The WHAT and WHY of Roleplay

It seems that the recent renaissance enjoyed by tabletop roleplaying games can be pretty directly attributed to the rise in related streamable content on the internet. Shows like Critical Role, Acquisitions Incorporated, and the Adventure Zone have piqued a lot of interest in RP games, specifically Dungeons & Dragons, and frankly, I’m all for it. 

While I love being able to watch streamers and content creators playing my favourite games, they have also (unwittingly) heralded a shift in the WAY the game is played now. In the past RP games weren’t entertainment for external consumption, because the only place to find it was in the living rooms and basements of your friends and acquaintances. It wasn’t something to be quietly observed; that would’ve been weird and voyeuristic. No, if you wanted to experience D&D, you had to play.

Now, however, you may find yourself with a player who is coming to your game with the expectation that it will look more like Critical Role, complete with accents and deep character work. If their main experience with RP games has been watching them on Twitch, it’s understandable that that’s what they’d expect the game to be. After all, that’s what makes watching these streams so entertaining. However, a more casual player might find that kind of environment deeply intimidating, and might be turned off playing all together if they feel that’s what will be expected of them.

I have specific recommendations about how to accommodate heightened levels of roleplay in your home games. And how to make sure your players feel comfortable enough to try their hand at it. But first, let’s look into why roleplaying can be so difficult for some players. 

Roleplay

Take a second, close your eyes, and think about you and your friends sitting around a table and roleplaying. You may be imaging a melodramatic, farsical scene of you and your friends, tears streaming down your face as you playout a funeral for the party’s horse. Replete with bouts of dramatic cry-screaming and intense nostril flares. I kid. But If something like that is your understanding of what roleplaying is, then I want to fill you in on something very important: that’s not just roleplaying, it’s playacting.

What’s the difference? Well, playacting is a type of roleplaying, but not all roleplaying is playacting. It’s a very a-square-is-always-a-rhombus sort of situation.

Roleplaying itself can be much simpler than playacting. I can speak in the first person, describe my character’s actions as my own, and make decisions which are appropriate to the perspective of my character, whether or not they’re reflective of how I, as a player, would handle a similar situation. And that’s roleplay. That’s all that’s required. 

The main thing to remember is that playacting is mostly for other people. This is what your favourite D&D streamers are doing. They’re acting, for an audience. And that audience isn’t each other. It’s YOU. It’s a performance. They’re not just doing it for themselves anymore. They’re doing it for YOU! 

So. Roleplaying isn’t playacting. You don’t need to mimic a British accent and screw up your face like a haughty Elf in order to roleplay. But, you can if you want! Just don’t go around telling other people that they’re not roleplaying if they don’t deeply bow as the DM describes the king’s descent from the royal throne. That doesn’t make you a better roleplayer, it just makes you a jerk.

Also, when I say roleplaying going forward, I am referring to roleplay and playacting together. 

Nervous laughter in the theatre and why roleplay is hard. 

Acting is hard, and there are not many people who can do it at all, let alone do it well. It’s a very rare skill. Even the actors of Critical Role, at the beginning of season 2, had difficulty doing it. And they are TRAINED, PROFESSIONAL ACTORS. 

You know what else is hard to do? Improv. If you thought acting was hard and uncomfortable, then try it without the chance to practice first. And, let’s be real, that’s exactly what D&D is. There’s no script here; everyone is just making it up as they go.

You ever wonder why so many people are bad actors? Why you’re not better at it? I mean, you were a great actor, once. You likely used to jump around pretending to be a superhero, or maybe you pretended to be a master chef in a Playdough kitchen. Personally, I used to run around a field with my friend and we’d call ourselves Plasma Boy and Diesel Man.

Kids have no shame. They have relatively little social anxiety. And that is why they make superlative little actors. It’s as we grow that self-consciousness, anxiety, and fear of social exclusion have made us far too nervous to allow us the good fun of putting on a cape and jumping on the bed. The anxiety regarding this is so ingrained in our subconscious that lots of us LITERALLY can’t act.

Some people cry if they have to speak in front of people. It’s a legit phobia some folks have. And that’s why they say that acting is about being vulnerable. Exposing yourself. That acting, real acting, is hard and scary. The fear behind it is fucking primal. No joke. 

Here’s how debilitating it is. An experience I have personally witnessed, and I suspect some of you might have as well. In the theatre. Movie gets real. Someone on screen is experiencing something raw and horrible, something that is very hard to watch. The screen is being destroyed by super emotions. Then, somewhere, way in the back of the theatre, a group of teenagers giggle. 

Are they monsters? No. They’re just supremely uncomfortable. We’ve all been there. You can get pissed at those kids for disrespecting the moment, or you can understand that they are currently being affected by feelings they’re having trouble processing and they’re defending themselves from that the only way they can.

Some people get a similar feeling when they roleplay, even if they’re not playacting. 

Which brings us back to the true number one rule, the most important standard you can set at your D&D table: don’t be an asshole.

Someone is struggling to stay in character? That’s fine! Someone wants to dig deep and really inhabit their character, complete with accent and mannerisms? Cool! The long and the short of it is, there’s no wrong way to do this, and as long as you’re giving people room to try new things and explore without judgement, there’s room for everyone to have fun.

Ground Rules

A ground rule is an agreement made at the outset of a session which sets up certain parameters for how you will proceed. They’re the perfect mechanism for creating an environment which is conducive to roleplaying. I have a whole set of them, actually, involving: enhancing, trust, talking, love, inherent good, fungibility, anti-anarchism, equality, violence, and distractions. 

These rules will help to create mechanisms for ensuring people don’t feel uncomfortable at the table. Moreover, I’ll give you tips on how to talk about these issues with your players, how to nip problems in the bud before they become game-killers, and how to balance the needs of everyone at your table. Because, as I’ve said a billion times by now, roleplay is scary. If we’re going to do it, we need to do it respectfully and with compassion. 

More articles to come. They will explain these ground rules and how to implement them. 

That’s it for today. I want to thank you for reading my first ever blog post! As a long-time player and DM, this is a topic I’m passionate about, and I can’t wait to share more of my ideas with you! Have friends who are interested in D&D/roleplaying games, or who have talked about trying their hand at DMing? Send them my way!