This is always a controversial subject, and one that I was already contemplating a blog post discussing, when Johnn added the following to last week’s Roleplaying Tips:

RPT reader Brock writes:

I enjoy good role-play and developing my character’s personality. To me, that is still the primary reason I play RPGs.

On the other hand, I understand the perspective of the “ROLL-playing” gamers. I still want a “game” in the role-playing game, with some rules I can comprehend and try to leverage to succeed at tasks. I even enjoy the bit of random chance that the dice rolls add to the role-playing. Nothing like a good critical hit to give you an opportunity for good role-play!

So, I am both a ROLE-playing gamer and a ROLL-playing gamer.

Maybe an article discussing the different types of satisfaction different types of gamers get out of RPGs might make for an interesting tip?

There are two aspects to this question, and I intend this article to tackle both sides of the equation.

Putting The Role into Rollplay

This is the aspect that most GMs think of when they are discussing the subject, as they want to know how to get their roll-players to role-play. The often-unstated implication is that there is something lacking in the gameplay of those who don’t speak in character; this implication is unfairly perjoritive in my opinion. Over the years, I’ve found that players who find it difficult to communicate “in character” and resort to using third-person perspective to describe their character’s actions can be just as immersed in the game as those to whom the first person comes more naturally.

It can even be argued that these third-person “roll-players” are more deeply involved in the game as the “roleplayers” are cosntantly distracted by the need to live in their character’s heads – characters which were often designed and constructed before play began.

Instead of looking apon players whose natural inclination is less demonstrative, the GM should treat them as an asset! A game is at its strongest when you have a combination of both types of player.

Characterise Non-immersive techniques

The real problems arise out of conflict between these gaming styles and the expectations of others. The best method of avoiding such conflicts is to help the “role-player” to develop personalities for his characters that turn this emotional distancing into an aspect of the PC’s personality. The question is always, ‘why does this hesitate to push his personal perspective to the forefront’? Is he extremely cool and analytic? Is he shy? Is he humble? Does he disdain the revelation of weaknesses and personal foibles? Is he insecure? Any of these can work as explanations for a character who subordinates his personality into a greater awareness of the (game) world around them.

That solves the immediate problem of conflicting playing styles; the rest of the task is to harness the strengths of both player types to make the game better for all participants. The balance of this article will concern itself with techniques for achieving this objective.

Colourful interpretations of die rolls

The most obvious technique is for the GM to make colourful interpretations of die rolls. We all do so to some extent anyway, especially when it comes to combat; this simply expands on the use of artistic licence. When doing so, the GM should start by doing so equally for all players and for the NPCs, but the more roleplay-oriented a player is, the more they will pick up on this and provide their own colour, relieving the GM of the burdon. Encourage narrative descriptions of actions; it may slow play down a bit, but everyone will have more fun in the process.

One word of warning: it’s easy to go too far. The GM has to constantly monitor the balance between narrative interpretation and forward progress.

One technique that I’ve used successfully from time to time is to have each player make twenty or thirty die rolls in advance of their being needed. The GM then keeps these lists and works through them from first to last. This gives him a little advance warning of a spectacular success and permits him to adjust the narrative flow accordingly. Players often don’y like the technque because it is subject to abuse by the GM, who can expend the better results on trivialities, leaving only mediocre and poor results for the things that matter; but if you don’t employ the technique consistantly, instead using it just to get yourself into practice or educate the players in what you would like them to contribute in narrative when they make a die roll, it can be tolerated.

In general, I’ll only use this pre-rolling technique on occasions when I know that a particularly strong narrative element will be needed.

Results are not the whole story

In the non-combat arena, a skill check should not be a case of the player announcing his use of the skill and his die roll, and being rewarded by the results; instead, the GM should think about how long it will take for the character to achieve the outcome indicated by the die roll and describe the activities that lead to the outcome.

For a short time, the GM may get complaints that he is usurping the player’s prerogatives, but provided that it is still the player who is making the decisions and putting the words into the character’s mouth, this won’t last. After a few occasions of doing so, the GM can then select the most role-play inclined of his players and give them the time to fill: “It will take 5 minutes to achieve that result – describe what your character is doing to get the answer.”

Some players (the true roll-players) will be more comfortable leaving this to the GM; other players will quickly pick up on the opportunity and take the burdon from the GM’s shoulders. Once they start doing so, the GM can take the next step of permitting the description to take place before the roll, and awarding bonuses to the roll for excellance (and penalties for a poor performance). If a player chooses not to do so, the GM can interpret after the fact as described.

The penalties are important; without them, the GM can be justifiably accused of favouring one player over another. By keeping the risks and rewards balanced, those who are not naturally inclined towards narrative description are not disadvantaged.

Be flexible in the timing

How long does it take for a character to perform an action, or recall some pertinent knowledge? Going straight from action to result is rarely realistic, and neglects an avenue for the GM to manipulate the players in a more-or-less legitimate fashion.

The most realistic approach uses some (often instinctive) combination of the degree of difficulty and the margin of success to determine how long to keep the players hanging. My players are so used to this that they have learned to be able to aproximate the difficulty I’ve applied by how much flavour text I insert. Over time, I’ve gradually reduced the amount of such inconsequential narrative, which gives the players a genuine sense that their characters are getting better – not only can they achieve results that would have been beyond them in the past, but these results seem to come more easily.

By varying the timing, I can use this as a tool to subtly manipulate the players. Important results can be downplayed by making the difficulty appear lower than it really is, or can be played up by extending the procrastination between die roll and result, using the player’s sense of anticipation to make them appreciate the genuine revelations as significant all the more.

This is not as easy or simple as it seems; it takes practice to get it right. But the benefits are worth the effort.

Conversations with Roll-played PCs

Pidgeonholing anything as complex as player behaviour almost always involves oversimplification. Nothing shows this to be true as an in-game conversation between a PC and an NPC. While the most proficient “roleplayers” will immerse themselves in the personality of their character and handle the conversation as though they were their character, and the most severe “roll-players” will describe what and how their character is saying in the third person with no attempt to pretend to be the character that they represent, most players will fall somewhere between the two extremes.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of giving the “roleplayers” more screen time during conversations simply because adopting the persona of the NPC is fun for the referee as well. To avoid this potential problem, I deliberately use a greater level of third-party description of the NPCs conversation when interacting with “roleplayers” at my table than I do with “rollplayers”. This restores a level of equality to the overall treatment of the encounter.

The “roleplayers” absorb the nuance of the NPCs conversational style by listening when I’m speaking in character to the “rollplayers”, when they aren’t distracted by being “in character” themselves, while the “rollplayers” are better able to get into their character’s heads in ways other than speaking “in character” without being given an unfair advantage by being permitted to hold their end of the conversation at arm’s length. Over time, the “roleplayers” moderate their use of first person and the “rollplayers” pick up on the technique of speaking in first person, and eventually everybody finds a happy compromise that they satisfies them.

Handling Rewards

I like to hand out little extra rewards for roleplaying. It has been suggested to me, on occasion, that this is unfair to the players who aren’t especially good at it – the proverbial “rollplayers”, in other words. I employ two mechanisms to ensure that this accusation is unfounded.

The first is to also reward ideas (whether correct or not) based on their entertainment and insight values. These are more likely to come from the roll-players because they are thinking about the plot and the problems at hand and the bigger picture while the roleplayers are busy acting in character.

The second is to ensure that the “rollplayers” achieve their goals more quickly, and hence are rewarded more rapidly. While this is counter-intuitive, it means that the extra rewards for roleplaying are balanced by the extra time that the players take to earn them, maintaining an aproximate equity between the two.

I have sometimes left it to the players themselves to determine which player made the greatest contribution. A simple secret ballot with each player and the GM writing the names of the two or three characters (PC or NPC) they felt most earned a little something extra, add up the total votes and divide the bonus xp pool by the result – then multiply each character’s vote tally by the result to get their bonus.

Construct Characters from Backgrounds: I

A big key to the GMs capacity for interpreting roll-played behaviour as role-played behaviour is to have a solid character construction. Knowing the character’s personality, and how he thinks, and what he cares about, and what his ambitions are, and why he has made the choices in his past that he has, all provide a context for the interpretation of rolls.

Putting Rolls into Roleplay

Once your players have grown accustomed to at least contributing to the narrative, as described above, it’s time to add an additional carrot, a series of incentives for players to continue to improve.

Bonuses for Vernacular

When players describe what their characters are doing in specifics and appopriate vernacular, I allow them a bonus to the chance of success of the resulting skill roll. Roleplayers appreciate this as a reward for their efforts, while “rollplayers” will recognise it as conferring a tactical bonus to success.

Bonuses for Immersion

Similarly, when players indulge in in-character dialogue, I use the natural flow of the conversation in place of a die roll in determining any change of attitudes. This permits more sophisticated relationships to develop than are permitted under most game mechanics.

Rewards for Character-driven Choices

In a way, it can be said that characterisation only really matters when the personality of the character shapes and influances the choices that the character makes, and that these are only distinguishable from choices the character would make if they run counter to the character’s immediate or long-term interests.

That’s a potent thought. It’s also an extremist interpretation, but that does not alter the validity of the conclusion: the ultimate expression of personality is a choice that might otherwise be questionable.

The obvious implication is that good roleplay results in periodic setbacks to the character’s medium- and long-term ambitions, and that characters are punished as a result by the forfeiture of the experience that they would earn for working toward those objectives.

In other words, if you want good roleplay, you need to compensate your players for it by providing bonus rewards, proportional to the degree of sacrifice of advantage that the player commits.

Penalties for the easy road

If you are going to reward good roleplay, then it seems only fair to penalise bad roleplay. The easy road is the pathway to the Dark Side! Making choices not because they are the most appropriate response of the personality being roleplayed but because they are the most expediant path to success is bad roleplay.

Unless, of course, the personality is described as ‘practical’, ‘straight-line thinker’, ‘the ends justify the means’, or something similar…. which leads to the last point to be made in this discussion:

Construct Characters from Backgrounds: II

The preceeding paragraphs make it clear that the most important aspects of defining a character are in the imposition of limits and restrictions – in other words, defining the things that the character will do only reluctantly, and the things that they will not willingly do under any circumstance. These restrictions should emerge from knowing what the character values, and (most especially) what they are willing to risk their life for; what the character believes, in other words. This is a form of applied psychology that has a direct relevance to the roleplaying of the character.

There are many books on characterisation for movies, television, authors, and playwrights, and these can assist in developing a character definition that is of immediate and practical value from the background events of the character’s life; or, if you have a personality attribute in mind, in developing a personal background that fits this persona.

One of the very best and most useful of these that I have encountered is Writer’s Guide to Character Traits by Dr Linda N Edelstein. If you want to consider purchasing a copy, just click on the cover thumbnail above.

Conclusion

Players are not truly roleplayers or rollplayers; we all have a little of both in us, and a campaign can be the stronger for having both – if they are properly harnessed. Hopefully this article will have set the reader on a path to achieving that goal, while improving the ways in which both interact with your campaigns.