Doing Things Better #1: Entertaining your fellow-players

[Mailanka]

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.

I'm not expressing it well, then. What you're describing is a more detailed element of a larger picture I am describing. It's like getting into enormous detail on choosing a location. That's important, but it's a detail on a larger picture.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

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.

Except that everything I described ultimately matters. You need to carefully choose who you play with. For example, if I picked a group of people who are going to get distracted and make constant pop-culture references and largely just hang out and teamed them up with you, you would have a bad experience. I've already made a mistake, even before I've tried to run the game. If I fail to choose a proper time, if everything fails to get scheduled, you won't have your gaming experience at all. If everyone gets cranky because they're hungry, or distracted because of loud, inappropriate music, then your game doesn't happen either.

This is why I call it a larger picture. This has to happen before the stuff you describe, which is also important, can really happen. It's not a case of one or the other, or that shooting the breeze is more important than having a good game. It's that knowing how to construct a proper social event predicates having something interesting to do at the social event (having something to do is still important!)

You say that I'm drawing this from my larger experience, but I'd say the opposite is true. You argue that my approach wouldn't serve you. I disagree! It would serve you excellently, because it would involve tailoring the social event to your particular needs. That's what a good host does, and being a good host is the foremost job of a GM. My approach involves a flexibility yours does not. Deep roleplay, for example, will not appeal to everyone. Many people really do just want to kill monsters and take their stuff. Before you even start your session, you have to know what you're running and for who and how their social dynamics are going to work. And then you need to work on creating an environment appropriate for the experience you want.

It's a higher order thing. You're talking about how to write a book, I'm talking about how to create a final product.