I find that many, if not most players, are actually average or even poor role players. What they are *good* at however, is EDITING. That’s why as a GM, I find that they best way for players to get into roleplaying is to do it for them, and then let them revise, delete or add to the narrative.

If a player’s character (let’s call him Bob) is fighting against a giant, and he rolls a 16 (using the d20 system here), he probably knows that it’s a successful hit. This is where the GM should step in to give players a chance to edit the subtext.

Like a Shakespearean actor moving downstage when giving a soliloquy, or a professor stepping out from behind his podium to share a personal story, the GM should come around in front of the players, and say, “OK, here’s what happens. The giant swings down with a massive club, aiming for Bob’s head. With the habit of adventurer’s reflex, Bob deflects the brunt of the blow with his staff, but the force is staggering. Bob is knocked to his knees, ears ringing. The giant, smiles, raises his club for a killing blow. With desperation, Bob lunges to his feet, thrusting the staff before him. It connects with the giants’s knee, and giant howls fill the air.”

The player rolled a 16. All the rest is subtext, and yet, if the player liked it, he will nod and smile, and remember the battle (and the combat session) in vivid pictures in his mind. If the GM introduced errors in the description (for example, if he described Bob wielding a sword instead of a staff), the player will “edit” the communication by letting the GM know. Through this process, the narrative becomes more like a choreographed movie. Players love it.

This works for non-combat role play as well. If the GM describes a throneroom, with a prince who asks the player a question, the game session can grind to a halt while the player tries to come up with an appropriate response. Often their response is flat, or boring, or said with the same amount of emotion as a Vulcan schoolmarm.

So let the GM role-play for the players again, and let them edit. The GM comes around in front of the group and says: “OK, here’s what happens. He recounts the princes words, in character (if he’s so inclined or able), then restates the player’s words in a way that sounds good in the narrative — with emotion, feeling and verve. The player begins to see ways he can continue in that same vein, and the GM has stayed on top of subtext, and has reclaimed the pace of the story.

If the GM misspeaks, or portrays the player’s words in a way he is not comfortable with, the player will say something. It’s easier and more visual to get caught up with editing.

I’ve been using this style for over fifteen years, and it has generated some great role playing sessions. Some players can improv with the best of them, but most need time to warm up to role playing (even ones that have played in the same group for years). This method allows for memorable — and accessible — character development.

For sure, direct discussion of subtext (and characters’ own internal thoughts, and players’ processes for arriving at characterizations) is just another tool for the kit. It might not be the right thing for every group, and it sure isn’t the right thing for every instance. Sometimes, that moment of tacit communication between players, when acts of roleplay become grander interactions, when the game achieves its own flow, is the whole reason for playing the game. Sometimes it’s just the reason for making a particular play within the game. In those moments, RPGs can very closely resemble improv. (I took improv classes for almost ten years, so that similarity isn’t one I take lightly.)

At the same time, though, one of the strengths of RPGs is that they can slide along the scale between improv and scripted theater without ever quite becoming one or the other. (Those moments when players devise complex plans to invade the castle or rescue the prince or whatever? Those are scripting sessions that are then put into contact with the GMs improv skills… unless the GM rewards the players’ hard work by honoring their script and dramatizing their plan.)

My feeling is that too many games fail to achieve decent momentum because the players reject explicit communication as crass or brutish, when it doesn’t have to be. For some groups, the right amount of frank communication is almost none at all. For others, great play comes from carefully defining scenes, encounters, or stakes and then playing out the results. For other groups, it’s a mix. (For me, it’s a mix.)

I should probably find time to write more about this.

A good example is when in a Burning Wheel game I had an NPC who was a friend of a PC flat-out deny the content of that PC’s most important Belief. I expected that to go to verbal conflict, and it felt like I was giving the player an opportunity to step up and push their Belief against the NPC’s opinion and try to convince the NPC to join their cause. What actually happened was the player backed down and the scene went nowhere. It was baffling at the time because the overt desire of the PC at the time was to get this NPC on-side for their pursuit of this particular Belief. It turned out that player missed that the NPC’s flat-out denial was a challenge to change the NPC’s mind, not a brick wall to the PC’s recruitment effort.

All that said, I think that directly addressing the subtext is a tool whose usefulness is dependent on the play style of the group. Simply stating my intentions as a player necessarily requires me to step out of my speaking role, much as you describe actors discussing between scenes behind the curtain. Opening speaking to the subtext is efficient, and would work well for jam-session playstyles.

A group that relies on character immersion won’t find much use in their toolbox for this, though. They’re going to need non-interruptive techniques, like those employed in improv theatre or the flags and tells written into some current systems. That kind of side-band communication allows continuous in-character interaction while still addressing the subtext, but it requires more skill, practice, and awareness, not to mention is just less efficient than directly addressing subtext. Still, for that kind of playstyle, the most direct method is just not compatible.

Two examples of games that are incompatible with directly addressing subtext (for better or worse) is Ben Robbins’ Microscope and Shreyas Sampat’s Mridangam (published in Push Vol 1). The former relies on eliminating out-of-band communication during scenes to make the collaborative scene mechanics work; the latter uses non-verbal hand signals to negotiate scenes without breaking narrative flow and by extension player immersion.

Personally I frequently find myself somewhere between those extremes—so again, thank you for the highlighting a useful tool.

I just have two problems with it. First, I don’t know how to actually do it. Stopping the flow of the game to discuss the game feels terribly alien and artificial to me. Playing an RPG should be closer to improv theater than regular theater, IMHO. In order to get the surprise value that is the glory of RPGs, you also need to accept that they are only ever going to be in rough draft form.

Secondly, I don’t have many other players that I could do this with. Most of the guys I game with are casual and/or traditional and/or self-conscious. Moving to player empowerment with fate points or encouraging description like Exalted’s stunts is pushing their comfort zone. Dealing explicitly on the meta level is going to breaks right through that zone and get me a lot of blank looks and nervous laughter.

Of course, that latter may just be my problem, and I need to find a better group.

This kind of meta communication, though, is one of the things I love about SotC’s Aspects and PDQ’s fortes. I don’t have to read several pages of backstory for each other character. But, neither do I have to guess at the personality of the character from skill selections and race/class combos. I get very explicit tags of what is important to the character up front.