Category: Better Gameplay?

So, you’re sitting there, squinting over your DM shield with dice in hand, your books, spells, and monsters pre-sorted – all to aid in the fabrication of the epic marvel of a session you have thought out for the last week to place before your fellow gamers. You glance up and are forced to a sudden reality. You realize that your party consists of the equivalent of a troupe of ADHD monkeys, hopped up on Pixie Stix and Cheeto’s, halfway into a Mt.Dew induced coma, holding loaded fists full of pooh, with itchy trigger fingers.

How will your story ever be told?!

Often, DM’s find that they might be overwhelmed by the sheer personality differences existing within their group. It is even worse when the number of people in your party exceeds the norm. A DM should keep in mind that while there are a few passive wallflowers, the majority of their players will reflect alpha-male traits. Unlike a movie, where there will usually be one main character, a game of D&D will have several. Things get exponentially more complicated when you introduce more than a standard four-member party.

A few tips to handle this situation effectively might include the following:

1) Don’t force it!
The natural response to getting things under control would be to become more strict or heavy-handed with your DM’ing. Instead, loosen the reins. Give a broad spectrum goal alone, and let the story guide itself on the personalities that exist.

2) Encourage everyone to talk only as their player character in all things.
This not only allows for the story to form more fluidly, it also incorporates all in attendance upon the task at hand, and keeps the out-of-game distractions to a minimum. Such distractions from so many people can easily ruin a game session.

3) Spread your attentions equally!
There will always be one glory hog in your party that simply requires more attention than everyone else in the campaign. Be sure to handle the situations as they come, but pay extra careful attention that you give everyone else their equal opportunity.

4) Don’t focus too much on the little things!
Keeping track of everything at once is hard enough – being forced to keep track of more than 4 people in your party can be overwhelming. Instead of keeping an exact count of certain details, loosen up your control. For instance, not all monsters need to have the exact average hit points. Choose to kill a monster when it’s most dramatic. This help speed up the rounds, encourages game-play, and further helps your story by allowing your party members the spotlight of a dramatic “bad ass” moment of glory.

Follow these few simple tips, and you too could become a successful ADHD Mt. Dew junkie monkey trainer, just like me!

Over the course of a few days you contemplated what race you’d play, what class, what build, what history. You thought about his purpose in the game, his personality, and his goals. You were creating a living, breathing hero, instead of filling out some stats on a character sheet. At least, you thought you were.

There he was, Rolen Darkmoor, a two-weapon fighting emo ranger (emo?), who had all of the makings of a fully-fleshed out character, complete with a one-page description of all things non-statistical. You’ve selected a specific set of dice to go along with this person (because really, he deserves it), and you’ve found the fan-made character sheet that best suits his style.

Yep. This ranger is ready to hit the range. This hero is ready to be heroic. This live character is ready to come to life.

And bring him to life you do. You’ve fought orcs, goblins, mystery warriors, and even a white dragon.  You’ve roleplayed your inner conflict in staying loyal to the Assembly of Advisors, yet wanting to leave it all behind ranger-style.  You’ve embraced the journey of finding out the secrets of your own mysterious past.  Yes, this character has come to life.

Aaaaaand then you completely crush the realism of your character when you charge toward several hobgoblin archers (16 squares away) thinking you will get to them and engage them double-scimitar-style, only to get dropped by four arrows to the chest (two crits), now making death saves.

At that moment you took a fully visioned, real person, and turned him into some stats on paper.

Sure, he’s a hero, and he does heroic things.  But why would you assume that you could charge after archers, and not get killed?  It’s because you stopped thinking about how a fantasy character would engage the archers, and started crunching numbers instead.  “Let’s see, I have 54 hit points, my AC is 23, I can move 14 squares this round – I’ll be ok.”

What you should have said was, “Hmm, we need to move tactically against the archers.  Perhaps I’ll wait until after the fighter goes.”

Ok, you can’t really put yourself into your character’s shoes.  You can’t really know his combat capabilities.  All you have to go on to fight the fight are his powers and stats.  I get that.  But still, sometimes you need take a step back and ask yourself, “Mechanically, I should be able to pull this off, but is it realistic to try?  Am I playing the character, or playing the numbers?”

All right, Rolen Darkmoor wasn’t your character; he was mine.  You didn’t try to pull off a stupid stunt because you thought the numbers added up; I did.  You didn’t stop playing a real person in favor of a stuntman; that was me.

When he fell, sure it was funny-haha, “thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk, and down he goes!” But it slapped me in the face.  My fellow gamers get a laugh out of that one every once in a while, but all I get out of it was the memory of me betraying my character’s character, and me betraying realism.  Had I stopped to think, “What is the best way to face these hobgoblin archers?” instead of going number-strong into the fight, I would have stayed in-character, in the game, as a real-life person, and not stats on a piece of paper.  I was a stuntman.

So, I challenge you to not make the mistake that I did.  I challenge you to try as hard as you can, to get into your character’s shoes and stay there.  I challenge you to make decisions as if you’re actually there, instead of your character sheet.  I think you’ll find that playing the role, instead of playing the game, is much more rewarding.

Incidentally, the title of this article “That is not a Real Person – It’s a Stuntman” comes from a quote in a movie.  Bonus points to whoever figures out what movie the quote is from, and what movie the characters are watching when it is said.

So, you’ve finally got your awesome background for your character. In addition, you’ve decked him out with the best gear a 1st level character can get, and you’re totally ready to impress your gaming buds with your new badass character. Then, when the game starts, you’re sitting there waiting for your character to get introduced, and you’re nothing but a bundle of nerves. You can’t wait! Everyone is going to remember this awesome character forever, so you think.

The time is now! The stage is set! Your character, this piece of your mind, that you gave a name and history (an essence, if you will) is about to step into a collective fantasy! He is seen by the party, he opens his lips to speak, and… he sounds exactly like you. Your character loses any sense of identity he had. Then your character quickly becomes relegated to his party role. His name forgotten, reduced simply to “mage” or “tank”. How sad. How could this have happened? Your guy was cool! He had an incredibly interesting backstory! How could the character just fail to be interesting?

All right, all right. I’ll tone down the melodrama  for a moment so I can be clear about what I’m talking about. Its always fun to create interesting characters. In my view, it’s the best thing about role playing. However, sometimes it takes more than an interesting backstory to make your character come alive. What am I talking about?

I’m talking about diction.

It’s about how your character says things. It means giving him a unique voice. Now, I know we gamers love good pirate voices and other silly accents like that, and those can be a part of it. Really though, diction means so much more.  Diction, in this case, refers to specific word choices your character uses when speaking. Diction can reveal a lot about a character, it can reveal his education, his nationality, his religious beliefs, and even his personal philosophies.

For example,  lets look at a very simple situation that might come up in a game. Hero gets a good Spot roll and manages to see an ambush being set up in a forest. Your character tells the party of course (or perhaps not), but what does he say exactly?

Example 1: Friends, up ah-h-ead, I think those t-three guys are gonna try to kill u-s-s.

A bit over doing the stutter for sure, but this guy sounds like he could be interesting.  No?

Example 2: Ahead, thirty paces, three villains, I will strike first.

This guy  seems like a lot of no-nonsense paladins I’ve dealt with before.

Example 3: Three Dead Men Hiding! I see you! We’re gonna kill you for that!

Certainly a bit overly enthusiastic, but he’d be a cool barbarian!

Of course, these are a bit jokey, but hopefully you can understand the power of appropriate language choice.  Now, imagine that all three of the examples were DnD 3.5 Lvl 1 fighters. Yes, they would all have similar stats. Yet they don’t seem similar at all, do they?

For instance, example 1 is a mystery, he seems strange and acts deranged. Yet you can sense a vulnerability in his voice – his stuttering adding another layer to the character. Example 2 seems confident, calm and under control, perhaps a little too confident, but certainly he has a keen military mind. Lastly, example 3 seems strong, young, and eager. Now, he could be played as a generic fighter, but doesn’t his voice suggest that he may be young, perhaps desperate to prove himself to his companions?

I know I’m overdoing it a bit, but I’m trying to prove a point about how characters, word choice , and proper voice can improve a game. Even with all the numbers and books and dice,  it seems that we sometimes forget that every Tabletop Rpg really just boils down to acting. Acting is what holds our fantasy worlds together! And every actor should know about diction.

Peace.