Tips for Roleplayers

**Listen to the GM:** They are your primary source of information about your adventurer's universe. You cannot afford to miss what the GM says if you want your adventurers to prevail. Remember that the GM only can speak with one person at a time. If they are busy, write down your question. Don't interrupt others. Taking notes will help you remember important details and even help you piece together details you may have missed otherwise.

**Avoid Play Domination by a Few Players:** Draw inexperienced or reticent players into action and problem solving; the group will be stronger for every mind actively participating in it. Remember that inter-party roleplay is also a great way to build new relationships between your character and the other members of the group, and can be very fulfilling. These moments can give each character stronger motivations and bonds between one another. (It also gives the GM a bit of a break while you are roleplaying among the group - and helps every player that participates have fun!).

**Communicate with Other Players:** Discuss, plan, and share information and strategies, but avoid distracting noisy chaos.

**Plan Ahead:** Even a bad plan is better than no plan. Spirit and persistence can make up for deficiencies in planning. Try to have an alternative scheme in mind if the first plan fails. Be willing to improvise, and remember no plan survives contact with the enemy. Planning what the group will do next before the end of each session also helps the GM be better prepared for the group's actions and give everyone a more fulfilling game.

**Organize First:** Don't wait for an attack to start to figure out who are archers, magic casters, or melee fighters, etc. Make up a chain of command or set up cooperative teams. This advice may also apply to situations outside of combat.

**Take Action:** While it is always better to have a plan, it is even worse to become too afraid to act because you don't know all the details. When necessary improvise and take chances, you'll never be perfectly prepared for every situation. Do *something*, even if it's wrong. Too much deliberation and debate destroy pacing and fun (and can be incredibly frustrating to other players!). If you wait, the opposition will only get stronger.

**Take Initiative:** Take ownership of your own character's drive and actions. Don't make the GM ask you what you want to do (or worse, have to suggest what to do). You don't always need to wait for the GM to give you a prompt before you do something. For example, if the GM has just described a room, don't just sit there waiting for something to happen - investigate or interact with the contents of the room.

**Avoid Acting Without Reason:** The world can be dangerous. Don't yank on levers, or pick up marvelous objects, or attack newly-met creatures unless you know what your adventurers have in mind. Impulsive and pointless acts are common ways to die. Why should your adventurers die for nothing?

**Avoid Unnecessary Encounters:** Your group can clobber that small patrol, of course, but it is better to conserve resources (such as health points, magic points) and freshness for those desperate times when they cannot evade lurking evil.

**Don't Divide the Group:** Doing this weakens the defenses of the group. Worse, it is hard for the GM to handle two or three small games when they prepared for one large one. Splitting up always means that some players must sit and wait while the GM handles the rest.

**Always Watch the Rear:** Avoid the temptation to be in the fight when your adventurer's job is to guard the other directions.

**Provide Relief for the Front Line:** Don't let a few adventurers do all the fighting. When the tough guys are worn down, the less-talented fighters must take to the fore.

**Ignore Loot Until the Objective is Achieved:** Coins and gems have no value in combat, and will encumber. Magical items are troublesome, and often are cursed or otherwise protected .

**Don't Despair When Hit Points and Magic Points are Low:** Use your wits. Be like your adventurers. Desperate straits prompt the greatest ingenuity and heroism.

**Maintain Trust:** Even if betrayal is in character for your adventurer, it seldom will be fun for you to play it out. Other adventurers will remember your adventurer's treachery to their graves, and usually either ostracize him or seek vengeance upon him. However, if this is something you feel your character really would do, consider discussing how to play out the betrayal with the other player's first (outside of the game). It is often more fun to participate in a betrayal and roleplay it out with everyone's help, than by surprising the other players. Other players remember treacherous acts, and may hesitate to play with you in the future if you spring it on them.

**When all Else Fails, Play Dumb/Dead:** This cheap trick is terribly unheroic, but may be the last resort for an otherwise doomed adventurer. In great peril, true adventurers take great chances.

**Character vs Player:** Remember that you are roleplaying your character, not yourself. What you know, your character may not know. What you might say, might not be what your character would say. Try to think about the world from their point of view when interacting with the world. It can often be fun to play out something your character might be ignorant of (even if every *player* is not ignorant of that knowledge).