How To Play Good: In-Character Stuff
Create a character which appeals to the other players.
That means a party-friendly and game-friendly character. Make a character you’d want to have as a friend! Seriously, we’ve all seen the edgy loner tiefling vampire. My, how original. Gosh, how impressive. And selfishly game-breaking.
If your character has secrets, expect them to be revealed. If you’re not willing to risk having them revealed, there’s no point to having them, because they don’t contribute to the collaborative story; they’re boring and pointless and, by definition, selfish. A secret that your DM tries to reveal, forcing your character to take actions to keep it concealed, is a recipe for excitement.
Avoid building lists of “will not do” things into your character when those things are things the party will likely (or must) do. A pacifist who refuses to let anyone fight is fascinating, but is always a bad character idea, because it’s a source of constant annoyance. In the same way, avoid building lists of “will not work with” things into your character when those things are things the party will likely (or must) work with. Refusing to speak to wizards is a bad idea in a D&D game.
Playing something like a xenophobic, bigoted High Elf as an adventurer doesn’t make any sense. Loners, extreme introverts, isolationists, and general people-haters are terrible characters in a tabletop RPG. They’re the extreme of “will not work with,” because they won’t work with anyone.
Such characters leave the other players with two options: 1, concoct a bogus in-game reason to include your character, or 2, leave your character behind while they go do stuff.
Neither is any fun for the other players. 1 is purely selfish, because it is by definition forcing other people to bend backwards to facilitate your juvenile trope. 2 will stop being fun for you very quickly indeed. So just don’t.
Avoid needless personal negativity.
Arguing is one of the fastest fun-killers. Thankfully, it’s easy to avoid needless personal negativity stemming from the game: Argue in character.
When Colby yells at Bob for not supporting his character during the boss fight, it’s personal and negative. When Rushawn the half-orc paladin yells at Lemmy the Bard for running and hiding, it takes the edge off, and takes the sting away. It can be funny and interesting while still getting the point across.
Complaining about something in-game is the same. When Jeremy tells the GM that the Watch in New Sarshel are stupid and unfair, such a comment is so meta it can’t help but break immersion. Yeah, Jeremy is transmitting his dissatisfaction with the game world to the GM. It’s effective. But it’s no fun. There’s no room in it for fun. When Jezzer Frane, the nimble-fingered cutpurse, bitches in-character to another character about those lame cops, it adds to both the character and the campaign world, and it has the practical effect of informing the GM of Jeremy’s dissatisfaction. Win-win-win.
More in-character stuff next week!
Every week as part of the How To Play Good series you’ll get a different post with tips and tricks in this series. But if you don’t want to wait, you can get the whole thing here, along with a crap-ton of GM tips.
