As a roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons encourages, even demands, that players portray their characters as in-depth as possible. There are always those players that love getting into their character’s personality as deeply as possible, including a rich, detailed history, motivations, and unique banter. Known as the “thespian”, these players relishes games where they is allowed to act out their character in every way possible. This article describes how to identify these sorts of player, what aspects they enjoy and dislike within a campaign, ways to cater to their tastes, and methods for dealing with thespians that take their play-acting a bit too far.

Identifying the “Thespian” Player

Thespian players have many traits that are relatively easy to identify. First and foremost, they enjoy playing out their characters' personality in every way possible. Thespians usually come up with unique voices for their characters, either a particular accent or a special way of talking, with chosen phrases and inflections.

Thespians usually, but not always, have a clear and detailed history of their characters, including their upbringing, notable moments in their past, and a list of mentors, allies, patrons, and enemies. Thespian often tries hard to tie in elements from their character’s past into the current situation, giving them (and the GM) the motivation for his actions and reactions.

In short, thespians are actors who use roleplaying games as a way to play act out personalities that they enjoy, and are stereotyped as paying little attention to the actual rules of the game.

Likes and Dislikes of the “Thespian”

As mentioned above, thespians enjoy playing characters to the hilt. They are not so much concerned about maximizing statistics, class abilities, and magic items as advancing their character’s goals unfolding plotline. Thespians obviously works well in situations where roleplaying is key—they love to talk with NPCs, preferring to play out the results of a Diplomacy, Bluff, or Intimidate check rather than simply accepting the result for what they are. In terms of campaign style, the thespian enjoys those moments where intrigue, character interaction, puzzles, and other intangibles are in the forefront. While they may still enjoy combat (especially when it allows them to show off a unique style of fighting), the thespian is less concerned about winning a fight rather than putting on a good display for the others at the table.

On the whole, the thespian dislikes campaigns where fighting is the main activity. They tire from the minutiae of combat and can quickly let their attention wander in the middle of a fight. Thespians may not understand people who enjoy combat (often nicknamed the “tactician,” which will be detailed in a later article) and may look down on them as being lesser roleplayers.

In short, here’s a listing of what motivates and excites the thespian player:

• Adventures steeped in heavy roleplaying that allowing them to act out their character in detail.
• Multiple chances to make Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and Intimidation checks with other players and NPCs.
• Adventures that feature mystery, puzzles, and debate.
• Encouragement to come up with a detailed characters history.
• Adventures rich with detail about the people, the land, and the various personalities that they can encounter.

The following are aspects of a game that can “turn off” the thespian:

• Adventures that are little more than combats tied together with small, meaningless interludes.
• Combat that goes on for too long and doesn’t allow the players to portray their character’s quirks, flaws, and advantages.
• Adventures that do not allow for, or have limited, roleplaying opportunities.
• Having to force characters to play against their personality in a way that fits in with the rest of the party.
• Not receiving accolades or praise for good roleplaying or using reason and interaction to solve problems instead of combat.

Positive and Negative Traits of the Thespian

In many ways, the thespians are ideal player. They strive to bring their characters (and thus the adventure) to life by filling it with color and details. In an ideal situation, the thespian uses a character’s personality and motivations to help the GM, providing suggestions as to how the character can get more involved or how character actions tie into the game on a logical level. Good thespians tailor character personalities around the adventure, being flexible enough to know that not everything that can fit into a given adventure and accept the stories, plot twists, and history that the GM has available.

Thespians inspiring enough to coax other, more hesitant players to roleplay more, help create a believable, colorful adventuring group. The thespian can be a wonderful coach for newer or more inexperienced players, providing ways to show off a character and encouraging good roleplaying.

Often, the most common negative trait of the thespian is the tendency to hog the action. The thespian’s natural urge, to portray a character’s personality, can come across as pushy and/or egotistical. Within the limited timeframe of an RPGA session, a thespian that dominates play can bog down the adventure and incite frustration and resentment among other players, especially those who are not as outspoken.

The thespian’s desire to talk and interact with NPCs may drag the party into lengthy, often pointless conversations or draw them into red herrings that can derail carefully designed plots. In extreme cases, the thespian can completely derail a plot by unintentionally going off on a worthless tangent.

Those Thespians with a general disdain of the intricacies for combat, are often unprepared, or caught unaware, when a fight breaks out. They may not know their combat scores very well and have to refer to the character sheet at critical times to figure out pertinent spells, class abilities, or skill totals. They may repeatedly ask for reminders on how to calculate Base Attack Bonuses, the Save DC for spells or the basics of combat on a grid using miniatures.

Integrating the Thespian in Your Game

If you have a thespian in your group, you should count yourself lucky—you have someone who understands what roleplaying means! In order to make these players (and the people who play with them) happy, make sure that you have plenty of opportunities for roleplaying, puzzle solving, and ways to advance the plot without the use of combat. Remember to reward the thespian when play-acting works well within the context of the adventure and make judicious use of story based XP awards.

On the reverse, keep an eye out for the Thespian that wants to dominate the game through or grind the plot to a halt to roleplay. Watch the reactions of the other players in the game—a few rolled eyes or slack expressions on their faces while the thespian’s barbarian begins ranting can give you a clear idea that maybe going a bit too far. Also, if the game seems to get bogged down in talk, either in game or during conversations with NPCs, check to see if it’s because of the thespian’s desire to chat that’s causing the problems.

In most cases, it’s easy to just tell the thespian to “tone it down,” when things get out of hand. Make sure they don’t dominate the table and bring up the fact that the other players should all get a chance to shine. If they don’t listen to you, here are a couple of suggestions that you can use to keep the thespian in line:

• Move the game from a more roleplaying/intrigue style to a more combat oriented game for a while to let the other players get a chance to get in the action.
• Spend more time listening to the actions of the other players, encouraging them to go the extra mile in using their character’s personality.
• Remind the thespian about the time limit for the current round, perhaps by giving updates on how much time remains in hopes of speeding up play.
• Give a heads up when pursuit of a red herring is going too far, “resetting” play to a point where they can get out of the corner he got them into.
• In the worst case, reduce or withhold XP awards for the thespians players unreasonably tripping up the party due to their antics—make it very clear why you are doing it!

Coming Up Next…
In the next article, we address the player that is in many ways opposite to the thespian—the “tactician.”

RPGA