...or smileys. You can't have more smileys to get the proper tone of your post across.

I for one don't wish to be forced to act out voices, accents, etc. That kind of stuff makes me uncomfortable. I would not be into LAARPing at all, for example, even if I love RPGs and am a decent public speaker. If a referee said I must at least try to voice act, I would give it a try but I would be looking for a new game group at the same time. Yes it's my own personality defect, but it would also make me uncomfortable to the point I would no longer be having fun even if the rest of the group was having great fun in my failed attempts at it. So, by all means encourage it in your group, I agree it adds to the fun for most, but don't force it upon anyone.

In my old D6 campaign, we had:

1. Me (GM) and one player - trained, professional stage actors.
2. My best friend since 1980 - a dynamic, 'wild card' kind of guy who loves to play in character... whether it benefits him or not (honestly, most actors could learn from this guy).
3. My older brother - a kind, gentle, socially-awkward kind of guy. He'd never dream of portraying anything other than himself. In fact, he shied away from conflict of any kind, and I think he would have been perfectly happy just running legitimate cargoes around the galaxy for the duration of the campaign.

So, here we've got a pretty lopsided group! Try as I might, amid all the zaniness of myself and my other two players, I just could not get my brother to act out, take a chance, be a hero, nothing! It was actually starting to worry me.

Then, I remembered two beloved, iconic characters: Shaggy and Scooby. What did those guys ever do? Their sole motivation was to hang out with their friends, have a good time, and eat as much food as possible. Scary ghost? F that! It was then I realized that my brother (and his character) was the perfect foil to my other two players - like 'Spinal Tap''s Derek Smalls, he was the 'luke-warm water' to the other two, and as such became a hilarious barometer for how crazy the others were getting.

Moral of the story? I dunno... maybe that you can't force a player to exit their comfort zone - but maybe you can make their comfort zone serve the game!

Use fake voices and accents.

Unfortunately, some people can't do this, or they can't do it well. But you should practice. And if you sound like a wet piece of cardboard, maybe playing a Wookiee isn't your best bet.

You beat me to it. I'm one of those people. I've tried. I always fail. In the past I've role-played the quiet sinister type or the man of few words who was tortured by demons/thepast, etc to compensate for lack of theatrical flare. Perhaps it's good I'm almost always the GM? ETA: Or is that bad? I fail at providing proper voices and accents for my NPCs.

You both miss the point. It's not about doing it well, It's about doing it. Sometimes doing it sh*tty is more fun and makes for more laughs, which is really the overall point.

Eh. This can go either way. I've got a player in my game who modeled his wookie as a caricature of Django (Jamie Foxx film), and it's incredibly grating. I know that for me and the GM, it's irritating and ridiculous.

I have been RP for so long i don't really "know" what it takes anymore since it is so natural for me.

Sadly my wife is new, and isn't a very good roleplayer. She let her assumptions dictate a scene and she missed an important clue that made her upset when she wasn't able to get the information she wanted

Problem for me as a RP is that I am constantly joking around and I don't have fun unless everyone is laughing, kind of limits my characters since i do a lot of Out of character stuff

Use fake voices and accents.

Unfortunately, some people can't do this, or they can't do it well. But you should practice. And if you sound like a wet piece of cardboard, maybe playing a Wookiee isn't your best bet.

You beat me to it. I'm one of those people. I've tried. I always fail. In the past I've role-played the quiet sinister type or the man of few words who was tortured by demons/thepast, etc to compensate for lack of theatrical flare. Perhaps it's good I'm almost always the GM? ETA: Or is that bad? I fail at providing proper voices and accents for my NPCs.

You both miss the point. It's not about doing it well, It's about doing it. Sometimes doing it sh*tty is more fun and makes for more laughs, which is really the overall point.

Eh. This can go either way. I've got a player in my game who modeled his wookie as a caricature of Django (Jamie Foxx film), and it's incredibly grating. I know that for me and the GM, it's irritating and ridiculous.

I think I did say "sometimes".

I've been told my only good impersonation is Swartzenegger, but I've tried a Jack Nicholson, and horribly failed at an Anthony Hopkins. Seems the more subtle the accent or impersonation, the further from the mark I go. But I'll try 'em anyway, especially for the characters that I don't need to have a whole lot of gravitas. I'm trying to get better at accents. I have a players who rocks accents, but isn't totally comfortable doing it. My group doesn't always do this, but when we do, it's almost always makes more a more entertaining day.

I'd say try to be as excited with a failed roll as a great one! If your GM allows it embelish on your success and failures with exciting discriptions. I have a player who sometimes puches his dice or mini's away from him when bad rolls frustrate him at it does kind of suck the fun away. I think I'm going to start giving him some type of bonuses for discriptive failures (equivilent of a hero point for those games that have it, or something else for games that don't).

A big one should be stay focused on the game! One thing that bugs me as a GM are players who are more focused on their phones or laptops than the game. The GM spends a lot of time getting a game ready for their players, and if nothing else it shows appreciation for their efforts if you try to pay attention. Granted sometimes real life comes up, but I agree with the policy of stepping away from the table if you can't give the game your attention. Exceptions should exist for players who have their character sheets on their device, but if your tapping away on your tablet, you're clearly not just checking to see if you're trained in mechanics.

I've also used various games and props for my games. In M&M, I had set up a Jenga tower. The scene was a burning building that the heroes had to pull people out of. The buildong was unstable and was coming down fast! After each turn, I had that player pull a Jenga piece and set it up on top of the tower. This was serving as both a timer (when the Jenga tower fell, so did the building) and it also added some tension to the scene. I got this idea from an RPG blog somewhere, and it really made for a great game!

Specifically for Star Wars, an opening crawl is a great way to introduce players to the events of the game and can even serve as a recap for players who missed a game. I've used them (or tried to) for every session but it seemed like overkill, so I may just do it for each "chapter".

I don't alway use mini's, but I have them out. Sometimes my players just like looking at them and even if we don't get into stratigic mini gaming (and we hardly ever do), sometimes having relitive positions marked my minis and a dry erase grid helps them form the scene in their mind.

A lot of the replies here have been regarding the players, but there are things the GM should be doing as well, like:

• considering their players' characters, and the motivations thereof. Someone mentioned earlier that players finding themselves in positions where their characters have no interest in following along are doing something wrong, but that's only true if they're being intentionally obstinate, or have developed characters that are diametrically opposed to the rest of the group. Sometimes, however, it can be the fault of a GM who doesn't take such things into account, and either provides hooks that are too shallow (credits, fame, the greater good) for some characters, or who neglects to incorporate the various motivations of the whole party. If you have a paladin in the group, offering "the greater good" as the incentive may be suitable for one character, but even without having uncaring villains, you may need to offer more for some of the other characters. For some it may be credits, or fame, while for others they may need a more tailored hook playing upon their character's back story, individual motivation, or by working in some other vein. Sure, players will often go along with whatever the obvious hook is, but it can be disruptive for them if they know that they're just doing it because that's what the GM wants when their PC clearly wouldn't make that decision.
• making an effort to flesh out the world around the players, so they feel like they're not just moving from point to point along a predetermined path, and so that they can grow their characters. The metaphor I like to use is that I think playing a role-playing game should feel more like walking through someplace like historical Williamsberg, where the buildings are real, the setting is real, and the people you see are in costume, and in character, and you can go into the buildings to find a general store, or seamstress, etc... but you know it's all a facade, rather than being like walking down the New York City street on a Universal Studios set, where the place may look real, but you know that if you walk up to any door and open it, you're not going to find a room inside, and will instead just be looking out the back of a cardboard cutout. The game should feel developed enough that you can explore a bit without feeling like you're running off the edge of the map, and the NPCs are round enough that they are memorable. One of my favorite moments in the Pathfinder game I'm running was when the players, posed with a need to do some research, recalled an encounter they'd had with a local scholar, and sought him out for some help.
• working to keep the players feel like the adventure is on rails--that their decisions matter. This can be achieved much of the time by remembering that the players don't know what's behind doors 1, 2, and 3, so you can just place whatever you want them to see or do in front of them, regardless of the direction they choose, but it also means that you should make alterations, and include scenes where the decisions and actions of the players can be seen to have had an obvious impact on things.
• remembering that you're all their to enjoy yourselves, and that the goal should be to build an enjoyable story together, not to crush the opposition sitting across the table from you.

I've been told my only good impersonation is Swartzenegger, but I've tried a Jack Nicholson, and horribly failed at an Anthony Hopkins.

As I mentioned I suck at impressions, but Schwarzenegger is one of the few I can pull off (well at least I think so). Is Schwarzenegger an easy impersonation or something?

Yoda is another one of the few I can pull off. As a GM that sucks at impressions perhaps I can just have Yoda show up all of the time to give advice old-school D&D cartoon Dungeon Master style.

I would add these two things as a GM:

1. Don't try to kill your players. I don't mean to go easy on them. I don't mean that there shouldn't be a challenge. But it isn't a competition of GM vs. Players. I have played with some people who don't seem to understand this. The GM is facilitating a game for the players, not competing against them.

2. Don't go easy on your players. This is the obvious opposite of point 1. If you aren't in direct competition against them, you also aren't there to hold their hand and make them feel like super heroes. Don't be afraid to throw challenges at them that they can fail. Don't be afraid to put them into battles where they could die. Don't put them into battles that the most likely outcome is death. But don't make it so watered down that it doesn't feel like a possibility either.

Play fair.

If you take a moment and really think about most conflicts at the game table they will very likely boil down to it being a fairness or perceived fairness issue. When people feel like they, or another, are being treated unfairly they will react negatively, even if they don't realize it consciously.

This doesn't mean as a GM everything must be equal or that you can't have unfair things happen to PCs in the game, if the universe was equal and fair there wouldn't be much conflict after all, it means you can't treat any Player unfairly. However fairness isn't always objective, what seems fair to one person may not feel fair to another so we have to rely on more than just our gut feelings and in the RPG world one tool to provide an objective guide as to what is and isn't fair are the rules of the game.

Rule Lawyering, for example, is often really about a Player feeling like the rules are not being applied fairly to them or to someone else at the table rather than them just trying to limit people or to get ahead themselves. It is up to everyone at the table to understand that the rules are at the same time just a guide but aren't just a guide, they are the a shared agreement of what is and isn't reasonable in the context, or setting, of the game everyone is playing. The limits of a particular rules system aren't there to limit fun but are there to make sure everyone is playing by the same limits. This isn't to say that a rule shouldn't be bent or ignored on occasion to increase the fun but make sure it's fair.

I've been told my only good impersonation is Swartzenegger, but I've tried a Jack Nicholson, and horribly failed at an Anthony Hopkins.

As I mentioned I suck at impressions, but Schwarzenegger is one of the few I can pull off (well at least I think so). Is Schwarzenegger an easy impersonation or something?

Yoda is another one of the few I can pull off. As a GM that sucks at impressions perhaps I can just have Yoda show up all of the time to give advice old-school D&D cartoon Dungeon Master style.

Not to disparage "AHnold", but it's a little like getting drunk enough to slur your speach, then just deepening your voice.

I think the more like a living cartoon the object of an inpersonation is, the easer they are to do. Even if you suck at those kind of impersonations, most people at least know who you were "going" for and can just go along with it.

In my recent efforts to play every game I own (currently wrapping up #7 of 40+) I discovered it's best to have more than one copy of the book during character creation. I've been able to use PDFs and hard copies so far. It really helps speed things along especially for those games that are option/math heavy or both!

Then instead of everyone trying to monopolize the GMs attention, take your time with each player to make sure they understand the what the scores or character options do during the game. I have one player who selects options (like feats) based on the title of the feat alone, then ends up not really liking his character after the game begins because sonething titled "Wheel Master" only works for wheelchair bound characters (just making that one up).

While you're engaged in the one-on-one time, the other players can read up on character options, Pick put a miniature for their character (if your group uses them), look up rules that may apply to their character type (starship combat for the pilot or gunner) and maybe even work on some backstory.

I may have a weird group, but in my group it's the GM (me) that buys all of the game books. One or two of my players have books for a select few of the games I own and one player buys a lot of indie games. In more than one of my games the list of required items is "...and each player should own a copy of the rule book." and I awlays think, "What utopia are they living in!?"

I may have a weird group, but in my group it's the GM (me) that buys all of the game books. One or two of my players have books for a select few of the games I own and one player buys a lot of indie games. In more than one of my games the list of required items is "...and each player should own a copy of the rule book." and I awlays think, "What utopia are they living in!?"

I do hope your players are feeding you!

In more than one of my games the list of required items is "...and each player should own a copy of the rule book." and I awlays think, "What utopia are they living in!?"

That is the truth!

Perhaps you should direct your players to read this thread?

I've seen that phenomenon more than once through the years. For some reason it never even occurs to many players that they are just as responsible for making a good game as the GM and should be making every effort to do as much work to help the GM as possible. Every player should at least try to have a copy of the core rules and to have read them. The GM frequently has to read several whole books to be properly prepped for a game, the least the players can do is read a page or two of background material.

Actually, my wife provides snacks and sometimes lunch. Some of my players collect other things (like collectable toys) while others just don't have the cash to spare. I was just wondering if my group was unusual (well, I know they are, but for other reasons ).

I don't know if every GM will be able to do this, but I've set up a large screen tv in the game room and connect it to my laptop so that when I need to show the group a picture or map, I can display it up on the large screen for everyone to see. This saves on paper handouts for things that aren't really props.

Actually, my wife provides snacks and sometimes lunch. Some of my players collect other things (like collectable toys) while others just don't have the cash to spare. I was just wondering if my group was unusual (well, I know they are, but for other reasons ).

I don't know if every GM will be able to do this, but I've set up a large screen tv in the game room and connect it to my laptop so that when I need to show the group a picture or map, I can display it up on the large screen for everyone to see. This saves on paper handouts for things that aren't really props.

That is a good idea, if I had one where we play I'd do the same. I like using the crawl creator to do a quick recap of last session and intro to next at the beginning of each session.

http://starwars.com/play/online-activities/crawl-creator/

We are also using a widescreen tv in front of the table and a soundsystem.

Usually we have the starwars sundtrack playing and just recently we started to got rid of the maps on the table and have maps / concept art / moodshots displayed on the TV.

This makes sure that everyone has a similar impression of the surroundings and atmosphere in a certain place. Displaying maps on the TV gives the players a good understanding were stuff is located. But as the map isn't directly on the table it safes my players from playing over-tactical like in a D'n'D scenario.

Depending on the mood-shot I will present to my players I will also give them the option to use everything depicted in the image for the gameplay. Haven't tried this out yet, but imagine it to be a nice thing to see the players studying the mood-shot of a controlroom and eventually one comes up with the idea: "Can this went be opened? Can I hide in there?"

I hope this will reward / encourage creative interaction with environments, without me (the GM) having to highlight all points of interest or handling such things with loads of perception / vigilance checks.

Of course it all comes down to find a nice piece of artwork on the net, that fits the current scene and doesn't give 1000 possibilitys to derail the scene I've planned ahead.

Edit:

For me very good roleplay-Habbits:

* Knowing the difference between player and character knowledge:

Especially when it comes to peple that are very familiar with the EU of starwars those mostly tend to either play their character with too much knowledge or they don't dare to bring the knowledge into game at all. Great solution: If in doubt just ask your gm if your charakter would know some facts about X or ask for a knowledge check.

* Prepared players:

Unfortunately this happens too often. You ask your players to deliver theier backstory unitl friday, inform you about how they want to spend theier XP, spend theier XP between sessions. And on many occasions you get to hear: "Sorry I was just too busy"

* Prepared players:

Unfortunately this happens too often. You ask your players to deliver theier backstory unitl friday, inform you about how they want to spend theier XP, spend theier XP between sessions. And on many occasions you get to hear: "Sorry I was just too busy"

IMO, this is a really good one. GMs put a hell of a lot of work into preparing the game for each week (or however often you play), and good players should likewise put in some work over the week. Not just spending XP or money, but something that fits into the narrative, or at least provides potential fuel for the GM to do something with the narrative.

I’m really, really bad at drawing, but one of my local GMs recently said that he’d give players XP if they drew their characters. So, as bad as I am at drawing, I gave it a shot. I pleasantly surprised myself at what I was able to produce, and so now I am positively inclined to continue to work on that. And it’s my character, not some random individual of the type, because I am putting in elements that are unique to my character.

For players I would say some habits that are good are as follows:

1) Remember that when you are roleplaying you are part of a group. Don't trying to hijack the game to push your owe character's story forward. You will not always be the center of the story, let others be in the lime light.

2) Don't write you Gamemaster into a corner with your background. Identifying your secret history in a multi-page character background and then being upset when the GM doesn't us it because it doesn't fit into the overall story isn't cool.

3) Adding background to your character between sessions so your character knows something that they previously didn't know is not cool. See #1.

4) If you have a problem with the way that you GM is running the game talk to the GM. Don't say "Wow great game. I had a good time," Then come on this forum and bad mouth your GM. He or she is probably reading these forums to.

These actions will probably lead to your GM not having any fun. Especially when the GM tries to talk to the player about these actions multiple time.

Salcor