This is bulls$&%. The article you’re about to read I mean. Total bulls$&%.

I’m not just saying that because it’s one of my occasional bulls$&% articles. It is that. But it’s probably the most researched, outlined, and carefully planned bulls$&% article I’ve ever written. But it’s still just a bunch of rambling, pontificating crap. Me thinking through an issue with no real conclusion or actionable advice. It’s this sort of occasional crap that makes me still call myself a blogger.

But this article is total bulls$&% because that’s what people are going to call it. “This is bulls$&%! Total bulls$&%!” That’s what you’ll be saying, halfway through. I’m pretty sure of it. And I’m fully prepared for it. I’m saying s$&% no one wants to hear. And that means I’m probably just screaming into the void or pissing in wind. At least I’m trying.

Enough Long, Rambling Introduction™, though. Let’s get on with it.

Memo the Players Deleted Content

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote the second entry in my Memo to the Players series. My second memo. It was about potraying characters. About role-playing. Which, frankly, is not really where I saw that series going. Whatever.

That article earned me some strong responses. Mostly positive. Apparently, the s$&% I’d said had resonated with a lot of GMs. And that doesn’t really surprise me. Though I didn’t expect many GMs to actually admit that s$&%.

The memo addressed something I know for a fact bothers lots of my readers. Which isn’t a small number of people. Not that I’m crass enough to brag about my readership numbers. Let alone argue that those numbers give me some kind of authority from which to argue. Just suffice to say, I’m in contact with a metric f$&% ton of gamers from lots of different regions, countries, age groups, and walks of life. Partly through my website and partly — global pandemics aside — from playing lots of games with lots of people at lots of venues.

Blah blah blah large sample size blah blah whatever.

Thing is, I cut like five hundred words from that memo so that it’d fit on a single page. Part of that brutal edit was a discussion about Selfish Role-Playing versus Selfless Role-Playing. And about how, even if you were inclined towards Selfish Role-Playing — because of the motives you brought with you to the table — you were still far better off adopting a Selfless approach.

That’s what I’m talking about today. I’m resurrecting those cut 500 words. And then I’m expanding the f$&% out of them. But I know — I f$&%ing know — I’m going to be doing the whole harsh truth thing. Which no one likes. And, to some extent, I’m specifically speaking to people who are disinclined to listen by the very nature of the s$&% I’m talking about.

It doesn’t help that I’m using terms like Selfish and Selfless Role-Playing. Obviously, that s$&%’s got connotations. I could totally use much less inflammatory terms like Performative and Interactive Role-Playing. But I could also change my name to The Politely Helpful GM who Never Hurts Your Feelings or Challenges You to Better Yourself and get lost in the slurry of the online GMing advice community that’s overflying with feel-good bulls$&% that no one remembers.

Truth is, I want the connotations. Because Selfish Role-Playing is Bad Role-Playing. It’s the wrong way to play. No matter what. Even if you’re a selfish player — which there is absolutely nothing wrong with — you’re not going to get very far with Selfish Role-Playing.

Yeah. You heard me. I’m fine with selfish players. I’m fine with selfishness as a general motivation. Every gamer is selfish. End of the day, you — and every other gamer like you — only sit down to play RPGs — or run them — because you get something out of them. They’re a hobby. You do them for pleasure. No pleasure? No point in doing them. It’s as simple as that. And anyone who assumes anything else is a f$&%ing moron with no understanding of basic human nature.

I run games because there’s stuff I want to get out of my hobbies and running games provides them. I’m a self-serving GM. But that doesn’t mean I can afford to run games selfishly. If I run games that don’t give other people the fun they want, they’ll stop showing up. And then I can’t run games anymore. To serve myself, I have to satisfy the players at my table. Which sometimes means compromising on what I want to get out of the game. What will serve me best. Accept some lesser pleasure so as not to lose out on all the pleasure.

That’s the difference between being selfish and playing Selfishly. There’s nothing wrong with being self-serving. Especially when it comes to your fun-time hobby s$&%. That’s normal. Expected. But when your fun-time hobby s$&% requires others to participate? You have to walk the fine line between self-interest and Selfish Play. Otherwise, everyone loses. You included.

So, I’m going to keep calling Selfish Role-Playing that. Not because I have a problem with selfishness, but because Selfish Role-Playing is a stupid-a$& way to play that doesn’t even help the self-interested gamer serve himself.

Note: I’m NOT a Boomer!

Right now, I’ve got you all nodding along. “I feel you Angry,” you’re all saying. “Selfish Role-Players are the worst! And you’re right. They’re self-sabotaging. Let’s fix them!” But, by the end of this, you’re all going to be calling bulls$&% on me.

Why?

Well, first, it’s the standard “am I the a$&hole” thing. Right now, you’re not identifying yourself as a Selfish Role-Player. When you point out a problem, no one ever looks for the problem in the mirror first. Everyone assumes the problem’s somewhere else. Even when you clearly spell out the problem behaviors, most people don’t see them in themselves. And when you do finally cut through the denial, the response usually isn’t “maybe I should fix myself.” It’s usually, “this guy’s full of s$&%.”

But second…

Selfish Role-Playing isn’t a new problem. It’s… you know what? I haven’t even defined it yet. So let’s get that out of the way.

Selfish Role-Playing — AKA Performative Role-Playing — is playing a role-playing game — or running one — as if you’re putting on a show for other people. As if the purpose is to create and then share your character with an audience composed of your fellow players and your GM. It’s typified by characters with rich, elaborate backstories and complex personalities. Selfish Role-Players often declare their characters’ actions with overly complex descriptions that include the character’s internal thought processes and motivations. Ironically, for all the apparent depth and complexity of the characters played, Selfish Role-Players’ characters are usually pretty static. They don’t evolve or change in response to the game’s events or their interactions with others. Any changes to the character usually come from the player’s unilateral decision to change and are usually not in direct response to the game’s events. Selfish Role-Players tend to be resistant to permanent changes to their character except where they have been expressly approved by the player. Usually in advance.

Ready to call this bulls$&% yet? Well, wait, there’s more. Because I’m about to give you the perfect opportunity to toss off a snotty little “okay, Boomer” in the comments. Because, while Selfish Role-Playing is not a remotely new problem, it’s become infinitely more common in the past decade. Yeah yeah, anecdotal bulls$&% from a skewed sample of unknown size and all that crap.

But I brought receipts. Seriously. I’m prepared to argue that the current generation of gamers — people aged 18 to 35 living in western, industrialized, wealthy nations — are inclined toward Selfish Role-Playing. Seriously. And I’m not even going to blame Critical Role.

Also, I’m not a Boomer. I’m a Generation X-er. Boomers were crapping all over my generation of worthless, selfish, underachieving, lazy, naïve losers while you were still a f$&%ing zygote.

Seriously though…

This is going to sound all “get off my lawn!” But unlike every other Boomer or Gen-X-er or OSR Grognard, I’m going to say: there’s nothing wrong with that style of play apart from poor execution. The motives are fine.

Surprise! This ain’t me saying “gosh, I had it so much better when…” And I ain’t saying, “you kids today with your avocado toast and your lack of willingness to bury yourself under massive debt just to spend every soul-crushing day of your life in an unsatisfying job until the day you die because retirement is a mythical creature that no one has seriously believed in for three decades now.” It’s me saying, “I get it. I feel the same way. And I’m going to help you get what you want. Because I know some tricks you don’t.”

Why Are There Even Other Players?

RPGs are social things. They’re played by groups. And they can’t be played any other way. Because part of what makes RPGs what they are is the collaboration. Each dude or dudette at the table controls only a small part of the experience. Even the GM’s control stops at the outside of every player-character’s skull. The GM ain’t writing a story because the GM has no control over the most important characters in that story. Beyond that, everyone’s fate is in the grip of a bunch of plastic Polyhedral Gods of Chaos. Or whatever game mechanic creates uncertainty in your system du jour.

That s$&%’s part of the fun. Part of the excitement and the challenge. Even if you’re the GM. There’s big risks involved in playing RPGs. You have this thing — a character or an entire campaign world — that you created. It’s a little piece of you. And you’re giving up control over what happens to it. Or what the characters do to it. It takes real guts to risk your investment in what you’ve built by throwing it into the chaos of a TTRPG where anything can happen.

In that way, it’s good training for real life. It takes a lot of courage to wake up every morning and step out your door into a world you have no control over and expose yourself to more risks than you can possibly imagine. To live your life instead of just surviving it. But this ain’t life advice. This is just about pretend elf games.

RPGs aren’t about experiencing stories or losing yourself in fantasies or expressing creativity or overcoming challenges. They’re about doing all that s$&% in a dangerous environment where anything can happen. You can experience a story by watching a movie. You can express creativity by writing a book. You can lose yourself in a fantasy on any free porn site. You can overcome a challenge by playing a solo video game. But only an RPG table offers the thrill of doing it when you’re not in control and something’s really at stake.

That’s why there’s other players. That’s why there’s dice. Because role-playing gamers are people who want their creative narrative fantasy challenges without a safety net.

But having other players complicates things immensely. Because it means you have to deal with all the complexities of human social interaction. And what that comes down to — at least for my purposes in writing this — what that means is you have to be likable enough that people want to share the table with you.

Just like everyone else. Everyone at the table — the GM included — has to balance their own self-interested desires about the game with being sociable enough to get invited back. Otherwise, they won’t have the option of playing the game. No one will want to play with them.

How Socialization Has Changed
and How it Hasn’t

None of that s$&%’s new. It’s been going on since 1971 when Gary and Dave invented a game for a bunch of social primates who spent 50,000 years figuring out how to balance their individual survival needs with the fact that they can only survive as part of a team.

These days, though, the world changes fast. The Serengeti 50,000 years ago was much like the Serengeti 45,000 years ago. At least socially. But nowadays, a decade’s a long time, and the rules of everything change overnight.

That’s why I say there’s generational forces at work. There’s been a lot of research on how the development of the internet and, more importantly, the invention and spread of social media have changed the human social landscape. If you’re between the age of 18 and 35, you grew up with a completely different set of social rules than I did. It’s just a fact. Because you grew up in an era where people spend three times as much of their lives interacting on social media as they do face-to-face. And those are pre-pandemic numbers.

A few years ago, the National Institute of Health gathered together and analyzed hundreds of scientific studies and surveys and s$&% to draw some conclusions about how social media has changed human social cognition. That is, the way human beings think about and understand social interaction. Unsurprisingly, the impact is f$&%ing huge.

Why does that s$&% matter? Well, let me give you one example of why it matters. The average human spends 30% to 40% of their time during social interactions talking about themselves. At least when they’re talking face to face. When people interact online, they spend 80% of the time talking about themselves.

So, what happens when people spend three times as much of their formative years learning how to socialize on the internet instead of through face-to-face interaction?

No! The answer is not “kids today are more selfish.” That’s a dumb answer. I already told you that I firmly believe everyone is selfish. Even me. And I’m not disparaging online communication. For all my jokes about “kids these days” and how much gaming online sucks, I wouldn’t be doing what I do without social media and crowdfunding and a robust internet gaming community. I love that this s$&% exists because I get to write crap like this instead of filling out tax forms for a living.

And I am definitely not one of those grumpy grognards who piss and moan that every step D&D’s taken since 1989 has been a step down. Nope. It didn’t start going downhill until 2014.

But that disparity between self-performance — that’s what it’s called by the way when you talk about yourself in social interactions — the disparity between self-performance in online interactions and in face-to-face interactions? That’s important. There’s a reason it works online but not in real life. And it’s all down to the like button.

Two-thirds of social media users report that they get a warm fuzzy feeling whenever someone reacts positively to something they post. No s$%&, right? I mean, honestly, it’s surprising that number’s only two-thirds. I live on positive feedback and negative feedback utterly wrecks me. Keep that in mind when you comment.

And that brings me to this thing called reciprocity. Social media users spend some of their time reading other people’s posts and clicking on little buttons to indicate their approval. Every platform’s got its own little pat on the back button, right? Likes, retweets, upvotes, whatever. And everyone knows that if you want people to like or upvote or otherwise approve of your posts — or to even follow you and read your posts — you’ve got to like and upvote and approve of theirs. It’s the oldest law of social interaction. If you want people to give a f$&% about you, you have to give a f$&% about them.

Reciprocity.

Reciprocity is super easy online. There’s a button on every post that lets you send a shot of warm fuzzies to the poster. It takes no time at all and costs you nothing. Leaving you more time to post about yourself. To self-perform. And people send you warm fuzzies. And everyone’s happy, right?

Face-to-face, though, you can just poke someone and send them warm fuzzy feelings. And if you try, you usually get arrested. True story. Reciprocity in face-to-face interactions isn’t easy. Building relationships — being likable — takes time and investment. That’s why people can’t get away with spending 80% of their face-to-face time self-performing.

That NIH superstudy thing — which isn’t my only source by the way; these statistics are easy to find and pretty uniform across the board — that NIH superstudy concluded that social media was changing people’s social cognition such that their goal was to develop large numbers of very shallow social connections rather than small numbers of deeper social connections. Which makes sense. Social media gives people access to lots of very cheap social connections. Cheap in terms of investment required.

Everyone wants an audience. That ain’t new. A recent survey found 86% of 18- to 38-year-olds want to be content creators or social media influencers. And I’m not disparaging it. I’m here because I want an audience. We all have a deep need to feel connected to other people. And we all need the approval of others to feel good about ourselves. The only difference between the social media world and the face-to-face world is the kinds of connections that people generally form and the rules for forming them. Social media offers quantity over quality for a small investment. Face-to-face interactions offer quality over quantity and require a heavy investment.

Streaming shows like Critical Role aren’t responsible for this s$&%. I’m not blaming them. But they do play into it. They portray RPGs as a vehicle for self-performance. Create a character, play it, and you’ll have an audience of at least four and maybe millions if you stream it. I know lots of gamers b$&% about how bad Critical Role is and how it’s breeding a generation of bad gamers. That’s stupid. I don’t buy it.

And the reason I don’t buy it is that if you dig into those surveys that reveal 86% of people want to be influencers, the top five motives are creativity, fame, self-expression, money, and recognition. Money ranks fourth. Now, creativity and self-expression are basically the same things. “I want to create s$&% and share it.” Fame and recognition overlap too. “I want to be liked.” In other words, “I want the approval of others and I want to feel connected to others.”

It’s the same s$&% the cavemen of the Serengeti wanted 45,000 years ago when everyone was sitting around the fire telling their stegosaurus hunt stories. Critical Role didn’t invent that s$&%.

See? I ain’t here to tell you that your generation’s wrong for wanting the wrong things. Because you want the same things every other generation wants. And I ain’t here to blame Critical Role for ruining gaming.

Quality Over Quantity

Can we accept that online relationships and social media interactions are different from face-to-face relationships and interactions? The motivations are the same but the rules are different? Can we agree on that?

If you’re an 18- to 35-year old gamer, you probably have a rich, online social life. And you likely first encountered role-playing games online. Hell, you likely play TTRPGs without a TT. Online. And it’s therefore natural to see RPGs as an extension of your online social life.

But the reality is that RPGs are much more like face-to-face interactions than they are like online interactions. Even if the game itself is played online. Tabletop role-players have to invest more time in their interactions with other players. Gamers have to tone down their self-performance and show a greater interest in their fellow players to create reciprocal relationships so that other gamers will role-play with them.

And that’s not just about getting invited back to the game.

Remember all that s$&% about how not being in control is central to the RPG experience? About giving up control over what happens to your character in return for the thrill and challenge of not knowing what’s going to happen next? Well, that’s all predicated on a feedback system. Your character does a thing. That changes the situation. As a result, the other characters — or the world — do things in response. Which change the situation. And then your character does something in response. Thus the characters and the world evolve organically. Without that s$&% it’s not a role-playing game. It’s five people telling five stories about five different things at the same time. And if you’ve ever tried to watch Harry Potter and the Crimes of Grindelwald, you know just what a confusing and terrible mess that turns into.

Moreover, that whole constantly evolving feedback loop thing just makes RPGs even better from a creativity standpoint. Because that s$%& takes a lot of on-the-spot creativity. It’s like a creativity ironman challenge. Want to up your creativity game? You can’t beat a game about collaborative improvisation and monster slaying. Remember how high creativity ranked on the list of self-confessed motives for wannabe content creators?

RPGs provide a uniquely rewarding experience. But they only work with rich, deep interaction.

Selfish vs. Selfless Role-Playing

And now we’re back to the start. With two approaches to role-playing. Selfish, Performative Role-Playing and Selfless, Interactive Role-Playing. Selfish Role-Playing is about creating and portraying a character. Showing off for an audience. And it’s about maintaining as much creative control as possible. “I made this thing,” thinks the Selfish Role-Player, “and I will show it to you.”

Selfless Role-Players, on the other hand, are more generous. They want to know the other characters at the table. Even if that means they’re sometimes upstaged by the other characters. And they let the world and the other characters influence their own creation. Shape its development. Often, they start with a fairly simple blank slate kind of character and play to find out who the character really is.

This ain’t about motivations. It’s about behaviors. Selfless Role-Players aren’t any less self-interested. They’ve still got a favorite character — the one they’re playing — and they’re still playing for their own good time. They still want approval. Everyone does. They’re just following the face-to-face rules of social reciprocity. Make yourself likable by showing an interest in others and they’ll respond in kind. Give people a chance to talk about themselves — everyone loves talking about themselves — and people will ask you about yourself. Tit for social tat.

That’s how you get an audience. That’s how you get your fellow players interested in your pretend elf. You show them how to treat you by treating them that way. That s$&% takes time and patience, but it’s the only way to do it. And, sadly, it doesn’t always work. Some people don’t know the difference between self-interested and Selfish. No matter how many times you tit them, they won’t tat. They don’t reciprocate. And if someone doesn’t reciprocate enough, you stop giving them attention.

Selfless Role-Playing’s got other benefits too. In fact, all the benefits of role-playing games over any other hobby? They arise from Selfless Role-Playing. Social connections between players and characters, for example. Your character’s unpredictable — often surprising — organic evolution. The thrill of risking your artistic creation in a situation you don’t control. The triumph when it pays off. The tragedy when it doesn’t. The extreme creative challenge.

Do you want all that s$%&? You should. It’s awesome. But the only way you’ll get it is through Selfless Play. Is to spend 60% to 70% of your table time more interested in the other characters — and the world — than you are in your own PC. And if you’re not willing to do that? Well, you get what you give. Remember that.

But How?

“Well Angry,” says you, “this is certainly a compelling and well-researched argument.”

“Of course it f$&%ing is,” says I. “Compelling and Well Researched Argument is my middle name.”

“I thought your middle name was Angry,” says you. And then, after I glower at you, you continue, “but how do I actually Role-Play Selflessly?”

Well, if you’re a player… what the f$&% are you still doing here? You should have checked out four thousand words ago.

Anyway, if, by some miracle, you’re a player and you’ve slogged through this whole thing? Well, start by doing what I told you to do in Memo to the Players #2: Portraying Characters. Drop the whole make and portray mindset. Start with simple characters and humble beginnings and all that s$&%. That’ll stop you from spending 80% of your spotlight time putting on a show.

Beyond that? It’s easy. All the table time you don’t spend killing s$&% and looting other s$&%? Spend that time finding out everything you can about the other player-characters and the world around you. Seriously. Make that your goal. Find out everything about everyone. Whenever there’s some fun, role-playing downtime? Spend it asking questions.

Where’d you learn that trick? Where’d you grow up? Why’d you study magic? Who’s that Jondarr person you mentioned? Why do you wear that mask? Was your face burned by acid? How long have you been shoeing horses?

Better still? Before each session, list one thing you’d like to learn about each of your fellow party members and one thing you’d like to learn about the setting. After the session, score yourself.

“But Angry,” whines you, “now I’m spending 100% of my non-killing and non-looting spotlight time not talking about myself. What about my character?”

Remember reciprocation? Well, when you interact with others, you invite them to interact with you. You’ll find yourself on the receiving end of all sorts of similar juicy questions. Players like players who interact with them. And so, they seek interactions with them. And they’ll start doing the same s$&% you’re doing. Unless they’re Selfish Role-Players. Once the Selfish Role-Players identify themselves — over several weeks of play — stop feeding them. They ain’t going to give you anything back.

But don’t forget too that role-playing isn’t portraying a character in a vacuum. That just gets you a dead character. Role-playing’s about how you — your character — responds to things. When your character asks the wizard why he studies magic and he responds with a creepy diatribe about real power and how someday they’ll all pay, you get to respond to that. As your character. And how your character responds to such a speech reveals a lot. And when you let those responses come out naturally, you learn about your own character. You get that all-important chance to be surprised when you discover your character actually sympathizes with fireball revenge fantasies. And then you can wonder — or discover — why.

When you invite the other players to perform, you get meaty stuff to play off of. That’s way better than just giving speeches about the backstory you wrote. And meanwhile, it makes you likable. Which means the other players will invite you to perform. And then you get to give the speeches. Except now, the audience is invested. Because they like you. And, by extension, they’re interested in your character.

In the end, you win either way. If you just want to show off, you get to. Except the audience is actually invested in your showing off. They’ll ask you to show off. But if you want a richer character that grows organically, you’ll get lots of fertilizer for your character’s soil. And either way, you’ll share deeper emotional connections with the other players and with their characters.

The best books and movies and TV shows don’t involve characters taking turns delivering monologues. They involve interactions and deep relationships. Which take time to establish.

Of course, you’re probably a GM. Because you’re still here. What can you do with this s$&%? Well, first, that reciprocation trick works for you too. If you show more interest in the players’ characters — give the players opportunities to self-perform — you’ll train them to show more interest in the world. And ultimately, to show some interest in their fellow party members.

Second, if you’ve got a particularly Selfish Role-Player at the table — and you know what to look for now — you can pull them aside and talk it over. You’ve got a framework for how that talk should go and some pretty strong arguments to level against them. And if they don’t change their tune, you’ve got some justification when you tell them they’re wrecking the game and they can either stop wrecking it or stop playing.

Hypothetically, there’s also mechanical solutions to this s$&%. Like, I can envision all sorts of little minigames whereby the GM quizzes the players at the end of each session about the other players’ characters. But that s$&% gets really close to bonus role-playing XP bulls$&%. And I don’t recommend that crap at all.

The problem’s really that this is all down to socialization. It’s down to teaching people how to behave in ways that make other people want to spend time with them. And that’s not really your job as a GM. Frankly, socialization is a prerequisite for participation in any group activity. It ain’t a GM’s job to teach people s$&% they should have learned in kindergarten. That said, every GM feels differently and different people struggle with socialization for different reasons. So every GM has to decide whether it’s worth their time to help an antisocial player fit into the game better. If the player’s willing to make an honest effort, then I’d certainly help them out and I’d be really patient. If the player says, “well, I’m just not a very social person and working at it is too hard,” then I’d suggest there are many solo activities that would suit them better. And then show them my door.

But this is a really delicate issue and I’m aware of all the baggage around it. So, I’m not giving any advice here. Everyone’s got to find their own answer. But, every answer’s got to take into account the very basic human truth that, if spending time with you isn’t pleasant, no one will spend time with you. And expecting anything else is just denying reality.

So… really… I guess I don’t have anything actionable for you. Because if you’re still here, you probably don’t need any of this advice. And the people who need it already typed, “okay Boomer” or “you’re full of shit and you should learn how to curse properly.”

So, how about we talk about structuring mystery adventures next week. That’ll be fun.