The Civilized Guide to Tabletop Gaming, page 11
In order to get the best experience when playing RPGs, there are a few basic rules you need to know:
Buy an RPG Set in a Universe That Captures Your Imagination
Here’s the truth: The rules don’t matter if the universe isn’t interesting or exciting to you. There are RPG systems for virtually every genre, as well as for nearly every popular franchise (including Star Wars, Firefly, Lord of the Rings, and Doctor Who). If there’s a particular universe that you and your group are intimately familiar with and would love to play pretend in, that’s the one you should pick, not the one that seems popular or most talked about. If elves, dwarves, and dragons don’t do it for your group, don’t buy an RPG set in a fantasy universe, even though it’s the one that is most popular.
Get the Right Dice for Your RPG System
The most popular systems of RPGs use a d20 to test for success and a variety of other dice to resolve damage and character leveling. Read your rulebook before buying your dice or anything else. It should have a list of what supplies and dice you and your party will need in order to get playing. You don’t want to end up with a horde of d20s when what you needed were d6s.
You and Your Dice
Role-playing gamers use certain common abbreviation, including ones for dice. A ten-sided die, for example, is a d10; a six-sided die is a d6, and so on. Another useful abbreviation to know is NPC, which stands for nonplayer character. This is any character who appears in the story and is role-played by the DM.
Anything Is Possible
The fact of the matter is that if you can reasonably describe your character doing something, and how he would do it, it’s likely that the DM will allow it.
Use your imagination and be descriptive. The more detailed you are with your actions, the more plausible an action may seem to your DM. That, in turn, may lower the success value for any difficulty for tests you need to make. Speaking of which .
Difficulty Is Relative in RPGs
When you start RPGing, you describe an action your character is taking. Sometimes your DM will interject, asking you to make a test for success (typically a dice roll). Basic activities (like walking somewhere or running) are presumed so easy you can do them without testing for success. In most RPGs, these tests are dice rolls.
Slightly harder actions like walking up some slightly slippery steps may require a test, but success is significantly more likely than not, unless your character has a flaw that makes him, her, or it clumsy. Don’t get irritated by these tests (sometimes called “checks”). The DM is just making sure your character can really do what you think he can do.
Playing the Game
Imagine a group is playing that includes Regina (the DM) and Roger, one of the players.
Roger: Okay, my fighter leaps up the stairs to engage the ogre standing at the top.
Regina: The stairs are slippery with the blood of the spiders the ogre has just slain. What’s your Dexterity?
Roger: 11.
Regina: Okay, make a Dex check for me. Roll a d20.
Roger: Rolled an 8.
Regina: Your Dexterity score increases that by 1. You make it up the stairs, but you slip on the way, and the ogre gets an extra attack against you.
Roger: Cool!
The better your character’s statistics (covered later in this chapter), the greater the chance of increasing your roll. If your Dexterity modifies your roll by 3 and you’re trying to beat a 5 Dex check, you only need to roll a 2 or more on the die to be successful. (Of course, if your character is clumsy, he may have a modifier that subtracts 1 from the die result, so you’d need a 6. See how it works?)
The more difficult the action your character is taking (picking a lock, doing an acrobatic somersault jump into combat, intimidating a grizzled bartender who has seen it all), the less likely success is and the higher a value you’ll need to roll.
Crits!
Many systems have in place a way for players to make critical fails and successes. Typically these rolls can’t be modified up or down with skill stats as they represent outstanding success or abysmal failure.
Have Fun with It
Sometimes the best part of playing an RPG isn’t being successful, getting the loot, or saving the day. It might instead be the moment where you accidentally deafened your friend’s character in one ear because you miscast a spell, or when you brought your friends to tears with laughter after playing your dim-witted barbarian as a punch-wizard trying to explain to the weakling scholar how to cast his signature spell, head smash.
The best moments in campaigns aren’t just the epic victories; they’re also the small moments where the game, your imagination, and the collective suspended disbelief of those in the room make the scene come alive, and those become the things you remember.
Make a Playable Character
Whether you’re new to RPGs or you’re a role-playing veteran, a key element to your fun and enjoyment (as well as that of those around you) is how playable your character is. Character stats aside, being able to pin down your character’s motivations and articulate her actions and reactions will make your own playing experience both engaging for yourself as well as immersive and fun for your party.
It’s thus very important to any role-player that she creates a character that is intuitive for her to play but is also interesting, engaging, and has room to grow and develop. Here are things you want to think about when you create your character.
Who Are You Basing This Character On?
It’s easier to role-play a character when you have a frame of reference. It doesn’t matter who you pick as your character’s starting point for her personality, just that it’s intuitive and straightforward for you to refer to and remember. Some suggestions:
Think of an iconic fictional character and use that as a foundation for your character. Batman as a vengeance-seeking paladin makes sense, as does a warrior-class character based off of Wolverine. Constructing a character with something concrete in mind gives you room to envision how those characters would react in various situations. In this way you can role-play your character’s reactions easier.
Be an exaggerated version of yourself. Try to play a heroic, virtuous version of you, or maybe an evil-twin version of you. It’s easy to use you as a template and emphasize aspects of yourself to frame a character that is intuitive to play.
Be someone you love or hate. Got a boss whom you’d love to play as a dull barbarian lout or cowardly sorcerer? Role-play him!
How Will You Incorporate His Stats Into the Way You Play Him?
A character’s statistics may have an effect on how you choose to play him. A lower Intelligence score may mean your character may not be very logical, though he may still be charming. A lower Charisma score doesn’t always mean a shy character; it may instead translate to someone who is just bad at interacting with people positively. The character may be rude, socially awkward, or someone who makes others uncomfortable by peppering innuendo into every conversation. (As an example, television’s Gregory House obviously has a low Charisma score, but no one ever accused him of being shy.)
When you think about stats for a character, don’t just play your character obviously. Make it fun for you (and everyone else) by doing something interesting that fits your character's stats and background story. A low intelligence character can be played in many ways, including as a naive childlike monk, a barbarian who only knows which end of an axe to hold, or a high charisma bard who thinks himself a rhymer but can't rhyme anything with the word song. Feel free to think outside the box.
What Might Make Exploring This Character Interesting?
Each character should have an element of intrigue, a secret motivation, or some sort of backstory that you and your DM can explore at a later date. You don’t have to hash it out by yourself, but having a few character quirks supported by an interesting backstory that isn’t obvious will give you the opportunity to explore those story hooks.
For example, not everyone will know your character has a secret phobia about dogs. Your DM should know and may use it by exposing you to some cuddly little puppies and revealing the phobia to your party. That, in turn, might lead to you hunting down the werewolf pack that slaughtered your family when you were young.
You want an interesting and intuitive character that is fun to role-play, because you’re going to be spending untold hours as this character interacting with the other characters in the game. Rolling dice to resolve combat actions is one thing, but the real interactions within a particular RPG universe are done outside of combat. That’s when the thought you put into your character during its creation will really pay off.
Play Pretend Well—Three Rules for Every RPG Player
One of the keys to enjoying the role-playing experience is having improvisational skills. Being able to react and respond in character in relation to other characters is the basis of improv. It’s essential to playing pretend well; doing so helps scenes within your adventure advance. Solo tabletop RPGs are unpopular for a reason: Interacting with the other player characters and the DM are as much a part of the role-playing experience as battling monsters. These sorts of interactions mean being able to think on your feet; you have to be open to some zany antics every once in a while, but that’s half the fun.
Being a great improviser means being a role-player who is fun to play with. So here are rules to keep you focused on being the kind of group member others will brag about.
Accept the Reality Set Before You
The DM sets the framework of the world for you. Your party members are a part of the world. The world is likely full of adversaries you’ll eventually have to fight, but there’s no point in fighting the world itself. Arguing with your DM about the world that is constructed for you is not only frustrating for the other players around the table, but it also gets away from the part of role-playing that is play. Instead, it stalls the momentum of the adventure.
If your DM describes an orc adversary as pink, despite the fact that you know they’re green, there is no point in arguing. Just roll with the world set before you and keep the adventure going. Don’t try to paint the world as you wish it to be. You never know—maybe the pink orc indicates a spell a wizard cast on your party to make you colorblind to greens.
Not arguing also means not stalling play by refusing to make decisions about what you and your party should do. If you have a leader, follow her decisively. Just like when playing any other game, when it comes time to take your action, be decisive and act rather than hem and haw about what your move will be. It’s better to be brash than boring in an RPG.
Add to and Interact with the World
Instead of fighting and denying the world you are adventuring in, add to it and interact with it. Talk to nonplayer characters (NPCs) played by your DM, investigate the road less taken, and use your character to make your mark in the world you’re exploring. Don’t just be a character who passes through it.
Playing the Game
Imagine that you’ve been asked to defeat a slaver who has been abducting locals. You can stab him, free the enslaved locals, and go back to town for a reward. But that is just going through the motions and treating an adventure for justice as a fetch quest.
Think of an alternative way to add some spice while still accomplishing the objective. Maybe you capture the slaver and bring him back to the townspeople to face justice in a uniquely befitting manner. Or instead maybe you bring back his decapitated head on a pike and spike it into the ground in the town square for all the townspeople to see. What you do depends in large part on how you’re role-playing your character. Each of these options is a way to inject your character into the story and have him become an element in the world.
It can be very easy to get caught up in simply accomplishing tasks and achieving objectives when playing an RPG, particularly if the story feels linear. But use your actions to help tell the story of your adventure. Taking the extra time may yield more interesting options and take you down new paths.
Try to Make It Fun
Sometimes on gaming night you may not be focused. Or perhaps your dice are continually rolling so low, so your character is as useful to the rest of the party as a fish’s bicycle. Sometimes things aren’t much fun for you in that moment. Every experienced RPGer has been there.
In those games and moments, it’s really important to focus on not detracting or ruining the experience of those you are gaming with. Concern yourself instead with trying to enrich their experience, whether that’s focusing less on combat and more on interacting with (and possibly antagonizing) their characters or characterizing your poor luck in entertaining ways. When you have a run of bad luck, don’t withdraw from the game. Bringing attention to your personal (rather than your character’s) misery breaks the suspension of disbelief. Instead, go deeper into the game and channel your disappointment in your dice into some awesome characterization to help keep the other players focused on the game rather than their friend-turned-Sulk sitting at the table.
For example, given a spiral of bad luck, your character might get irrationally superstitious, at least until she sees her luck return. It’s funny to imagine and role-play a low Intelligence character trying all sorts of wacky remedies (like licking toads or becoming vegan) to lift a perceived curse.
That sounds a whole lot better than just playing Candy Crush on your phone (which you shouldn’t have out anyway).
Use your imagination to become more immersed and more invested in the story of your character and your group. You’ll be surprised how much that investment will pay off in fun.
Keeping the Band Together: Three Rules to Keep the Adventure Interesting
Keeping a group of adventurers, each with his or her own motivations for adventuring, focused and working in unison toward the same goal can be a bit of a challenge, though role-playing through those character differences can be fun.
With that said, here are a few rules to follow so that even though your group might not be the most harmonious, you can still move the adventure forward.
Have a Leader
The leader decides what paths your adventure will take. He may ask for advice from the party, but ultimately the decision should be his.
There may not be any reason for your group to have a specific leader. It certainly doesn’t have to be some democratic decision—the leader might be the person whose character is the most charismatic or the most power hungry. The reason doesn’t matter, but having a leader will help you make decisions so your group stays together on your adventure and all players have the opportunity to interact in a given situation. Branching off into individual adventures is a quick path to disengaging the other players.
Be Willing to Role-Play Interesting Party Dynamics
An amoral thief and a morally righteous cleric walk into a tavern. That’s not the beginning of a joke; it’s the beginning of an adventure. It sets up a relationship that will be fun to role-play for gaming session after gaming session.
On Character Alignments
Some games offer alignment options for characters, which help shape the motivations of characters and gives you a sense of how to play them. The most common alignment system is one that describes a character as existing on an axis of society’s values (Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic) as well as an axis of the character’s own internal morality (Good, Neutral, and Evil).
For example, Superman would be classified as Lawful Good, Batman as Chaotic Good, Lex Luthor as Lawful Evil, and the Joker as Chaotic Evil. There are some really fun and interesting pop culture alignment grids online using characters from virtually every fandom that you can use to help find your character’s compass.
Interesting party dynamics can mean playing out different party dynamics because of polar opposite perspectives. Two people might play characters whose alignments are similar but who egg each other on to raising the stakes. Playing a character with two fighters who have a strange rivalry when it comes to equipment might be a fun element to role-play. Characters spending money on impractically large swords or trying to convince each other that theirs is the superior pair of boots, set of armor, or headband might mean role-playing high-stakes games of rock-paper-scissors.
Take the time to figure out how your character feels about each of the other characters in the party and work out, through role-play, how that manifests in their interactions. It’s a fun way to keep the relationships interesting.
Evolve
Your character’s stats aren’t static, so you should expect her perspectives and personality to change as well.
Your character may have a phobia of cats but may get saved midcombat by the druid who turned into a panther to kill all the foes surrounding you. This might be a pivotal moment for your character and how she looks at cats and druids.
If you treat your character as a fixed point rather than an evolving part of the story, you rob yourself of the opportunity to change and find her place within the group. Evolving your character so she works better (however that looks) as a member of the party is a key part of having fun and being a good party member.
