"Dear JB" Mailbag #24

Dear JB:

Don’t get me wrong I enjoy everything around the hobby (designing a character, writing a backstory, etc.) but for some reason when I’m at a table and it’s my character’s turn to do something I just freeze. I just can’t bring myself to think of anything my character would do until long after the session’s finished.

I joined a campaign a few months ago and the campaign’s been going pretty well but every time the dm looks at me I don’t have anything to say. I’m basically just watching the others play together at this point. I keep running into this issue and I can’t help but feel like I’m ruining the game.

This isn’t the first time it’s happened either. I had a campaign that I was playing over discord and I had the same issue.

The few times I did enjoy dnd were at new player tables where the environment was more relaxed and it wasn’t so rp heavy. It’s hard for me to keep up with more advanced players who come in with their min maxed builds that kill everything in one shot.

I want to hang out with this crowd and other dnd players but I think I’m just not cut out for a hobby that’s so improv-heavy.

I Think I'm Just Bad At DND

Dear BAD:

I was born, raised, and continue to live in Seattle, Washington. As such, when it comes to the MLB the team I pull for is the Seattle Mariners. Which is pathetic, because they have a long and continuing history of frustrating failure...the only MLB team to never make a World Series, let alone win one.

And because I refuse to give dollar one to an ownership group who (despite being reported as one of the most profitable teams in MLB) refuse to pay money to sign good players (in a non-salary cap sport)...essentially 'voting with my wallet'...I can't even WATCH the games at home, because I won't pay for a subscription to the team owned channel that carries the games. So in order to follow the games, I tune in to Chris Crawford's My Oh Why YT channel. Crawford (a minor league scout, sports writer, and lifelong M's fan) recaps every single game, win or lose, with the straight scoop, and his passion, humor, and honesty makes the following of this frustrating team somewhat bearable.  And after last night's 12th inning 2-1 loss in which our starting pitching gave up no earned runs and the team went 1 for 19 with runners in scoring position (and 19 strikeouts overall to a mid pitching squad), he chose to discuss how he first fell in love with the team in the mid-90s and how, despite the frustrations with the 1997 team, they were still fun to watch and how he would prefer to watch fun baseball that fails over bad baseball that enjoys mediocre success. Watching last night's game made him nostalgic for the times when the team played in a way that won people over, instead of a way that pushed them into frustration and apathy.

Reading your email, I have profound empathy for Crawford's position. 

I will continue to assert that playing D&D is NOT acting, even if you happen to see professional actors playing D&D around a game table. I trained as an actor (that's what I was doing in the mid-90s, instead of watching the Mariners). I was a good actor. Reviews of my work stated "While others on the stage were merely 'acting,' he was the only person to put on a genuine performance such that I believed he actually was the character." Why I didn't become a professional actor is a short and (ultimately) silly story, but I regret nothing...my life is wonderful.

Acting is hard work, and every actor ALWAYS has some modicum of fear before stepping onto the stage to give a performance. However, there are three things that carry you through the trepidation and steel your will:

• the camaraderie of your fellow actors
• the lines you've worked so hard to memorize and rehearse
• the mental craft you've used to help you understand and embody your character

Truth be told, for me that third bit was the part I was best at and which I leaned on the most. Memorizing lines was a necessary chore (and my least favorite part of the process), but I was never one to need my fellow actors to "give" me anything on stage. I simply became the character, with my own motivations...they would play off me. 

I was a good actor. But I was NOT good (certainly not as good) at improvisation.

Improv actors...the good ones anyway...are a different breed. They are quick-witted, sure, but more than anything they are mercurial...they can easily shift on a dime to the needs of the story being told. It takes a certain type of headspace to play off-book well, to be able to adjust in a way that does use the give-and-take of your fellow actors on-stage. You have to listen to what they're saying, synthesize it through the filter of the character you're playing, and respond in an appropriate fashion. It's difficult to do well...most of the time, it comes off pretty hammy (which is why you see most improv troupes working comedy routines like Theater Sports...they're all big hams looking to milk laughs from the audience). I would argue that serious improv has a very small appeal...it's one of the reasons the LARP community is pretty small in comparison to the rest of the RPG hobby. Back when I ran a lot of Vampire the Masquerade (in the early '90s), I would play NPCs as if I was acting in character (i.e. improvising)...it tended to make my players exceptionally uncomfortable. I eventually stopped doing more than using the occasional pseudo-accent.

BAD, you are not "bad at D&D." You are simply uncomfortable doing improvisational acting. Designing a character, creating a backstory...these are things that ANY person with an imagination can do. We've all read books (even if only forced to do so in school). We've all seen movies and TV shows. We've all fantasized of living a different life...probably one in which we had superhuman abilities or magical powers. Thinking up a character and considering how they got from "birth" to "present" (i.e. the backstory) is a simple matter of letting our mind wander in a directed fashion.

But there is a vast difference between thinking and acting...and especially a difference between thinking and performing. 

Your problem, BAD, is NOT that you're "bad at D&D." Your problem is that you live in a day and age where the predominant thinking about the POINT of D&D is pretty fucked up.

You, BAD, want to play a game in which you can escape from the humdrum and/or stress of your daily life in a world of fantasy and adventure. And you want to do so with other, likeminded people who ALSO want to experience a world of fantasy and adventure. In such an imaginary world, you require an imaginary character to act as a vehicle...and you've said you like designing characters (and seem to know how to do it). From where I'm sitting, you have all the tools you need to play D&D...actual D&D, the game D&D...in a competent fashion.

Unfortunately, your Dungeon Master is an idiot child.

I run tables with experienced gamers and with rank novices...often at the same time. I can do this because I run the game as a game. I'm okay with players "talking in character," but it's certainly not necessary...and generally there's not a lot of time for "role-playing" (as you use the term) because the players' attention is focused on the situation at hand, NOT the drama (or potential drama) that comes from improvising personalities around the table. And...so far as I've been told by my players...no one has ever felt inadequate in their ability to contribute. EVERYone is contributing...even if they're just taking hits that might have done damage to a fellow PC. Everyone in the party is giving something. And everyone is having fun.

There was a time, BAD...maybe 30 years ago, maybe less, maybe more...there was a time, when I wouldn't have needed to write all this out. There was a time when this was obvious...when people sat down to play D&D, and everyone understood the point of play. And for some people, it wasn't their cup of tea, sure...not every person loves playing every game. I stopped playing baseball at age 10...it doesn't mean I don't understand what the game is about or how it's meant to be played. 

But now...NOW...I look at D&D the same as I look at the Mariners. And there are plenty of people still willing to shell out money to get in the door of a luxury ballpark, so they can stand around in the beer garden on a sunny day, kabitzing with friends, hitting on members of the opposite sex, and having only a passing interest in the product on the field...the bad product on the field. They're not there for the game of baseball. If they were, they'd be outraged...and they'd take their wallets somewhere else. And maybe then the ownership group would do something about the product they're pedaling, even if meant selling the team to someone that cares about more than profits.

From last night's game...

D&D should be an enjoyable experience for people who are interested in playing a game of fantastic fantasy adventure. It should be fun for people who enjoy imagining themselves doing dangerous and heroic deeds as an escape from the daily grind. It should be a game that appeals to and is accessible by a broad range of people of all ages, ethnicities, races, genders, religions, etc....so long as they're people that enjoy a good yarn about sword-swinging action, magic, dragons, etc.

BAD, I tell you with all sincerity: you are not the person who's "bad at D&D." And I'm sorry that you've had multiple experiences where you felt you were: there's a lot of ignorance out there. Don't allow yourself to be gaslit.

Sincerely,

JB