When you first sit down with a band of brand new PCs, it can be tough to get a read on the personalities gathered around ye olde tavern. That makes a certain amount of sense. It takes time to form an opinion of new people, and that's true whether those people happen to be fictional or not. But by the same token, I think there's something to be said for projecting your PC a bit, helping fellow players to “get” what you're going for in terms of personality.
If you’re a talented actor, and if you rely on broad stereotype rather than subtlety, much of this problem goes away. Nail a Danny DeVito as-used-car-salesman impression and people instantly know what to make of you. If you’re a less demonstrative type however, say the ever-popular brooding in the back of the bar PC, then it’s a lot harder to convey your personality. This is something I term “the rich inner life problem,” and it shows up every time your character’s complex identity is invisible to the rest of the table. You’ve got this fascinating character in your head, but no one else gets to experience it because you don’t have the chance to show it off.
My question for the forum: What are some strategies to combat this issue? Should players combat it? Or is there something to be said for ambiguous PCs with difficult-to-get-a-read-on-'em personalities?
This is a sticky wicket. I can see both sides of this issue. My group plays almost exclusively in sandbox games, and we always start at lvl. 1. It's hard to find the balance of sharing with each other, and leaving something interesting for later.
I feel this issue also overlaps with the questions of the "Level 0" session. How and why is the group coming together? Do any of you know each other? Is there any history of adventure or hardships overcome prior to the start of the story?
You never want to force someone to play in a way that isn't fun, but at least at the beginning, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a little effort on the more withdrawn player's parts. Just as explorer types need to go with the flow when the hack and slashers trigger the combat early, the observers, and mysterious types need to at least offer a few lines, some descriptions, and a gesture or two to give the more theatric players something to connect to their characters. Whether as a group effort, or a GM introduced scenario, there should be some form of meet and greet encounter for everyone to get an idea of each other. Major props though if you can find a way to integrate this into the story without it feeling like the first day at a new school.
Heck, for many players, they are still getting a read on the personalities of their own characters and don't have things fully hashed out until a few sessions in, or, if they're relatively short adventures, a few adventures in to the campaign.
Try a short pitch, not a whole monologe. A bunch of players with new characters probably don't want to hear your whole back story first session. Give a few hints instead. Maybe the renown scholar always has his nose in a book when something else isn't distracting them. Even at the tavern. Maybe they look a little annoyed when the folks get a bit loud and rowdy, and might even try to protect their book from spilled wine and ale.
Also, theres the chance that your character might wind up dead, so you've wasted no one's time, yours and everybody else's, if you only offered hints instead of full monologes. You might even be able to reuse the planed story for your next character so long as no one heard it.
I'm not going to tell my players HOW to play their characters. I am, however, going to tell my players to PLAY their characters. I try to have session 0's but timing and scheduling can be an issue. Because of this I give my players a bit of leeway to develop the personality their character will be.
A few players at my tables though come up with some ideas, some broad strokes of who their character will be as they create the character. One in particular sticks out b/c this came up last game session. He's always maintained that he's a "patrician wizard," a snooty, upper-crusty type of guy who has no legal title or nobility but certainly acts like it.
At least, that's what's written on paper.
In practice this character is mousy and demure. In social situations he rarely participates, and not because this player is a wallflower. The player is, first and foremost, a "mechanic" with everything he does in my games, including just talking to NPCs, some vehicle for using a rule of PF1.
In short: his "patrician wizard" has a low Cha and only 1 rank in Diplomacy so he can use it as a Class skill from a Trait he took (and never plays). Why then would he participate in social encounters?
Spoiler:
Last session this character bought some stuff from an alchemist. I made a point to explain that this shop owner offered dubious, black market stuff as well. Leaving the city, they were stopped by guards that wanted to question the wizard on his dealings with a suspected black market alchemist, since an informant had seen him leaving the shop.
The player asked me what skill he could use to deal with this. I not-so-subtly reminded him that wizards have an upper-middle-class kind of vibe in this city baked in, so he might try to play up his class and social standing. He then asked if he could use Knowledge: Nobility and avoid this whole encounter with the whole "do you know who I am?" defense.
I said sure and he made a good roll but he STILL didn't know how to kind of act it out. After painfully sussing out what kind of way he was likely to act from this player, I finally got fed up and narrated the scene myself, doing the dialogue from both the wizard PC and the humiliated guard.
The other players enjoyed the theater of it but I gotta say, I was really frustrated.
If you're going to pick a personality for your character... PLAY it. Don't count on your die rolls to do it; don't wait for your GM to act it out. Even if you're doing it in third person like "My character says x in this kind of a way..." or whatever, showcase your character and the ROLE he/she portrays.
Now again, I'm not saying you gotta be DeNiro with every character you make.
Let's say you're playing the brooding barbarian what sits in the corner and stays quiet most the time, and also let's say that you as a player aren't much of an extrovert, being very shy or maybe even having a social phobia you're trying to overcome. You can STILL play your role without talking.
Look at your character; what Traits did you take? What skills do you have ranks in? These, along with your class, represent the things your character has done with their life up until this moment.
Say your brooding barbarian has Profession: Woodcutter. This isn't JUST cutting down trees; you likely know a lot about wood and might even do some whittling on the side. Perhaps when the other PCs first enter the bar, instead of your barbarian just drinking and looking stoic they're set with an oak branch and a knife, notching it into the rough shape of a humanoid.
Or, what if your barbarian took the trait Reactionary? Looking at the fluff, it appears that you got bullied a lot so you developed better combat reflexes and gain a bonus to Initiative rolls. How would that look to an outsider? Just describing that your barbarian is seated in a corner, watching all the exits, and once in a while they scan the room with a wary eye gives more flavor than "I'm sitting and drinking."
There are a million subtle ways humans IRL communicate themselves to the people around them, through body language, clothing choices, habits, tics, facial expression and yes, even verbal interaction. A lot of this is done subconsciously. The key to revealing your character's "rich inner life" is to pick something, ANYTHING that might help define your personality and then decide how your character would consciously or subconsciously express that trait.
