Optimize Your Roleplaying #5: Collaborative Character Design

     Roleplaying games are collaborative endeavors from start to finish. While a GM can plan a campaign or a session alone, ultimately he needs players to run through that story. The story doesn't just consist of the encounters GM sets up but also how the players resolve those encounters. Both the GM and the players are working together to tell an epic story that everyone can be a part of. The more collaborative the story telling experience, the more fun everyone has at the table.

     I think that this type of collaboration has a place at character generation as well. Normally, in my group, character creation is a very individual process. A GM announces the type of game that he wants to run, details the setting, and lists criteria that he'd like the players to follow. Then the players go off on their own and write up a character in the way they think best. Almost all the inter-player discussion that happens revolves around balancing party mechanics and the interaction of abilities, spells, and the like. A couple of weeks later, we all sit down at the table, proudly placing our fine-tuned character sheets down only to be stopped dead by the dread question, "So how do your characters know each other?"

     But cooperating with fellow players during character creation holds rewards beyond simple party balance. The opportunity we're missing here, is to incorporate elements of other PCs' backstories into the write up of our own PCs. Instead of a mad scramble to figure out how a motley crew of adventurers would immediately get along come the first session of a campaign, we could be hammering out backstory and working out the exact details of our characters' pasts with one another. What's more is that we're missing the opportunity to craft a deeper and more engaging story even before the adventure has begun.

     I think ideally, the first session of every campaign should be character creation. We would all sit down at the table and work out what classes and races we wanted to play. Then we’d determine whether or not our characters had any sort of shared backstory then work out that backstory as needed. I think as an individual, the average roleplaying gamer has a strong sense of what he wants his character to be. So when two or more players work together to create a shared background for their characters, it can become a tricky little thought exercise to mesh two strong ideas of character together.

     I think getting into the habit of having these thought exercises with your friends can be a fun way to foster creativity when coming up with PC backstory and motivations. After all, you can’t think of everything. And bouncing ideas off of one another can end up creating more compelling backgrounds than one player could have alone.

     The other benefit from these exercises is that while working with another player in order to come up with a shared background is that you and your fellow player are investing the time and thought to become intimately familiar with your characters. You already know what they’ll do and how they’ll act in a given situation.  The fact that you’ve spent so much time thinking about where these characters are from and what they’ve done together has given you a solid basis from which to build a compelling personality.

     So go forth! Collaborate! Generate! Roleplay!

Optimize Your Roleplaying #4: Simplified Understanding

     Occasionally someone at the table will say, “I’m not sure what my character would do.” It happens to everyone though I suspect more often to newer roleplayers than experienced ones. It’s that moment of hesitation brought on because you don’t know your character well enough to say with surety what course of action he would take when presented with a new situation. Maybe you’re new to the character and you just haven’t fully crawled into his skin. Or maybe you spent hours fleshing out this guy’s background and just never came up with a response to this particular scenario. For some players this isn’t really a big deal. For others it can break immersion.

     The problem, I think, is not from a scarcity of information regarding your character’s background motivations but rather an overabundance of non-essential information relative to the essential and an inability to sort out one from another. To put it another way, you've overcomplicated your character background.

     One of the most important lessons I took away from my graduate program was about the nature of understanding. You don’t truly understand something, whether it's a concept, theory, or a personality unless you are able to describe it to someone else in three forms: a paragraph, a sentence, and a single word. You demonstrate your mastery of a subject by being able to simplify it. My graduate mentor's favorate go-to example was ketchup.

      

The paragraph:

Ketchup is a type of condiment that is typically made of tomatoes, vinegar, and sweeteners like sugar. It’s tangy and sweet taste can be used to complement bland foods that are high in starch content or as a dressing on cooked meats. Ketchup is also known as catsup, tomato sauce, or red sauce, depending on regional slang. The origins of ketchup are mostly unknown.

The sentence:

Ketchup is a tangy and sweet condiment made of tomatoes, vinegar, and sweeteners.

The word:

Suspension*

     Granted, my mentor was trying to teach us the physical-chemical properties of drug molecules, but I don’t see why the same philosophy can’t be applied to roleplaying games. The key here is fundamental understanding. If you’ve spent hours writing up a background for your PC, how much of that will help you figure out what he does in a given situation? You include personal history, challenges he faced, things that he cherished and lost. All of this becoming justification for certain actions he’ll take in the future. This gives you a rough idea of who your character is because you can glean details of his personality based on what has happened to him in that past. But that may not help you if your character encounters a situation that doesn’t match up with the background you wrote for him.

     Don’t misunderstand, I think background write-ups are a wonderful way to start thinking about your character. I just don’t think it should be the stopping point. If you’re able to distill your background paragraph down to the essentials it can allow you the flexibility to consider what your character might do in an unexpected situation.  Something like, “My character is a devout cleric of Sarenrae,” is a lot less of a story to hold in your mind and it allows you to answer any number of questions about your character’s motivations without extrapolating from a long and involved character background.

     Furthermore, you can break that single sentence into the core words that describe your character. You can get down to the essence of who and what your character is. Descriptors like pious, righteous, and unyielding are fitting for a Hand of the Dawnflower. Yes, events in my character’s past do have an impact on who he is today, but ultimately these three core concepts will define his actions and justify his decisions.

     Remember that understanding your character is the key to roleplaying your character convincingly and in an immersive way. By simplifying details down to the essential core of your character you can immediately make intuitive decisions from your character’s point of view, opening the door for a more continuous roleplaying experience overall.

*Ketchup is a physical suspension (similar to balsamic vinaigrette) of vegetable matter in water and vinegar. Because its constituent molecules aren't chemically bonded to one another, if left to its own devices for long enough, it will separate into easily discernible layers.

Optimize Your Roleplaying #3: Accenting Your Game

     Let’s talk about roleplaying with accents at the game table. In the real world, the way a person speaks can say a lot about them. Pronunciation, cadence, and diction can give clues as to a person's ethnic, regional, or social background. The difference between accents from region to region in the United States, for example, is profound. One can usually identify the differences between speakers from two different regions of the US, even without being able to identify precisely where a particular speaker is from. So why shouldn't this also be the case in a fantasy game world? In America, one can tell the difference between a Bostonian and a Southerner by the way they speak. Shouldn't that also be true of Chelaxians and Taldans?

     I’ve heard mixed opinions about players or GMs putting on accents. On one hand, accents can be a simple but powerful way of conveying a character concept or personality. When an accent is done convincingly and well, it can greatly enhance the immersion during a session. But on the other hand, accents can be a distraction at the table, especially when done poorly, and can disrupt the suspension of disbelief for other players. To further complicate matters, if a player chooses an accent for a character and end up struggling with it, they might focus too much on perfecting the accent rather than simply roleplaying their character.

     Personally, I’m a huge fan of accents in a game. As a player, almost every one of my characters has their own unique accent or dialect. At the very least I try for a different cadence or speech pattern. As a GM, I try to give unique accents to as many important, and even some seemingly unimportant, NPCs as I can. This has lead to a greater number of engaging interactions between random NPCs and the party as Randall the dockworker suddenly has a voice that's even more memorable than whatever reason the party was talking to him in the first place.

     I also feel like having an accent keyed to a character’s personality helps me slip into that role more easily. In a previous OYR I used a character of mine, Riordan Soleratov Detrovsky, as an example. My trigger for getting into Riordan’s head was to repeat an English phrase while putting on a heavy Russian accent. This trigger served a dual purpose. Firstly, as I mentioned in the last article, it helped me get into character. But secondly, it helped remind me how to shape the sounds of the accent I chose to associate with Riordan.

     My accents aren’t flawless and I tend towards more entertaining voices rather than accurate ones. But I do make a conscious effort to improve them. A little while ago I stumbled upon this little gem on YouTube. The company, VideoJug, basically runs an instructional video website and one of their tutorial series happens to be on developing different types of accented English. They're short videos, under 5 minutes, and highlight the basic patterns found in different accents.

     So the next time you roll up a PC or stat up an NPC, consider how that character would talk to others. What do you want that to indicate about who he or she is or where they're from? How does your delivery or expression of character impact the ways that other players interact with that character? Go ahead and play with accents, and you might just find yourself just a little more immersed in your roleplaying.

Optimize Your Roleplaying #2: Pulling the Trigger

     Every other Thursday night I sit down at the gaming table and mutter this under my breath, usually accompanied with a sardonic grin. It’s silly and makes me chuckle. But it’s an important part of helping me transition from Anthony Li, unassuming gaming blogger into Riordan Soleratov Detrovsky, imperious and cynical swordsman. What does a brief line about warships from a popular space-based RTS game from 1999 have to do with my Pathfinder Character? Everything.

     The best trick I know for getting into character is what I’ll call a trigger. There’s probably a more official name for this out there. But for the sake of this blog, let’s just call it a trigger. A trigger can be a phrase, gesture, or similar quirk that can serve as a portal into the personality of the character that you’re representing. You might develop a feral grin if you’re playing a half-orc barbarian. Or you might steeple your fingers as a calculating arcanist. “Battlecruiser: Operational” is one of my triggers for Riordan.

     So why use a trigger? Referring back to the lake metaphor from the last post, triggers can help you skip past the shallows, allowing you to get right into character from the start. It acts as a mnemonic save point that lets you carry a character’s personality consistently between sessions. This is especially helpful if your group goes weeks between gaming sessions, or if you’re juggling multiple characters in several different games.

     There are a number of different ways to develop a useful trigger for your character. I find it easiest to picture what it is my character is doing, right now, at this moment. Is it an action? A gesture? A phrase? Then I try to figure out why my character is doing or saying that thing. This process helps me to mentally associate that action with that character’s personality.

     As an example, Glenn-Gladdion is a PFS character of mine. He is, like many gnomes, in the market for excitement. If I throw my hands above my head and shout, “Gnome Hemothurge and Arcanist Extraordinaire!” I’m channeling the mirth and joy I’d expect to come from such a zany gnomish wizard. I’ve created a link between the emotion I express with the trigger with the emotions my character is likely to feel or express during the session.

     As a GM you benefit from triggers much more than as a player. Being able to switch back and forth between NPCs at the drop of a hat is a great skill to have during games and can do a lot to up the immersion level of your group. Since I’ve started to come up with triggers for the recurring NPCs in my group, I’ve found that the personalities of these NPCs start to become more apparent to my players. My players are more eager to interact with these NPCs as a result, creating a more engaging experience for everyone.

Optimize Your Roleplaying #1: Shallow vs. Immersive

     There’s no short supply of optimization guides out there on the interwebs. With a basic level of google-fu one can easily turn up a wealth of information on how a player can maximize a character’s strengths while minimizing its weaknesses. It’s just a numbers game. It’s math. But collaborative storytelling is so much more than who’s got the biggest numbers. Often times our group finds that the most memorable parts of the campaign revolve around events that have transpired because of a character’s quirks, rather than his stats. Optimize Your Roleplaying, a semi-regular (hopefully) column, aims to explore ways in which a player can make the most of his or her character’s personality at the table.

     Every game session starts at the edge of a lake. The goal is to walk into the lake as far in as you feel comfortable. Some players are perfectly happy in ankle-deep water. Some prefer submerging themselves as quickly and as thoroughly as they can. Some find deep water pleasant but find getting there takes time to acclimate. The depth of the water in this case represents the level of in-character immersion you, as a player, are comfortable with.

     I used to be a pretty shallow roleplayer. We're talking stand-on-the-shore-with-your-toe-in-the-water shallow. My elven fighter/mage had  a name. I never used it though. It was always, “My elven fighter/mage opens the door” or “My elven fighter/mage attacks the goblin!” Yup. Shallow roleplaying at its finest. Nothing wrong with this style of playing per se. I certainly don’t mean to pronounce any sort of judgment on anyone that prefers this type of roleplaying, such as it is. But aside from the obvious mouthful, talking about oneself in the third person can be pretty tedious. It also doesn't do much to reinforce that character’s personality or quirks. I don’t remember a single thing about that character that I would have found remotely interesting. That elven fighter-mage ended up being nothing more than a mechanical expression of a concept that I thought was really cool at the time.

     This was back in the early 2000’s. I’d just started playing 2^nd Edition D&D and was just wrapping my head around the idea of pretending to be someone else. So I guess it wasn’t that surprising that I wanted to roleplay a stereotypical hero. You know the one, Commander McAlways Awesome. Emperor Uberstrong No-Flaws. I didn’t pick up on the idea that developing an alternate persona for myself was just as big a part of the game as throwing fireballs or swinging swords. Like I said, shallow roleplayer.

     Fast forward to the present. I’m typing up the first post of a column dedicated to helping people design better and more interesting characters. Sometimes I don't even start on the shore of the lake anymore. I've constructed a sling-shot mechanism that launches me past the shallows entirely. I love the deep end. And while I haven't plumbed the entirety of its depths, this is where I'm at home roleplaying. So something must have happened between 12 year old me and now. I guess after college, grad school, and a few dozen characters and games since then I’m finally comfortable enough with my own play style that I can talk about it in a public forum.

     I’ll leave you with an exercise that I picked up during a writing class my freshman year of college. It’s called the Speech. Think about what your character would say to someone else about a significant event in your character’s past. Imagine your character is directly addressing his or her subject. Write a paragraph or so about that exchange. The Speech exercise is a quick and illustrative way that can help you to discover your character’s traits and personality through dialogue.

I’ll give an example.

     “Hello friend! Fancy you in here at this hour. Well. No surprise I suppose. Say, you haven’t seen Yorick around recently have you? No? That’s a shame. I’m afraid I’ve something of his that I’ve been meaning to return to him. You see, we were venturing into a dungeon day after last I think. My memory’s a bit foggy on that regard. Anyways, venturing into a dungeon we were. Some gods forsaken hole in the ground a few miles east of where the Yondakabari River does that crazy little hairpin. Some Sczarni family told us about it. What colorful wagons they had. Pretty girls too. Anyways right. Hole in the ground. Dirty, filthy, thing. Right full of guards too. Ugly louts. Must have been rotting for centuries. Smelt kind of like that compost heap that farmer whatshisname has. You know the one. With the wife’s too pretty for him? In any case Yorick and me we make quick work of them. Finally come upon the goods. You know these ancients. Always got to be buried with their goods. Nice stuff too. Mostly silver. Not too much wear and tear. ‘Cept now Yorick says something like dividing by one is easier math. I feel something cold and sharp in my back and my eyes go black.  So anyways. Thanks for listening. I’ve really got to find Yorick. He’s really got to be more careful about where he leaves his knives.”

     So what did we learn about our nameless narrator? Specifically what did we learn about his personality? Well he likes to ramble. He sidetracks himself quite a bit, especially at the thought or mention of women. We also learn that after the events that had transpired with Yorick, he’s keen on revenge. He’s not much of a forgive and forget type. If I want to develop this narrator’s character further, I’d give him a name and then go into figuring out why he went adventuring with Yorick in the first place. Or perhaps I’d explore his relationship with womenfolk that he likes to think of so well. Either way I’ve got a solid basis for developing an interesting character concept.