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Image<\/a> by BICH LE<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a>. I added just a touch of blue to the lower background.<\/p><\/div>\n A basic roleplaying tip for anyone at the game table, today, especially useful for beginners.<\/p>\n Tone of voice can be used to convey all sorts of emotional states, including quite complex ones.<\/p>\n When delivering bad or sad news:<\/p>\n The combination informs everyone at the table not only of the news content, but of the personality of the speaker.<\/p>\n But you won’t notice it if you aren’t listening for it, and it won’t be there to be noticed unless you think about how the character is feeling, in the moment.<\/p>\n Some tables are noisy, with lots of banter and side conversations, or environmental noise, or people on cellphones and distracted, or some combination. This can force you to raise your voice in order to be heard.<\/p>\n Raising your voice is absolute murder on tonal nuance. Under such circumstances, you have no real choice other than to tell and not show.<\/p>\n “Marie whispers almost to herself, her voice weak with shock, ‘But that would mean… Roger’s been playing us this whole time. He was never on our side!’ ”\n<\/ul>\n I was listening to a song reaction the other day and the reviewers were talking about how music can convey mixed messages – a song can have dark lyrical content and still have uplifting music, and how the two were alloyed into one more complex emotional state which was then conveyed to the audience.<\/p>\n The discussion then moved into the subject of compromise in relationships and how that can mean different things to different people at different times, depending on how strongly one party feels about the subject relative to the other.<\/p>\n Because I’m always looking for fresh angles on the world and anything in it, I created and populated a simple table on some scrap paper, and thought I was done.<\/p>\n But then a second song reaction to a similar style of music, with a different reviewer, came along and this reviewer was put in mind of times when we experience conflicting emotions. You CAN be happy and sad at the same time, or angry and happy, or angry and sad. I’m sure there are more examples, but those – to me – seem to be the most common combinations.<\/p>\n And I realized that the same table described how that blend would be expressed through a hierarchy of action – language – facial expression.<\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n \n<\/font>Weak \n<\/font>Strong \n<\/font>Very \n<\/font>Weak \n<\/font>Alternate \n<\/font>Weak \n<\/font>Weak \n<\/font>Strong \n<\/font>Weak \n<\/font>Alternate \n<\/font>Strong \n<\/font>Very \n<\/font>Weak \n<\/font>Strong \n<\/font>Alternate As you can see, I’ve broken emotional states into three intensities – dominant is the one that is felt most strongly, and secondary is the weaker of the two.<\/p>\n Outcomes broadly fall into three categories: Yield, Give Ground, and Compromise.<\/p>\n Most people will understand this already – they have seen arguments, and seen them resolved, in real life; they have seen compromises and when desires clash, even if it’s as simple as “I hate green beans” and “You will eat the beans”. But sometimes, it’s helpful to point out patterns that were always there but not noticed – to codify them.<\/p>\n Let’s put all this into an example.<\/p>\n Two famous warriors are on opposing sides in a conflict. Each knows the reputation of the other, but they have never met. One is zealous and passionate about his cause; the other stands in the way, staunch and yet sad at the same time.<\/p>\n S: “Stand Aside, Lionel. I give you but one chance to save yourself.”<\/p>\n L: “My cause is just, Sydney. I will not yield, though I am sorry that it has come to this.”<\/p>\n S: “You have had your chance. For Ravonna!!” (Sydney attacks, Lionel defends)<\/p>\n L: “You’re giving me no choice.” (Lionel half-heartedly attacks, Sydney defends)<\/p>\n S: “I will prevail, Lionel.” (Sydney attacks, Lionel defends)<\/p>\n L: “I’m sorry that I have to do this,.” (Lionel attacks with greater determination, Sydney defends)<\/p>\n S: “A legend will end this day!” (Sydney attacks, Lionel defends)<\/p>\n L: “In another life, we could have been friends.” (Lionel attacks in earnest, Sydney defends)<\/p>\n S: “Victory is mine!” (Sydney breaks through Lionel’s defenses)<\/p>\n L: “Not while breath remains in my body, Sydney.” (Lionel counter-attacks while Sydney is out of position, now both are badly wounded).\n<\/ul>\n In the first exchange, language is the primary. After that, both are using actions as the primary, so language and facial expressions can express the secondary. Since the latter are not mentioned, we automatically assume that they are matching the secondary emotional state. As the battle nears its climax, Lionel is forced to give up his secondary emotion, leaving only the primary – an implacable resistance to Sydney’s course of action.<\/p>\n Think about things that you can do with your hands during delivery of speech to reflect the emotional state of the character – then exaggerate that action for sharper, more impactful, punctuation.<\/p>\n You don’t want to do this all the time of course – that just looks like a nervous habit. So save it for important, emotive speech, and maybe to establish the character’s emotional state the first time they speak in a session.<\/p>\n It’s possible to turn this effect up for even more emphasis, taking advantage of ‘show don’t tell’ by breaking that rule – tell<\/em> those at the table what the character is doing, physically while he speaks and then show<\/em> it for even stronger emphasis at the critical moments. The contrast adds weight to the performance.<\/p>\n If you have a character who is pacing, slowly turn your head while speaking as though you were tracking their location, back-and-forth. Pay extra attention to your diction and enunciation because this can make you harder for others to hear, but the vocal impression will match the action you’ve described because<\/em> you have cued the others at the table in.<\/p>\n If you have a really good memory for what you’ve just read, try reading it to yourself and then reciting the words in a more natural tone. It works for some people, and not for others.<\/p>\n A few very talented people can ‘echo’ what they are reading as they are reading it.<\/em> This can also be a solution to this problem.<\/p>\n A lot of us tend to be very monotone when we read aloud, at least relative to our normal speech pattern. It happens because we are so busy concentrating on what we’re reading that we forget to pay attention to what we’re saying beyond getting the content right.<\/p>\n One of the simplest ways to combat this monotone dreariness is to fake the brain out – if you smile while reading, the brain acts as though you are enjoying it and projects a lot of the life and energy back into the speech patterns.<\/p>\n Now, if we were really speaking AND enjoying ourselves, this would convey pleasure and excitement – but because we’re starting flat, this simply puts a bit of emotion and interest back into the voice.<\/p>\n If your players zone out and have to ask for speech or text to be repeated, this solution is especially worth considering! It might just be that your voice is putting them to sleep…<\/p>\n There’s more to roleplaying than making decisions on a character’s behalf. The best roleplaying happens when you can put yourself in a character’s shoes and determine what he or she would be feeling under the current circumstances, and then using that as a guide to what they say and do, and how they say and do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three roleplaying tips for both players and GMs regarding the conveying of emotions. A short but universally applicable post. Tip One: Tone A basic roleplaying tip for anyone at the game table, today, especially useful for beginners. Tone of voice can be used to convey all sorts of emotional states, including quite complex ones. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[370,67,70,89,12,13,95],"tags":[101,377,155,172,218,282,165],"series":[],"class_list":["post-55114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-genres","category-dnd","category-gm-ing","category-npcs-etc","category-pcs","category-players","category-tools","tag-advice","tag-all-genres","tag-dd","tag-npcs","tag-pathfinder","tag-pcs","tag-tools-techniques"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/nb_art-art-8069717.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1toiD-ekW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55114"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55117,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55114\/revisions\/55117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55114"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=55114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tip One: Tone<\/h3>\n
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Environmental Factors<\/h5>\n
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Tip 2: Emotions In Conflict<\/h3>\n
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\n
\n \n \n
\n(Secondary)<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\n(Primary\/Secondary)<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\nStrong (Primary)<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n \n
\n(Secondary)<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\nbetween states<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\ngives ground<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\nyields<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n \n
\n(Primary\/Secondary)<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\ngives ground<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\nbetween states or both solo<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\ngives ground<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n \n
\nStrong (Primary)<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\nyields<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\ngives ground<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n\n
\nbetween states or both solo or both denied<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n
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Tip #3: Use Body Language as Punctuation with emphasis<\/h3>\n
Alternatively:<\/h5>\n
Bonus Tip: Smile when you read<\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n