Finding Fun in Roleplaying Games (Part III)

On the subject of improv and roleplaying, I recommend Paul Tevis' talk What Improv Has Taught Me About GMing. I'm tempted to get a couple of tattoos: "Do your thinking outside of your head" and "Listen and React." I also recommend Carol Hazenfield's book Acting On Impulse, which Paul's talk mentions. I took  classes  from Carol when I was studying improv and they were fantastic. What you learn in improv can be helpful in real life as well as on-stage, and this was especially true of Carol's classes.

Of all of the elements of roleplaying, I'm most interested in Character: the "role" in roleplaying. I don't want to confuse roleplaying with acting, but I believe they share some things in common. All of the players in a roleplaying game including the GM (if there is one) are playing characters who speak, act, and make choices.

I studied three aspects of character in improv: Vocal, Physical, and Emotional. Acting On Impulse talks about each of these.

Vocal

Vocal elements include dialects, accents, pitch, how fast or slow you speak, where you speak from (nose, chest, etc.), and where you place your pauses. Learning dialects and accents takes a lot of study and practice. The other elements are more easier to do. When roleplaying, I think a little can go a long way.

Speaking in-character is pretty common in roleplaying. I've played with a fair number of role players over the years that use vocal characterization and are good at it. Like everything else in improv and roleplaying, one of the keys is full commitment to whatever you are doing.

I'd like to speak in-character and use vocal characterization more often. I've found it can be a useful  tool in finding and expressing character. Unfortunately, I'm having more fundamental problems these days - in the heat of the moment, I can jumble up speaking in first and third person. In a recent game of Leverage, I spoke in the first person and said, "I'm pissed off" when I meant to speak in the third and say, "Amanda is pissed off."

Physical

I loved physical characterization in improv after I discovered mask acting. I found it was the easiest route for me to find characters, especially conforming your facial expressions to the mask. Physical characterization includes how you carry yourself, walk, where your physical center is, and more.

Unfortunately, you don't move around a whole lot in roleplaying (I haven't played LARPS or Jeepform) .  Ryan Macklin suggested that I can stand and move around more (he's often standing), but I haven't made good use of it yet. Fortunately, if you aren't moving around, what you describe about your character's physical appearance can be helpful with characterization. I was delighted with Apocalypse World's "Look" traits.

Note that above I've mentioned "finding" characters: like everything else in improv character is much more of a discovery process than a planning process. I find this is true in roleplaying - I can completely fill out my character sheet during character creation, but it isn't long before I want to change something. Some of my favorite games these days like Leverage flesh out the characters through play. In addition to "do your thinking outside your head, one of my other favorite phrases right now is "acting should precede planning." You can create elaborate plans ahead of time but once you act, things change and that's when you really need to plan.

Emotional

This is the hardest part of all in improv, and I've known improv actors skilled in all of the above areas but have very little range in terms of emotionality. It's easier to be funny than explore emotional perspectives quite different than your own, e.g., optimistic, pessimistic, spiteful, joyous, sorrowful, naive, etc. Usually, I was only able to access this when doing mask acting.

I don't even know how to start talking about character emotionality in roleplaying games. I've seen very little or none of it in games like D&D 4E. I've struggled with it when playing "story games."  I can look at all of the items on character sheets and try to reason through logically, given the current situation, "What would be character do now based on all of this stuff?" but I have to say that it feels like a very mechanical exercise and I usually come up dry if I don't have emotional understanding of or connection to the character.

Other Tools for Characterization

Two other tools for characterization in improv were Objectives and Status. I mentioned Objectives in my last post describing C.R.O.W. What does your character want? What are his or her goals? Status refers to social pecking order. Keith Johnstone, who introduced the idea of status transactions to theater, talks about status in his book Impro. It was a useful tool in improv, and I find it to be a useful tool when I can think to use it in roleplaying.

People aren't one dimensional and showing different sides of a character does a lot to bring a character to life and add interest. I believe roleplaying games like Burning Wheel support this - beliefs can show different aspects of character and it gets really interesting when they conflict. On a related noted, Change is vital component of character development. This is a core part of Burning Wheel (I believe the Spokes, actually) and many of other my favorite games provide great support for character change and development, e.g., Smallville.

A final tool that I think can be useful is to define the importance of characters'  Intrinsic Desires:

• Acceptance - the need for approval
• Physical Activity
• Curiosity - the need to think
• Power - the need for influence of will
• Eating
• Romance - the need for love and sex
• Family - the need to raise children
• Saving - the need to collect
• Honor - being loyal to a group
• Social Contact - the need for friends
• Idealism - the need for purpose
• Status - the need for social standing
• Independence - being an individual, to be autonomous
• Tranquility - the need to be safe
• Order - the need for a stable environment
• Vengeance - the need to strike back
• Competence - the need to feel capable, for mastery

Many roleplaying games focus on skills and attributes like strength, dexterity, etc. These are most useful in determining how competent characters are at accomplishing tasks. The parts of roleplaying that interest me most are figuring out what characters say and what characters choose to do, particularly when facing difficult decisions. I still struggle when roleplaying (actually as much or more than I did in improv), despite all of the things I write down on character sheets. Perhaps a good design challenge for myself would be to design a game that helps me with this. Or maybe I'll re-read and play A Penny For My Thoughts.