Hey everyone! I notice that my group is struggling with the RP side of things (myself included, as we are basically all new players) and I really want to help improve this aspect of our gameplay. When I speak of RP, I am referring to coming up with backstory, talking to each other as characters and even doing actions as characters. I don't mean to downplay or discourage anything my group has done so far, however I really feel like we are missing out here. For example, we've already done the stay at an Inn, travel for a few days, or take watch at camp situations occur, but I don't think we've had one conversation between characters in any of our sessions (aside from combat discussions) and it's kinda feeling like we're pressing "fast forward" on these scenes. 

To further illustrate, one player really struggles with backstory/character development (I've offered to help). Another player seems to get discouraged in some combat situations and feels like "there's nothing they can do" so they stand still (I'd like to offer some advice, but I also don't want them to feel like they can't do what they want with their character). As for myself, I tend to overdevelop characters and struggle with speaking in character at the table (as, I don't want to be the only one talking in a silly voice). I hope I'm not coming off as a too nit-picky about my group, its just that I can't believe how much I love this game so shortly after discovering it and I really just want everyone to enjoy it as much as they can.

So does anyone have any advice?

Quote from Deaconfrost2100 >>

Hey everyone! I notice that my group is struggling with the RP side of things (myself included, as we are basically all new players) and I really want to help improve this aspect of our gameplay. When I speak of RP, I am referring to coming up with backstory, talking to each other as characters and even doing actions as characters. I don't mean to downplay or discourage anything my group has done so far, however I really feel like we are missing out here. For example, we've already done the stay at an Inn, travel for a few days, or take watch at camp situations occur, but I don't think we've had one conversation between characters in any of our sessions (aside from combat discussions) and it's kinda feeling like we're pressing "fast forward" on these scenes. 

To further illustrate, one player really struggles with backstory/character development (I've offered to help). Another player seems to get discouraged in some combat situations and feels like "there's nothing they can do" so they stand still (I'd like to offer some advice, but I also don't want them to feel like they can't do what they want with their character). As for myself, I tend to overdevelop characters and struggle with speaking in character at the table (as, I don't want to be the only one talking in a silly voice). I hope I'm not coming off as a too nit-picky about my group, its just that I can't believe how much I love this game so shortly after discovering it and I really just want everyone to enjoy it as much as they can.

So does anyone have any advice?

 RP is something that takes time to develop, and there are any number of reasons that it will. All of you being new players means you have to find that natural element of interaction between yourselves, and also your toons, so that things go together smoothly and not feel forced. Sometimes RP just lacks substance and there really isn't much use out of trying to describe in detail your character pacing back and forth while they're on watch, but that is also okay because as a DM you can change the dynamic of the setting to better suit the party's strengths to coincide with the story. My advice for that is just to have patience with yourself and your group, eventually things will start to pan out once you've developed a bond between yourselves, and you will start to notice the interactions between the characters take on a life of their own (if they're not lazy about it that is).

Character backstory isn't truly as important as most people would lead you to believe. Sure, you want a foundation from which you can build, but it should also be open to create and enrich the character as a whole, which should also be inclusive to other characters or NPCs in the story. That should enhance the overall vision each player gets. A backstory about a character that has basically lead an entire life with the most minute of details isn't bad, but it leave a lot less options and doesn't correlate well with beginning life in the here-and-now as an adventurer. For that, simple is better in my opinion and the development (especially for RP motivations) is best left inside the story they're living through in the campaign.

So, talk in that silly voice, maybe it will inspire them to take the campaign more seriously, or maybe it is the spark they need to begin giving life to their character's too. At the very worst, they laugh at you, but stick to it and you will see transformations.

Having backstory and/or character goals that have a connection to each other can certainly help.  Something like a criminal rogue falsly accused of a crime by a local merchant and another character who is the son of a rival of said merchant trying to make a name for themselves.  Don't try and play 4 or 5 characters with the same backstory just ones that have connections with each other and don't be afraid to have conflicting goals either.  Your connections can be both position/negative.

If you are all new to RPing, then my advice to you as someone who has been doing it since 1982 is... give it time. I am a very experienced, developed, and mature RPer now who does deep and immersive RP on either side of ‘the screen’ and in almost any setting including video games and whatnot. But ‘twas not always thus. My friends and I started out as your friends are... with very little conversation between PCs and no real backstories. We developed skill with these things over time.

So my advice is relax, have fun, and do not be so worried about “RPing enough.” It will come, naturally, over time. Let it happen that way, and don’t force it.

The worst thing you can do IMO, for yourself or your friends, is try to force yourselves to “RP more” and start getting out of your own comfort zone. Your comfort zone will expand and shift and evolve over time. Let it do so. Don’t expect it to be where the 40 year veteran’s comfort zone is the first week out of the gate. It shouldn’t be.

BioWizard, as usual, is correct. It takes time.

As far as tips go I do have a few: 

As far as backgrounds go, one easy place to start is “the classic tragic backstory.” Considering that happy, well adjusted people rarely decide to risk life and limb for money unless they are forced to by some circumstance. Either their lives sucked in the first place, or things went terribly wrong for them at some point. That concept is useful for people just starting out in RP, but it should not be considered the only way to go.

As far as speaking in character goes, one easy place to start is to listen to your local NPR/any talk radio station in the car. Forget about the accents at first unless you’re good at them, but just generally try to mimic people’s speech patterns and talk back to the radio. It’s a great resource for examples of speech, there’s plenty of time to practice during a commute, and there’s nobody around to listen so you can just relax and feel comfortable making mistakes until you get better.

As far as acting in character goes, when I DM I frequently stand while I’m doing it. It’s easier to act out an old man NPC shuffling over to a bookcase to rummage for a note if you’re already standing. Another tip is to watch how Disney animated their animals. If you mimic those kinds of movements your monsters will start to feel more real.

If it takes you a while to get as good as you want to be then don’t feel discouraged. I started D&D way back in the early ‘90s and I still improve every week. So will you.

One final tip, describe how things smell as well as how they sound and look. Nothing sells realism better than smell. The more people feel like they’re in the world you are curating for them the more comfortable they will feel in their character’s shoes.

I generally find that people are more likely to RP more of the DM sets the tone with his roll play.  That's a good place to start.  A player going heavier into RP can get the ball rolling too or it can be annoying if you take too much of the spotlight from other characters.  If you're the player, just be mindful of that.

I also think that when your starting out it's easiest to basically just be a more exaggerated version of yourself or to draw heavy inspiration from a favorite character from TV or movies.  Early on I played a Jack Sparrow inspired rogue and that was a lot of fun.  It was pretty easy to get into a character that was already well defined (only one movie was out at the time).  I also once played a barbarian version of myself and that was fun as well.  As you get more comfortable with your group and with RP in general, you'll find it easier to make more unique characters.  

Thanks everyone! I'll be sure to take these notes into consideration in the future. 

Sometimes it's good to be the over-actor. I've found that a lot of players want to get into the roleplaying, but especially if they're new to the game or if they just joined a new group they're more likely to be hesitant. It's like jumping into a cold pool or something... everyone is kind of waiting for someone else to take the plunge, but once it gets going everyone gets more into it.

Wouldn't worry about it too much. My players rarely RP. They talk to each other and figure things out but they are rarely in a character. They do things based on what their character would do but they don't do voices or RP the stuff.

It doesn't hurt to not RP as long as people are having fun. If players are having fun without the RP then so be it.

That being said as the DM I always try to RP the NPCs they come across. It's fun for me to do that even if they don't RP back.

So just have fun with everything.

I find it’s easiest to build a character around a quirk or a flaw that you’re not afraid to let play out in game.  Say you build a character who is obsessed with their appearance. You start by getting comfortable describing that during slow times in the plot your character is picking fuzz off their tunic, or polishing their boots. That might progress to an unwillingness to be the one to take the dirty job the party needs done, even if you get the highest skill bonus to do it. Once you’re comfortable making decisions as your character, whether or not it makes your party weaker, because your character matters as much as “winning”,  it’s only a matter of time before you’re asking for a merchant that sells hair product, or drooling over armor of gleaming. And all of these are role play. All of them make time at the table fun.

If you’re a fellow player, start simple by describing what your character is doing during slow times. Ask what others are doing. Don’t even ask in a character voice. Just “...So that’s what Dwizzlewit is doing. What’s Thorzar doing if Dwizzlewit looks over at him?” If they don’t want to come up with an answer for that, they’re not playing a character, just a stat block. 

The easiest place to start is for one player to simply turn another player and start a conversation. Instead of saying “Grōndâr asks Theobold about the trap” try something like “Hey, Theobold, how are you coming along with that trap?” Do it in your normal speaking voice. That’s all it takes, all of a sudden you’re roleplaying.

Remember, “Common” sounds as normal to the PCs as English sounds to us. In my world “Common” should be Latin. I don’t speak Latin and neither do my players. We speak English with a Philly accent, so common sounds like Philly accented English.

I would argue that saying “Gondar asks Theobold about the trap” is still roleplaying. It all depends on what you want to get out of the game.

And it depends on what people are comfortable doing. I do not recommend demanding people act out their own dialogue word for word if the player in question is uncomfortable doing that. You will not get anywhere trying to force players to do something that makes their insides squirm... except lose your players.

BioWiz, 

You’re right on all counts. I would never suggest that anyone force anyone to do anything that makes them uncomfortable. I was simply pointing out that if someone starts speaking in character then others will just naturally start to follow suit after a while. That gets the ball rolling and sooner or later Theobold’s player will turn around and say something alongs the lines of “Stop breaking my stones. If you think you can do any better get over here and you try it!” Now two people are speaking in character. 

What I try to keep in mind when I roleplay is that I'm not talking as myself, I am currently a different person. A different race, personality, abilities, sometimes gender, and background. I try to get into the mind of the other character. The best way that I've found to encourage others to roleplay is to remind them that you don't have to be yourself in the game. If you want to be someone else, you can. This tends to get people's imagination going.

Quote from LeviRocks >>

What I try to keep in mind when I roleplay is that I'm not talking as myself, I am currently a different person. A different race, personality, abilities, sometimes gender, and background. I try to get into the mind of the other character. The best way that I've found to encourage others to roleplay is to remind them that you don't have to be yourself in the game. If you want to be someone else, you can. This tends to get people's imagination going.

I find it is often easier to RP as someone completely different than as someone close to myself. There's no chance of confusion between player and character then... when that gets confused it leads to its own problems.

Do you give XP for roleplay, on only for combat? I give bonus XP (instead of inspiration) for good roleplay all the time. The Players in the campaign I DM roleplay their characters. I also give XP to the Barbarian for charging headlong into combat. I give it to the Rogues for disarming traps. I give it to the Cleric for serving their deity/pantheon. I give it to the Wizard for solving those mystical riddles I put into the campaign. But I give it to everyone for RP.

I gave 25 bonus XP to a PC for buying a frightened mule from an impatient carter and calming the mule down because it was RP gold. 25XP might not sound like a lot, but it adds up session after session.

I gave the Ancestral Barbarian 25XP for arguing that the party should not loot the sarcophagus in the dungeon because it disrespected someone’s ancestor.

My point is, do you use positive reinforcement to reward your players for doing the things you think are good for the group? (Not the party of characters, the group at the table.)

I sometimes grant XP for roleplaying, but more often just combat than not. A few time I have had my characters get XP for roleplaying, and making allies. 

I once gave 2,300 XP (then divided it among my party) for making an ally with a Hobgoblin Warlord that lived in an underground city, (this was in Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage) and they continued helping the goblinoid city. They helped them conquer the first 4 levels of Undermountain, and assisted the king in getting a Gem of Truesight and a Dagger of Blindsight (The warlord was blind and his servants didn't know it). They helped stabilize much of Undermountain, and created a nice way to get through the first few levels of Undermountain without combat.

I once gave 500 XP to my party's Paladin for building a temple (more like a stronghold) dedicated to Torm in Waterdeep when he discovered there was no place of worship for Torm in the city.

I normally don't do this, my players are younger and still learning how to roleplay correctly, but awarding XP is a nice way to urge them to get into that person's state of mind.

In terms of granting XP... again my Champions experiences color my decisions as a GM, but in Champions, you got XP for “completing missions,” “accomplishing goals,” “problem solving,” and “roleplaying well” (among other, less common means). So in Champions, you assigned an XP value to the entire adventure (which usually was short, 2-3 evenings of play max). Then if there was a riddle or puzzle in it that had to be solved, it was +1 XP (in Champions, a handful of XP is like gaining a level in D&D), and +1 XP for RPing well, +2 for something really spectacular.  

D&D at the time only awarded XP for killing things and taking their treasure (kills and XP per GP of value) as I recall, but we eventually converted to something similar. That is... there is a goal to the adventure. Let’s say, getting an artifact back from an evil monster boss. The monster, his minions, etc., combined, are all worth some amount of XP. I would add it all up as a GM. Then, no matter how you got the artifact back — by killing, by trickery, by magic, whatever — you got the full XP for the “dungeon” even if you had done something that let you by-pass all the fighting. The idea was to make the XP awards goal-oriented rather than just summing them up over a pile of bodies and heaps of coins. I multiplied the sum of everything by about 80%, and then, because the typical Champions scenario awarded about +25% XP for good RP, would add up to +25% of the “kill and treasure” XP value to the adventure for RPing. The idea here was, if you complete the goals and you RP your character reasonably well, you get all the XP you would have gotten under the old system. If you don’t RP well, then you’ll get a little less XP than you would have under the old system.

This worked pretty well — players quickly found that RPing well got them more XP so they did it more. And, since they no longer had to kill and steal to get XP, I often found them being less murderous, much more willing to talk/negotiate, and much more interested in finding ways to avoid unnecessary fights rather than get into them (because the XP was awarded either way, as long as they accomplished their goals).

This probably never would have happened, though, if not for Champions. It was really Champions that turned my group into role players rather than hack-and-slashers... and when we saw how much fun that was, it made some of us (especially me and my best friend) want to transfer the same level of RP and IC-ness back into D&D. Then when that worked we just used it everywhere.

My home game plays with milestones instead of tracking XP, but honestly we've been playing for over a year now and if we were only rewarded XP specifically for killing enemies we'd all still be around level 6 or something. A lot of our games are focused more on social and political challenges rather than straight combat, and not having character leveling tied specifically to killing has made a lot of characters softies, in the sense that they often choose not to fight opponents to death or unconsciousness, but rather either talk them out of combat completely from the start, or fight them long enough to convince them they can't win then talk them out of combat.  

It's a great motivator for roleplay to have a system where characters aren't in the mind set that anything they're doing that isn't combat means they're not progressing with their characters.

I reward puzzle solving, clue gathering, and social encounters just as much as I reward combat. I have a simple system for determining what earns XP for social encounters. Did it reflect the goals of the character? Did it reflect the goals of the party? Was it done in a way consistent with the character? If the answers to those questions were generally “yes” then I assess how well they did compared to how important I think the encounter was, or how impactful on the world around them. eg-

• Buying a couple potions? Not so much.
• Finding a clue or an adventure hook? Absolutely.
• Improving the lives of both a carter and his mule while everyone around them was ignoring the situation? Sure.
• Making an impression (good or bad) on the traveling bard that could make them famous or infamous? Of course!

Then I ask two simple questions: Did they learn from it? Then they get bonus points. Did it unduly jog the spotlight for an extended period of time? Then they get fewer-no XP for the encounter. (If they took a while but it was fruitful then fine, everyone takes an hour for personal goals once in a while. If it stole the spotlight for the whole session and lead to nothing then I am not rewarding that.)