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Jan 22, 2013 -- 11:44PM, Pashalik_Mons wrote:

I speak in-character, often with voices(or text colors, for online games).  I roll, without breaking stride, if I think one is going to be needed, but I often err on the side of not rolling, and letting the DM ask for one.

I'll ask question about what is or isn't common knowledge; things like how well my character know someone that I, as a player, just met. This almost always leads the DM asking me for a roll. I try to avoid asking for roll, However I haven't been able to think of a way to work sense motive/insight in without come right out and asking for a roll.

As a DM, I describe the scene to the players, including details relevant to the resolution of that scene. The players usually come up with questions about what they think is important for their characters to resolve the scene. If necessary, skill rolls for knowledge etc are conducted. I also often use the passive variants of skills. When playing NPCs I use in-person language and sometimes different voices. For a lot of scenes (and always for combat scenes), we use terrain and props (Go WorldWorksGames, go!) and miniatures. In the end I find it very important that the players know what the scene is about.

As a side note, I find that a lot of published adventures do not include a good flow of information. A lot of times, at least in my view, a published adventure offers relevant information about the back story to the DM, but does not include advice on how to pass this on to the players. This is, I find, also true for the Paizo APs that I know, which are a good read as a book, but need work in this regard as a playable adventure. So while I find reworking the combats from 3^rd to 4E to be pretty easy (sometimes also rooms have to be changed to accommodate the non-static combat-style of 4E, but that is okay), I have to think about the info flow a lot, especially in situations when the players resolve any scene in a way that I did not envision beforehand. A linear adventure setup can be time consuming to change to fit our playing style, since basically the players decide where the story is going.

The players use in-person language. New players have quickly adapted to that kind of style. Players resolve the scene through their characters and decide where it is going. I do not railroad them. If asked, I point out what the consequences of the PC’s actions could be, if the characters can make educated guesses about this.

I present all information to all players at the same time, even if only one of the characters has access to it at that moment. We expect players to base their roleplay only on what their characters know and 95% of the time they succeed. The metagaming that is required for this some of the time is not a problem for us, I think we rather consider it a roleplaying challenge. The same is true for discussions about where a scene resolution “should go”, if one or two players come up with something interesting that they want to surprise the others with. There is a great deal of trust at our table, which I find very important.

In combat, players describe what their characters are doing and I describe the effects of hp loss and status (dazed etc). I describe what the opponents are doing and the players describe the effects of hp loss and status, since I do not keep track of hp or any other character stats at all and hp loss IMO can only be narrated in relation to the actual amount of hp. If I need to know anything, I ask. The break of immersion this sometimes creates is not a problem for us.

I very rarely ever fudge. The players never fudge.

After the scene resolves, the character’s actions lead to a new scene, which I describe again and the circle starts again. Scenes are never neutral to what the characters did in the game we play, but always modified to challenge the characters motives, decisions etc.

Players have total control over their characters. They choose appropriate magic items, paragon paths, feats and skills or themes for their characters and can retrain. Fluff is changed on a regular basis. If there are implications on a roleplay level, this is played out and always leads to a new scene, which is described by me in the abovementioned manner. If players want to introduce new material for the campaign world that is vital to their character, we talk about it and usually I let them. Actually, thinking about it, I cannot recall a situation in which I had to say “No, you cannot use that”. I guess that is because reframing stuff in 4E is pretty easy to do.

And this is how we roleplay (almost) every Wednesday.