A Tempered Temper
We talked way back here about the perils of allowing roleplaying feels to bleed over into real life. So instead of rehashing the topic, what do you say we talk about the other thing going on in today’s comic? I’m referring to that fourth-wall-breaking NPC dialogue. It may not look like much, but I think it represents an underutilized GM technique.
So often we spend our time at the gaming table trying to descend into the fiction. We plug in sound cues, work on voices or accents, take pains to paint our minis, and hand carefully-stained homemade scrolls around to the other players. All of this in an effort to create the illusion of a living world. We quest for the promised fantasy of the genre, looking to immerse ourselves in an alternate reality where we can almost feel the sword hilt in our hands. Think cheesy Saturday morning announcer voices promising, “A game where you become the hero of your own adventure!” We all chase that dragon, but I’m not sure we want to catch it. At least not 100% of the time.
It is all manner of fun to experience a game world, but it’s occasionally necessary to swim out of the depths of the simulation and actually create that world. The technique I’m talking about is a simple one, and I’ve noticed it most recently on The Glass Cannon Podcast. GM Troy Lavallee will occasionally pause to ask his players, “What is your character feeling right now? What do you think is going on with the plot? How does your character’s backstory apply to this situation?” Players are forced to blink, step out of their characters for a moment, and respond like authors. They’ve got to consciously consider what a PC’s internal monologue might look like. Even more importantly, they’ve got to communicate that otherwise-invisible information to the rest of the table. They no longer get to experience. They have to stop and think.
With all the effort we put into cultivating immersion, it’s counterintuitive to think that this technique can yield positive results. You’re breaking the flow of play when you use it. But consider that a private world of motivation exists within the head of every single person at that table, GM included. If you don’t take a minute to explain your thoughts to your co-creators (dare I say co-authors?) how can you hope to appreciate one another’s points of view? None of us are psychic, and worlds don’t just create themselves. That takes collaboration. It takes talking to one another. I think it’s worth breaking a few fourth walls to make it happen.
Question of the day then. Have you ever paused the game to explain what your PC is thinking? Have you ever asked another player to do the same? Did it yield good results, or did you feel like it took you out of the moment? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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We occasionally just pause when a character or characters have to make a tough choise and we want to talk about what our choices might be and the thinking behind them to sound them out and explain them. I probably do this too much.
I’m interested in that last line. Why do you say that you do this too much? What’s the downside of pausing to talk out your character decisions?
its less that indo this too often, and more that i take an annoyingly long tine with it and actually choosing my action sometimes when I do this.
Gotcha! Yeah man, brevity is the soul of wit with this sort of thing. Unless it’s a pre-game or post-game character discussion, I think that a few sentences is about all you need in-game. Just enough so that other players understand you aren’t acting like a weirdo for no reason.
For example, suppose that you’ve decided to ignore Her Highness’s flirting. “There are assassins after us, right? I don’t want to draw attention to my romance with the princess. Peter Parker style, you know? I keep walking and pretend not to hear her.”
Oh yeah, by the way, our tomb of annhilation campaign fianlly finished. We managed to stop the death curse, and, because we told the dm we wanted the hard fight, we fought the full strength around cr 23 asherak afterwards since he was pissed with us for stopping it. We all died, but we actually got pretty close to killing him. I think we would have actually killed him if i hadn’t failed my first save against his delayed fireballs timestop combo, allowing me to keep up the spell giving us free evasion except for all saving throws, and giving us advantage on those saving throws too. Still, we got far, freed the trapped souls, ended the death curse fairly quickly so not too many died, and did fairly well overall. One player even managed to have a character survive till asherak, meaning that he got to make a wish to occur in the next campaign. Of course, he had the wish we all expected with his joking hatred of bards and asked for them to be banned. As such, the dm has said that muscians are banned in the 2 cities the campaign will be set in. Naturally of course, this comes with the monkey’s paw of there being a underground movement of bards trying to get music legalized in a situation much like footloose:).
We’re coming up to the end of Out of the Abyss. If there’s an option, I think ima chooose, “Let’s not fight Demogorgon at full power.” Timestop is brutal, yo!
Doesnt help that we were only level 12:), of course the fact that power differences between levels is much lower in 5e does help a good bit.
I am dumb. I read “we were only 12” and I was like, “Do your parents know you’re on the internet?”
Boy needs coffee. :/
I know that feeling of missing something while reading so well:).
When I play with less experienced GM’s they typically only need to know what’s IC and OoC when it comes to stuff like “did you actually say this outloud” sort of dealios. Or tactic talks. But the more experienced GM’s, they usually have s good reason to ask what I, as a player, have in store for my character, because what he says may not always be what I intend to follow through with. This is more common with my evil and manipulative characters who would do stuff like go to save a village from burning orcs, but in truth it just looting their remains and writing off everyone else as a casualty or something.
They mostly do this for future plot hooks and to really get an idea of what our character alignments are. Like what we do things, rather than what we’re doing.
I was a rogue in one of my earliest high school D&D games. It was late at night around the campfire, and I made my spot check to notice another party member stealing from the party treasury. I decided to say nothing about it.
Bizarrely, the DM stopped the game to explain that my dude–as a rogue–wouldn’t just let that happen. Internally I’d planned to watch for a pattern, gather proof, and then blackmail the thief for the lion’s share of his take. The DM kept hounding me about how I was misplaying my character until I burst out angrily with my full plan. There was a sort of collective, “Oh yeah, that makes sense,” from the rest of the table.
It remains a strange interaction to me. Firstly because a GM was actively encouraging me to engage in PVP in order to stop PVP, and secondly because it was my first encounter with accusation of bad-wrong-fun, and thirdly because explaining my brilliant plan ruined it. I think that session may be the genesis of my thoughts on Cloak & Dagger PVP vs. Metagame PVP
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/intra-party-romance
Anywho, my point is that I agree with you. Manipulative and evil characters can seem opaque unless you take the time to explain them. Doing so may come with its own problems though.
Ugh, GM’s like that are the stuff of nightmares. As a guy who likes playing orcs and barbarians I hate people who expect me to conform to some sort of stereotype. Especially as a rogue too; yeah rogues trend to be the sneaky Thievy type, but they can still be Lawful Goid rascals who simply use the same tools as tricks as bad guys.
That brings me into another issue that can make or break depending on how your GM uses the metagame: Illusions. I can’t bother counting how many times a GM managed to “figure out” their ogres or griffons learned they’re under the effect of an illusion and effectively makes me waste a turn stalling them. Especially when I go through the painstaking details of making sure the illusion seems realistic and possible, and the GM just goes “nope, I roll to disbelieve the illusion I know you casted on me”.
^ There is probably an illusion gag in me somewhere. I’ll have to see about turning it into a script one of these days, because that mess is definitely worth a comic.
Do eeeeeeet. Illusions is one of those spells that as a narrative author can be very powerful, more so than the likes of necromancy or evocation, but in a multiplayer setting like D&D or even one without stats like roleplaying, illusions can often come up short precisely because their strength relies on being unable to tell when or what is an illusion.
Just had an interesting one last night. My Ravenloft DM put us in a Magnificent Mansion, but it was being controlled by an insane mage. It was a crazy sprint through a madman’s delusions made real. Cool little encounter.
The first one i tried to counter myself by telling the DM beforehand that a class, even less its tropes and stereotypes, does not make the character, and go on explaining my character’s history till I am sure he understands it.
I get mixed results, but its the better way i found till now and I have to do it a lot as i tend to make unusual characters.
The second, i do not think it is possible by default, as it s a DM problem and just needs a DM that listens.
I’ve had to break character to explain to another player that I wasn’t being dismissive her character’s suggestion, my character was. I think in our group we naturally slip in and out of providing brief explanations of character feelings e.g. “I’m angered by his response and flip the table” but there are times people have gone into lengthy explanations regarding their current actions and how it relates to their backstory which I felt broke immersion. I think if you’re in a large group of players, particularly if you’ve got a limited play-time, the GM prompting players to explain their characters’ actions and how they relate to their backstory etc. can help player’s to convey and elucidate their overall character to the group as sessions tend to focus on what is immediately happening and lack the time to sit around chatting. One way we’re going to try to solve this is to set up an in-character chat group on FB so between sessions characters can have conversations with each other as well as shop for sundry adventuring items etc.
Starting a session, ending a session, or coming back from a break for this sort of thing can work well. That way you get the “lengthy explanations regarding current actions and how it relates to backstory” without the immersion problems. In fact, it can actually help to ease a group back into immersion since you’re talking about character without the added effort of being in-character. Moving from that conversation and back into normal play becomes a natural segue rather than an awkward pause.
I wish people would stop the game to ask aboot the various character background snippets I drop. I always flesh them out in my head before dropping them, and I would love to extrapolate.
So Gabriel, what’s going on with those various character background snippets you dropped?
Occasionally I get to force-extrapolate them, like how the one bit of Elvish he knows is “Your hideousness is matched only by your stench” which he assumes is a polite greeting.
This was because one of his first assignments as a Paladin was a cushy ambasadorship to an Elven kingdom. His liaison taught it to him as a prank. He assumes people get offended when he says it because he’s pronouncing it wrong. His pronunciation is perfect.
Make sure to throw in the bit about the cankles: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/well-spoken
Yes, that did inspire it. That said, elves are too grotesquely skinny to have cankles.
Then again, the lady in the comic clearly isn’t an elf as she has secondary sexual characteristics. Everyone knows non-Drow Elves have no sexual dimorphism. (Morcdenkainen’s Foam of Toes actually codifies this, by saying that the more favored you are by Corelon, the more androgynous you are)
Friggin’ elves man. There’s something off about ’em in every setting: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurElvesAreBetter?from=Main.OurElvesAreDifferent
In terms of stuff nobody has asked aboot; nobody even knows aboot his terrifyingly badassed older sister. When he was 6 she held him down and shaved off his beard because she caught him playing with her axe.
There’s a thing my military command structure Dwarves do where for every failure of command on their part males take a lock out of their beard, with females taking a notch out of their braided ponytail. His sister’s ponytail is butt-length.
I think the best way to share your character’s personal thoughts is an in-character journal. I’m not a fan of the immersion-breaking tactics, especially because it also makes it harder to avoid metagaming.
If someone explains to me why their character is acting a certain way, it might alter my spontaneous in-character reaction to their behaviour. And I don’t really want that – I want to experience the world as my character, that also means interacting with other PCs in-character.
The only time I stop and explain things is when someone is actively complaining about what my character is doing during the game – which is an important discussion when someone feels uncomfortable, of course, but doing it during a game just seems off to me.
Besides, getting to know someone normally doesn’t have such “shortcuts” like reading their mind, you need to have conversations with them and discover their point of view. Of course, at the same time, having an internal monologue of what your character would do is important, but I think people should instinctively do that on their own rather than being reminded.
One possible exception to this, would be non-serious explanations for humour. It is a game after all, no one stays in-character 100% of the time, jokes and shennanigans happen all the time. If my character does something silly and it’s not quite obvious why or there’s a hidden factor to it, I’ll explain it briefly. Like “X has no idea what a brothel is, so she’s gonna go in and ask for a room for the night”. That much is understandable to share, of course, but the other players don’t need a detailed tour through my character’s emotional world and troubled past every time we have a serious conversation.
Now see, I think we need OOC discussion because we lack the social shortcuts that are present in IRL relationships. There’s no physicality to work with. You can’t read a PC by their dress or gestures. If you’re gaming with dudes that don’t go in for the whole thespian thing, you don’t even have tone of voice to work with. This can lead to all sorts of social miscues.
Here’s an example from a recent Fate game. It’s a Firefly / Serenity campaign, and my dude is a new crew member, replacing an older PC. No one bothered to tell him that the reason we can’t rescue the captain’s old girlfriend from an inhospitable ice moon is that she’s indentured. It will take [insert quest hook] to free this lady, and that’s worth more than our boat would make in a year. My dude, not knowing this, figures we’ve got to leave her behind because we’re broke and can’t afford the extra fuel and rations for an additional passenger. So he goes out, busts ass all day at a strip mining operation, and comes back with a day’s wages.
“So no one has explained to my character what’s going on with the indenture, right? As such, he’s sure that it’s just a matter of scraping together a little extra cash for room and board. [Switching into character] Captain? You’ve been nothing but kindness itself to me and my sister. If this little bit of money can help…”
If I hadn’t bothered to explain my rationale, it would have looked like a bizarre gesture. My dude would have seemed like a goon that doesn’t understand money rather than a well-meaning altruist. Counterintuitively, explaining why you’re doing what you’re doing can remind other players not to metagame. In my example, I think my fellow players were assuming that everyone was acting on the same knowledge. This quick little interaction was a gentle reminder that character knowledge isn’t shared automatically, and that what’s happening in my character’s head is not necessarily what other players might assume. A few lines of explanation made it easier to understand where my dude was coming from, and the reactions from other characters were suddenly more aligned with my intent than their impressions.
I sacrificed a little bit of immersion for a lot of clarity, and in my book it was a worthwhile trade.
That example feels like something that could have been resolved in-character, though – wouldn’t the other PCs be like “What are you even talking about”? If yes, then your character would explain and after the classic solving-a-misunderstanding-back-and-forth, there would be clarity without immersion breaking.
If not, then that means the other PCs weren’t willing to clarify the situation, assuming they were indeed staying in-character – in that case, is clarity even necessary? Or even wanted?
Of course, it could be an awkward player situation, where they’re not sure how to react, or they think they should know what you’re referring to, so they choose not to risk looking silly and just run with it. Such cases will hurt immersion either way you deal with them and, of course, I agree with the choice to clarify them out of character. It’s the same for situations where a player misunderstands something, or a description doesn’t quite paint the right picture. We’re only human, after all.
All that said, I don’t think I am particularly against your choice in that example – I can see it as an acceptable situation, similar to the one I mentioned concerning hidden humour. What I’m generally against is trying to force character progression or relationships by sharing information that shouldn’t be shared – like “X will choose to kill the goblin baby, because his mother was murdered by goblins”. Perhaps certain things should be left to share in-character, to help the dramatic/immersion factor? If one would just describe their character accurately, sharing details like a gleam in X’s furious eyes and the audible gritting of his teeth as he maliciously draws his dagger and steps toward the goblin. His gaze looking past it, seemingly imagining a far-away place before landing the decisive stab.
Obviously, not everyone can articulate detailed, well-put descriptions in a dramatic moments, me included, or even want to. That was admittedly a bit long and unconcise, but that’s just an example for the many things one could say to drop hints of what their character is feeling. It’s something people can work on, if, of course, an immersive kind of game is what they’re after.
This is all very idealistic, I realize, but I like to think in terms of what I’m trying to achieve. I am certainly not the best at what I’m rambling about here, but I try. And, of course, not all games are the same, where immersion is valued. My opinion here is just intended for those kinds of games.
Never apologize for liking the things you like, my dude. Immersion has value, and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with placing a different value on it than I do.
In my example, I had no interest in playing out the full scene. The exchange actually ended with the ship’s captain saying, “That’s very kind of you. But tell me this: how are you with a gun?” I cocked my head, put on a confused expression, and said, “Aaaand scene.” It got a laugh and the game moved on. I’m sure you would have played it a little differently, but that doesn’t mean either one of us is playing wrong. My method was fast-paced and good for a laugh. Yours belabors the scene a bit but doesn’t sacrifice immersion. There’s an exchange at work here. It’s just a matter of figuring out whether or not you’re willing to pay the difference. 🙂
My group keep getting in and out of character. Sometime when where are in mood we go full roleplay and we keep the real world complete out of picture, other times we just play a game forgetting the roleplay part. In booth cases i don’t usually say what my character thinks, Actions are more sounding than words. One can say “I back-stab you, my plans have come to a end” or just can back-stab the party paladin to steal some stuff and use it yourself. Also why i am going to tell my characters feeling and thoughts? If the other party members can read minds then my pc thoughts are for him and only for him. This kind of arguments have saved me, sometimes, other times i don’t explain my characters feelings but i talk about his motivations and reasons for his actions. I mean your characters maybe want to talk about how he feels about the fate of a poor village, but in the real life if you just help people you don’t talk about your feelings, and at least i think your pc reactions must be like the ones of us mostly-real-people.
Unless you go something like a middle ground between fantasy is real and fourth wall breaking.
So Barbarian’s player is a dude. You have never talked about the players, do they exist?
What do you mean “Barbarian’s player?” She is a fully realized three-dimensional character in a stand-alone fantasy universe. >_>
Yeah like that time i made a five dimensional character breaking the fourth wall without breaking it.
Yeah I do that sort of thing fairly often. It’s especially helpful in pbp games where all you have is text, no voice tones or body language. It’s easy to send the wrong message or have people just fail to understand where your character is coming from.
I don’t see too much of other people asking the questions though, mostly just people explaining their characters of their own volition. I can see how the questions being asked would improve things.
In the context of the Glass Canon Podcast, I think it’s a device to help the listening audience better understand the characters. In practice, I think that asking those questions has the unexpected benefit of helping out other players at the table in a “let’s all get on the same page” way. Kind of neat to see podcasting rebound and impact traditional games.
I once was roleplaying an argument in character about what the party should do with a diamond (My cleric wanted it for revivify, the bard said we should wait till they got out of the dungeon before deciding what to do with it) and I did not realize that the player was actually getting angry with me until they broke out of character and shouted that they were done talking about it. I think that’s an example of when I should have stopped and clarified that we were both doing good out of character, but I was too invested in the RP value to think that the other player was actually unhappy with the situation.
I was just reading an interesting essay in this thing…
https://www.jesperjuul.net/ludologist/2016/06/22/analog-game-studies-volume-1/
It was the one called “‘Fun in a Different Way’: Rhythms of Engagement and Non-Immersive Play Agendas” by Nick Mizer. Dude suggests that there a three “frames” of play: social, game, and fiction. Players switch between them in a sort of regular pattern, creating a rhythm of play as they go. Within that paradigm, it sounds you and the other player were out of rhythm. All you can do is stop the song and recalibrate at that point.
I’ve never stopped play to explain what my character was thinking (though on at least one occasion I’ve hinted at it with a pretty heavy handed one-liner).
I did however have a sudden thought the other day that relates into this. In our Rise of the Runelords game my Mrs plays a gnome ranger with a permanently exasperated disposition, who can’t stand our hobgoblin kineticist. Having played together for a few months it suddenly occurred to me to wonder whether hobgoblin’s player knows that Mrs’ character only hates him in character, and doesn’t feel like that about him out of character. That’s a case however that’s better discussed after a session, the gnome is always rude to the hobgoblin so there’s no need to explain that it’s in character every time it occurs.
Taking a step out of character every once in a while is a good way to stay on the same page in terms of the game’s social aspects. My 5e paladin noble rolled up the “once my favor is gone it’s gone forever” background trait, and our poor cleric couldn’t understand why I held such a grudge over some minor in-game sleight. I finally wound up pointing out the trait to him. It was probably unnecessary, but it was definitely a case of better safe than sorry.
Ooh, yeah.
I recently played a Human Fighter who started every conversation with “Hail and well met, insert creature type here!” The rest of the party kept on trying to do a smooth introduction and I would just barge in with “Hail and well met, ooze/humanoid/fiend/etc.”
I gather that’s an example of the negative consequences of breaking the fourth wall…?
All the time, when I’m playing. As DM I’m naturally much more closed about my NPCs, since it’s up to the party to test their Insight.
But as a PC I find it helpful to step out of the character from time to time to clarify my thought processes. The other players can instantly tell, because I switch to third person and drop the character’s accent.
This is a big reason I like having a “character voice,” even if it isn’t a full-on accent.