Ive noticed I havr a bit of a hard time roleplaying the various NPCs in my games. They feel like they are kind of monopersonalitied, generally uninteresting and i struggle to come up with interesting dialogue on the spot. I know writing out every bit of dialogue an NPC can say is a fools errand so what can i do to fix this issue?
>>98826254Practice, and getting over yourself, helps.Make voices, or do what I do: change your body language and inflections.Learn slang terms of different sub-cultures, work them in. Speak louder or softer. Maintain eye contact, or avoid it. Add excitement, or dullness.
>>98826254Hey Anon. Anon here. I am also terrible at portraying NPCs. Am terrible at many things. How I cope and survive is by funding ways to be at least adequate instead. For npcs I keep little post it notes with their names their problem, their goal and their fear listed and I just stare at those like a retard when I am playing them. For example:>Norog the Smith>Has money troubles>Wants to forge (and sell) a legendary weapon>Fears he won't be able to provide for his only daughter.And I just go of of that. Like Norog is middle aged. probably copes by drinking and is an only parent(sympathy points) and is owed some money from the local minor noble but dares not to go after it. I don't really "act" any of it out. I just describe things but I describe a person that is certainly not me and has his own character. When I get tired or my creativity runs out I throw a pet in and at least two of my players will start interacting with it and that gives me some time to recover.I hope you find my coping mechanism helpful Anon. God Bless.
Narrate the dialogue more often.Instead of "Hello, adventurers, how are you today", you instead say "the barmaid greets you all warmly." It might not be as immersive, but it does help from your own personality bleeding into them and also leads to faster games that get more done. Roleplaying a unique character takes energy and focus, and you might have to do it less often or do it in shorter bursts until you build up more roleplaying stamina.You don't have to force roleplaying into a scene if it's not coming to you at the moment, and you can instead reserve it for characters you have better prepared if it's the improvisation that's tripping you up.For specific tips, you can find a lot of good advice in acting lesson guides, but my personal favorite bit of advice is that posture is important and even changes your voice, helping make it higher or lower and changing how you breath and speak. Having one character sitting up straight and another character heavily leaning forward and another leaning back or to the side effectively forces you to roleplay them differently.
>>98826254Give them a tic (behavioral or vocal), and a distinguishing appearance trait you can work into the interactions semi-frequently.
>>98826254Give them specific personalities and things they care about. Like "grumpy guy that complains about the weather". Not overwhelming obsessions, just things that make them distinct from everyone else.There is the risk that some players will see anything like that as an Important Plot Hook, so you might want to start with shit that's trivial and non-actionable.
