Discussion:How "In Character" are your campaigns?

How "In Character" are your campaigns?

Summerscythe 02:22, 12 May 2008 (MDT)

How in character do you play your campaigns? I was in one earlier this year that we were supposed to be completely immersed while we were playing, we made character prep sheets with our back story and stuff on it, then when our characters would get into an argument about something, it would get vicious and we would actually be fighting. It was also hard whenever we introduced a new PC because everyone would be really shifty and annoyingly unaccepting of the new character for about 6 sessions. In the campaign Im in right now, we're all kinda half immersed, we still have a level head so there aren't any heated emotional arguments that lead to out of game, we also made sure everyone knew each other somehow in the beginning so there wasn't any awkwardness. So how immersed are your guy's campaigns? are you completely in character or are you relaxed and mostly yourselves?

Leviathan 08:02, 12 May 2008 (MDT)

Well, I've no idea how anyone else does it, but there is quite a bit of "table talk" in our sessions. We like to enjoy the game, because it is exactly that, a game. Sometimes we get farther than expected, sometimes we get next to nothing finished. Personally, I don't mind this since we have a lot of fun.

Our actions are still our characters actions, but we do occasionally have arguements as well. Why, just the other day a first time monk player attempted to continue attacking an enemy AFTER he successfully bluffed us all. He was very close to losing his monk abilities because he was acting chaotic. We had a very heated discussion over this. I try to remember though, what would my character say or do. Would he not like this person just because he didn't know them yesterday?--Leviathan 08:02, 12 May 2008 (MDT)

Aarnott 13:40, 12 May 2008 (MDT)

Just for reference:

"A monk who becomes nonlawful cannot gain new levels as a monk but retains all monk abilities."

:)

Yamamoto Kesuke 15:16, 6 August 2008 (MDT)

I personally get pretty in character pretty fast. This is usually an excuse to do something stupid in-game, however. Such as serenading an enemy succubus with the Bloodhound Gang's "Screwing You On The Beach At Night". Or climbing the castle wall instead of using the stairs, for no reason and without training in Athletics.

On the other hand, this also occasionally results in my character actually acting like the insane priest of alien gods that he is and doing something creepy (e.g. desecrating the corpses of all of my foes, eating an NPC when we were snowbound and food got scarce, and hitting on the aforementioned succubus at every point in the campaign we encountered her). This, due to clever backstory convolutions, does not do much except close a lot of doors to our party and make the other players look at me funny sometimes. I have never actually had a conflict in-character with another player. I think the closest I ever got was refusing to speak to the ruler of a dwarven city to get his magic sceptre despite the fact that I had the highest Charisma in the party. That provoked some negative reactions from the other players, but we ended up stealing the freakin' thing anyway, so no harm no foul.

JayKay 15:51, 26 August 2008 (MDT)

My gaming group uses a rotating DM (one person runs a game for about 6 months, then another takes over. Currently we've been blessed with three DM's, myself included...it tends to alleviate the 'DM Burnout' problem.) One of our DM's runs a very high-powered epic game, wherein a lot of cross-talk is tolerated. These games tend to degenerate into a lot of Out Of Character discussions, and very little gets done In Character. Que sera, Sera...

Another DM in the group, when it's his turn to take the helm, runs a very by-the-book campaign, limiting PC choices to those that come directly from the Players Handbook or the Complete Series. In his game, if you want to speak OOC'ly, you have to hold up a silly-looking stuffed animal, indicating that it is the player making the statement, and not the character. Those that violate this rule suffer stiff XP penalties for the game session. Personally, I really dig this particular style...

The game that I run, well...there's a reason that my players affectionately refer to me as the 'A*Hole DM' (a title that I wear with pride). I do not tolerate OOC conversations, period. I give my players one 10 minute break each hour (for cigarettes, bathroom breaks, snacks, and gossip). That is thier time to chat OOC. At first, it caused a lot of problems and hurt feelings, but after a while, they came to enjoy it...as they'd game for 6 hours, and get 6 hours worth of stuff done.

Theseacaptain7 08:15, 20 September 2008 (MDT)

I'm an Elven Bard, and i bring my guitar and sing every spell, performance and action i do, and play along. Also, when i feel like getting annoying, I'll Monty Python myself, and just narrate everything that happens through song

Scratch 6:42, 23 December 2008(MDT)

Our campaigns are kind of half-in half-out. We generally act in character, but when we need to make specific points or get a message across and can't quite think of the "Ye olde" way to say it, we revert to modern day speech. We actually speak more modern-day than "Ye olde" so we end up with some very funny dialogue. I just remarked during a session the other day when one such conversation made me laugh far more than it should have. We brought a dead party member to a church of Pelor for revival after he got killed by a dragon. The Cleric asked us "Aye, brave adventurers, what tragedy hath befallen your comrade?" ~This is the rare form of speech, the DM figured a character being revived should be formal~ The Orc Barbarian carrying him replied "He hath been owned by a dragon." (Picture the word "owned" in italics) I 5 minutes later tried to pass of my characters actions of rolling on the church floor laughing as a curse from his past.

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