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Kol Korran
2012-09-22, 03:40 AM
These musings stems from a discussion between a player in my group and myself. He has taken his character quite seriously, especially from the roleplaying aspect- quite a background, interesting personality, quirks and traits, way of speaking, acting and so on... He imagined various likely scenarios and his character's reaction to them, so he could roleplay the character more easily, more naturally.

And yet, in actual play in many cases he find his roleplay less than satisfying. Not quite what he imagines his character would "feel" like as it may. This is mainly seen in conversation where the character is less cool/ suave/ witty and so on. The player himself IS quite cool/ suave and so on however, he is one of the most talented conversationalist I know, and the character's personality is quite close to his own.

Which led to the discussion: Many players seem to want their characters's dialogues and so on to be by great movies or series quality, but it's quite hard to do in play. This is true for DMs who wish their antagonists or other NPCs to be evocative and memorable, but most conversations with PCs (even when the players cooperate and don't try to purposefully ruin it) rarely go as the DM may have planned the conversation.

Movie series scripts work because script writers worked a lot of time to come with cool sentences to say and because there are many takes to make the saying sound perfect to be complemented by pose, tone and so on. But how can you try and come closer to that feel in a game? Do you have any thoughts? I know we should accept it won't be like our expectations unless we develop fantastical improvisational skills (One of us is a former actor, he does fairly well, but the rest of us are not) But we'd like to get better. We always aim to get better, as players and DM.

The players suggested to steal outright from movies/ series: to discuss with the DM a few scenes that inspired the character, and for the DM to supply quite similar scenes here and there, that the player and DM can then copy from the work. It might work, but to me it feels it's not quite the player's character, but rather the movie character, and besides- what will the other PCs do? we can try for them to play along, but it may be very hard to fit "realistically".

As a DM I've tried to plan conversations with key NPCs in a goal oriented approach- key pieces of conversations I keep in mind (usually about 2-3) which I then try to insert into the conversation. keeping actual "scripted" pieces short and easily fitting. It works for a more fluid conversation, but often with less memorable/ interesting sayings from the NPC.

Do you have any solutions you found useful?

TL;DR: Planning a character to say cool impressive things, movie quality style doesn't stand in the realities of roleplay- too much improvisation is needed. What are your thoughts/ solutions?

Kelb_Panthera
2012-09-22, 08:01 AM
There are really only two realistic options

Lower your expectations: live conversation almost never runs as smoothly or sounds as awesome as it does in movies simply because everyone involved in the conversation is writing his own portion as he goes, rather than one person writing the whole coversation and each participant memorizing it days, if not weeks, in advance. Even the most skilled of improvisationalists will only, ever-so-rarely, reach the level of quality of a scripted conversation.

Get flippin' fantastic at improv: Seriously, you're going to have to give Drew Carey and co. a run for their money in every conversation you have for this to get you great lines even every once in a while. It's doable, but quite frankly it reaches way past trying too hard, IMO.

Jack of Spades
2012-09-22, 08:49 AM
My immediate thought when reading through your post was about Deathwatch. In Deathwatch, everyone is playing a Space Marine, an Angel of Death Who Brings The Fury of The Emperor With Each Swing of His Mighty Blade. Thanks to hypno-conditioning, all space marines talk the sort of High Gothic they do in the legends. In short, this means grandiose, majestic statements and avoiding contractions. In shorter, the way the Asgardians talk in Thor.

The main way to do that is to go and read as many quotes of Imperial citizens and things as one can. Thus, one gains an easily referenced knowledge of what the speech pattern is like, what words and synonyms are common, and what cultural references the speech ought to be saturated with. This makes the roleplay a lot more immersive for everyone involved.

The upshot of this is that the easiest way to learn "cinematic" language and speak it easily is to study a lot of cinematic language. Specifically, any action-adventure media with a witty protagonist. That way, your brain is already running with the sort of witty banter programming necessary to get cinematic-feeling dialogue in your characters. That programming includes cool-sounding universal catchphrases, a wealth of quick, easily used responses and "burns," and casual jokes that can make your dialogue more loose-feeling. Possibly most important, the timing and cadence signposts are pretty consistent throughout the speech of the action-adventure genre and are a big contributor to the feel of the dialogue.

Also, if you can manage it, take public speaking classes. Most people are better conversationists than they think they are, and the character is just a mindset of the player. Public speaking classes are generally focused on exactly the kind of delivery that you're going for in looking for cinematic-style dialogue.

Failing all of that, you can always do what I do when I'm too lazy for voices: say "{Character} says {summary}." It's lazy and it kills immersion, but it beats completely messing up your character's voice/personality... To me, at least.

tl;dr Immerse yourself in the language you want to speak, take public speaking classes.

valadil
2012-09-22, 08:51 AM
I didn't get good at it until I started LARPing. I don't mean the foam swords and bean bag lightning bolts type, but theater style LARPing. That's the sort of game where you take over an academic quad at your local college and stick 40ish players in it for a weekend, giving them all sorts of plots and virtually no mechanics. In this sort of game you forget that you're a person playing a character and just play the character, leaving yourself behind. It's a lot easier to act like someone else when you're just being that person instead of being yourself thinking about that other person.

Will your every last line be as witty as something in a movie? Of course not. Even if you had a team of writers supporting you, your antagonists aren't going to be feeding you setup lines. But you'll probably end up with a couple good ones. Hold on to those.

I think this suggestion is actually in line with Kelb's suggestion of getting good at improv. LARPing is one means of doing so. Personally I found it easier than stage acting because there's no stage or audience. Everyone involved is interacting with you. BTW, if you need help finding LARPs, try colleges. Most of them have gaming clubs and are able to host large games because they have the facilities for it. Even if they don't host games, they'll probably have players who LARP at neighboring colleges. (Side note: I'm in Boston, so my perception of how many colleges are around may not be accurate anywhere but Boston.)

Darcand
2012-09-22, 08:54 AM
Keep your interactions short. Remember that, while speaking is a free action, a round is six seconds and keep your lines that short "When Gotham is in ashes, then you will have my permission to die." /attack, or "That's not incense" /BOOM! Also keep a few catch phrases up your sleeve for when you need them and don't be afraid to punctuate a good hit or dodge with an evil laugh. Alot of guys ignore the laugh and that's about standards.







Also, don't be afraid to steal from good movies.

Jack of Spades
2012-09-22, 09:23 AM
I didn't get good at it until I started LARPing. I don't mean the foam swords and bean bag lightning bolts type, but theater style LARPing. That's the sort of game where you take over an academic quad at your local college and stick 40ish players in it for a weekend, giving them all sorts of plots and virtually no mechanics. In this sort of game you forget that you're a person playing a character and just play the character, leaving yourself behind. It's a lot easier to act like someone else when you're just being that person instead of being yourself thinking about that other person.

Will your every last line be as witty as something in a movie? Of course not. Even if you had a team of writers supporting you, your antagonists aren't going to be feeding you setup lines. But you'll probably end up with a couple good ones. Hold on to those.

I think this suggestion is actually in line with Kelb's suggestion of getting good at improv. LARPing is one means of doing so. Personally I found it easier than stage acting because there's no stage or audience. Everyone involved is interacting with you. BTW, if you need help finding LARPs, try colleges. Most of them have gaming clubs and are able to host large games because they have the facilities for it. Even if they don't host games, they'll probably have players who LARP at neighboring colleges. (Side note: I'm in Boston, so my perception of how many colleges are around may not be accurate anywhere but Boston.)

Seconding this guy. Seconding him so hard.

Want to get good at roleplay? Do it with your whole body, in an environment where you're too far over the edge to be embarrassed about roleplaying.

In response to the Boston thing: people LARP around here all the time as well, so I don't think it's regional. But then again, I live in Denver, and the Rockies were practically made for fantasy LARP.

The things your player does already are also all very good ideas, by the way. I don't think anyone's mentioned that yet. Pre-writing how your character would act in a situation is a great way to build up a personal collection of awesome, cinematic things your character would say. If one has a bunch of those situational phrases pre-thought-out, then plugging them in at the right moment is child's play.

And steal from everything and everyone around you. Take all of their words, and make them your own, for he who has all the words, has all the power. :smallyuk:

Kitten Champion
2012-09-22, 01:29 PM
What I do is listen to audiobooks and practise the cooler sounding lines in the more attractive character's voices, instilling that dialogue in my memory until I've got the flavour down and can play with that vocabulary to imagine different lines. If you study a character enough, you can start to hear their voice in your head, how they'd react to situations and other characters until you can just slip into them like a used pair of slippers.

My current incarnation is a PF gunslinger based on Ferro Maljinn from the First Law Trilogy. She's not likely to deliver eloquence, and is mostly quiet, but has a blade-like tongue she's ready to use at any time and is always ready to express deep satisfaction in the suffering of her enemies... who outnumber the stars at this point. The voice I have in mind now, with that dangerous, superior, kind of stupid, and hateful sort of tone came from the audiobook performance of her character.

So when I play that character it takes no effort to invent a number of neat lines on the spot, and deliver those lines when it's natural.

Anxe
2012-09-22, 02:20 PM
My group handles dramatic dialogue by stealing from movies. We'll make fun of ourselves in the process, but the game is about having fun, so whatever. We also allow the talker to take a long time to think of what to say. There's often pauses while the talker thinks of the next word/phrase in his dramatic speech. If you ignore the pauses its still hella fun.

It also helps a lot if you're drunk, but that particular advice doesn't apply to the underage of the forum.

Jay R
2012-09-25, 11:40 AM
The rules of D&D provide the answer, but it isn't a quick or easy one.

The answer is this: If you want to get better at something, it takes a lot of experience.

The player (not the character) wants to be good at improv, so the player needs lots of experience.

People have already suggested LARPs, improv classes, pratce with audiobooks, etc. These all boil down to the basic fact that getting good at something takes lots of practice.

He'll be better at it next year than this year, and better still the year after that.