Doing Things Better #1: Entertaining your fellow-players

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

I'm going to go one level higher in abstraction that Brett is, because while I don't disagree with him, I think he's making a mistake most of us make in misunderstanding what an RPG is (or, perhaps, just assuming that everyone else already knows and it can go unsaid). I have seen game after game that failed to follow all of his advice, but were HUGE hits anyway.

Well naturally. I wasn't putting forward my advice as a list of fundamental or essential techniques for successful role-playing, I was suggsting them as advanced techniques for doing better than usual in the very specific area of entertaining other players when you are playing a character, not GMing.

It took me awhile to grasp it, but I have my grand unifying RPG theory, and it is this:

An RPG is a social event, an excuse for friends to gather.

I think you might be over-generalising from your own experience, because your grand unifying theory of RPG does not describe my experience or preferences. If that were an adequate description I would not design adventures and run them for strangers at cons. I would not seek out roleplayers specifically to befriend and play with, rather I would be content to sit around with my neighbours and relatives, drink beer, and talk about sport and talkback radio.

I enjoy RPGs specifically for a special quality that they have. I go to considerable effort and some expense to prepare for them despite having purely social opportunities that are easier and and cheaper. I seek them out in preference to easier social opportunities. I play them with strangers and find that rewarding. Your theory is not adequate to describe my experience of them.

An RPG follows all the same rules as a party:

1. Have a set time, invite everyone in advance, stick to that time. RSVP.
2. Avoid inviting people you know will clash with one another, and prefer people who tend to get along well without any additional effort from you.
3. Have plenty of good food and drink
4. Have an inviting space for your social event
5. Have something fun to do, or to faciliate talk among your party attendees

EVERYTHING you see in advice for RPGs is really just an attempt to improve that last point, but the fact is, you can get a ton of mileage out of hitting the other points.

That's true enough, but not responsive to the the question in the OP or the topic in the thread title, since those all seem to be prescriptions for the host of a party and not things that a character-player in an RPG can do to entertain his or her fellow players.

And obliquely, I'll point out that although all the things you suggest are helpful, I have run and played in enormously enjoyable RPG sessions that are fondly remembered decades later (a) with no snacks or drinks at all and (b) in crowded and uncomfortable student accommodations, classrooms, and cavernous unheated function rooms.

Even if people just shoot the breeze and drink your beer and eat your pizza and make jokes and completely fail to connect with the game, if they have fun, they'll consider it a success and will want to do it again.

Perhaps many will. But not all, and not me. Nor, apparently, whswhs or sir_pudding. If I'm invited to an RPG and no RP occurs, I get disappointed. If a regular RPG session is cancelled in favour of a birthday party or some such, I get disappointed. A successful roleplaying session gives me a feeling of satisfaction and closure that I don't recall ever having got from a beer-shooting, breeze-guzzling session — though I have got it from seminars and academic conferences. Hanging out is not, for me, a satisfactory substitute for a role-playing game.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong-headed for worrying about things like pacing and good character design and descriptive skills. I worry about those too, but if we're going to start somewhere, start HERE. Understand how to throw a nice party first, how to be social first, and build everything out from there, because it's too often neglected, and it can cover your bases when the rest fails.

Fair enough, but off-topic. None of that advice is responsive to the OP's question, feasible from the position of playing a character in a game, or relevant to the issue of playing a character in an entertaining fashion. Those are things worth working for if you are the host or convenor of the game, but not when you are just one of the character-players, and though they will promote an enjoyable evening they won't make your character-play entertaining to fellow players.

I read you as disparaging the question and dismissing the premise of the question. Trying to play your character in an entertaining way is not worth discussing, you seem to say, because roleplaying games don't matter; just pop a beer, turn on the football, and shoot the breeze.