I've been playing with my group for about a year and a half now. We are a little older than the typical group I guess - many of us have kids. My first love is table top miniatures, CCG and board games - but I am working to make RPG a love as well. Can you help me?
I am not saying this is wrong, but there is a slight tendancy for our group to kind of move from room to room, battle the baddies, collect the treasure and level up. That is a bit of an exaggeration, but kind of how it goes. We do get cool background - we are playing Council of Thieves and are on moduel 4. We also have a few creative moments. But I am looking to make our sessions even more fun by trying to add in some more dialogue and role play.
So how do you get a group to role play more? Is role play over rated - does your group find this part of the game fun? Do you talk in character in your group often?
Maybe for some groups this all comes naturally. Our group is made up of relative introverts - we are not quiet - but we tend to be task oriented - We joke around alot, but I think we could add some spice to our characters and our game.
Thanks for the advice! I hope this makes sense.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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If your goal is to ease people into role-playing, then I suggest something like this:
Require (are you the GM?) that each character have ranks in a Craft, Perform, or Profession skill of their choice (not forevermore, just to get the ball rolling). Tie them into the story somehow, like relating them to a plot hook, or having a random NPC recognize the baker and try to weasel a recipe out of them. Then, make sure you work some non-combat challenges into your campaigns - things like needing to find a MacGuffin, convince an NPC to do something, or participate in some kind of contest (like the "who can swallow the most poisonous slugs in one minute?" contest from the beginning of "We Be Goblins!"), or whatever. If you can find a situation where it makes sense, make it possible for some of the aforementioned Craft/Perform/Profession skills to actually solve a challenge.
Now, given enough time, you'll eventually have some fun/memorable stories arise that center around some of this noncombat stuff. This will, hopefully, inspire future characters to be made with such capabilities in mind.
Example: for one of my first PFS characters, I made a human fighter. At some point while I was working on him, I was reading the profession skill and saw the list of common professions, and saw that "baker" was listed. Since all it would cost me was a skill rank (and I had one to spare due to a 13 INT for Combat Expertise), I made Cledwyn into a Baker. From there, I decided it would be fun to carry flour and such with me on adventures, and I even got to bake for the party during an adventure. Due to a poor roll, I made everyone sick, producing one of my fondest (for the laughs) memories of that character. Because of that, I used the profession skill as a starting point for my next character, who ended up as a wandering gambler who is also a cleric of Desna.
TLDR: Plant a seed, and the fun will snowball.
Make it personal.
I think this is going to be more difficult with a published adventure. NPCs need to be more than a series of stats. The players need a reason to engage them beyond killing them for the XP. They need to care about NPCs whether it is like or hate. Likewise, the NPCs should take an interest in the PCs beyond being another combat challenge.
Sure, most of the village might be somewhat guarded against a gang of armed strangers strolling into town. One of the younger boys is going to be curious. "Are you guys soldiers? That's a big sword…you ever kill anyone? What's your name?"
Little things like that.
You need to talk to the other people in your game first, find out what everyone's individual likes and dislikes are. Your group needs to come to happy consensus in terms of play-style. You feel like you need more "roleplaying", others may not share that concern.
If your goal is to ease people into role-playing, then I suggest something like this:
Example: for one of my first PFS characters, I made a human fighter. At some point while I was working on him, I was reading the profession skill and saw the list of common professions, and saw that "baker" was listed. Since all it would cost me was a skill rank (and I had one to spare due to a 13 INT for Combat Expertise), I made Cledwyn into a Baker. From there, I decided it would be fun to carry flour and such with me on adventures, and I even got to bake for the party during an adventure. Due to a poor roll, I made everyone sick, producing one of my fondest (for the laughs) memories of that character. Because of that, I used the profession skill as a starting point for my next character, who ended up as a wandering gambler who is also a cleric of Desna.
TLDR: Plant a seed, and the fun will snowball.
Thanks for the quick post Jiggy.
I am coming at this from a player's perspective. Our GM runs a fine game, but I don't think he is going to do anything to require or encourage role play. He doesn't discourage it at all, he just runs the game as he will and it is a little tough to influence him. This is not a bad thing - just one of the parameters of my situation.
So as a player, I think he would be OK if we did role play more, but it is going to be up to us.
Sometimes I will try something - like baking the bread or whatever to spice things up - and I will not get much response or there will not be much role play by the other characters. So I need to figure out how to communicate a little more effectively and get the guys to embrace the role play. I think I need to break them out of their focus of moving to the next room, just for a short role play moment.
Thanks again.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Sometimes I will try something - like baking the bread or whatever to spice things up - and I will not get much response or there will not be much role play by the other characters.
If you just keep at it, *eventually* you'll find an opportunity to do something "role-play-ish" that makes everyone burst out laughing (or at least giggle a little), and they'll remember it.
And don't be afraid to expend some resources: when you get to a town you've never visited before, look for a scribe to write up pamphlets for you to distribute as advertisement for your chosen profession. Something like that.
I am coming at this from a player's perspective.
You are doomed then. :)
I will not get much response or there will not be much role play by the other characters. So I need to figure out how to communicate a little more effectively and get the guys to embrace the role play.
Or not. Your preferred style of play may not be what they want or like.
So how do you get a group to role play more? Is role play over rated - does your group find this part of the game fun? Do you talk in character in your group often?
my group mainly focuses on balancing the three aspects of an RPG; story, role play, and combat. that makes for a very interesting game.
many of our players make up backstories for their characters and give them personal short and long term goals, which the gm then puts into the game and then the player works it out, maybe with other members of the party.
we do focus on being good at combat since thats another aspect, but due to that we give our characters personality, they become more than the quentissential soldier, they become Achilles, Hector, William Wallace, etc.
we also try to not only progress the storyline, but our roles personally in it, and how our personal goals affect the overall storyline.
style is what makes the character. the more style, the more fun they are to play. the more style, the more the player may want to actually roleplay in character. our games are more like tabletop larp. we play in character, but we use tabletop rules. and that makes it enjoyable. we roleplay with each other in character and that makes things more interesting. we do still joke from time to time and have rules questions/arguments come up but then we jump right back into it.
we also dont follow the quentissential rules of rpgs, like "never split the party." im sorry, but if ive been adventuring with stinky guys for the past month and we are in an unknown town that doesnt seem dangerous, im prolly gonna go and get some from a wench and take a bath. besides, the other characters are starting to annoy mine (the human keeps eating with his mouth open and that bard just wont stop his horrible singing, etc).
we also have complex homebrewed storylines. ones where we have chase scenes, questioning and investigations, etc. moral encounters (like a book of forgotten magic has been encountered when fighting a bbeg and the magic from the book almost destroyed an entire town. the players saved the day, but then later on in the story, the players encounter a paladin and his group who dont truely know what the book is and have sworn an oath to deliver it to their employer who may have less than honorable plans with it). mystery and intrigue.
we also play in Golarion and when we travel to different areas, we get to act out how our characters feel and act in this new environment, since each country and city have their own unique feel to it (try throwing a viking from the linnorn kings realm into osirion, kinda different).
we enjoy role playing a lot. we start a new game next week in which i play an 8 year old gnome child savant sorcerer (the equivilant of a 3 year old human). ill be wandering off and interrupting major roleplay moments telling the party that i have to go pee. using magic items i probably shouldnt be touching, and thinking every person that tries to do me harm is an agent for my arch nemesis, Babazubi and his side kick, Keebs.
its all about how much you and the other players get into it. the more you do the more fun it is. it could be your friends just bsing round a table, but for us, its like we are actors in a play with an unknown script and we have to improv everything. thats the fun in it for us. we like the numbers part a bit, and thats mostly waht we talk about before the game starts, but we do get into the characters and the storyline.
Lights. Camera. ACTION!
Not doomed really, just harder.
I would say as a player, role play more. Have you character interact with NPCs and the PCs more in character. I can tell you from personal experience that one or two good role players does wonder for a group.
To be honest - I am not sure I know what to say to role play. I say I want more of it and I think it would add spice to the game. But when I run into an NPC or when we are on our quest - I tend to fall into the trap our entire group does and that is to be task oriented.
Some of this is contingent on the GM giving it back. If I try to mess with an NPC - the GM needs to be open to that. But often I don't know what to say to an NPC besides just asking for the info we need.
So how do I break out of this? How do you rolep play anyway - what does it mean to you? Do you jot down ideas of things you want your character to do ahead of time? Or you OK with going on a tangent to add spice to the game?
If your goal is to ease people into role-playing, then I suggest something like this:
Example: for one of my first PFS characters, I made a human fighter. At some point while I was working on him, I was reading the profession skill and saw the list of common professions, and saw that "baker" was listed. Since all it would cost me was a skill rank (and I had one to spare due to a 13 INT for Combat Expertise), I made Cledwyn into a Baker. From there, I decided it would be fun to carry flour and such with me on adventures, and I even got to bake for the party during an adventure. Due to a poor roll, I made everyone sick, producing one of my fondest (for the laughs) memories of that character. Because of that, I used the profession skill as a starting point for my next character, who ended up as a wandering gambler who is also a cleric of Desna.
TLDR: Plant a seed, and the fun will snowball.
Thanks for the quick post Jiggy.
I am coming at this from a player's perspective. Our GM runs a fine game, but I don't think he is going to do anything to require or encourage role play. He doesn't discourage it at all, he just runs the game as he will and it is a little tough to influence him. This is not a bad thing - just one of the parameters of my situation.
So as a player, I think he would be OK if we did role play more, but it is going to be up to us.
Sometimes I will try something - like baking the bread or whatever to spice things up - and I will not get much response or there will not be much role play by the other characters. So I need to figure out how to communicate a little more effectively and get the guys to embrace the role play. I think I need to break them out of their focus of moving to the next room, just for a short role play moment.
Thanks again.
bascially waht i did to combat having this happen in the future was i had an idea for a game, and i pitched it to the players. i said i wanted backstories, i wanted them to role play in character, and i didnt want power gaming. it was gonna involve puzzles and such. they agreed. then i ran a game of how i thought the best rpg game would be ran, and they loved it (although we didnt get to finish it due to circumstances i wont go into). that way i helped inspire the others who wanted to run games in the future, plus, if they really enjoyed it, theyd incorporate aspects into their games that i would get to enjoy. therefore we get better quality games.
Not doomed really, just harder.
I would say as a player, role play more. Have you character interact with NPCs and the PCs more in character. I can tell you from personal experience that one or two good role players does wonder for a group.
To be honest - I am not sure I know what to say to role play. I say I want more of it and I think it would add spice to the game. But when I run into an NPC or when we are on our quest - I tend to fall into the trap our entire group does and that is to be task oriented.
Some of this is contingent on the GM giving it back. If I try to mess with an NPC - the GM needs to be open to that. But often I don't know what to say to an NPC besides just asking for the info we need.
So how do I break out of this? How do you rolep play anyway - what does it mean to you? Do you jot down ideas of things you want your character to do ahead of time? Or you OK with going on a tangent to add spice to the game?
step one: you just roleplay. you stick out and you take pride in the fact that you do. you have loads of fun and add in something different to the game (like not wanting to fight a giant spider due to your arachniphobia, or not wanting to fight the centaur cause you met another in your backstory and you think you may be able to avoid the fight). the more fun you have, the more the others notice.
step two: encourage them to do the same. we have a player in our group that has been gaming with us for a while. he never put depth into his character nor wrote up backstories. i encourages him to do this, and he accused me of trying to control how he plays his character. but once he wrote one and played it out he loved it, now he does it with every character. write a backstory and give it to your gm. then if he puts in something in the game based on that, others see that and want the same, so they are inspired to do what you did.
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I used a great tip from Dungeon Denizens Revisited to introduce a little role play to a group that really likes kick in the door hack and slash. It resulted in a lot of fun for all. I will include it in spoiler brackets just in case your players see this thread.
The party froze and the rogue then asked the group, "ummmm, can we kill it?"
We then had one of our most fun sessions as the party bargained with the Otyugh for information on the dungeon. This lead to an eventual alliance with the Otyugh who the party periodically returned to for information on this region. I ended up with an amazing NPC, Bogloo, the Otyugh who formed a small community in the dungeon thanks to the PC's which enriched the campaign, leading to more and more fun and greater adventures.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I used a great tip from Dungeon Denizens Revisited to introduce a little role play to a group that really likes kick in the door hack and slash. It resulted in a lot of fun for all. I will include it in spoiler brackets just in case your players see this thread.
** spoiler omitted **
Ha! That's awesome!
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Even combat can be made more fun with the proper amount of role-play. Im playing a sword and board fighter for our group. With the use of diplomacy and intimidate, I convince our foes, that I am the most dangerous target out there. Effectively 'tanking' for the group. That is until the rogue rolls max on his damage dice and I have to 'reconvince'. But yeah, roleplay starts with you. The GM should be helping as well since he is the crux of all this.
As a player the best way to get some roleplaying in the game is to start an in character conversation with the players or the npcs.
If you are in module 4 of council of thieves then I can give an example of something one of my players did here that set the scene for quite a few interesting roleplay moments, tell me in spoiler tags what part of the module you are up to and what you and your group know so far about the events that are unfolding.
As a very long time player of RPGs I've seen the full spectrum; from the stage worthy role play to the player who rarely offers more input than what he rolled to hit.
Most of those in my longest running group see role play as the binding between those times when the dice need to be rolled. We all love the combat aspects, but we also appreciate when you can have a three hour session, everyone had fun, and nobody rolled a combat dice.
Character backgrounds are essential to good role play, I believe. We encourage everyone to create a full background, whether they reveal it to the rest of the party or not. When your character has named parents and a village and a history, it's much easier to find motivation to hunt down the ogres who are killing the local life stock because something similar happened in the village where your character grew up and there was nobody to help.
The good role players know how to add to their background as the game progresses. They pick up on things the GM describes or things they encounter and incorporate that into the history of their character.
For example, the party is attacked by giant spiders and one character rolls two crits during the combat and does a huge amount of damage. Afterwards, or during the fight, he comments, "I really, really hate spiders!"
Till that point, the character had nothing in his background about spiders, but because of the encounter, the player decides the character was badly bitten by a spider as a child, or a friend died to spider bite, or something. He may or may not tell the other players this.
But now it becomes a part of the character; he always double checks his bedroll for spiders, he keeps a vial of anti-venom tied with a string around his neck, etc. He doesn't have to overdo it or bring it up each session, but the other players will come to imagine the character doing such things. And a good GM will use that; the party needs to find a note left for them as an adventure hook, what better place to put it than in the sleeping bag of the character who always checks for spiders?
The GM can reward the role play by giving the character +2 to any knowledge check involving vermin. Or by sliding him a little extra when XP are handed out when he's used that phobia as part of role play in a session.
With luck, it encourages the other players to role play more.
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As a very long time player of RPGs I've seen the full spectrum; from the stage worthy role play to the player who rarely offers more input than what he rolled to hit.
Most of those in my longest running group see role play as the binding between those times when the dice need to be rolled. We all love the combat aspects, but we also appreciate when you can have a three hour session, everyone had fun, and nobody rolled a combat dice.
Character backgrounds are essential to good role play, I believe. We encourage everyone to create a full background, whether they reveal it to the rest of the party or not. When your character has named parents and a village and a history, it's much easier to find motivation to hunt down the ogres who are killing the local life stock because something similar happened in the village where your character grew up and there was nobody to help.
The good role players know how to add to their background as the game progresses. They pick up on things the GM describes or things they encounter and incorporate that into the history of their character.
For example, the party is attacked by giant spiders and one character rolls two crits during the combat and does a huge amount of damage. Afterwards, or during the fight, he comments, "I really, really hate spiders!"
Till that point, the character had nothing in his background about spiders, but because of the encounter, the player decides the character was badly bitten by a spider as a child, or a friend died to spider bite, or something. He may or may not tell the other players this.But now it becomes a part of the character; he always double checks his bedroll for spiders, he keeps a vial of anti-venom tied with a string around his neck, etc. He doesn't have to overdo it or bring it up each session, but the other players will come to imagine the character doing such things. And a good GM will use that; the party needs to find a note left for them as an adventure hook, what better place to put it than in the sleeping bag of...
I really like that a lot. Thanks for sharing.