Do PCs talk to each other in your games?

Does it depend on the game? Do Call of Cthulhu PCs talk more than D&D PCs?

Does it depend on the game format (tabletop, online text chat, PBP & PBEM, live action etc)?

 I suspect PCs pretty much never interact in-character in my D&D tabletop games, and that this is a big difference between tabletop and text-chat or pbem play where that is often the focus of play.

Do you think it's something worth encouraging? Do you discourage it?

I've seen it, but it's not all that common. Certainly, it is not as common as them talking in character to the GM, when the GM is running an NPC.

I personally like it when they speak in character, but I don't force it on them.

Among my players, yes, if the game is a modern or near modern setting, they are more likely to speak in character with each other.

I think PCs speaking to each other in character is more the norm in my campaigns, but it depends on the situation. There is also sometimes a blurry line, particularly when players are planning things, where you almost can't tell if people are speaking in or out of character. But I find if I ask whether they are, the answer is often yes. A little hard to analyze this from within the group though.

It depends. There could be dialogue or not, in the same campaign. Sometimes sessions will be roleplay heavy and sometimes it's dungeon crawling, some sort of heist, or tactical combat. Occasionally there are mass combat scenarios which have about as much RP as a game of Squad Leader.

Almost always no matter what game we play. Worth encouraging? Not really.

In my High School/College-era groups we did quite a bit of talking to each other in character. In my current group, it varies a decent amount, with some sessions being almost entirely OOC talk planning, and abstract 3rd person resolution of some social situations. Personally, I love roleplaying with fellow PCs in character and tend to be mildly frustrated when people shy away from it or approach RPG scenarios in a detached "As players, let's talk and find a solution, then have our characters execute it" kinda mode. I like interesting characters, and for them to be interesting to me, I need to see them roleplayed, and for a group of characters to have camaraderie and relationships, I need to see it RP'd out amongst them. I guess that makes me a bit of an "immersion" kinda guy. I'm not against playing an old school dungeon in 10 minute turns, with rests and wandering monsters, but without at least a whiff of inter-PC RP, I prefer just playing a non-RP game as I tend to think they are better as games.

No, almost never.  I don't encourage it.  This is one of those things that for my type of player is salt, but not meat.  A little bit of some form of it makes the game better, but a lot of it gets away from what I want out of a game session.

Sometimes we do- depends on the game.

Not really. It amounts to little more than bad acting. It's OK, even amusing, in small doses. It annoys me when it goes on and on, especially when it's characters arguing over petty shit.

When I run anything with "exploration turns" (dungeon-, site-, hex-crawls), I insist that the players discuss their party's action for the turn & have one person communicate it to me before I ask for individual character tests, roll for traps, etc. This happens both OOC and IC, but I really like to see the IC moments. I think this "carves out" a space for players to interact with each other IC. Otherwise, I find that players end up role-playing with mainly the GM characters. Also, morale and reaction rules (especially morale for hirelings).

Whenever we have situations where it becomes important what one character knows, and whether they can and/or have communicated that information to the others (such as a stealth operation where the party splits up), we suddenly become aware that the players talking and the characters talking are separate things. Otherwise, talking 'in character' is usually done for flavor or fun reasons, and is much more common PC-to-NPC than PC-to-PC, but is definitely done.

Quote from: S'mon;971804Do PCs talk to each other in your games?

Yeah. Not constantly, but it happens.

QuoteDoes it depend on the game? Do Call of Cthulhu PCs talk more than D&D PCs?

I don't think the system matters, but it happens more when players need to make real decisions that force them to talk. If a game is somewhat railroady, the players just follow the path and don't need to discuss what to do next.

I'm playing in one of Brendan's games at the moment. It's a Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate campaign where we are playing evil characters working together in a city sandbox. As the new crew in town looking to carve out a piece of the action, the game is player-driven. That means we have had a lot of cause to talk to each other. It's never completely obvious what to do next. Some planning is out of character, and some isn't.

I find that the more a decision is based on a character's personality, the more likely they are to slip into their voice. If it's a matter of pure strategy, it can go either way.

QuoteDoes it depend on the game format (tabletop, online text chat, PBP & PBEM, live action etc)?

I really only game at the table or via video chat, which isn't that different. I'd say it's just a little easier at the table because with video, you are all using a single point of communication. You need to be a little more careful to avoid talking over one another, which can make people just a little quieter. It's a minor issue though.

QuoteDo you think it's something worth encouraging? Do you discourage it?

I don't don't do either. Encouraging it could be counterproductive. In high school, I noticed on of my best friends was completely averse to talking in character. It was always "My character does..." and "My character tells the guy that..." in third person. But he was actually a damn good roleplayer. His characters had solid motivations and took interesting actions based on them. He wasn't comfortable acting out the part of his character, but he had a clear idea of who his character was, and brought that across at the table. Trying to get him to start talking in character would have just made him unhappy and probably would have resulted in worse roleplaying or him just dropping out.

I can't say I have ever needed to discourage it. I can see a hypothetical case where two PCs take up huge amounts of spotlight time bantering with each other while the rest of the group sits around bored. It's not a thing I have ever seen though.

In our games it's pretty much constant. As a group we try to stay in character mostly, so unless there's no way the PCs could actually communicate, that's what we do.

It keeps people focused and stops inane and off-topic chatter.

Quote from: NeonAce;971811Personally, I love roleplaying with fellow PCs in character and tend to be mildly frustrated when people shy away from it or approach RPG scenarios in a detached "As players, let's talk and find a solution, then have our characters execute it" kinda mode. I like interesting characters, and for them to be interesting to me, I need to see them roleplayed, and for a group of characters to have camaraderie and relationships, I need to see it RP'd out amongst them. I guess that makes me a bit of an "immersion" kinda guy. I'm not against playing an old school dungeon in 10 minute turns, with rests and wandering monsters, but without at least a whiff of inter-PC RP, I prefer just playing a non-RP game as I tend to think they are better as games.

Yeah, I feel the same.

Is there anything a GM can do to encourage in-character interaction among the PCs?