#me trying to find advice for doing better improv in ttrpgs; and All of It either completely misses the point

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

do you ever just try to seek out advice for something you struggle with, find something that comes with glowing recommendations that Changed Everything(tm) for the people reccing it, and then when you read it it's so bad that it gives you a better idea of what your actual problem is just by dint of articulating why it sucks

[cloaksandcapes]

Wrestling with Roleplaying

Dear DM Robbie, I play a Druid in a campaign that occurs weekly and I have an issue with consistently roleplaying as my character. My personality sometimes sneaks out in the character, how do I differentiate better between myself and my character? It’s my first roleplay-heavy campaign and I want to be able to take it seriously and measure up to the other players. -Wrestling with Roleplaying Dear Wrestling with Roleplaying,

Let me start by assuring you, this isn’t a unique issue to grapple with. Like most of our insecurities, it probably seems like it’s a bigger issue to you than it is. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t steps you can take to improve your focus and roleplaying. Like all things, practice helps.

The first thing I’d like to point out is that during a session in any TTRPG, no one expects you to stay in character the whole time. We are still playing a game and part of the fun of TTRPGs is that we are both ourselves and our characters. Sometimes the things we say or feel might overlap with our character's feelings.

It’s fine to crack jokes in a session that your character might not make and let your table know, “That’s Robbie speaking, not Xana!” or “That is entirely out of character!”

When it comes to improving your roleplay and trying to stay in character as much as possible, you could practice some methods of getting into character before your session. A common one that a lot of people practice is creating a playlist for your character. Music or songs that remind you and help you center yourself within that personality.

It may also help to find ways to physically separate yourself from your character. Does your character have a unique voice? You don’t need to be a skilled voice actor for this one or even use accents. There are a lot of great, subtle, and easy ways to achieve this. Ginny Di did a great video explaining how.

Developing a voice, or a unique way of carrying yourself when you are being your character versus you helps quite a bit with slipping up and letting some of yourself shine through. It’ll also help when you say something out of character because everyone at the table will be able to tell the difference. Here’s a great blog post by Scriv the Bard on various ways you can help yourself get into character.

At the end of the day though, you’ll get better as time goes on. Especially if this is one of your first campaigns with heavy roleplay. But try not to be too hard on yourself, because no matter what characters we play, parts of us will always shine through.

A great example is Sam Riegel and Fresh Cut Grass in the Bells Hells campaign of Critical Role. The character was a big divergence from the chaos gremlins Sam played in Campaigns 1 and 2 as Scanlan Shorthalt and Knott\Veth the Brave, but he still finds a way to bring that chaos to the table even as FCG.

If you have a question or a situation you'd like advice on from Dungeon Master Robbie, you can submit it via this link, https://forms.gle/d4rib7nR9kiHYf3fA You can also find all future Dear DM Robbie posts on Patreon for Free.