Out and about on the internet, it’s pretty easy to find lots of excellent tips on being a good DM. This is great, because being a DM is really freaking hard work, and DM’s need all the help they can get. And that’s part of what this post is about—helping DM's—but not in the traditional way. There’s only so much a DM can do if his or her Players aren’t actively working to contribute to a positive gaming experience for everybody. So today, I’m going to be talking about being a good Player.

Note: Everything I say today is only my opinion, coloured by the groups I’ve played with. It may not entirely be applicable to your situation, and you’re allowed to disagree. From here on out, I’m going to be writing as if my opinion is fact, to save time and reduce the number of times I have to say “the way I see it,” “in my opinion,” or “in my experience.”

The Three Skills:

There are three skills to being a good Player, and the relative importance of each varies from group to group. However, in any group, being absolutely dreadful in any one will negatively impact the enjoyment of the game for both yourself and others. All of these skills are interdependent, and the only way to get to Legendary in any one is to get to Legendary in all three. The skills are:

1. Immersion

2. Competence

3. Tact

By Immersion, I mean your ability to believe and act that the world the DM is describing to you is real, and that your character’s actions have real consequences. Some people like to call this Roleplaying, but I think that there’s actually a distinction. I’ll get into that later.

By Competence, I mean your ability to, using the game’s rules, be able to do what you want to be able to do. Some people like to call this Optimization, Powergaming, or Munchkinry, often dismissively. Note that there is a difference between being Competent and being able to kill everything the DM can throw against you. I’ll get into that later.

By Tact, I mean the ability to get along with your fellow Players and your DM. This means a lot of things, from understanding how to use your character’s powers to avoid eclipsing the other characters in game to not pointing out that you’ve read the book that the DM plagiarized his adventure from.

I say ‘skills’ because, while they may come more naturally to some than others, these are talents that can be learned and improved upon, regardless of your natural abilities or lack thereof.

I’m going to talk about Immersion in this post, and leave Competence and Tact to their own posts, which I’ll write and put out on no particular schedule.

Skill the First: Immersion

You know how when you’re playing a Medal of Duty: Call of Honour, and you’re lurking in wait with a sniper rifle covering a narrow passageway to defend the virtuous Your Guys from the evil Their Guys? You know how you can really get swept away by the beautiful graphics, the ambient sounds, the distant rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire? How your aim drifts slightly from your character’s own breathing? How it can really, actually feel like you’re there. Like what you’re doing is important. If you fail and let Their Guys in, they’ll massacre Your Guys, and how you’d risk death and dismemberment to keep that from happening?

And then there he is. Breaking out of cover and running down the alley, rifle in hand. He hasn’t seen you yet, but you know that you’ll only get one shot. If you miss, it’s over.

Ready? You hold your breath, steadying your scope. All you can hear is your own heartbeat. There’s just you, your target, and your bullet. You don’t even notice that you—the real you—are actually holding your breath, too, because there is no difference between the two of you.

You fire, and hit him right between the eyes. You let out an explosive breath, momentarily thrilled—

—and then a voice cuts in saying “HEADSHOT! KILLING SPREE! BLOODINATION!” and flashy numbers pop up all over your screen saying how great you are at this game. You’re suddenly reminded that this is a game, that your accomplishment is meaningless, that it’s late, and that you should probably go to sleep because tomorrow you’ve got something Really Important to do.

That game just broke Immersion for you, and it ruined your experience. It probably made you feel a little embarrassed for getting so 'into it,’ too. Your job as a Player is not to do that.

Lots of people think that Roleplaying is the most important thing, here (it’s right in the name—Roleplaying Game—after all), but they’re wrong. Roleplaying is important, but it’s not the most important thing. Roleplaying means acting like your character, Immersion means thinking like your character. You don’t need to fake an accent or even talk in character for that, though it helps some people. I can talk about Immersion for ages, and might do that in a later post, but I’ll try to keep this short.

Why Immersion is Important

• It can help you feel motivated. You’ll want to rescue the Fair Dragon from the Fire-Breathing Princess not only because the Fair Dragon’s brood mother promised you your weight in gold to do it.

• It can help others to feel immersed. They, in turn, will help you as well.

• It raises the stakes. If you don’t at some level believe that the Fair Dragon is in real peril, you won’t really feel any satisfaction from saving him, will you? Similarly, where’s the fun in slaying the Fire-Breathing Princess if, in your head, she’s just a collection of balanced stats and numbers for you to overcome?

• It makes the DM’s job easier, because she or he will have a much easier time hooking you for an adventure. Remember that, in D&D at least, whether you’re doing something for the treasure or not has little to no impact on your actual treasure—it’s part of the DM’s job to see that you recieve the appropriate amount of swag for your level and the campaign. You don’t need to go looking for treasure; it will go looking for you.

How to Avoid Breaking Immersion:

• Don’t blatantly metagame. You might know that the goatee’d vizier is obviously up to no good, but, when you decide to mistrust him, don’t tell people it’s because he’s got a goatee. Instead, make up something fairly plausible, using in-universe reasons, to get the same desired effect. Maybe you say you had a vision from your god about him, or you’ve been burned by viziers in the past, or you don’t trust anyone in a position of power who didn’t earn their position by election/birthright/whatever, or just that you’ve 'got a bad feeling about him,’ and 'always trust your gut.’

• Alternatively, deliberately avoid metagaming. This can be just as fun, although it relies on you trusting your DM to not screw you over and your partymates to get you out of possible trouble. You know that the vizier is bad news, but your character doesn’t know that. So maybe, your character doesn’t exploit this out-of-universe knowledge. Now, you have a challenge: how do you finagle the situation to reveal the vizier’s obvious treachery without breaking character? This technique might actually break immersion for you (you have to deliberately seperate yourself from your character), but it will help build it for your less savvy partymates (who don’t have to do the same), and, on top of that, can be a lot of fun.

• Use your Competence to keep your image of your character and your character’s abilities in line with each other. If you’re playing as the prince’s royal bodyguard, make sure you’re actually up to the task. Find feats and skills that let you protect alies. Your character, after all, would make sure to find the right trainers and masters to learn the abilities necessary to perform her role, otherwise she’s a failure as a bodyguard. In cases such as these, failing to optimize breaks Immersion.

• Use your Tact to avoid embarrassing other PC’s and the DM. If, using metagaming, you already know exactly where the story is going to go, don’t say so. Even if everybody around the table knows the butler dunnit, immersion can be maintained as long as nobody actually points it out. Similarly, if your party’s Sorcerer is a blatant ripoff of Belgarath, don’t say anything. You can laugh about it later, of course.

[Note: My spellcheck is fritzing out lately. I apologize for any terrible words that come about as a result]