[3.5] Roleplaying Advice

[Thurbane]

Since my fiancee has joined our game almost a year ago, we have a fresh injection of actual role-playing of characters, rather than the roll-playing we have gotten used to.

It kind of makes me long for the days when I placed more emphasis on the personality of my character than the mechanical crunch.

Even in a relatively low-op group like mine, there is still an unspoken expectation that everyone can pull their weight in and/or our of combat.

I believe there is an extensive discussion somewhere about a fallacy (who's name I can't remember right now - Oberoni? Stormwind? I'm at work right not on my lunch break) that optimized characters and role-playing need not be mutually exclusive.

Anyway, regardless of that, does anyone have links to good articles, or sections of books, that I might read for inspiration on how to get back my passion for role-playing a character, instead of war-gaming with a stat-block?

All advice welcome.

Cheers - T

[ZamielVanWeber]

I cannot link you to anything solid but I can give you advice that works for me:
I always give some backstory, particularly backstory involving my race. I want race to be more than the mechanical choice it typically is.
I try to find out why my character is the alignment that he is. I love to play exalted characters so I always need to find out what pushed him to that level of good.
Classes have fluff, so why did they choose that class? What made the character feel that say druid was the best choice. Was it a deep love of nature, or perhaps a desire for the immense power a druid wields, or maybe because their parents were druids so they felt obligated to follow in their path.

[Darrin]

Counter Monkey - 3d6 in Order (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBmEFgd_4ho).

[Seto]

You're referring to the Stormwind fallacy (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/2861636). (The Oberoni fallacy is "if houserules can fix it, it's not broken").

I don't have any good articles in mind, but some personal advice.
1- As Zamiel said, think about your character's different traits (class, powers etc.) and find a reason for them, or in the case of traits they didn't choose (race, ability scores) think about how they influenced your PC's life. As for the alignment, you could skim over the various alignment handbooks and read the one that fits your PCs ; they often touch on psychology and moral choice.

2- This point depends on the DM, but having an opaque game helps immersion. If you're in a situation you, as a player, don't have a predefinite answer for, then you're more likely to use your imagination and think about what your character would do. For example, if you fight a Hydra, you'll know what it is, how to defeat it, and think in terms of tactics. But if your DM refluffs the Hydra's statblock and throws at you, say, a Construct with one big flying head (the Hydra's Body), and separate limbs, underneath the head and circling it, that strike from inside the floor (the Hydra's heads), you'll be guessing again. Which is a good thing.

3- Intraparty dynamics. If you have a new player, your fiancee, who roleplays well and often, take her roleplaying as an opportunity to answer with some of your own. For example, if her character says "dammit, I hate sitting next to a campfire, you never know where the smoke's going to turn and it hurts my eyes", get in on the rp action and have your character say "Really ? I love it. During my youth atop the frosty mountains, the fire was what kept us alive. I remember the elders telling our ancestral tales and singing the songs of old..."
Maybe talk to her, precisely define where your characters stand in relation to each other, and plan a specific dynamic (anything : love, distrust, friendship, admiration, respect, spite) that will develop over the next few sessions.

[The Viscount]

I think the Player's Guide to Eberron (and most of the Eberron books in general) does a good job of giving you some starting points to build off of, like some rough character backgrounds. In terms of other helpful roleplaying things, I've always found it extremely helpful when crafting a character to ground them as much as possible in the campaign world. Obviously it depends on how much the world is fleshed out, but I find that linking them with the impacts of notable events, attitudes towards important persons, and views on local politics really adds some depth. And of course, as always, good roleplaying by one member of the party breeds better roleplaying in the rest.

[ZamielVanWeber]

There is also generic background advice in PHB II. I like to use it sometimes to flesh out a character. It is mostly archetypes, but starting with a structure of archetypes is never a bad way to go IMHO.

[BowStreetRunner]

There is a Roleplaying Tips Blog (http://roleplayingtips.com/blog/) that might be of interest to you.

[AvatarVecna]

Figure out the character you want to play (vague trope-based backstory, motivations, etc), then figure out what path to power makes sense for them to pursue (how they respond to challenges and what kind of power they use to do so), and then figure out the mechanics to pull it off. 3.5 is complex enough that just about any concept can be achieved mechanically, so figure out the concept first, rather than making mechanics and trying to base the concept off of them.

That's what I try doing anyway; some people do things differently, of course.

[rrwoods]

The various alignment handbooks that have been posted here are all double as excellent roleplaying advice handbooks. Obviously they are going to be alignment-focused, so anything race/class specific you'll have to find other sources for, but they make an excellent foundation on which to build your character's personality!

[dascarletm]

Figure out the character you want to play (vague trope-based backstory, motivations, etc), then figure out what path to power makes sense for them to pursue (how they respond to challenges and what kind of power they use to do so), and then figure out the mechanics to pull it off. 3.5 is complex enough that just about any concept can be achieved mechanically, so figure out the concept first, rather than making mechanics and trying to base the concept off of them.

That's what I try doing anyway; some people do things differently, of course.

I have to second this.

My wife recently joined my roleplaying group, and she does something similar to this. She first finds a picture to giver her inspiration. Then she develops the character's personality etc. Then afterwards she tells me about that, I ask some questions, and then we make the build.

[The Viscount]

Questions are a big pat of character building. They can be broad ones like "what can they not stand for?" or "what are they most ashamed of?" but little ones like "what's their favorite article of clothing?" or "what's the story behind their scars?" can help you surprisingly well. I've found myself able to answer some questions without having to think about them at all.

[WaerXO]

Always enjoyed an old dragon magazine article
by Anne McCafferty. She talked about picking
a character you know and understand as the personality
base you want to build from. You could chose Mick Jagger or Keith Richards and play them as a bard or wizard. Cookie Monster or Oscar the grouch and play the as a barbarian or cleric. The fourth Doctor or Rose and play them as a druid or sorcerer. The point is choose a character personality that you can remember so you aren't playing with an alternating personality. Loved that article I'll have to look it up now.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It might also be worth trying a different system, especially one with a bit less of a mechanical focus than 3.5 and/or a different setting type. Even just for a one shot or two. Pull out a Fiasco scenario, give 5e a shot or see what all the fuss about Fate is. Shake yourselves up a bit.

[Aegis013]

Counter Monkey - 3d6 in Order (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBmEFgd_4ho).

I don't really get this. I have played a couple of 3d6 in order characters. The one I remember was a dwarf cleric because my only stat above 10 was wisdom, con up to 10 from dwarf. I don't remember particularly caring for that game or the character, but I think that was mostly because the game didn't last long (I haven't played in a 3.5 game that came to a natural conclusion, they all died prematurely, though all the campaigns I've run came to an actual conclusion).

The most memorable characters from any system I've had also tended to be the most powerful. While I've realized it scares DMs for players to have such power, the power to alter the course of the story through your own actions is the most enjoyable part of these games to me.

For example, the DM set up an encounter where the party was supposed to "win" but the bad guys were supposed to escape through a mystery portal, also because they were immortal. The rest of the party was unwilling to enter the portal, but my character, not knowing he'd be without backup and in his righteous fury, chased them into the portal alone and ended up inside, effectively, hell. In desperate effort to prevent the bad guys from escaping and to finish them off so they couldn't propagate their evil, and survive the ordeal, I actually managed to kill one. Due to the circumstance and location, my character unknowingly destroyed the bad guy's soul so he couldn't reoccur, despite that he was definitely supposed to.

That game didn't come to a good conclusion either, but at least I strongly remember my character. After all, I find every character fun to roleplay, but only the ones that are powerful/lucky enough to pull off hat tricks like described above or really change the game are the ones I often remember fondly.

[GilesTheCleric]

I'll echo Zamiel, Viscount, and Vecna's thoughts on this one. For me, I find that I get more out of a character the more I put in. The more time I spend researching the history, events, possible character interactions, factions, and politics that surround a character, the more I care about them. Having a good knowledge of what kind of person they are via where they came from also helps me to know how they'd react to new situations.

In an upcoming game, I'm seeing if some of the other characters want to do some pre-game RP even, so that we can really flesh out how our characters met (one of the requirements for this game is that all the characters have somehow interacted in their backstories). I'm excited to find how that might change how I understand and play the character, too.