this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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I'm bad at the role playing part, suggest a character or trait to separate the P from the C (self.dnd)
submitted 1 year ago by Piatro to c/[email protected]
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Title. Friend group and I play regularly but most of us are bad at the role playing part of it to the point where it's hard to tell when the player or the character are speaking in some scenes. Conversations are stiff. We can't use too heavily modified voices because we're playing remotely. My character is about to die (probably!) so help me pick a character or trait of my new character that someone not comfortable roleplaying can stick to without feeling weird about it!

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[–] Piatro 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's part of the problem in that I can tell you stats and that he believes that generally people deserve to live, to the point where he has died and caused a party member to die to save someone else, but I can't tell you anything about his personality other than it's me, and every character I ever play is like that. Trying to do something different ends up being annoying (my preachy dwarf cleric) or bland (young naïve wizard).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You say that but I bet he's not as much of a self-insert as you say. One of the defining features of a TTRPG character is that they are willing to go on dangerous, even life threatening adventures. These adventures almost never make sense to go on, they are extremely high risk for not a lot of reward. You say your character is a self insert, but also that he has literally died to save someone else. Have you personally literally given your life to save someone else?

I would suggest to you that any rational person, after being nearly killed doing a thing, would stop doing that thing. Your character has literally been killed while adventuring, yet is still an adventurer. That's more than selfless, that's suicidal. I'm guessing you personally don't have as much of a death wish as your character, so maybe think about why he chooses to keep adventuring, knowing it will probably be the thing that kills him. What does he stand to gain? If he wanted to just do good deeds, why doesn't he go get some other job where he can provide his abilities as a service in a city? Why adventuring?

[–] Piatro 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah very good questions! Never quite figured it out in the backstory. Do you think a characters reason for adventuring is tied to how you would play them as a character? Also I'm conscious of going too serious with it. One of our party is a warlock who thinks clerics are just stick up warlocks and has a distinct, and funny (to the players at least!) personality, they're fun to play with, I don't want to make a too serious character who's just not fun to play with.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah my number 1 question when creating a character is "why are they an adventurer?" This also means that you will have a motivation that you can use to ground your decisions. I'd recommend if you haven't already seen it to check out this video. It's long but is a fantastic explanation of what is important to think about in order to roleplay. It has nothing to do with a funny quirk or voice, and has everything to do with understanding your character's motivation.

You still haven't shared anything about your character with me, but if you want some ideas or brainstorming I can definitely help out. I'd need to know their race/class/background/subclass and any backstory details you've already established.