Quote from: CRKrueger;971880Talk IC?  Nearly all player communication is PC to PC unless we're taking a break or eating, and sometimes even that is IC if the PCs are in an inn or something.

When talking to NPCs it's IC.  When talking to the GM, it might be "I do" or "My character does", depending on player.

The best way to encourage it is organically.  Have NPCs address them in character and have NPCs that are fun as hell to talk to - the PCs will start talking eventually.

I'm ok with getting players to talk IC with my NPCs - as you say, I address them IC and they answer IC.
What I don't generally see in tabletop play is PCs talking IC amongst themselves.  I have one great player in one group who does this, perhaps unsurprisingly she also GMs.

Quote from: CRKrueger;971882I wasn't going to say it, but yeah, players who don't talk IC to each other.  IME, that's pretty rare for a RPG.  As in I don't know that I've seen such a player.

I restrained myself from making the same point, but yes. The notion that people are just talking OOC to each other most of the time does strike me as a bit weird.

Actually the 5e DMG has a pretty good section on this where it suggests the different ways that players can role-play their PC: from putting on a voice and speaking directly as the PC to describing their manner and speaking in third person. It's one of those things that seems obvious to experienced players but a lot of newbies don't know how to approach.

In my experience the dividing line is along continuous campaigns play vs. one shots.

In one shots/convention games the players are usually not "at home" enough in the game, the world, the setting, the play venue, the GM playstyle, the other players, and especially the characters (more so if they are just freshly created, or pregens, but I noticed this with older characters as well if they didn't share a common background).
(I'd even posit that if you have IC talking players in one shots they are of the overly thespian, attention-hogging, "look at me", type that I immediately make a mental note of to never invite back...)

With long running campaigns there is this effect that you notice in a lot of sitcoms and TV shows - once you get to know the characters and their inner workings and relationships even a show you didn't care about starts to "click" and makes you tune in every week.
After a few sessions players are more comfortable with one another (and their own characters) and IC talk develops naturally. They now can believably (in an uncontrived way) talk about the world, and NPCs, that they shared experiences with.
About half of the session time is IC character/NPC interaction, while the other half is questions, first/third person descriptions, rules talk, and OOC/not game-related banter - which to me is the perfect mix.

That's why I prefer campaigns to one shots.
(And that's why I prefer trad games to most storygames because the latter often have a limited, one-session scope that never, ever arrives at that sweet spot.)

I think a lot of it is who you play with.

When I play (or GM) with my old mates they rarely talk to each other in character (only to NPCs). I'd be kind of the same... Because we are all good mates and very in tune with each other it actually feels weird talking in character.

But when I play (or GM again) with people online I notice they all pretty much stay in character.

Personally, I don't mind as long as people don't take the piss by too much meta-gaming.

Yeah. Usually. Some players are better than others of course. Most players improve over time, it becomes natural. Even the ones who may feel uncomfortable with it at first.

DM's who enjoy RP-ing, including funny voices, tend to encourage more IC RP-ing. It's one of those virtuous circle kind of things.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;971875

Quote from: ArrozConLecheNot 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.

Arguing over petty shit is good. That's when I get to break out Virtue/Vice and make shit happen as a GM that the PCs didn't want but they gon' get!

Only insofar as the GM does something to rein it in before everyone else becomes bored to tears with the dick measuring contest.

I'm just personally not interested in watching two wannabe Thespians bullshitting beyond a couple of lines, once in a while. If the dialogue is longer than that and doesn't move the action forward (or is inherently super entertaining to the audience), and I begin to wonder if I'm making a good use of my time.

I've actually stopped going to games where this happens very often. If I wanted bad acting, I'd just sit down to watch Manos: The Hands of Fate.

One of the reasons people don't like roleplaying as much I think is because they think it equals acting, ie. a performance.  Doing voices, changing tone, speaking in Elizabethan language...none of that is necessary, and just leads frequently to people getting caught up in the artificial "scene" and the performance instead of what the character would do and say naturally.  Critical Role doesn't help in this regard.

Instead of
"Jack, get the flanking bonus on that Ogre".
"Mouser, go left, I'll take right."

Most people suck at acting because they are trying to Act.  Kids play pretend all the time and it's much more natural.  Any of the artificial framing devices like "this is a roleplaying scene" just hurt and enforce the unnatural, stilted Acting-performance aspect.

You're that character.  Just try to think what they would think and say what they would say.  Play pretend.

yeah you don't have to be an actor. I find my players make an effort to use one another's character-names when referring to one another as an indication of "being in-character" discussion. It's that easy.

Sure I appreciate any player that wants to "go the extra mile" with accents and ticks etc. but it's not necessary as long as you maintain that your interactions are in-character unless otherwise noted. And that's easy to do without prompting simply by referring to one another by their character names (as a simple effective starting point)

Quote from: CRKrueger;971970One of the reasons people don't like roleplaying as much I think is because they think it equals acting, ie. a performance.  Doing voices, changing tone, speaking in Elizabethan language...none of that is necessary, and just leads frequently to people getting caught up in the artificial "scene" and the performance instead of what the character would do and say naturally.  Critical Role doesn't help in this regard.

This actually reminds me of some good advice from one of my best acting teachers. He was completely against the idea of doing any affectations such as accents in the early part of rehearsing a scene. He felt that you should play the character as something close to yourself to make it real. Once you had a real connection with the character, you could start layering things like an accent onto the performance.

Almost always. Players drop out of character often as well, but in my games it's agreed we hold up our hand when speaking out of character. It works really well, because everyone is a goofball and there are plenty funny moments. We started doing this in English, but we quickly changed this to Dutch. Apparently our English isn't as good as we thought it would be.

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

Yeah, all the time. Sometimes I need them to cut it so things can get moving again.

Quote from: S'mon;971804Does it depend on the game?

No.

Quote from: S'mon;971804Do Call of Cthulhu PCs talk more than D&D PCs?

I don't know; I don't run D&D games or Call of Cthulhu games. I can't see why that would make any difference, though.

Quote from: S'mon;971804Does it depend on the game format (tabletop, online text chat, PBP & PBEM, live action etc)?

I only play at a table with other people so I don't know. I tried online on some site but I found it wanting and the players unreliable.

Quote from: S'mon;971804Do you think it's something worth encouraging?

Luckily I've never needed to encourage the players to interact in character.

Quote from: S'mon;971804Do you discourage it?

No, except when the chatter starts to bog things down.

"Do something to distract the guard while I sneak in and grab the goods." Is that IC or OOC talk?

Most of the player to player communication at my table doesn't really differentiate between IC and OOC. Most people don't do funny voices for their characters, which is fine.

Quote from: S'mon;971826Yeah, I feel the same.

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

Just inform the group that anything spoken is said in character unless it is a question to the DM or prefaced with an OOC declaration. I like the idea that any babbling back and forth between players is happening in the game world. If one player wants to advise another on a course of action and they are not physically very close then assume it is being shouted loud enough for the distant character to hear.

These are people that trust each other with their lives every day. Why wouldn't they speak to one another?

This little table rule becomes lots of fun when the PCs are interacting with an NPC and certain members of the group forget about it.

Parley PC: " Greetings king Grognuk, we bring you tribute and tidings from our village

King Grognuk: (standing with 40 orc warriors)" Welcome human scum. We shall see if your tribute is enough to get you out of a beating today."

Loudmouth PC: "Man fuck this guy! Lets just kill him now!"  

Dead silence.

Loudmouth PC: " I said that out loud didn't I?" :eek:

Stuff like that can be fun, or it can turn really annoying. I think we tried the whole 'everything you say is something your character says' kind of thing once in my teenage gaming group, and gave up after something along the lines of:

PC: "Nice to meet you, sir SomeNameOrOther"
NPC/DM: "Greatings, what brings you to this tavern?"
PC: "Pass the Cheetos, Dave."
NPC/DM: "What are Cheetos, and who is Dave?"
PC: "No. I wasn't saying that in character."
NPC/DM: "What do you mean, 'in character?' are you of sound mind?"