Ten Pillars of Roleplaying
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 2:53 am
The Ten Pillars of Roleplaying
What is roleplaying? Basically, it’s nothing more than assuming a false personality in order to play a character, much as an actor assumes the identity of the screen personality he’s portraying.
So what are the aspects that determine roleplaying in the context of a D&D game? I see 10 of them.
1. Alignment - Many people view this aspect of roleplaying backwards. Actions determine alignment, alignment does not determine actions. A paladin does not avoid killing innocents simply because he’s Lawful Good…he does so because as a paladin he does not see killing innocents as appropriate or acceptable behavior. It's his viewpoint and behavior which makes him Lawful Good. This may be a subtle difference to some, but there is indeed a difference. In the first instance, his alignment prevents him from performing an action. In the second, he avoids that action because of who he is. A paladin by his very virtue would never do such a heinous thing, and it’s because he thinks that way that he becomes Lawful Good. To say that the paladin doesn’t kill innocents because Lawful Good characters cannot do that is not roleplaying. If a player feels restrained from having his character commit evil acts, then the player obviously doesn’t want to play a good aligned character. The character carries the alignment, not vice versa.
2. Class - I often see people playing different classes in the same manner. I had one player in my group that ran a thief, and outside of the occasional pick locks attempt, you’d never know he was a thief. He charged into battle just like a fighter. His cleric was the same way, as was his wizard. That’s absurd. Characters from different classes will exhibit different behavior. While the stereotypical fighter may love to go tavern hopping and getting into drunken brawls, a wizard certainly wouldn’t feel the same way. Neither would druids see any reason to stay in a city or get a room at an inn when there’s plenty of room to sleep outside under the stars. Clerics should be eager to profess their faith and proselytize, and that is acceptable behavior for them. With other classes, professing religious beliefs is best avoided, as they are in most modern real world situations. The class picked for a character gives general guidelines for how the character will act. Druids by their very nature will like outdoor settings, and thieves will feel most at home in bustling cities.
3. Race - Perhaps the most abused area of roleplaying, race is a very critical factor when it comes to roleplaying. Not that characters need be shoe-horned into a mold, but different races have different outlooks, goals, and ways of thinking. Elves with their extremely long lifespans simply do not have the sense of urgency that humans do with their much shorter lives. An elven wizard would think nothing of devoting a decade to development of a single spell…that time is negligible to him. A human wizard simply cannot afford that luxury. Dwarves have a hardness to them that comes from being born and raised in extremely tough, harsh conditions. If a player is playing an elf the same was he plays a dwarf, human, or halfling, then he’s missing the point of roleplaying. What he’s playing is a variant of himself, not the character listed on his character sheet. If you look just at the human race in the real world, there are major differences in ways of thinking and acting. While certain human emotions and goals are universal (love, hate, the desire for family and success, etc), if you’re from rural Kansas and take a trip to Tokyo, Japan, you’re going to be in for some real culture shock! The same vice versa. It’s why business exectutives take classes in how to deal with other cultures efficiently…they need training because the cultures are so dissimilar, as are their respective ways of thinking. Now imagine an entirely different race, a non-human race like elves or dwarves. If such differences exist between different cultures within the human race, surely there would be differences between entirely different races non-related to humans!
4. Abilities Scores - This is a difficult one because it goes both ways…it’s hard to roleplay a character who’s smarter than you actually are, as well as hard to roleplay one less intelligent. We tend to think to our capacity, or our own comfort level. You take the average Joe Simpleton with an 80 IQ, you can’t expect him to think like a genius level wizard with a 150 IQ. It’s also a challenge for someone with a real world high IQ to play a dumb barbarian. The player naturally thinks like he does in real life. But that’s the challenge of roleplaying. It destroys suspension of disbelief when the uneducated barbarian on the team with the 8 Intelligence score figures out all the complicated puzzles in the game or devises intricate strategies and plots just because the player playing him has a PhD in real life. A character with a low Intelligence score should be played dumb. A character with a high Charisma score would naturally be outgoing and dynamic, a character with a high Strength tends to be very physical. It makes no sense to have ability scores if you don’t play the character appropriately. Playing a character with a 7 Wisdom as if he were Solomon is doing the game an injustice. Again, ability scores should not be a chain, but a guide. It’s rare for players to play their characters to match their ability scores, but it’s worth the effort to do so.
5. Personality - Usually overlooked, people tend to base personality on steroptypes of alignments. The Lawful Good character is a goody-two shoes, the Lawful Evil character is the conniving thief. That’s shallow. There are all sorts of personalities and personality quirks available to create interesting characters. Perhaps the Lawful Evil guy is a brutal bully who enjoys tormenting those less powerful than himself, but he cowers in the face of those more powerful than he is, becoming almost subservient. Such a character may seek to surround himself and associate with only those who are less powerful than himself, while avoiding his superiors. In a situtation where he’s the top dog, he may be very confident and bullying, but in the company of his betters, he becomes quiet and withdrawn. Or perhaps you have a character who struggles with his faith, often making excuses for his lapses of judgement or willpower. Perhaps the cleric whose order prohibits the drinking of liquor has a hard time avoiding the substance, so he uses excuses like “I’m just trying to fit in with the crowd to enable myself to better identify with them”, since he needs to have a rapport to spread the faith. Roleplaying such a character would entail a balance between avoiding liquor and letting himself go. The old 1st Edition DMG has plenty of tables for helping pick personality quirks. That’s a great reference.
6. Uniqueness - Perhaps the hardest aspect to pull off, many players never bother to try to make their character unique, prefering instead to play stereotypes. What’s memorable about the typical druid who lives in a grove? Not much. He may be remembered as “just another druid”. But what about that one druid who liked cities because he felt it was his duty to introduce more of a “natural” aspect to them? He’d often petition the ruler of the land to set up parks, ponds, gardens, and other natural areas within the city, to help beautify it. He helped farmers grow better crops, and then used that as an opportunity to teach the farmers about the worhip of nature, therefore spreading a respect and appreciation for all things natural. He’d administer herbs from the gardens to the sick in order to heal them. Why search out a cleric and pay him hard earned silver (or gold!) when you can have a cure in your own backyard? So this druid brought nature into the city. After all, cities are always intruding upon the natural world, displacing it…why not turn the tables? Now tell me, which druid would be more memorable in your mind? Yes, the second one would because he’s so unique. The player thought of a novel approach to playing the character.
7. Consistency - Here is where many players waffle. Consistency. They may play a character one way in a certain situation and another way in a different situation. For example, I knew a guy who played a cleric as this generous, kind person. However, when it came to dividing treasure he became greedy, rude, and unpleasant. Sometimes (usually when he had plenty of money), he’d give away silver to the poor. However, when he was saving up for some new armor or a new weapon he had his eye on, his purse strings suddenly became very tight, even when he’d encounter parishioners of his church in true need of help. Consistency is a key to a believable character. Yes, people do act out of character, and that’s fine…if it’s done sparingly, and not back and forth based on moment-to-moment situations. A cleric who truly cares about those in his church and with spreading the faith will be kind to people all the time, not just when he’s in a good mood because he just found a +1 weapon or a bag of gold. Lack of consistency gives the impression of a split personality.
8. Acting - Always a situation I encourage, it’s more fun for players to talk in character whenever possible, and to "perform" their actions instead of expaining them. For example, a fighter is looking to charter a boat for a mission, but one which will require the ship’s crew to help them haul treasure out of the dungeon. If the player simply says “My fighter tells the captain we need a ship and a crew to help haul treasure”, and the DM replies “The captain says ok, but it’s going to cost you”…that’s boring. Where’s the excitement in that? Where’s the first person dialogue? Imagine the improvement in mood and atmosphere if it went this way:
Player : “Grognard the Great walks up to the shipman and says ‘Hail my good captain! My teammates and I are looking to hire a ship. There be gold in it for you, and your crew as well! Provided that is, your crew is man enough to brave the Dungeon of Doom. Oh, no need for that worried look sir…I’m the great Grognard, and my team has defeated every monster we’ve ever faced. We’ll take care of any dangerous creatures there before your men ever set foot ashore!’”
DM: “Dungeon of Doom? My good fellow, you’re either brave…or stupid…to think you can conquer that fabled ruin. But when you speak of gold, ye be speaking my language. Tis a deal then…my ship will take you to the Isle of Doom, but my men stay aboard. If ye come out alive with your team, my crew will indeed go ashore to help haul treasure. But I’ll have to pay them handsomely just to make that dangerous trek…and therefore you’ll have to pay ME well!”
They call it roleplaying for a reason. And that reason is not to describe actions, but rather to roleplay actions.
9. Use of names/language - I’m a stickler for this one. I had a group of players once (for a short time thankfully) who referred to their characters as “the priest, the fighter, and the wizard” instead of “Abbot Earl, Grognard the Great, and Maligor the Wicked”. If a player refers to his character in the third person (and by class instead of name on top of that!), then he’s really outside his character, isn’t he? In real life, do you refer to yourself in the third person? If you’re an office worker, do you tell the boss “The office worker in cubicle #7 wants a raise” or do you say “I want a raise”? The same thing applies to the characters. During the game, you are that character, so why refer to it as some inanimate object? I insist that players also address each other by name. If a player says turns to another player and says “Drex, how about you buying drinks tonight? I lost my purse in that last combat”, that’s fine. However, it’s not roleplaying to have the player say “My ranger asks the barbarian to treat for drinks because he lost his purse.” Sure, there are times when it’s more efficient to just declare your actions. “I draw my sword.” “Sneaky Thomas tries hiding in shadows.” That’s fine. For declaring actions. But it’s not acceptable when roleplaying should be taking place, like when haggling over prices in the market, beseeching the cleric’s church to raise your dead teammate, or requesting an audience from the king. In-party discussion should also be first person. It makes the atmosphere more realistic. It gets you more involved. And this ties in to the language aspect. It’s not the easiest thing for most people to speak in medieval English. We just don’t know how. So I tell players to at least try speaking formal/proper English, and just cut out modern words and slang. For example, after a combat, saying “This party’s over!” suspends disbelief. Sure, it sounds cool…for a Hollywood movie! In AD&D though, it’s too “modern slang” and takes you out of the moment. Perhaps a more appropriate “Praise be to Odin, we’ve overcome the enemy!” would feel more in-character. It simply does not fit the mood of the game (assuming you have it set in quasi-medieval times) to speak with modern slang. It’s too familiar, too real world. Those players who can properly use “ye”, “thee”, and “thou” are very much appreciated!
10. Real and appropriate emotions - this is a quibble I have with gamers almost as much as I do with Hollywood. Nothing irks me more than going to see a sci-fi movie, and the characters meet the first alien life forms to arrive on earth, and what do they do? Bend over backwards to shoot off a clever one-liner or witty quip. Please! Talk about killing suspension of disbelief! Think about it…if you were to suddenly run into an actual Martian or a dragon that breathes fire, would you be dropping witty one-liners or ducking for cover? Players who, when confronted with a Great Wyrm Red Dragon, say “Cool! Looks like I may go up in level” are not only displaying inappropriate emotions, they’re not even speaking in game terms. I used to game with a group that placed little emphasis on roleplaying, and when my character got hit with an arrow, I grabbed my arm and cried out. Everyone jumped and asked if I was ok. My answer? “Yeah, I’m fine, why?”. It amazed me that they were shocked by roleplaying. It happened all the time. The DM would mention that we saw something huge flying overhead, and I’d instinctively crouch down at the table as if ducking while saying “Oh no!” or something to that effect. Amazing how that threw them every time. Till the very last game, they got caught by surprise by my roleplaying. Of course, they simply described their actions. When a party gets confronted with a dragon or a vampire or some dangerous situation, the players should express concern, fear, or dread. Dragons should evoke a sense of impending death and failure, not visions of experience points and leveling. At the same time, a character who finds a +1 sword but who lost two close teammates wouldn’t be jumping around screaming “Yippeeee!”. It’d be a more bittersweet reaction. When players supply realistic (or should I say appropriate and internally logical) reactions and emotions, the game can only benefit.
So those are my ten pillars of roleplaying. When these ten items are payed attention to, the game is always more fun, more exciting, and more believable. Which of course, makes for a better game.
What is roleplaying? Basically, it’s nothing more than assuming a false personality in order to play a character, much as an actor assumes the identity of the screen personality he’s portraying.
So what are the aspects that determine roleplaying in the context of a D&D game? I see 10 of them.
1. Alignment - Many people view this aspect of roleplaying backwards. Actions determine alignment, alignment does not determine actions. A paladin does not avoid killing innocents simply because he’s Lawful Good…he does so because as a paladin he does not see killing innocents as appropriate or acceptable behavior. It's his viewpoint and behavior which makes him Lawful Good. This may be a subtle difference to some, but there is indeed a difference. In the first instance, his alignment prevents him from performing an action. In the second, he avoids that action because of who he is. A paladin by his very virtue would never do such a heinous thing, and it’s because he thinks that way that he becomes Lawful Good. To say that the paladin doesn’t kill innocents because Lawful Good characters cannot do that is not roleplaying. If a player feels restrained from having his character commit evil acts, then the player obviously doesn’t want to play a good aligned character. The character carries the alignment, not vice versa.
2. Class - I often see people playing different classes in the same manner. I had one player in my group that ran a thief, and outside of the occasional pick locks attempt, you’d never know he was a thief. He charged into battle just like a fighter. His cleric was the same way, as was his wizard. That’s absurd. Characters from different classes will exhibit different behavior. While the stereotypical fighter may love to go tavern hopping and getting into drunken brawls, a wizard certainly wouldn’t feel the same way. Neither would druids see any reason to stay in a city or get a room at an inn when there’s plenty of room to sleep outside under the stars. Clerics should be eager to profess their faith and proselytize, and that is acceptable behavior for them. With other classes, professing religious beliefs is best avoided, as they are in most modern real world situations. The class picked for a character gives general guidelines for how the character will act. Druids by their very nature will like outdoor settings, and thieves will feel most at home in bustling cities.
3. Race - Perhaps the most abused area of roleplaying, race is a very critical factor when it comes to roleplaying. Not that characters need be shoe-horned into a mold, but different races have different outlooks, goals, and ways of thinking. Elves with their extremely long lifespans simply do not have the sense of urgency that humans do with their much shorter lives. An elven wizard would think nothing of devoting a decade to development of a single spell…that time is negligible to him. A human wizard simply cannot afford that luxury. Dwarves have a hardness to them that comes from being born and raised in extremely tough, harsh conditions. If a player is playing an elf the same was he plays a dwarf, human, or halfling, then he’s missing the point of roleplaying. What he’s playing is a variant of himself, not the character listed on his character sheet. If you look just at the human race in the real world, there are major differences in ways of thinking and acting. While certain human emotions and goals are universal (love, hate, the desire for family and success, etc), if you’re from rural Kansas and take a trip to Tokyo, Japan, you’re going to be in for some real culture shock! The same vice versa. It’s why business exectutives take classes in how to deal with other cultures efficiently…they need training because the cultures are so dissimilar, as are their respective ways of thinking. Now imagine an entirely different race, a non-human race like elves or dwarves. If such differences exist between different cultures within the human race, surely there would be differences between entirely different races non-related to humans!
4. Abilities Scores - This is a difficult one because it goes both ways…it’s hard to roleplay a character who’s smarter than you actually are, as well as hard to roleplay one less intelligent. We tend to think to our capacity, or our own comfort level. You take the average Joe Simpleton with an 80 IQ, you can’t expect him to think like a genius level wizard with a 150 IQ. It’s also a challenge for someone with a real world high IQ to play a dumb barbarian. The player naturally thinks like he does in real life. But that’s the challenge of roleplaying. It destroys suspension of disbelief when the uneducated barbarian on the team with the 8 Intelligence score figures out all the complicated puzzles in the game or devises intricate strategies and plots just because the player playing him has a PhD in real life. A character with a low Intelligence score should be played dumb. A character with a high Charisma score would naturally be outgoing and dynamic, a character with a high Strength tends to be very physical. It makes no sense to have ability scores if you don’t play the character appropriately. Playing a character with a 7 Wisdom as if he were Solomon is doing the game an injustice. Again, ability scores should not be a chain, but a guide. It’s rare for players to play their characters to match their ability scores, but it’s worth the effort to do so.
5. Personality - Usually overlooked, people tend to base personality on steroptypes of alignments. The Lawful Good character is a goody-two shoes, the Lawful Evil character is the conniving thief. That’s shallow. There are all sorts of personalities and personality quirks available to create interesting characters. Perhaps the Lawful Evil guy is a brutal bully who enjoys tormenting those less powerful than himself, but he cowers in the face of those more powerful than he is, becoming almost subservient. Such a character may seek to surround himself and associate with only those who are less powerful than himself, while avoiding his superiors. In a situtation where he’s the top dog, he may be very confident and bullying, but in the company of his betters, he becomes quiet and withdrawn. Or perhaps you have a character who struggles with his faith, often making excuses for his lapses of judgement or willpower. Perhaps the cleric whose order prohibits the drinking of liquor has a hard time avoiding the substance, so he uses excuses like “I’m just trying to fit in with the crowd to enable myself to better identify with them”, since he needs to have a rapport to spread the faith. Roleplaying such a character would entail a balance between avoiding liquor and letting himself go. The old 1st Edition DMG has plenty of tables for helping pick personality quirks. That’s a great reference.
6. Uniqueness - Perhaps the hardest aspect to pull off, many players never bother to try to make their character unique, prefering instead to play stereotypes. What’s memorable about the typical druid who lives in a grove? Not much. He may be remembered as “just another druid”. But what about that one druid who liked cities because he felt it was his duty to introduce more of a “natural” aspect to them? He’d often petition the ruler of the land to set up parks, ponds, gardens, and other natural areas within the city, to help beautify it. He helped farmers grow better crops, and then used that as an opportunity to teach the farmers about the worhip of nature, therefore spreading a respect and appreciation for all things natural. He’d administer herbs from the gardens to the sick in order to heal them. Why search out a cleric and pay him hard earned silver (or gold!) when you can have a cure in your own backyard? So this druid brought nature into the city. After all, cities are always intruding upon the natural world, displacing it…why not turn the tables? Now tell me, which druid would be more memorable in your mind? Yes, the second one would because he’s so unique. The player thought of a novel approach to playing the character.
7. Consistency - Here is where many players waffle. Consistency. They may play a character one way in a certain situation and another way in a different situation. For example, I knew a guy who played a cleric as this generous, kind person. However, when it came to dividing treasure he became greedy, rude, and unpleasant. Sometimes (usually when he had plenty of money), he’d give away silver to the poor. However, when he was saving up for some new armor or a new weapon he had his eye on, his purse strings suddenly became very tight, even when he’d encounter parishioners of his church in true need of help. Consistency is a key to a believable character. Yes, people do act out of character, and that’s fine…if it’s done sparingly, and not back and forth based on moment-to-moment situations. A cleric who truly cares about those in his church and with spreading the faith will be kind to people all the time, not just when he’s in a good mood because he just found a +1 weapon or a bag of gold. Lack of consistency gives the impression of a split personality.
8. Acting - Always a situation I encourage, it’s more fun for players to talk in character whenever possible, and to "perform" their actions instead of expaining them. For example, a fighter is looking to charter a boat for a mission, but one which will require the ship’s crew to help them haul treasure out of the dungeon. If the player simply says “My fighter tells the captain we need a ship and a crew to help haul treasure”, and the DM replies “The captain says ok, but it’s going to cost you”…that’s boring. Where’s the excitement in that? Where’s the first person dialogue? Imagine the improvement in mood and atmosphere if it went this way:
Player : “Grognard the Great walks up to the shipman and says ‘Hail my good captain! My teammates and I are looking to hire a ship. There be gold in it for you, and your crew as well! Provided that is, your crew is man enough to brave the Dungeon of Doom. Oh, no need for that worried look sir…I’m the great Grognard, and my team has defeated every monster we’ve ever faced. We’ll take care of any dangerous creatures there before your men ever set foot ashore!’”
DM: “Dungeon of Doom? My good fellow, you’re either brave…or stupid…to think you can conquer that fabled ruin. But when you speak of gold, ye be speaking my language. Tis a deal then…my ship will take you to the Isle of Doom, but my men stay aboard. If ye come out alive with your team, my crew will indeed go ashore to help haul treasure. But I’ll have to pay them handsomely just to make that dangerous trek…and therefore you’ll have to pay ME well!”
They call it roleplaying for a reason. And that reason is not to describe actions, but rather to roleplay actions.
9. Use of names/language - I’m a stickler for this one. I had a group of players once (for a short time thankfully) who referred to their characters as “the priest, the fighter, and the wizard” instead of “Abbot Earl, Grognard the Great, and Maligor the Wicked”. If a player refers to his character in the third person (and by class instead of name on top of that!), then he’s really outside his character, isn’t he? In real life, do you refer to yourself in the third person? If you’re an office worker, do you tell the boss “The office worker in cubicle #7 wants a raise” or do you say “I want a raise”? The same thing applies to the characters. During the game, you are that character, so why refer to it as some inanimate object? I insist that players also address each other by name. If a player says turns to another player and says “Drex, how about you buying drinks tonight? I lost my purse in that last combat”, that’s fine. However, it’s not roleplaying to have the player say “My ranger asks the barbarian to treat for drinks because he lost his purse.” Sure, there are times when it’s more efficient to just declare your actions. “I draw my sword.” “Sneaky Thomas tries hiding in shadows.” That’s fine. For declaring actions. But it’s not acceptable when roleplaying should be taking place, like when haggling over prices in the market, beseeching the cleric’s church to raise your dead teammate, or requesting an audience from the king. In-party discussion should also be first person. It makes the atmosphere more realistic. It gets you more involved. And this ties in to the language aspect. It’s not the easiest thing for most people to speak in medieval English. We just don’t know how. So I tell players to at least try speaking formal/proper English, and just cut out modern words and slang. For example, after a combat, saying “This party’s over!” suspends disbelief. Sure, it sounds cool…for a Hollywood movie! In AD&D though, it’s too “modern slang” and takes you out of the moment. Perhaps a more appropriate “Praise be to Odin, we’ve overcome the enemy!” would feel more in-character. It simply does not fit the mood of the game (assuming you have it set in quasi-medieval times) to speak with modern slang. It’s too familiar, too real world. Those players who can properly use “ye”, “thee”, and “thou” are very much appreciated!
10. Real and appropriate emotions - this is a quibble I have with gamers almost as much as I do with Hollywood. Nothing irks me more than going to see a sci-fi movie, and the characters meet the first alien life forms to arrive on earth, and what do they do? Bend over backwards to shoot off a clever one-liner or witty quip. Please! Talk about killing suspension of disbelief! Think about it…if you were to suddenly run into an actual Martian or a dragon that breathes fire, would you be dropping witty one-liners or ducking for cover? Players who, when confronted with a Great Wyrm Red Dragon, say “Cool! Looks like I may go up in level” are not only displaying inappropriate emotions, they’re not even speaking in game terms. I used to game with a group that placed little emphasis on roleplaying, and when my character got hit with an arrow, I grabbed my arm and cried out. Everyone jumped and asked if I was ok. My answer? “Yeah, I’m fine, why?”. It amazed me that they were shocked by roleplaying. It happened all the time. The DM would mention that we saw something huge flying overhead, and I’d instinctively crouch down at the table as if ducking while saying “Oh no!” or something to that effect. Amazing how that threw them every time. Till the very last game, they got caught by surprise by my roleplaying. Of course, they simply described their actions. When a party gets confronted with a dragon or a vampire or some dangerous situation, the players should express concern, fear, or dread. Dragons should evoke a sense of impending death and failure, not visions of experience points and leveling. At the same time, a character who finds a +1 sword but who lost two close teammates wouldn’t be jumping around screaming “Yippeeee!”. It’d be a more bittersweet reaction. When players supply realistic (or should I say appropriate and internally logical) reactions and emotions, the game can only benefit.
So those are my ten pillars of roleplaying. When these ten items are payed attention to, the game is always more fun, more exciting, and more believable. Which of course, makes for a better game.
Likewise if you're treating the character as a chess piece ala the old 1E/Gygaxian style, the gamist approach where the player is the person being challenged and the character is simply a tool, it might not be worth developing the character. 
