Dungeon Masters and players alike: Do you rehearse lines for the upcoming game in your characters voice when you know you're alone? With absolutely no risk of getting caught?
If you don't, what methods do you use to get into character? Do you even roleplay enough to bother?
>inb4 autistic
I usually work out a couple things that I'm likely to say in my head throughout the week without really thinking about it, but that's as far as I go. There's really no accounting for how our sessions might go so it would just be a waste to plan too much
>>46382468
>Do you rehearse lines for the upcoming game in your characters voice when you know you're alone? With absolutely no risk of getting caught?
No, I rehearse in public in full costume to test for audience reaction. At times I feel that my range is a bit limited, as I only seem to get fear and disgust reliably, but perfecting one's craft is a lifelong journey.
>>46382468
>do you rehearse lines
No. Never. Why?
>>46382468
I have a knack for improv, so i usually do fine just winging it, I am always the requested GM for my group.
>>46382468
I choke when I do in-character voices so I resort to "They tell you that..." shit.
My scene descriptions are apparently godly though, so people still always want me to be the GM. I just wing that though.
>>46386003
>>46383849
Any tips for winging it? I always kind of choke when I wing it.
>>46382468
I sometimes practice voices. Mostly I pick a voice for a character beforehand, usually a bad impression of a popular actor, or a broad archetype of some kind.
I have a hefty commute on one of the worst freeways in LA. I often curse like an angry dwarven drunk or practice proud dragon voices. Im so alone. Its the most entertaining time killer, really helps me roleplay key characters for big moments like when a group needs to be afraid of a Dragon. Practicing like this makes it so much easier to improv later as the same characters or warm up into new ones on the spot.
https://vine.co/v/imqZiYH6HZw
>>46382468
I'm pretty good at doing voices and I enjoy them quite a lot. Im also better at writing scenes when I sort of improvise them to myself first then just write down the result so actually sometimes I'll act out encounters between the party and an important NPC all by myself to figure out witty one liners and comversation flow.
>>46387208
Sure thing. Description is a three step process. Don't actually think about these steps at the table - they're a tool for my explaining and for your knowing how to practice. Don't make it a checklist, because those make people choke.
You have a world in your head, you say things, and your players end up with a similar world in their head.
Your head: Your descriptions will be better if the world in your head is better. This is easy - study ecology, geology, architecture, history and fables. You can chip away at this stuff gradually, and make it part of how you understand the world. You don't actually invoke this stuff at the table: it'll just going to mean that you know whether your cave has stalactites, and there's not a pack of wolves at the bottom because they'd starve. And it'll mean you can go fast, because you know what a cave with a river in it looks like already, and it doesn't matter if you decided that's what kind of cave this is five seconds ago.
Saying things: The world exists in your head, you just need to put it in your friends' heads. Don't talk like a fantasy author, and don't use heaps of adjectives or vocab you wouldn't use normally. Just explain it like you would if you'd been there and you wanted to tell your friends. Treat it like a conversation, and get them to ask questions. Also use hand gestures.
Their head: It's impossible to get the same world into your friends' heads as the one in your head. And that's okay, because they'll fill in the gaps with bits of their own stuff. All you need to do is make sure their world and your world are similar enough that nobody gets confused, and make sure their imagination is awake. So you need to be clear about the big stuff - how large is this castle, why'd they put a castle here - and you need a small detail to remind people that the world in their head needs stuff in it - this cave has stalactites, the farmers in this region grow pumpkins this time of year.
