Acting vs Performance for RPGs

[PK]

This is an archive of a tangent that I moved out of a thread it was derailing. After reading it, if you want to discuss it, there's a new thread at http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=153666

[Varyon]

Roleplaying is more comparable to method acting than traditional acting. As I’d be more inclined to give a method actor Acting rather than Performance (although good method actors have both), I’d say Kromm’s suggestions of a specialization of Acting is the most appropriate.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Roleplaying is more comparable to method acting than traditional acting. As I’d be more inclined to give a method actor Acting rather than Performance (although good method actors have both), I’d say Kromm’s suggestions of a specialization of Acting is the most appropriate.

I chose it because it's one of the three official go-to skills for developing a persona: Acting, Disguise, and Mimicry (Speech). Performance is great when you're reading for a part, but most roleplayers I know don't script their dialog . . . they come up with it on the spur of the moment, and they usually do so by imagining what their persona would say.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I chose it because it's one of the three official go-to skills for developing a persona: Acting, Disguise, and Mimicry (Speech). Performance is great when you're reading for a part, but most roleplayers I know don't script their dialog . . . they come up with it on the spur of the moment, and they usually do so by imagining what their persona would say.

Even if playing just type of character, even without a scripted method actors's type of character, I'd argue that Performance was more relevant than Acting. The goal is to entertain the GM and the other PCs and convince them a given characterisation is plausible, not to successfully pretend that you really are someone else.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Performance is great when you're reading for a part, but most roleplayers I know don't script their dialog . . . they come up with it on the spur of the moment, and they usually do so by imagining what their persona would say.

Those are my thoughts as well, and this is more what I meant when I said "method acting," not the borderline-delusional "I am my character" type stuff you see from some method actors.

Performance is for taking rehearsed lines/actions/etc and making them look convincing. Acting is about convincingly behaving the way the character you are portraying would act when confronted with an unscripted situation. The latter lends itself better to both outright lying and improvisation than does the former, but the former is typically easier. The Roleplaying specialty of Acting sort of takes the lying part out of it, and makes it more casual, which in turn makes it easier.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

A role-player isn't trying to deceive their other players, but entertain them.

I find this statement extraordinary. I've always known that different people understand "role-play" differently, and perhaps this statement best illustrates to me the difference of opinion.

As I understand "role-play," it is not about Acting or Performance; it is simply taking on a character inside an imaginary environment. There is no requirement speak as a different character; you might just be playing yourself in the fictional world. In terms of a role-playing game, "Uh, I poke the pile of bones with my ten-foot pole" is just as much role-playing as "Forsooth, I know not whence come those whitened appendages. Prithee, test them with thy far-searcher."

So it comes as a bit of a surprise to hear that entertaining the other players with one's "role-play" is supposedly a goal of the activity. That sounds exactly like Performance. I've always had trouble understanding why people go on about "role-play, not roll-play," and this may answer that: you're trying to Perform, and no one is entertained by your making tactical decisions and rolling dice to see how they turn out.

Given the way they "role-played" when the term first emerged, I doubt they had Performance in mind...

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I chose it because it's one of the three official go-to skills for developing a persona: Acting, Disguise, and Mimicry (Speech). Performance is great when you're reading for a part, but most roleplayers I know don't script their dialog . . . they come up with it on the spur of the moment, and they usually do so by imagining what their persona would say.

Wait, so improv is Acting, not Performance?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Wait, so improv is Acting, not Performance?

It's not how I'd run it.

For a lot of arts, there's a skill of making up the thing to perform, and a skill of presenting it. Musical Composition and Singing or Musical Instrument; Poetry and Singing or Public Speaking; Writing and Public Speaking.

But what if you don't write your speech, but come up with it while speaking? I'd still call that a Public Speaking roll, I think. And in the same way, I'd call coming up with a dramatic skit a Performance roll. I might even allow a straight Musical Instrument roll to improvise a tune on your instrument, though I'd ask for Musical Composition to come up with a work for three instruments in counterpoint!

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Wait, so improv is Acting, not Performance?

I know Kromm is the Chief GURPS Guru...but like whswhs, that isn't how I'd run it either.

Acting has long been established as the skill to use to make being thing you are someone you are not in real life over time. Spies need Acting, Grifters need Acting. Acting isn't about understanding blocking or gesturing with your upstage hand or hitting your mark when on a set or doing what audiences like to see on stage or screen. It is about having people really, really believe your lie.

Performance if for that performed skill.

And no one at the table believes I'm really Gianni when I role-play Gianni. They might think I'm doing a good performance, but they don't think I'm really him. Because I'm performing not acting.

And all those improv actors who are improving in the moment? No one really thinks they are who they are acting on the stage...they know they are performing.

[sir_pudding]

Yeah that's why am asking, because while there might be some overlap, I don't think that many of the techniques you learn from taking Upright Citizen Brigade classes or doing Renaissance Faire workshops are directly applicable to running long cons, (and this is from a guy who plays a coney-catcher at Faire these days).

For one thing, if the the police ask you if you are committing fraud "Yes, and" isn't typically helpful. :)