Strong Silent Type
Hang on to your dice bag and get ready to make a save vs. startlement, because I’ve got some shocking news. There are actually people out there—and this is true—who don’t speak in the 1st person when playing RPGs. Weird, right? These people will make a stirring speech or a dramatic eulogy or toast His Majesty’s health by rolling dice at the issue.
But you know what? I’ve made my peace with that. People game for different reasons, and there are plenty of goodly geeks in this wide world who are uncomfortable with funny accents and ad lib. Clearly Ranger is one of these people, and even though it’s weird to me, I’m still happy to game with these kinds of players. In my experience they tend to be more tactically minded, or else really enjoy the social aspects of the hobby. But as one of those weird talky players, I do have a request for my less loquacious brethren: at least describe what you’re doing!
It doesn’t have to be some long or flowery description. I don’t need you to replace, “My brothers! The forces of darkness march against us, but they shall break upon your shields like the waves upon the Sea Cliffs of Et Cetera,” with, “My character calls the soldiers her brothers and tells them that the enemy will break upon their shields like the waves upon the Sea Cliffs of Et Cetera.” But I do need at least a vague description of the content of the speech. I’m talking something like, “I remind them of of their duty” or “I begin chanting the words of their anthem.”
It doesn’t have to be much. I’ve got a pretty good imagination, and I’m more than happy to fill in the blanks for myself. But even if you’re the type of player that just wants to crack open a cold one and roll dice with the boys (never mind the improv acting crap!), I think that saying “I make a speech” is weak sauce. Speaking as somebody who does enjoy the storytelling elements of RPGs, I appreciate any little detail that I can get.
REQUEST A SKETCH! So you know how we’ve got a sketch feed on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon? By default it’s full of Laurel’s warm up sketches, illustrations not posted elsewhere, design concepts for current and new characters, and the occasional pin-up shot. But inspiration is hard sometimes. That’s why we love it when patrons come to us with requests. So hit us up on the other side of the Patreon wall and tell us what you want to see!
As one of those players of few words, I’m certain that there are others as well who don’t want to ruin the epic moment with “umm..”-s, “err…”-s, and “give me a moment to think of something…”-s, nearly always followed by awkward silence before a jumbled mess of a Diplomacy, or worse Intimidate, attempt flies out.
I mean yeah, I can RP it, but it doesn’t do justice to a 18 Charisma character if I can’t get a solid minute to rehearse the lines, without other people staring at me the whole time.
I know I’ve got a bad habit of putting my fellow players on the spot. I’ll get wrapped up in the fiction and say, “Awesome! What does your cavalier say for his challenge when he charges?” or “He was a good ally. Cleric bro? Think you could say a few words?” In my head this is good RP, but more than one of my buddies has been like, “Dude. Fuck you for putting me on the spot.”
It’s not my goal here to insist that “everyone must improvise dialogue at all times,” but one of my favorite things at the gaming table is imagining the fiction. For either of the above situations I would gladly accept, “Something unintelligible about the goblin’s mother” or “I keep it short. A few words about our ally’s bravery in battle, and then I toss the first handful of earth.”
As a player of few words, does that sound like an unreasonable expectation on my part? Genuinely curious here. None of us play with groups full of people exactly like us, and I want to be a good gaming bro for all the players at my table, not just the ones who happen to be thespians.
That mostly depends on your standards as the GM.
The other part is the player him/herself and their perception of the others’ expectations. At which point does said GM not roll their eyes and give the player the “that’s it?” look?
The words “take your time” or “anything that comes to mind is good” can make a world of difference.
This is the biggest problem with the mental stats imho. If you’re playing a guy with sky high physical stats, that’s fine because all of the physical activity is taking place in game. You don’t have to have 24 dexterity in real life to describe your character doing a quadruple backflip half twist onto the back of a flying dragon, or 24 constitution in real life to survive the ogre’s club by blocking it with your chest. However, since it is all a game in the mind, it’s much harder to deal with vast discrepancies in mental stats. If you’re playing a character with high intelligence and you have trouble adding double digit numbers without a calculator, or you are playing a super charismatic character when in real life you’re conversations with people you want to impress begins and ends with “um”…well, I’m not really sure how to address that without “roll the dice to use that score.”
That is actually one of the very few areas that video game rpgs have an advantage over tabletop rpgs in terms of rollplaying: in a well-made video game, you can simulate a character with high intelligence, charisma, etc by having dialogue options that are only unlocked with a high enough score, letting them do and say smart, charismatic things that they might not have thought to do or say otherwise.
I agreee! I have some tips on that front:
1.) There’s no shame in asking for a minute to consider what your character would do. In my experience, other players are all too happy to check their phones or talk about video games while you think for a sec.
2.) Have a well-defined personality created for the character. Even a smart and clever person won’t always have the best solution to everything; they’ll want to do things in their own particular idiom. This helps narrow down your choices.
3.) Think about the game between sessions. Come up with ideas for things your character could do in various common situations and file them away for later. Hopefully these should spring to mind if you encounter an appropriate situation; it’s very satisfying when they do.
Hope that helps a bit!
I’ve actually got a bunch of sayings written down for my superstitious barbarian. If you’ve ever played a monk, you know how tough it is to improvise clever adages in the moment!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOUksDJCijw&t=78m37s
I have a Kobold named Skraa.
One of the main speaking points of playing him is almost always speak in the third-person.
Another is grandstand if you just did something amazing or foolhardy and it paid off.
We touched on this back in “Gather Information.”
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/gather-information
This is the argument, right?
“You wouldn’t make Throg’s player lift a boulder in real life. Why are you forcing me to be this silver-tongued, fast-talking, master manipulator? You’re punishing me for not having a 27 Charisma in real life!”
But here’s my thought on the matter. Throg’s stats give him a mechanical boost in combat. But Throg can’t just roll a single stat called ‘tactics’ and win at a combat encounter. He’s still got to leverage his abilities effectively, and that requires player skill. In my mind, tactical acumen and dramatic skill should both be rewarded. In the same way that you’ve got to use some amount of skill and system mastery to win in combat situations, you’ve got to make your arguments persuasive in “social combat.”
Like I said in response to Will down below, I think the degree to which you reward good acting varies by table. If I knew nothing else about the gaming group (and assuming we’re playing d20 system), I’d apply a circumstance bonus ranging from +1-5 depending on the delivery of the speech and the cleverness of its content. In this way, dramatic/entertaining play is rewarded while those “less loquacious” players can still get some value out of social characters.
Does that sound fair to you, or does that strike you as tyranny of the highest order?
I agree that’s the way it should be, but the rules of the game don’t support it as well. The rules for how to do combat are varied and complex with lots of options, while the rules for social interactions…aren’t. If tactical combat were handled like “social combat” in D&D, there would be the skills: ranged combat, melee combat, magic combat, and defend. In an encounter everyone would roll a single d20, add bonuses, and that would resolve the whole encounter as a pass or fail.
I tend to award the same “clever thinking” circumstance bonuses in combat as well. Come up with an especially cool stunt or strategy and you get some positive circumstance modifiers. I believe 5e’s Inspiration mechanic works on the same principle.
Really what it needs is a social system that works like the combat system, like the game Last Word
https://store.steampowered.com/app/355530/Last_Word/
IIRC the TTRPG “Exalted” has ‘Social Combat’ rules that turn social interactions into something that works more like RPG combat
We usually have the person describe their actions or give the speech, and what they say gives a bonus to their roll.
Had a guy drop a Hero point (pre roll is +8) and a Mythic surge to scare a serf in a mansion they were burning down (while dressed as a guard). He gave a very convincing line about madness and Eldritch horrors along with a good Bluff roll.
Poor guy ran screaming into some actual guards thinking it was the end times. He did not last long when he started swinging at them.
I think the final roll was somewhere over 40 against a near nat 1 on the serf’s Sense Motive…
So much of gaming is reading tea leaves. I like to factor in the delivery, the content of the speech, the die roll, and circumstance modifiers. Of course, I’ve been known to say, “Screw it. It just works,” if my players entertain me enough.
One of Laurel’s characters recently assassinated a gang leader in his own bedroom. When the gang leader’s lieutenant came to check in she and and another player improvised a…ahem…lady of the evening plying her trade for said gang leader. There was bed rocking, shouts of “Not bloody now!”, and full on Harry Met Sally style cries of ecstasy. After I was done giggling like a school child I handwaved the die roll.
I was happy with that decision at the time, and still think it was the right one for those particular players and that particular game. But I begin to wonder if that could be construed as unfair at another table. Suppose there was a bard who specialized in doing impersonations. If I was that bard, I know I’d feel like my skill points lost some of their value if good RP could just bypass checks.
You could allow the more skilled players at the table to “aid” them in their performance. Kinda like a life line of sorts so they can say “Yeah he does that!”
It’s fun when people start throwing out ideas. Like a mini-game of Cards Agains Humanity. And then the player picks his favorite.
I think I saw that solution in a Reddit thread about “how do you play a character that’s smarter than you?” When you get superhuman brainiacs or fast talking con men types, I think that taking a moment to discuss what they say and do as a group can be a good way to represent somebody who is more skilled than any one human ought to be.
Ah yes, the notorious Social Encounter. As a severe introvert, these are often the bane of my existence, and yet I keep playing characters with 16+ Charisma because my favorite classes all depend on it. Worse than that I play PbP where 9 times out of 10 I do have to type out exactly what my character says. Fortunately since it is PbP I can also take a few minutes… if not hours… to come up with what they say. Sometimes I think some GMs (mainly one, who I feel might have 16-18 Cha IRL) forget that I am not in fact that charismatic as a player though, because I feel they have held my lack of amazing eloquence against me.
Severe Introvert inflicts a -2 penalty to speechifying. You can reduce it to -1 with a trait though. 😛
After what happened the 1st time I dropped Usidor’s name & the diatribe that followed, I’ve been banned from making flowery speeches at my table. I’ve also been banned from anything that doesn’t involve me shooting or stabbing things till they’re dead.
Insofar as this character seems to exist to troll GMs, I am in support of these banns. 😛
Well, he’s MAINLY supposed to troll shit players, or That Guy DMs. I just love messing with my main DM a little, cause it’s so much fun. You should DM for me sometime.
Naw, I’m good. My blood pressure is just fine where it is.
LOL Yeah, Krusk & Usidor would give you a coronary.
With some of my players, I’m lucky to even get “I make a speech”, usually it’s something more along the lines of “I got a 17 on charisma, do I get to add proficiency?”.
Yup. I get that some people are bad at speeches. That mess still makes my eye twitch.
This is the type of thing that I very much would say “fuck you” to a number of GMs for doing that to me, particularly when it just comes out of the blue, rather than be something I can actually prepare for. This is exacerbated by the fact that everyone at the table is now waiting on me, and will start getting annoyed if it takes more than a few seconds to get started.
Your combat analogy doesn’t work. When combat happens, everyone at the table has time to work out what they plan to do while other people are acting, and when each person acts, they are only doing one small thing, narrowly defined, with mechanical restrictions. Move, action, bonus action, done. People will still get upset at you for taking too long, but combat is something players do over and over and over and over again, with it basically working the same way every time.
Social encounters are rarely the same, are much less frequent, are limited in the number of players who are involved each time, and each thing you do is significant in the way that swinging a sword is not. GMs don’t provide the same experience, training, and support for social encounters, and extrovert GMs tend to penalize introvert players (maybe not in-game, but certainly at the table) for not being the same sort of person as the GM.
Some GMs actually understand this gulf, and can handle things smoothly, without introducing extra stress. But others make me hate them for being such assholes about it.
If you want to pretend your combat analogy is appropriate, then you should be making plenty of rolls during a social encounter — deception vs insight, on both sides, cultural awareness, etiquette, perception, history, etc — and not just dumping it all on a single speech, or single roll. Letting the player work it out piece by piece, like combat, greatly reduces the stress of the event because they don’t have to invent something whole cloth.
You don’t have a “tactics” skill to let Throg win the fight, but neither do you force him to describe to you the entirety of how the combat will play out, off the cuff.
I’d even say your comment about filling in the blanks yourself hurts the situation as much as it helps. Essentially, you already have an idea of what’s going to happen. Not only is my input of negligible value, you’ve turned the entire situation into your character, instead of mine. At some point, you’re the one playing the character instead of me. This is not something either of us want, but dominant extrovert GMs can often make it that way.
In combat, if a new player doesn’t know what to do, the GM is likely to provide prompts: Do you want to attack the goblin? Do you want to hide? Do you want to dodge, to make it harder to be hit? Etc. In social encounters, the GM will almost never do this. The extent of the prompts is, “What do you do?” Followed by, “Hurry up.” Those are the most frustrating, and rarely do GMs rise above that. They also won’t have players that get better at such prompts.
Yeesh. Sounds like you’ve had some negative experiences. I’ve been trying to use more 4e style skill challenges of late, and have had some success in that regard. Just the other day my Pathfinder players had to figure out how to get one of them elected ruler of a newly discovered island. Rather than go into an hours-long RP scene, I had them describe how they used various skills to swing the vote in their favor. The deciding factor was for a PC (who happened to be a dragon) to suggest “vote by acclaim.” She wanted to use her base attack bonus + breath weapon in a show of support for her candidate. Here’s the interesting part though: In order to get a bonus to the roll, she asked to use a silly “very spicy pickle” item that improved breath weapon damage. I awarded a circumstance bonus on the spot.
For me, it’s an unhappy coincidence that skill at speaking IRL resembles the Diplomacy skill in-game. If you come up with a clever way to use the Ride skill, you get a circumstance bonus on Ride. That’s because we aren’t talking about physically riding horses. We’re talking about a game where your avatar’s actions are a direct extension of your thoughts. A clever plan ought to net you bonuses regardless of what skills it’s attached to. Why take that away from “the talky skills” because they happen to have a direct correlation between player action and character action? Improvising in the moment is more difficult than getting a full initiative pass to consider what to say, but that’s part of the skill of the game. I think that ought to be encouraged via circumstance bonuses / inspiration rather than discouraged via “What do you do?” followed by, “Hurry up.”
You can’t realistically be expected to talk like a character with significantly higher mental abilities than you yourself have; especially not high charisma characters.
It’s be a bit like requirib the player to properly swing an actual sword to make an attack. Or maybe make them ring the bell on a High-Striker/Strongman game in order for a hit to connect.
You can make the attempt. So what if it’s not convincing? Something as simple as starting a wizard lecture with, “See here my dear Sir!” is enough to convey personality. The content of the speech doesn’t matter. The attempt does. Even if it’s utterly unconvincing (and it will be: no one knows how magic “really works”), it still makes for a richer play experience.
I should probably do a full post on the subject. I hear about the difficulty of playing high Int/Cha characters often. It deserves a proper discussion.
I take this back. I just realized that the solution to this is to add “But it’s the WAY he says it” after everything
As long as you let me roll dice for persuasion and deception, I’ll gladly describe what my intent is. I have had my fill with GMs who didn’t understand that, while my character may be slightly better than the average person when it comes to oration and talky-bits, I am shite at it.
I tend to take a “reward clever play” approach. I like to give circumstance bonuses / advantage to players when they appeal to an NPC’s interests. This tendency comes form Exalted, where the concept of a character’s “intimacies” has a mechanical impact on their reactions to social situations.