by Richard Winterton

Created on: November 06, 2009

Anyone can take a character spreadsheet, fill out a set of numbers, pick a few cool sounding skills and write down cool names of some gear. In the end though, that side of tabletop RPGs is just function; the bones and organs of a set of rules.

It takes a special kind of player to Role-play.

Before I had ever filled out my first character sheet for Dungeons & Dragons, the only experience I had with RPGs was in video games. Whenever my tabletop-playing friends would go on about D & D and Shadowrun, I would usually answer with an apathetic "that's cool" before trying to change the subject. It was not until I finally played a game that I realized what they were all so excited about.

My first character was a Half-ling Bard named Theodore Reamus. It started with simple things: picking the best skills for optimal support and damage effect. Yet as I continued to develop him, I realized he was a lot more than a series of stats. He was a character just starting his epic journey.

For effect, I said he always wore tattered vagrant clothes and spoke in an Irish accent, despite the fact that the Feywilds are nowhere near Ireland. With the game master's permission, his instrument was "The Axe", a combination of a lute and two-handed axe. And whenever he cast his daily power "word of life", a chorus of woodland creatures came in to sing backup vocals on a version of "Circle of Life".

Now this game was more based on humor (the Arch-villain was a bartending necromancer from a village called Newcustle), so your own GM may not be as tolerant. Still, it illustrates what makes for good role-playing: you need to actually take up a role. This might sound easy, but it's something that both the player and the GM needs to remember.

First, the players need to remember that they're telling a story with the GM. If they want to just wield epic weapons and kill hordes of monster, they should just stick to World of Warcraft because they'll get just as much satisfaction from that (not that there is anything wrong with WOW). There is less of killing X number of gnolls or finding that one item being held by one random NPC. It's about being a character in a story.

For example, what class are you? A Paladin is guided by his morals and a deep-rooted sense of good. A Rogue will more than likely be out for himself or will be incredibly crude in manner and speech at times. Or you can choose to flaunt clich altogether. Try a rogue who breaks the law because he believes it to be tyrannical. Or a

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>