While working on another post about non-player characters, it occurred to me that different groups have different priorities during player to player “in character” social interactions. Some groups enjoy in character social interaction that doesn’t advance the party’s objectives. In my games, I prefer to limit any activity that does not move characters toward some objective. That includes both as a player and as a game master.

Listening to or participating in twenty minutes of social interaction between characters that has no objective but “character development” is torture to me. Some game masters enjoy watching their players have an in character conversation, that has no bearing on the events in the game, whilst their characters are in a tavern or around a campfire. I see this as a complete waste of time.

I like the screen writer and short story writer point of view on dialogue. Successful screen writers and short story writers will tell you that every word has to move the story forward. That’s because every word costs money and audiences have no patience for self indulgent writers “exploring characters” except maybe for art house films or in a university press literary magazine. I feel the same way about table top RPGs. If the words coming out of the player’s mouths are not in some way moving their characters toward an objective, then why spend the time?

In good writing, you have dialogue that does two things. First, it moves the story. At the end of the dialogue, something has occurred which will lead to the next scene, foreshadow some event later in the story, or explain an event that has already happened. Second, it tells us about the characters in the scene. It tells us who they are, what they want, the obstacles they are facing, and what they might be willing to do to overcome those obstacles.

In table top RPG’s we go see the oddball sage who wants the characters to bring him a hairball coughed up by a rakshasa and in exchange he will tell the characters where the rakshasas’s lair is. He says, “OK” at the end of every sentence and grows belligerent if the PC’s ask what he’s going to do with the hair ball. After the party leaves, they have a conversation, in character, speculating about the hairball. Perhaps it has some magical properties. The wizard suggests that maybe he should do further research. The thief says they should keep it for themselves. The fighter is just grossed out and anxious to go kill the rakshasa and the paladin thinks maybe the sage is just a loon and he’s left out some important piece of information that will get them all killed. We learn the wizard is curious, the thief is greedy, the fighter only cares for the glory of battle and the paladin is pragmatic, all while going toward the goal of the adventure.