Do I narrate my character's inner thoughts?

It depends on which gaming group I'm with. Some groups frown on this.

In other groups, it's encouraged, and we all do it, all the friggin' time.

Quote from: Warthur;667266Long version: game was a modern day occult conspiracy/X-Files kind of deal which had an irritating mismatch in the player characters; half of us read the campaign brief (which had us working for a neglected, unfashionable, and underfunded department of the UK government's intelligent apparatus) and thought "ah, this is where they file all the oddballs who wouldn't hack it as proper field agents", the other half thought "ah, we're competent field agents fallen on hard times".

This led to a severe competence mismatch, in which half of the characters had a diverse range of talents but weren't brilliant at the whole spy thing whilst the others were really excellent at the whole spy thing and more or less dominated all sneaking and fighting in the game. (Due to the homebrew system having a downright unforgiving experience mechanic there was little possibility of making a non-combat focused character combat-competent over the course of the campaign.) The second half of the campaign, when this incident happened, was particularly bad because it meant half of us were basically helpless passengers whose main contribution to the group's efforts were coming up with ideas, a lot of which were ignored by the other PCs because, well, the party didn't see eye to eye on an enormous number of things.

I am playing one of the folks who were not competent spies, and my IC love interest had been kidnapped by the bad guys. We knew that she was a member of an alien race from another dimension and was part of the conspiracy keeping humanity confined to Earth - though a member of a kindly faction of that conspiracy which wanted to keep conditions in Earth tolerable with an eye to maybe letting us out eventually. We are searching the place where she is being kept and find a cell which, when we open it, is revealed to contain a large alien slug.

The other player - Player B - unloads into it. Because they're one of the competent spies, there's no way I can match her initiative to at least get in the way of the bullets. I seem to remember that half the reason I didn't have my character commit suicide then and there from the grief and the sheer hopelessness - rescuing his other half was literally the only thing he had to look forward to - was because I suspected the other PCs wouldn't let me and would have good enough initiative scores to stop me.

I still bear all sorts of grudges about that campaign to this day. Ugly campaign, with lots of ugly incidents, hampered by a GM who would belittle and guilt trip you if you dared to offer up any concerns about the direction of their games and who wouldn't take responsibility for a single thing happening in his game by simply blaming the stuff which constantly screwed our characters on the workings of his "clockwork universe", neatly sidestepping the fact that he was the one who set up and oversaw the damn clockwork. I actually participated in multiple campaigns under that guy before I realised just how bad a GM he was.

Short version: player sees monster, shoots monster, despite repeatedly being told IC that person we are rescuing may be monster.

Sounds like she got what she deserved for dressing like a slug.

Quote from: Skywalker;666342Good point. In PbP, you need to be more expressive than face to face and this often includes a portion of inner monologue.

Late to the party here, but yeah, I agree with this. In a F2F game, I might drop into OOC mode every once in a while to explain what's going through my character's head, if it's relevant to what's happening (and not boring as hell) and if I'm unable to convey it through roleplaying. Pretty rare for me to do this, but sometimes it's necessary.

In PbP, though, I've seen inner monologues work really well when done sparingly. IMO, the emphasis should always be on actions, speech, and body language that the NPCs and other PCs can work with and respond to, but adding some thoughts to spice things up can be cool.

I was mentioning in another thread that I was once in a game where one of the PCs *hated* the party and really, really wished he had an excuse to kill us, and it was hilarious to see him trying to act polite and cooperative, all the while mentally talking shit about everyone. Before then, I'd followed another GM's advice not to allow inner monologues in PbPs EVER, but seeing it done so well changed my mind.

Sure, I'll narrate my characters inner thoughts sometimes, especially if there's a couple of juicy choices that could take the character in different directions. I might mention how torn I am between the options as I find my way. Of course, that's very dependent upon the vibe at the table.

I don't think I've ever role played my character having an inner dialogue with themselves. Not that I would never do such a thing, but I don't think I have and I'd be hard pressed to think of a situation where that would make for interesting gaming. But keying everyone in to what's going on inside my character? Sure.

Well, I'm a fiction writer, and many of the people I've gamed with have been, too, so that's kinda how we roll. The thing is not to get so carried away with it that nobody's *doing* anything but, like, smoldering at each other or something. :-)

I do most of my gaming via PbP these days, and as Skywalker was saying up-thread, that medium lends itself well to posting inner monologues, attitudes, etc.