Roleplaying | Running the Game 

Timestamps: @4:58 What is Roleplaying? @7:36 Character @7:54 0-Dimensional Characters @10:18 1-Dimensional Characters @13:37 3-Dimensional Characters @17:44 Motivation @26:37 Being a better Roleplayer @33:58 The Audience @44:43 Ending

The star wars campaign stalls when Luke won't accept the quest... Now what? Orcs... I mean storm troopers, attack!

"I want to get out of this backwater village and save a beautiful dragon from a ravening princess" Truer words have never been spoken

"I'm Matt Colville, and this is my Master Class."

Roleplaying is like cake, with the cake itself being having a three-dimensional character, and "doing the voice" is frosting. It's weird to eat JUST frosting, even if it tastes Amazing. Eating JUST frosting is also waaayyy easier and quicker than baking the cake. But if you do take the time to bake the cake, even the frosting itself will taste so much better.

"[Roleplaying] gives you empathy, cures baldness, and leads to democracy." - Matthew Colville, 2019 This will be a great quote to take out of context.

"I'm here to play DnD with you. My friend. Because I like you. You are fun to hang out with I want to play DnD with you." that was oddly comforting to hear you say.

I always try to make my characters three dimensional. However, I think the most fun I've had - and one of the most complex characters I've made - was with an NPC I made for my players, named Alan Porter. Alan started off as just a one-bit NPC. He was supposed to just go up and be impressed by this party of 1st level adventurers. His job was simply to be an ordinary person, a stable boy, who could express the idea that just _being_ an adventurer, even at 1st level, is an impressive accomplishment. Someone who could remind the players through context alone that having levels in a PC class is a meaningful thing - that they are inherently more impressive (powerful) than an ordinary person. He didn't originally even have a last name, until I needed his guardian to yell for him. The players noticed that I had given him a sling - just something for detail, that a stable boy might carry - and decided that they wanted him with them. Well, in particular two players did, but they pushed him into doing it. Now I needed to give him enough to not just die in the first encounter. Most of that is fine, just things that anyone could gather, but he needs armour. Well, I needed a reason for his uncle the innkeeper to dislike adventurers (to contrast Alan himself), and I settled on adventuring being the death of Alan's mother. So, I decided to build on that more. His mother _was_ an adventurer, and she died on an adventure, leaving her son with her brother. Alan comes back in a distinctive, ill-fitting armour he found in an old trunk that once belonged to his mother, and I decided that he never knew before that moment that she was an adventurer. Now he has three whole reasons to adventure; He wants to get out of the small village and see the world, he wants to live up to the expectations of these amazing adventurers that have put their faith in them, and he wants to learn more about who his mother is and what kind of life she lived. On top of that, one of the female characters was especially encouraging, and slightly flirtatious. So that gave me another motivator - he was quite smitten with Robyn. On the other hand, I also knew that he had some flaws. He was a superstitious peasant, who viewed adventurers and the things they face as larger than life. He feared magic and supernatural things. On top of which, I saw that he had good physical scores, and pretty lousy mental ones. So I decided that he had a lot of self doubt. He was _aware_ of his own deficiencies, and consistently thought of the "real" adventurers as more important than him. So he had a dichotomy, not really wanting to step up, but also wanting to help his new friends. It also created interesting situations where his feelings for Robyn were concerned. On one occasion, the party got into a fight with a dragon and almost all of them ran, including Alan. Robyn decided not to run. Alan _saw_ that Robyn decided not to run. He doubled back, grabbed a fallen enemy's bow and arrows, and stood his ground against an enemy that moments before he had been willing, even eager, to flee from. He went from running in fear to standing and being willing to die for the sake of unrequited love. On another occasion, Robyn was complaining about how much of a dullard Alan was while he wasn't there. I rolled a percent chance, and he walked in just in time to hear the woman he had been pining for - the person who had been most supportive and encouraging to him - badmouthing him when he wasn't around. If you've been picking up on Alan's motivations, you can imagine how he reacted to this. He became very cold to Robyn. Borderline hostile. There was confrontation, a devil attacked Alan in his dreams (long story), and then the two reconciled. Robyn's player decided that seeing how strongly Alan had reacted, and having him treat her with that coldness, pushed Robyn to admit her feelings for Alan to herself, even if he wasn't the type of person she'd always dreamed of, and be the one to not only repair their relationship, but solidify it. Which, in turn, changed Alan's motivations, since he was no longer just pining for someone that he deep down felt certain he had no chance with, but instead fighting alongside the woman he loved, and who loved him back. ...but you know what? I _did_ do the voice for Alan. I gave him my best "Warcraft Peasant" drawl, just to help emphasise that he was a bit dim, and it honestly made him even more fun to play.

That genuine smile at the end. Matt has been trying to build this exact content for years, and is proud of the outcome. Let that piece of your mind relax, Matt.

26:05 "I wanna get out if this dead end, backwater village and save a beautiful dragon from a ravening princess." Stay amazing Mr Colville

I think this was masterwork of the Running the Game series to date. It is going to both help me communicate to my players of what the hobby is capable, and make me better at recognizing that my players are both role-playing and having fun, with or without the capital R. Thanks again , Matt.

Matt, I never comment on vids. This was an amazing lecture. One of your best so far.

22:03 I'm an avid Tolkien buff and I've... never before put Frodo's passing into the west into this context. I had to pause the video, and I cried. That's quite powerful.

*Looks at Matt's awesome hair.* Maybe it does cure baldness.

My own reason for doing "the voice" (ie: a terribly butchered version of some accent) is simply that I find it easier to get into character. I find the voice just helps add some separation between myself and my character, and then it's easier to make decisions on their behalf. I agree with everything Matt is saying, I'd just like to add this two cents on the utility of the voice.

3:10 "Empathy is WEAKNESS!" You back away from that person very slowly until you are far enough to sprint.

"I want to save the dragon from the Princess" that's a fun subversion

Thousands of shy nerds are going to be empowered to get into dnd because of this video. Its importance to the hobby cannot be overstated.

Anyone: Posts a 15 minute video Me: “Yeesh, who’s got that kinda time?” Matt Colville: Posts 45 minute video Me: *click*

Yay! Matthew Colville says he wants to play with me! Yay! Grabbins the Unwanted is now Grabbins the Wanted! Grabbins no longer needs to take food off table from other people!

"Your characters have to communicate somehow, they're not telepathic"... Unless they are... unless they are telepathic.

This is a UNI quality lecture/thesis on Role-playing. This should get in textbooks.

"Players want to have fun. Audiences want to be entertained" I have been saying this.

I love how much of your D&D advice doubles as great writing advice. I've been struggling to write a protagonist for a short story I'm working on, and after a few other character writing videos that didn't help very much I came back here.

This video is f**king gold. Love the subtitle, love the topic. Sending this to all my DnD friends because I took so much from this. I might re-work characters just to expand their roleplay potential because of this video.

I love that Matt took until #83 to get to "roleplaying" in a series about role-playing games! 😂😂

"Matt, the writer, wants us to stop being actors, and be writers!" - Matt 2019

I was just telling my friend how it was interesting to note the difference between The Chain and Vox Machina. Both have taught me what D&D can be but the two games are very different.

What a great teardown of the "Good role-playing" myth. I would love a video exploring D&D as a Role Playing game vs. a role-playing Game

12:00 I was just gonna mention how much Indiana Jones did change during the third movie, and then he mentioned it himself. Smooth.

"Save a beautiful dragon from a ravening princess.." Okay. Gonna go write that arc now.

A man of my own heart, I also want to play with you, no just with the character of that one particular campaign... you Play with friends and family, you snack with them, you eat with them, you spend a night playing that is more than just a session to retrieve the enchanted helm, it is having fun together and bonding

Matt. EASILY your best video. Ever. Understanding players v characters as well as how some can’t or won’t RP... brilliant. Understanding conversations WITHOUT accents is VALID RP because of context and subtext... BRILLIANT. Thank you. I have given you grief in the past. I’ll own that. THIS was EPIC DMing. Thank you.

Dude I like the small addition of the "chapter titles" and the little animations they have. Makes it easier to follow through a long video like this. Maybe add timestamps for these in the comments to easily sift through topics when rewatching?

Matt Colville: “It’s possible to save Ellie without killing anyone.” *Abby hits the Dislike button*

Running the Game is a fine series, and full of good advice, jokes, and memorable quotes. But the one thing that always makes me reflect the most is this one moment in this one video. 'I've played with people, adults, who talk about how they don't like to read fiction because they don't like the experience of thinking someone else's thoughts, or feeling their feelings. They don't like empathy, in other words. They consider it weakness. That is a real thing, real people have told me; in person.' I'm a pretty cold person at times, and I can not for the life of me imagine someone who holds this opinion. In the Discworld novel 'Jingo' there's a character who is so pompous that he can't imagine someone insulting him, and so when he is insulted he doesn't acknowledge it the same way one wouldn't acknowledge a dog talking, or a bowling ball floating; it just doesn't happen, so it is implausible to be happening, so it is probably not actually happening and thus safe to ignore. I feel like that with this quote. I can intellectually accept that there are people out there who get icky experiencing fiction and fictional emotion, but I can't internalise it. People don't think that way, it's absurd to even suggest it. But I've met people like that too, and I have no idea how they even exist. They're as alien to me as a single cell organism or someone made entirely out of clouds; I only understand them for the sake of argument. Luckily, if you are the kind of person that do enjoy things like fiction, and being curious, and learning; they don't stick around so you're quite safe from them. But that they're still out there downright scares me.

Matthew Colville is one of those channels that always gets a "like" before I press play, because I just know that this is gonna be 46 minutes featuring one of the smoothest storytellers I know. Love this channel. Thanks Matt.

46m Running the Game vid? Just like old times...

"Save the beautiful dragon from a ravenous princess..." - solid gold at 26:06

I started watching your videos with this one in particular, when a friend of mine was helping me better create a character for our campaign. This video was super helpful. As an aside, when you referenced Frodo for character motivation I actually started crying. I'd never read the books, and I'd forgotten that Tolkien survived WWI. The subtext of Frodo's motivations and his character floored me, and made me rethink so much in the ways of storytelling and building a character. Thank you

This is the climax of the running the game series. For well over a year Matt has been trying to make the rtg videos shorter, often verbally confirming this desire. When I saw this video was 45 min long, my only thought was extreme excitement and being so proud of this amazing channel. I was so happy to see matt make a decision to make a long rtg video. Now that I've watched it, I am beyond words amazed at how it feels like RTG has been leading up to this video, and I hope it changes the RPG community, the matt colville community, and the D&D community forever (kind of how his critical role video link was the number one comment on most other videos about the campaign 1 finale; it changed everything for everyone who watched it) TLDR: Well done Matt. This video is important, and should be recognized as so.

I've gotten used to the old format, and I liked the way it was more conversational and casual, but I definitely appreciate the structured and professional-looking form of this one and will get used to it soon enough.

Watching this video for about the 30th time, and I just wanted to say that the opening has made me think differently about the choices I make in games, and it has been extremely rewarding - recently having played through Farcry 6 (I know, I know - vapid, shallow, and devoid of meaning - but a lot of fun!), I found myself making choices based on what *Dani* would do, not on what I would do, and it only enriched the experience and story. All this to say, keep doing what you do Matt!

This is what makes you an Icon Matt, in the first seven minutes of the video, with the upper case and lower case roleplaying, you basically defined or created terminology that people are going to be using as the default hobby jargon for years and years to come. So needed, so useful.

One of your best videos and you've put out a lot of good content over the years. You've done a great job of condensing down a lot of views and ideas you've expressed over the years and providing context for your views.

The entire bit about LOTR hit me different. I'm grateful for having found and subbed Matt. He gets what I think but can't express.

Thank you for articulating this. I feel like there are a lot of RU-vid channels with D&D content aimed at new players. However, a lot of them seem to be more interested in running down the monster manual or talking about which spell is the most “OP”. This is a lot more substantial than that. The trend of stream watchers getting into the game only to be disappointed that their game isn’t like the game they see online is something that I like being addressed.

I had my first Roleplaying experience last night. I was included in a campaign different than mine as a guest character, but the same DM, for 3 sessions. At the the end I had to betray the group during a heist and leave them behind / get them killed. By the time we got that far I was genuinely so nervous but equally excited to play out that part. That's what I love about this game and roleplaying. It broadens my perspective AND I get to have fun and make new friends. Awesome.

Matt Colville Quote of the day: "I want to save a beautiful Dragon from a ravening Princess" this is why Matt is awesome

This was an amazing and wonderful piece without ever saying, "the Matt Mercer Effect." Not fair to him, not fair to anyone else. You addressed the main issues by letting everyone know, it's all ok.

I've watched this video a million times by now, and every time I come to this video I come back with a new or greater understanding of the hobby. While it's far from the most quotable, I found myself absolutely struck by the simple line: "What does a character want?(Motivation), and why do they want it?(Subtext). Truly an incredibly beautiful synopsis of how to write characters compacted into one short line. This forever changed my view on every character I now make, and I found myself pausing the video going over literally almost every character I have created or past PC's I've now come to NPC and asking this simple question to myself. Never will I deploy another character again without first asking myself this question. Incredible lecture Matt.

Now looking at all my OCs and thinking...dang, are they just a voice? WHAT IS MY SUBTEXT?! Great video Matt!

This is a masterclass. Thank you, Matt!

I've noticed your players have gotten in character enough that when you interject in their deliberations as a GM without an NPC, they go "what's that noise?"

Matt, wow. This is one of the most insightful and effectively communicated breakdowns of role playing that i think has ever been recorded or written. I haven't read much about this topic specifically aside from popular bloggers like angry DM or game designers themselves, but I would challenge any previously written text to do what you just did as concisely and in as few words. Bravo, this is why we love you - this is a masterpiece of DM advice.

Excellent episode, Matt. I always thought role-playing was "doing the voice" and never really played knowing my character's motivation. This is one of those videos that I will be directing my nephew to (he just started getting into the hobby) so that he can immerse himself in the game, but also so that he won't forget to have fun with his friends. (P.S. Finally got my hardcover book, t-shirt, sticker, and mini from the Kickstarter delivered to me on the Canadian Prairie. Thanks Matt. It did NOT disappoint. Good job, all.)

As usual, Matt very eloquently expresses what I and my gaming group feel about a topic. This is Master Class level stuff here!

I love the editing in this! It added a lot of cool touches and I think improved the comprehensibility.

This might be your best Running the Game video ever, Matt. It was helpful to me for sure. I think this video will be helpful to the rpg community as a whole and that people will be talking about it for a long time, or at least they should be. Thanks to all of you at MCDM for your contribution to making it.

Your magnum opus, sir. I got a chill when you clued me in to Tolkien's message to his war vet friends. Lots of revelations of my own game playing and the rping at my table. I see Lars differently now as well. I think I read somebody further in the comments typed "masterclass" and I agree. Game Nerd Series Master Class by Matthew Colville. Seriously, fantastic, shareable, rewatchable vid. Thank you.

I think this is one of the best videos Matt has ever done.

As a DM, I try my hardest to both encourage my players to escape their comfort zone when roleplaying, but also be sure not to push them into a situation they are not comfortable in. The best thing to do at your table if you have players hesitant to engage in roleplay, you can cultivate an interest in that element of the game through gentle encouragement, asking more questions like "how would your character react to this?" In my experience, players are more likely than not to want to extrapolate on their character's thoughts and motivations when given the opportunity (mileage may vary given your group dynamic). They may not even really understand what roleplaying 'is' per se, but decently empathetic people, I feel, can more easily than not immerse themselves into characters when given the right circumstance and encouragement. Also, love the new title cards Matt!

"save a beautiful dragon from a ravening princess" now THAT'S a strong start for an adventure! :D

25:39 This one hit home. Hard. I'm that kid. That kid who was born in the middle of nowhere, lucky to have a good education but not lucky enough to have a good country, a good opportunity if I stay. I want to go, I want to escape and I never even realized... I want to matter. I want to make a difference and when you said that, I just felt like crying. I didn't even notice, almost every choice I've made, or thought I've had about the future is because I want to be someone. And I just can't do that at home. I can't stay in the only place I know and love because I have to become somebody, I want to do something meaningful. My whole life, all my academical efforts I make are just because I want to escape. And DnD is just another way of doing that, while I work on getting out of here. And I just can't believe a video about roleplaying in a tabletop game almost has me to tears.

YOU CAN'T JUST. END VIDEOS LIKE THAT. 10/10. This is incredibly well made and I wanna show it to my friends all across the roleplaying spectrum.

Those Beautiful Dragons often need to be saved from the Ravening Princess. It's a tough life for a beautiful dragon...

Fantastic commentary on the Audience role that is new to roleplaying in this era of streaming.

Still one of my favorite pieces of D&D media over two years later. I come back to this every so often to take a look at my characters and decide what they are and what I want to do with them. Thanks so much for this entire series, and in particular a nuanced view on storytelling.

I love the reference at the bottom of the screen. I can't tell how many times I've gotten hardstuck doing something as a new DM and thinking "Oh wait Matt talked about this didn't he? I wanna see what he said again" and go mining through videos. Super helpful stuff and great content as always Matt :)

When you were talking about people not picking up on how Lars was playing the Commander, I was instantly reminded of how much people disliked how Marisha played Keyleth on the first season of Critical Role. One of the big problems was that Keyleth's character was built upon trying to be a leader but not having confidence in herself. This meant that whenever she was giving a speech it either felt weak because she was intentionally making it that way or because improvising grand speeches off the top of your head is super hard to do. This made her _seem_ like a poorer character compared to everyone else, because she had fewer one-liners than someone like Grog or Scanlan. It was less entertaining on the surface, but her character was much more developed than most of the rest of the cast and I very much enjoyed it because of that.

I have been running games online for several years and have found 3rd person roleplay to be extremely helpful. The player says "Carl runs forward....Carl says...or carl would sneak forward", and this helps the players learn each others characters, and helps me as I cant always remember whose voice is for which character. When players say "I run forward and attack", I'm usually like...."and who was that?" lol. This has helped my in person games as well, as I can say "what does Carl do", rather than "your turn or what do you do" and point. By calling out players by their character name or having them do the same, it seems to put them in the characters mindset and is an easy entry to additional roleplay.

As a person that isn't cozy doing voices, this is really helpful, I appreciate it.

I saw the lower third, I was frightened by change. But the content and topic shifting felt the same. I see the lower third, and I think I like it. It gives Running the Game more of a visual component without demanding the video to be the "correct" way to consume it

"I want to save a beautiful dragon from a ravening princess..." that needs to be a book, if it is, someone needs to tell me what it's called!

This was incredibly well-thought-out. I suggest, if you don't have the time to watch the whole video, that you just wait, and come back at a time when you do. I am definitely someone who has the books engages with D&D as an audience member and not a player (though I am always looking to play). I really enjoyed seeing these methods of play given definitions and I also liked that "doing the voice" isn't the "correct" way.

I usually do not comment on vids, because i watch a lot of them but i MUST say that this video is gold. I would like to compress the things you said and plant them as a seed in many people i know. So much truth, i really feel relieved. Thanks, i love you Matt. Keep it up.❤

Matt, thanks for putting the effort in to making such a good video. I really had fun thinking about the topics and questions you discussed. One thing I greatly appreciate about this series is that the development of ideas has progressed in way that has paralleled my own thinking. I've watched all your videos from Running the Game and back then when I just discovered your channel, I needed those quick tips and tutorials to get me going. But as I have progressed and started playing more and more with my friends, I found myself revisiting videos that came from later and later in the series. Your series could almost serve as a guided inquiry of how to play DnD. In the past 2 months, I've been thinking more about characters and what it means to have a character progress in story. The channel Think Story has a good playlist on writing good characters and while it certainly helped with thinking about characters I create as a DM, it doesn't capture what it means to play DnD and Roleplay in an active way. Thanks for all the good advice over the years. I will need some time to digest and put this into practice, but I'll be looking forward to wherever you decide to go next!

I have watched them all and this is one of my favorites

The "he couldn´t really say it out to himself" explainer on motivation reminds me of the return scene in Dunkirk after the British soldiers worry about them being labeled as cowards by the home country. Then on the pier there´s an old blind man passing out blankets(?) to them, saying "Welcome back". He´s a WW1 vet who was blinded by mustard gas and he understands where they come from. That's very powerful and brilliant imho. Capturing great things in the small is an impressive narrative skill.

I am and always will be a "Do the voice" GM, an Improv Theater nerd, Screenwiter and a Ravenous Princess and I think this video was absolutely amazing! Never felt "attacked". It, as plenty of others have said is a Masterclass. Thank you Matt.

Matt, I love you! And all the other players of the Chain too! Watching your videos and stream truly inspired me to elevate my own game to a new level. And this video is the pinnacle of it. It's been about time. Continue the great work!

Yes! This is one of the topics I've had the most trouble with, so I am definitely looking forward to this.

I think I've watched this video 4 times now and it still isn't boring. It is just jam packed with so much thought provoking advice that it doesn't get old. Bravo!

Does anyone else get really excited whenever a new RTG video comes out? Thanks Matt for this series. I feel like my confidence as a player and as a DM is reinforced whenever I watch your videos. I'm definitely showing this video to all my friends too afraid to try RPG's because they "can't act". Keep up the great work!

God dude this was great. I'm prepping a Pendragon Campaign and that three dimensional conflict is exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks for the video and inspiration

"When we start out in the hobby, especially as teenagers... We overwhelmingly tend to play idealized versions of ourselves." Should I be worried that my first d&d character I played (when I was 15) was a psychopath? 😅

This is so freeing! I have been playing and DMing for about 3 years now, and I'm still bad at the voice when I'm playing. I have a deep web of thoughts and ideals for my character, but I still felt like I was failing because I couldn't keep up my Scottish accent. Thank you for your sage advice and encouragement.

As someone who's never played an RPG (tabletop) but who's incredibly interested in the "roleplaying" activity, who's fascinated by cRPGs because they're the closest I'll ever get to playing D&D or another RPG, this is tremendously insightful! I wish you had a video where you defined what you consider roleplaying in video games and why certain games aren't, which are. The fact that you acknowledged that you could roleplay in a game that doesn't label itself as an RPG blew me away because it's true and it captures the essence of roleplaying so well.

This looks like a professional tutorial format for video which is a engaging video essay. It did weird me out but im not against it.

I love "I want to save a beautiful dragon from a ravening princess" lol 26:09

When you said that about Frodo, I realized for the first time what I've always thought about that scene and why it's so hard to take. Boy, that really enlightened me. Thanks for that.

that zoom in on the 'why' was the most satisfying thing EVER

My voice thanks you. I love my Dragonborn PC but I couldn't keep doing that to my voice.

"I want to save the dragon from the Princess" should be the new MCDM shirt

Man, I'm so happy I discovered your videos. As an amateur rpg-designer and navigated DM, I find your views enlightening and they are helping me so much contextualizing things and seeing many things more clearly.

I will try and commit this to memory. This is mostly stuff I already know rephrased, but its stuff thats extremely easy to forget while playing. When roleplaying, the urge is to get *into* character. But you aren't your character. You often can't do what they would do by pretending you're them. It can counterintuitively be better to acknowledge that separation. Don't think "I'm my character, what do I do?", think, "I'm not my character, what does my character do?".

This is a focused RtG vid. I love it. Lots of thought went on behind the screen I’m sure. Ty Matt Colville.

D&D 5th ed (as well as other rpgs) sometimes bake-in motivations to the system. In chapter four of the PHB, they have the Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws as a part of the assorted backgrounds. I think it was the Burning Wheel that popularized the concept, and their starter adventure "the Sword" is a great example of it. This can be a great first step to getting a one or three dimensional character. All of this can be great for role-playing. But... What about when your character would do something that wouldn't be fun for the party? We were running a very well known module in the sword coast north near the sword mountains. And my character was given the opportunity to get the answer to a question... and my bond was that I searching my whole life for the answer to a question! We were in the middle of a mystery and we needed a clue! The party needed me to ask a different question, and that's what I did. I 'broke character' and we all had a great time. But I don't know if I did the right thing. I play it over in my head over and over again (actually I just think about it sometimes when I'm taking a poo, but you get the idea). As a player, should I value other player's enjoyment over "what my character would do?"

As a very adult player in the game for decades, I really appreciate the idea that critical thought about the effect of both roleplaying and the adaptations of modern social engineering should be contemplated so as to be really in a game and not succumb to what's popular and merely bowing to the norms of the time - this has always been a thing in DnD. Personally I've come to a place where I build characters with inner conflict and moraes as a easy button for how I play my characters, it makes you a better player and everyone feels involved and engaged. Great video, I appreciate the idea that one starts at zero and evolves in to a good player.

Maybe it was me, but I thought I saw the beginnings of tears in Matt's eyes around the 22 minute mark... I felt them in my own eyes as well. This is powerful stuff.