How to Roleplay: A Short Primer

So you want to learn how to roleplay. Perhaps you've watched Critical Role. Maybe you played a single game session at a convention. Perhaps you are just curious about joining that game your friends are playing. Congratulations and welcome to the hobby.

Definition of terms

Before I get started I need to define a few simple terms:

• Campaign: a series of connected roleplaying game sessions, typically played over multiple evenings.
• Game Master (GM): the person who describes the world and plays the minor and antagonist characters.
• One-shot: a self-contained story played over a single game session.
• Party: a group of player characters.
• Player character (PC): the character portrayed by a player, as opposed to the GM.

How to Roleplay

How do you portray a character? What do you do to transition from rolling dice in a one shot to playing in an ongoing campaign? Perhaps your only experience is watching someone roleplay on YouTube. How do you get started?

Like many things, the answer to how to roleplay is to dive in and start trying. Find yourself a group  and follow the rules for making a character. Then consider the following advice.

Know Your Character

Whatever game you are playing will describe how to make a character for that game. After you've completed that process you will have a character sheet. It will describe the character's attributes, skills, and maybe some background.

Your next step is to get inside your character's head.

What motivates them? Do they hunger for gold? Fight for honor? Or do they just want to complete this mission and then blow all the proceeds on a night on the town?

How do they deal with obstacles? Do they charge in or carefully consider the options? Does the character like to fight at range or close up? Do they love intellectual puzzles or prefer social networking?

What do they think about society? Does it need fixing? How? Would they break the law? Which laws? What do they see as the biggest problem to their community?

Think about how your character would ask these questions and any others that occur to you. There are no wrong answers (though you might want to consider your fellow players to avoid serious personality conflicts).

The important thing is to consider your character's personality and goals and then try to play that character consistently. The bookish librarian probably shouldn't be ignoring the dusty books the party finds without a good reason. The foolhardy musketeer should typically charge (or swing!) into battle without carefully considering the opposition.

Learn the Rules

Make an effort to learn the game rules, at least as they pertain to your character. You should know what to roll if you attack, what bonuses to add and how to determine damage. If your character has magic or other special powers familiarize yourself with the rules for those.

Doing this helps keep the game moving by reducing the need for other players or the GM to tell you what to roll, what to add, and how to interpret the result. That means more action (and story) happens and leads to richer, more full game sessions.

Describe Your Actions

Listen to what your GM and the other PCs do and describe. Then take the time to describe your actions. "Show, don't tell" holds here. Rather than say "I roll to attack the bandit" say "I level my crossbow at the lead bandit's head and fire."

Including what your goal can also be very helpful. For example stating "I swing on the chandelier to the other side of the gallery" tells us one thing. Saying "I swing on the chandelier to the other side of the gallery, right into the soldier taking aim at Alice's character" tells us something different.

To a certain extent description can compensate for learning the rules. If everyone knows what you are trying to accomplish, it becomes easier for the GM to determine the proper the rolls you need to make. In the chandelier example above, the first case might be just an athletics roll while the second case might require some sort of attack roll. Knowing which beforehand speeds play in addition to making the game more flavorful.

Build Off Others

Finally work with the other players and the game master. Build off the descriptions they provide. When the game master presents you with a dungeon to loot, don't say "my character wouldn't go into that tomb." Instead offer a compromise such as "I would go into the tomb if I knew it would get me closer to the six-fingered man. Perhaps he was seen there recently?"

The same extends to actions by the players. If the thief wants to check out the local thieves guild, your character shouldn't just say no. Perhaps you can offer to be distracted. Maybe you want to dissuade them because you have a past with them. You might want to even join them since you've heard your brother joined this group of criminals and you want to stop him from "ruining" his life.

This keeps the action moving forward and again leads to more full productive game sessions.

Game Master Advice

As a game master, all of the above advice counts for double.

Know your story and the world you are playing in. Make sure that the plot and characters are consistent and properly motivated. Bad guys do bad things for sensible reasons, not just to be evil.

Make sure you know the rules well. The players will rely on you to help them with any corner cases in the rules. If you find yourself in a spot where you don't know what the rules are, make a judgement and continue playing. But afterwards, find the right answer and make sure your adhere to that rule going forward.

Describe your characters' actions and the world they live in. The players depend on you to know what is going on and what their surroundings are.

Finally build off your player's actions and don't negate them. Sure sometimes they will fail at an action they described, but they still tried it. If they decide to go to town, don't just shut down that option because it messes with your plot. You are telling a story together and that requires compromise.

Conclusion

In the end roleplaying is about portraying a character in a story. Ask yourself two questions. Is everyone involved in the game is having fun? Are you telling a story? If you answer these yes then you succeeded at roleplaying. That is what matters.