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Yes, It is just like acting. I find that the more different my character, the more extreme, the easier it is to role play.
For instance:
1. I am a man so I play a woman.
2. I am human so I play a kobold, etc.
3. I am fairly agnostic so a play a religious fanatic. I had a priest of Kossuth that I loved to play a while back. I though up prayers and sayings all of which involved solving problems with fire.
4.Like you said, build a backstory, give your character goals different from yours (that should not be too hard), put yourself into that persons shoes to fulfill those goals.
5. Play an alignment you would normally never play. I tried lawful neutral once. It drove me crazy because it was against type but I certainly was not playing myself.
Once you get into it, it can be fun.
It is, but it becomes a bit weird. It's because you can't think of them as yourself at all, and have to consider them to be a completely different person (mentally) and then act how you assume they would act. You kind of have to view yourself in third person, I guess.
Sure. Try a few of the more obvious ways first. Let us assume you’re not very religious personally. Play a paladin who is all about his deity. Invent a few catchphrases like on Galaxy Quest. By Torag's Hammer!
Next- are you athletic? If no- make a very athletic martial type, such as a monk.
Are you careful and cautious? If Yes-Barbarian with lowish Wis who charges in all the time.
Yes, these are stereotypes, but playing a few of those will get you out of your comfort zone.
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I think it helps if you ahead of time define how your character would react in certain situations. I seem to recall that Ultimate Campaign had useful questions you could answer about your character. You kind of expand your backstory to include not just what's happened to you, but how you would respond to people or what decisions you would make. That way when something comes up you don't default to your natural instincts, you've got some guidelines for new instincts.
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I had a brilliant post full of wit, wisdom and practical advice, and it was eaten by the Paizo.com gremlins.
Sigh.
Well, this will perhaps be half-witted but I'll try to recapture what was in that brilliant post:
1. Empathize. Actors will tell you that the key to acting is developing empathy for the character they are portraying. It is much easier to see how a person would react to something if you can feel what they would feel in the same situation.
2. Mimicry. Find a character you are really comfortable with. It might be Han Solo or it might be your friend Joe, from marketing. Ask yourself "What would [insert name here] do?"
3. If you are really worried about acting as yourself, figure out what to do, then make sure you do ANYTHING but that.
Ahh yes the George Costanza method of doing the opposite of your instincts!
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Ash’s Guide to RPG Personality & Background (google it) is great at helping get a really detailed understanding of what makes characters tick.
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Write a backstory of a length you are happy with. Some things you can include are: your appearance, where you are from, how you were raised, what you did before adventuring, and personal goals. Try to make small references to this backstory from time to time during in-character conversation. Just bits, even if they serve no great purpose.
Choose a motivation for your character. This is not something that needs to be announced, but it should factor into your character's decision making. If you use this motivation as justification to ruin the game or another players fun then you are taking it too far. If you "waste" a few days of travel because you need to visit a shrine of your deity, get your armor customized, need a few days of R&R or fun, visit family, etc then your party might have to suck it up and deal with it. Don't over do it though.
Choose a weakness, fear, and/or vice. This is something I never considered when I was younger, because I just wanted to play a bad ass. Part of the allure of a heroic rope-playing game is getting to be someone who is bigger than life, and a D&D/Pathfinder character is exactly that, but one of these human characteristics will add another important layer of complexity to your PC. The weakness, fear, and/or vice should also factor into your character's decision making, and all of the advice from motivations apply.
I don't advise making everything about your character opposite from you, but a few won't hurt. I'll take it one step further and say that when you finish playing one character and move on to another, make sure some elements of the new one of different (possibly opposite) from the old one.
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Sometimes the thing that's missing is practice.
As you've already done the backstory, try writing some diary entries as your character. First imagine something that happened, then write about it as they would. Put in some character quirks such as their own likes and dislikes, and then try to put their personality into the writing.
Do that. Then do it some more. When you think you've got a feel for them, keep on doing it.
If it helps, base the character on someone you know, or a character from a book/movie/TV, but be careful not to overdo it - if someone else can see the character you used, you've done too much. Take the personality from someone whose face you can see playing that character, but who isn't that actual character (so don't pick Conan or Arnold Schwarzenegger for a Barbarian, for example!)
I can imagine it's doable, but it aint easy (to me anyway). I'm playing with 2 groups currently:
-One of them is doesnt emphasize acting so much as actions (it's on roll20, and acting isnt easy with voice alone).
- The other puts emphasis on role-playing, but it's a large group (6-8 most games) and I always feel rushed to react so I never quite manage to get in character. This has left me feeling rather disenchanted with roleplaying in general, because I either have to react instantaneously to what's happened, or get left on the wayside because by the time I know what my character would have done, the rest of the players are too far along in the event.
I will admit however that an important part of roleplaying (for me anyway) is wish fullfilment. I like to feel powerful, I like to do cool stuff, I like to meet weird people and strange things. So I do tend to favor characters similar to myself (example: I will probably never play a barbarian, it's just too much of a bruiser for me). I do avoid creating mary-sue type characters without fault, but I want to care about the character as well (if I didnt, I'd be playing Call of Cthulu), which is why they tend towards intellectual sneaky-types that like wilderness and machines.
Pretty much every character will have a bit of you in it. The key is what aspect do you want to emphasize/exaggerate and what other fun ingredients do you want to add to the mix.
For example, maybe you can create a character whose personality fits your softer side. You can go a step further and make them female and a different race.
As another example, I tend to have a mindset of a critic and can go on lengthy rants. So, I created a barbarian who's a literary critic in his off hours that writes for the local gazetteer. When he remembers a really bad novel he read, he flies into a rage and starts spewing obscenities about how terrible the writer is. The character has a bit of me in him, but he's very different from me.
It can actually help a lot to volunteer for your local amateur theater if you can. I did that when I was younger. That will really get your creative juices flowing. Even if you don't end up as an actor yourself, you'll be surrounded by them and pick up a lot of tips and tricks.
Besides, it's tons of fun and I met my first real girlfriend doing that.
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My advice: come up with a unique way of talking when playing the character, and keep it exclusive to that character. Maybe you use swears like "By Gorum's blade!", maybe you talk with a cheesy fake accent, maybe you talk slower or higher pitched than usual. I find that if I put effort into giving the character a unique voice, it helps me detach them as an individual entity, so I can "become Bob" for a bit while playing, instead of being Shane.
Another thing that helps a lot is to keep the immersion breaking to a minimum. If you're hanging out, cracking jokes every other sentence, and stuffing your face with pizza, it's hard to get the right feeling for serious roleplay (as opposed to silliness).
Hope this helps!
I had a brilliant post full of wit, wisdom and practical advice, and it was eaten by the Paizo.com gremlins.
Sigh.
Well, this will perhaps be half-witted but I'll try to recapture what was in that brilliant post:
1. Empathize. Actors will tell you that the key to acting is developing empathy for the character they are portraying. It is much easier to see how a person would react to something if you can feel what they would feel in the same situation.
2. Mimicry. Find a character you are really comfortable with. It might be Han Solo or it might be your friend Joe, from marketing. Ask yourself "What would [insert name here] do?"
3. If you are really worried about acting as yourself, figure out what to do, then make sure you do ANYTHING but that.
Well, for a half-witted post, this is surely full of good advice. Especially point number 1.
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I will probably never play a barbarian, it's just too much of a bruiser for me.
You want to improve your RP, right?
...Maybe its time to play a barbarian? Just a thoought...
There's some good advise above, especially in personality quirks & traits and catch phrases - these are also very helpful mnemonic tricks to help you get back into character.
One thing I like to do, especially for evil or emotionally damaged characters is what I call "the other lesson learned". Find or think of a situation in their backstory that most people would have learned one thing from and twist it.
For instance the traditional "don't touch things on the stove or you may get burned" lesson: most who get burned by the stove would learn that you shouldn't touch it because it might be hot. An evil character with siblings may instead talk or trick someone else into touching it first, learning from that same experience it's best to manipulate someone else into taking a risk before you do. For me, this works best if tied to personality quirks that come up in play fairly regularly.
-TimD
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The way I started, and continue to, is by determining who I am. I have a fairly good idea of who I am, and if I ask some outside opinions, I get an even better look at myself.
Then, I change one or two things about me. For example, I'm a fairly pious person and I'm a poor white american. So, (in a modern setting) if I make a character that is a falsely pious, wealthy Russian with ties to the mafia and the KGB, that character will be quite different from me.
Next, using the above example, what is the campaign about? Is it an A Team style "gather a team to stop a global crisis" kind of game? Is it an espionage/spy games kind of game? Is it a horror roleplaying experience like Chill or Call of Cthulhu?
Then, what is my character's motives? How did they get into this situation? Were they nominated? Elected? Volunteered? Black-mailed? What's in it for them if the campaign's goals are reached? How does this character get things done? What is the accomplishment that shot them into "Player Character" status over the rest of human kind?
From there, you get a good idea of who that character is, and how to play them. The key is to change one or two things about yourself, and then play those up. As you get more comfortable doing this, you change a couple more things and a couple more things, until you have someone totally alien to you, and with a completely different outlook and motivation, and even philosophy or ideology. Don't be afraid to go overboard with one or two things, it's how you start, and it can be really fun to be a less than 3d character.
Hope it helps!
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A couple of people have mentioned motivation: figure out what your character wants, then have the character act in ways that will likely get them what they want.
I'd suggest you also need to know your character's Tools. Figure out what strategies your character typically uses to solve problems. When your character runs into problems, try to use those tools to solve it.
This is important because while some characters will be good at choosing their tools to fit their goals, while some will be more likely to default to their favourite tools even if they're clearly inappropriate. They're the type to pull out a sword during delicate negotiations, use dry, logical reasoning against an angry mob, or attempt to seduce a monk or paladin with a vow of chastity.
Decide whether your character is the latter.
I empathize with the OP. I have 2 characters, both male but on paper that's where the similarities end. One's a headstrong Halfling ranger/cavalier - he's outdoorsy, friendly, and uber-helpful (hence the trait). He also tends to be a people person and loves the ladies. He tries to fight for causes and is looking to restore his shattered Halfling village.
The other is a paranoid human wizard. He's quiet, soft-spoken and has hidden his identity. His best friend sold him out to an evil organization and the mentor he THOUGHT was trying to kill him turned out in the end to save his life; after that event he's been on the road for a decade making his living as a traveling puppeteer and storyteller for children.
But then when I sit to PLAY them, their dialogue comes out the same, their desire to do good and their methodical, planning nature. Why? B/cause that's how I am.
I'm getting better though. The last time I played Bucky (the Halfling) I made a point to lean forward in my chair and kept this image in my head of him surging on wolfback in the midst of a charge. That helped me act a bit more "headstrong" as my writeup suggests.
It's really hard NOT to be yourself. Its a skill; you have to work at it. @ the OP: I feel your pain.
