RPPR Episode 111: And The Nat 20 Goes To…Acting in Games

RPPR-Illustrated-Shanghaied-PreviewSponsor: This episode of RPPR is brought to you by easyrollerdice.com. Use coupon code RPPR to get 10% off your order.

News: Check out the RPPR Patreon for bonus podcasts, behind the scene blog posts, and a whole lot more! The Tarot Gang, a collection of villains I wrote using Fate Accelerated Edition, is now available as a PDF supplement. Finally, Boiling Point is almost done and a proofreading draft should be available soon.

Synopsis: Acting can take a lifetime to master, but pretending to be someone else to entertain your friends around a table is entirely different matter. Tom and I talk about how we get into character and our guidelines for role playing at the game. Obviously, using role playing as a justification to do something that will wreck a game is lame, but what else? Find out what our tips and tricks for acting at the game table are! Plus, Tom has a letter and we have shout outs and anecdotes.

Shout Outs

  • Easy Roller Dice: This episode’s sponsor. Remember, 10% off your order with coupon RPPR AND free US shipping!
  • Warlord Sports: Get yer LARPing gear here.
  • The Disaster Artist: Find out the story behind the creation of The Room, the world’s most infamous bad movie.
  • Completely Normal: A stand up special by Tom Segura, now on Netflix
  • The Light at the End: Splatterpunk vampire horror set in 1980s New York City.
  • No Can Defend: A stand up special by Gary Gulman.The link goes to a sample on Youtube.
  • Darkest Dungeon: MORTALITY CLARIFIED IN A SINGLE STRIKE
  • The Guest: What if Captain America was a bit unhinged? Ok, a LOT unhinged.

Song: Final Battle from the Godzilla NES Creepypasta OST

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9 Comments

  1. why’s everyone always so down on Libertarians? is it because they’re Libertarians? everyone’s always holding Libertarians being Libertarians against them but remember a Libertarian isn’t defined by his Libertarianism, he might also be a Sovereign Citizen and shoot cops at routine traffic stops, give them a fair go

    “I’m just playing my character” is an excuse that gets bandied about for shitting things up cooonstantly in online roleplaying circles, even on the MUSHes that represent its highest form. I had an argument with this guy the other day who said he enjoys playing sexist racists and takes Racist and Sexist flaws (so he can +prove that he has the flaw and say “look, I’m just playing my character!” when he makes people hugely uncomfortable). those communities have this endemic notion of “social simulationism” where any configuration of human who can ruin another human’s fun must be tolerated because “those people exist in real life.” as if you somehow had a responsibility to be someone’s virtual punching bag because “it’s realistic.”

    I’m surprised you guys didn’t talk about Thad! if ever there’s been an actor on RPPR, it was he. I was just listening to the first few episodes of New Arcadia and remembered that when Ghost Robot first infodumped to the police I thought Thad, who was new at the time, was just pulling an Aaron and totally incapable of controlling his mouth. only later did it become clear that he was just creating a character so naturalistically–laying out that menu only as and when it became relevant, never talking about it–that not being familiar with him in a broader context I couldn’t even perceive it happening. after we’d seen the bitchy Gaga fabulousness of Faeyun and the cigar-chewing Inglorious Basterdy of Dangers of Frat, no one could doubt the commitment to character and performance.

  2. Lovecraftian ghouls aren’t undead. They’re just creatures that eat dead people. They’re direct descendants of Arabian Nights ghouls, which are also not undead.

    Lovecraftian ghouls are also capable of having children and of interbreeding with humans, although they do it by switching a baby ghoul with a baby human and letting him be raised as a human. The way that humans adopted by ghouls turn into ghouls and ghouls raised by humans look like humans suggests it’s purely an epigenetic difference, although that wouldn’t have been a scientific concept in Lovecraft’s time (but nature vs. nurture would have been, and, unlike the Deep Ones, evidently with ghouls it’s all about nurturing).

  3. @Crawlkill

    Libertarians and “I’m just playing my character” have a thing in common. It’s that neither idea is in it self fundamentally bad but ideas both tend to be used by arsholes as an excuse for their arsholeness.

  4. and here I’d always thought Sparkles was a nod to tne Charlie the Unicorn cartoons

    “Shun the non-believer! Shuuuuuun!,” etc.

  5. Author

    Yeah, Charlie was also an inspiration, in terms of behavior and general creepiness.

  6. I can’t hear Dr. Roxo, probably because a friend does a horribly spot-on Dr. Roxo, but I definitely hear the Charlie the Unicorn, plus a unique Ross Payton flair that shows up in Baalgren (spelling?) who needs an honorable mention too. Sparkles sold the Base Raiders setting to me.

  7. There’s nothing quite like a good character voice to sell an NPC. But it can be tough sometimes as a GM if you have a bunch of them to do; for my Civil War scenarios, I’ve got to do something to distinguish the dozen characters who all have some sort of Southern accent.

    I also realize that I tend to have character types that reoccur throughout a lot of the games I run, both homebrew and published. I have the innocent youngster, the arrogant jerk boss, the cheerful bumbling quest-giver, the gruff but friendly redneck, etc. And they always tend to have the same voices. This is a good shortcut for adventure games, since the PCs can identify the archtype they’re talking to easily. But in investigative or horror games, I need to work on varying up the roles that each of these types play in the plot. Maybe the innocent youngster is a cultist sometimes, or the bumbling quest-giver dies horribly in mid-conversation. That can help mix things up a bit.

  8. “My new philosophy for these games is to make it meatgrinder…Kill as many player characters as possible.”-Ross, Horrible Monster 😉

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