I'm curious - do you describe or voice your character's inner thoughts, or other aspects of his/her internal state that other characters wouldn't ordinarily perceive?

For example,

"Holy shit - okay, I'm stunned by this news, but trying to play it cool. I continue sharpening my sword."

"I reflect for a moment on all the miles my horse has carried me, before putting him out of his misery."

Or do you generally prefer stick to only those behaviors that other characters would perceive? Have you noticed others in your group doing or not doing this?  Do you find it helpful, entertaining, distracting?

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For me, I notice that I've started doing it more in the past few months.  Not especially often, but at least once a session.  I'm not yet sure why, but I think I'm interested in situations where characters are experiencing a mismatch between what they're saying and what they're doing.  Also, being a largely verbal game, it's another way to relay the meaning of a character's body language.

All character thoughts and actions are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

The only reason the sun rises every day is because Morgan Freeman narrated that sunrise in his dreams the night before.

This is not Design, or Development, or an actual game/campaign log. I'm moving it to the Main forum.

To answer the question, no. I usually do not "narrate" my characters thoughts. I role play them.

I think as my character and you can see my reactions and body language from there. That's part of role playing to me.

We might talk about what was going on in this or that character's mind after the game, talk about what we were role playing when we were role playing, but the assumption certainly isn't that the character is some sort of narrative device we describe like it's a novel or something.

Typically I don't do this, but I will on occassion. I have some players who do it a little more fruequently. Usually it seems more about providing some context to the other players so a particular course of action doesn't seem as crazy or evil as it might first appear. I probably wouldn't describe it as narration or monologue though, more just talking out of charracter to better explain your actions. So if I am about to do something that could really piss off the other players, but I have a very good reason for doing it, and I may say something like "well from my point of view, this is what's going on so I....". I also see it to help explain bad choices during combat. I am not sure if this is quite what you have in mind though.

I can't say this sort of thing bothers me one way or the other. I suppose if it got out of hand, or the player was really disrupting what is going on in the game by making his internal monologue the focus, but I have never seen that at my table.

Usually, no, I don't.  I mostly let my character's actions speak for his mental state of mind.  However, occasionally I will tell the other players and GM what the character is thinking if I think it is important to the situation at hand.

Quote from: Drohem;666086Usually, no, I don't.  I mostly let my character's actions speak for his mental state of mind.  However, occasionally I will tell the other players and GM what the character is thinking if I think it is important to the situation at hand.

Yeah, that I might do on occasion. If what my character thinks is critical to the situation and the GM especially needs to understand what I'm doing, I'll spell it out. There also might be OOC commentaries between players, like they'd comment on the events of the game as spectators in between actual role playing: "WTF? Holy shit this NPC is an asshole!" and "This is not going to do for my character at all, dude" can and do happen.

No. My character isn't a character in a book.

Sometimes I do, but not very often. Only on some very special occasions, that well, bear special thought. Though I do like to (villainously) monologue .

Usually not. But If I'm having trouble expressing how my character feels/what he thinks I might slip OOC to do so.

I had to do this once because after arbitrarily killing off my character's love interest during a campaign, the DM didn't understand why my character was distraught and then depressed by this.

Quote from: jeff37923;666126I had to do this once because after arbitrarily killing off my character's love interest during a campaign, the DM didn't understand why my character was distraught and then depressed by this.

Was she stuffed in a fridge?

Quote from: Rincewind1;666140Was she stuffed in a fridge?

No, just murdered by goblins while we were away from town exploring ruins.

It became a "thing" in the game because the previous four sessions were spent building the relationship between the PC and the NPC up. From the PC's perspective, this was a life-shattering tragedy. From my perspective, it was annoying as shit.

Quote from: jeff37923;666146No, just murdered by goblins while we were away from town exploring ruins.

It became a "thing" in the game because the previous four sessions were spent building the relationship between the PC and the NPC up. From the PC's perspective, this was a life-shattering tragedy. From my perspective, it was annoying as shit.

Sounds like the DM just didn't want to bother role playing the character and developing the relationship throughout the campaign. It's a sucky way of getting out of a commitment you implicitly made, IMO.

Quote from: Benoist;666149Sounds like the DM just didn't want to bother role playing the character and developing the relationship throughout the campaign. It's a sucky way of getting out of a commitment you implicitly made, IMO.

Wait...the player was roleplaying grief at the loss of a loved one and the gm did not care?

Thats.....so wrong.

I saw the title and thought "no that's dumb".  But I do use things like the examples frequently,  even as a DM.  Though I try to keep it to body language/facial expression type stuff.

"She is obviously confused by your request, and doesn't seem to know what to say in response."

I doubt I have the acting talent to get this body into that shape, so saying is just easier.