unlike a movie where you just go from important scene to important scene, and the country lane is usually just implied. I guess my mind is stuck in the idea that you enter a town, and now you can explore every single road, that I'll have to provide a map and the players will say "Well I want to go into that alleyway" and then I'll have to say "Ah, you are, uh... attacked by... angry... rats?" and that could go on potentially forever as they "manually" explore the town, as would be the case in a computer or videogame.

So just to make sure, because as silly as it might seem this is a big stumbling block for me starting out, people are saying that when you go into a town it should, at least in general, be a vague and abstract kind of thing? You say "There's a blacksmith, a priestess, two pubs" and so on, and kind of cut to each of those places as the players decide? And if any NPCs need to say anything (e.g. "My daughter has gone missing!") you basically cut into that scene rather than waiting for anyone to talk to that particularly NPC?

I am completely new to PnP RPGs but not at all new to cRPGs or the RPG experience in general. I used to play the Jackson & Livingstone CYOA books as a little boy and have been playing cRPGs for over 10 years. I seriously love the imagination and concepts that exist in these worlds, and I've often nearly got into PnP stuff, but it's not until very recently, largely thanks to the Beginner Box, that I've really taken the plunge. The problem isn't the complex combat rules or anything like that - I love that stuff and now it comes pretty naturally to me - it's actually more the GMing and, um, "ambient roleplaying" (for want of a better phrase) that always confuses and confounds me. As you all no doubt know, the various cRPGs such as Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Neverwinter Nights all do a great job of embodying the combat systems of DnD-type gaming, but everything the GM would do is done by prescripted sections and game developer designed NPCs. That's wonderful when you're engrossed in those games, but now that I'm trying to do this "for real" (not to bash the PC/console versions of RPGs) I feel totally lost when it comes to certain elements that I'm sure you old veterans all take for granted.

It's really hard for me to put into words what I find so confusing and consequentially off-putting, but I'll try. It basically boils down to the non-linearity putting a potentially infinite strain on the GM. In a computer game, you have what you have. Maybe it's a relatively limited world like Torment, maybe it's a vast world like World of Warcraft. In either case, there's no room for argument - you have what you have. With PnP it feels like the player could say "Well I slap the barmaid for not telling me the whole story" and then suddenly I have to figure out how she'd act, how the landlord would act, how any nearby customers would act. Or they may say they steal a boat and row out into the ocean. Indeed, how that would affect the future of the adventure. In a town, there are potentially 1000s of NPCs and yet I doubt it is expected of the GM to have lines and information waiting for all of these Schrödinger-esque people (they both do and don't exist, only asking them a question confirms their existence...)

So even on the most rudimentary of levels, how does one depict a town and how does one allow the players to interact? Must I map 600 barrels and their loot? Must I populate all of the 100s of buildings? Or is everything meant to be generated procedurally, and if so, does that not slow things down somewhat? Going on from that, if the players leave the village, in a cRPG they would walk along a road - but here am I meant to map out a road with trees, a ruined cart, broken crates with gold pieces within? Is every yard to be mapped, or do I simply say "You leave town and arrive at the cave... and now you are in the cave?" I feel more questions will arise with answers (should anyone be kind enough to read my ramblings and answer) but for now answers to the previous questions and worries would be greatly appreciated.