Playing Other Species and Peppering your Role-playing with Humour

A Challenge of DM-ing – Playing All Those Roles.

As a DM you get to populate your game world wherever that may be.  So when it comes to those ‘other people’ you know those who aren’t played by the player, um the player characters, – yep I know, bear with – then it’s played by you.  No-one else, is going to be doing it for you – unless you do as I do and get in the odd ‘guest star’ player for big roles sometimes (or bands of monsters in some cases – which is a fun thing to do, and I recommend getting another DM to do that for you in your game once in a while and see how much fun it is). So,  that means you have to be able to portray almost anything that can turn up in your game world. At the same time you are setting the scene, co-creating the mood, making time move on or slow down, rewinding moments when things don’t go as they should (and trying to avoid rewinds), making rule calls as needed, jogging players along when they are flagging and one hell of a lot of book-keeping usually. So you are busy when you are a DM. Bearing all this in mind – how do you player other species – those non-human ones and make them – umm, non-human?

Hartley the Troll, Brother of Riffkin

Fantasy DM’s (and do you know I’m thinking an alternative meaning for ‘DM’ could be ‘Drama Master, or Drama Maker’ – puns intended) have to be ready to play a necrotic zombie one minute and a familiar mouse the next. By this I don’t mean a mouse you know well, I mean one that some wizard or other has imbued with talents, abilities and spell-bound gifts. So it could be a talking familiar mouse – and that’s not an easy thing to portray convincingly if you are a newbie/novice DM. So – how do you get a group to go with the flow when you are trying out other species on them and retain the ‘wonder’ or believability of your roleplaying when what you are playing is radically ‘not you’ by a long stretch of the imagination? Here’s how.

Pointers for Getting Your Non-Humans – erm – Non-Human!

Confidence is key. If people titter at your portrayal – let them. Keep your portrayal as is. Get physical with your portrayal. If it is a familiar mouse get ‘itty bitty’ with your finges, hunch, be small, make your eyes beady if you can. Anything to get you to believe you are, for that moment, a mouse. So a bit of ‘method’ type acting within reason. Physical portrayal can help you feel more like the character you are playing. Keep your act going no matter what – be undeterred by negative reactions – or make a joke to lighten the mood if you are getting over-hammy.

Use Humour, be Playful.

This can make the tension lighter if you go for light relief if a serious attempt at playing a squeaky familiar mouse is bombing out. Comedy as a DM is a crucial element both of keeping a group interested and attention captured and being light-hearted about the roles you play. Hence I have legends evolving in my game such as that of the Warrior Poet Lord Brandreth of Hakesmere.

Lord Sir Gyles Brandreth of Hakesmere

So far, the players have encountered only his statue/fountain in the Conglomeration Square where the Cracked Head squats. Yep – do a re-read – that’s Gyles Brandreth. If you didn’t get that – better do a quick search in another tab of your browser and you’ll hopefully see where the humour lies in that.

If you have a ‘nothing to lose’ attitude, especially when it comes to your own ego, then you are more likely to be convincing in your portrayal. A little nerves is fine, it’s ok to be anxious especially with new players, new games, new roles, and you can use this as fuel. If you ain’t a teeny bit nervous then you probably have little passion or emotion behind your DM-ing. And you must have that. Conveying emotion is key to believability of playing roles. Otherwise it is just flat words grinding out and that’s DULL. Apologies for the thudding shout, but hey.

So to summarise the tips – get physical, ignore titters, go for light relief/comedy if it’s really panning, have a nothing to lose attitude, believe in yourself, practice in the mirror. Just some basic bits of advice to novice DM’s for crafting believable played DM characters in your world. Further notes include -vary your portrayal of your DMC’s – adopt different accents and voices – pitch, tone, timbre. Take a theatre class or drama class – can really help. Pace things differently. Pauses can be as good as a gabble of words. Use your whole body to act with.

Riffing Riffkin the Trollkin.

I played a little bit of a Trollkin character – Riffkin – in the session the other day (yup – that post is coming up I have it laying about somewhere!). He is a child troll really – a kid by their standards. So he’s only about 7-8 foot tall, and can still get into human pubs. I had him loom. I described the shadow he cast over the table. I described the ‘tang’ of his body odour and how acrid it was. I leered over the table at the player. I adopted a bit of a gruff tone, and played him a little dumb, but not stereotypically dumb. He used colloquial words. I acted physically for him – doing his actions as I described them.

These were some of the techniques I used to give him a bit of life. And you know what – I hadn’t decided to use a trollkin until about a minute before introducing him. I had thought about the troll race before (I don’t think they are very Lankhmar but I don’t really care too much about that). They’re not racially stereotyped so this one is employed as an armourer – very good at bashing metal. So good to get an occupation/profession for the character, and some motivation for them. Think about what they want? Why are they interacting – what function does it serve. Then you can react on the fly thinking about these basic points.

Riffkin’s brother, Hartley is over 20′ tall and can’t go into pubs anymore – at least not human ones. Which is ironic. Not that Trolls in my game care much for alcohol – it’s far too expensive and takes an age to really hit their metabolism. They have their own drinks of course, which would be lethal toxins to humans, and they pretty much have to get alchemists to make them up for them. If they’re not brewing them up themselves. Oh, and they have very tough skin – don’t bother trying to bash them with a sword, unless you really are fed up with life. Or desperate. Or both.

Any questions or comments feel free, and if you have a topic you want me to expound upon – chuck me a comment or an e-mail. I’m sure I left my address on this site somewhere.