Staying in Character without Stepping on Toes

A few pointers on how not to get cut from the group by being an obnoxious character.

Staying in character is a great way to enhance your group's experience! Below are a few suggestions for what to do--and what not to do-- as you embrace your character:

Have a backstory that helps you understand who your character is and why, and especially what his or her goals are. If you know who you are and what your goals are, you have some guidelines about how your character would behave. Certainly, the formal process of choosing a motivation and your alignment adjectives also provide some soft parameters that your character generally abides within. But of course, we should keep in mind that every character generally departs now and again from expected behavior, and that's part of the joy of complex characters!

Killing encounters one way or another.

Practice your presentation of that character in advance. Try on different speech patterns, voices, pitches, and see what seems to fit. Outlandish accents aren't required, but they can add nice flavor and a higher level of commitment to the gameplay experience, as well as help you delineate that character from those that you play in other campaigns. It is absolutely crucial that you practice your delivery in advance because it's weird to switch voices midway through a campaign, but more pragmatically, you need to be sure you can sustain the voice or speech pattern without laughing uproariously every time you speak or hurting your vocal cords. You should also be prepared with a backup plan if the other members of your party can't keep a straight face or if you realize that your schtick is going to be a distraction.

Do not choose a schtick that is going to be a distraction. For example, if you decide to take my advice on basing your character off of a pop-culture figure (LINK), and you choose, oh, let's say, Edgar Allan Poe, you should NOT look for every opportunity to insert some reference to ravens or Lost Lenore every time you speak. If you have the ability to shoot fire from your fingertips, you should not always burn down every village or lady who resists your advances. The number-one way to avoid schtickiness is to have several aspects that define your character.

Staying in character has three advantages: 1) it makes the game more fun for everyone by letting each person step outside of their real-life personae; 2) it shows commitment to your character and in turn to the game, and your example usually leads to more immersive gameplay as other game players rise to meet your enthusiasm; and 3) it allows you to harvest-- or fine, maybe beg for-- experience points (XP) for your creative gameplay, and in turn, to level up faster.

By all means, look for opportunities to show your GM that you governed your character's actions based upon their defined characteristics, but again, don't be afraid to deviate, as your character should be growing throughout gameplay. But perhaps the biggest tip for leaning into your character without falling on your face is to keep your own character's quests, quirks, and quibbles in context: your character is part of a party, and not the star of her own campaign. This one has been a toughie for me, because I'm phenomenally verbally oriented, often play a bard, and instinctually roll rune checks and lore checks every time I enter a room. It is easy for me to get caught up in my own goals and yell over more reserved colleagues. Another of my buddies likes to steal everything at every opportunity, so no one else has any money...you get the idea. So, hustle for that XP, but not at the expense of everyone else getting their moment to shine.

Two other quick tips: if you play with a group of long-established buddies, remember that your alliances should reflect your in-game relationships, not your real-life ones. So, if a husband-wife duo choose opposite positions in relation to alignment, they probably shouldn't get married in-game. And, relatedly, if one of your colleagues does something that seems way out of left-field relative to his character, hang tight and see what she's up to (shout-out to my friend who straddled a dragon and ditched the whole party, and spoiler alert: she got eaten, and P.S. it was wildly entertaining).

I have a personal theory that there are two types of players: the first type plays themselves but exaggeratedly sexy, strong, powerful, smart, & etc., while the second group plays something that in real life would utterly repulse them. That's why they call it fantasy, be it wish-fulfillment or a dalliance with the taboo. Whichever one best describes you, whether or not you use an accent, even if you must have a schtick and you shamelessly beg for XP, just be sure you're enjoying yourself and letting others enjoy themselves too.