What are common mistakes that less-skilled roleplayers make when playing a roleplaying game?
(This question is directed on the player aspect of roleplaying, not the game master aspect)

Possible Examples:
- Too combat oriented, treats roleplaying like a video game where everyone must be killed
- Overzealous rules lawyer, thinks the book runs the game not the game master
- The sidetracker, keeps getting the group focused on non-roleplaying issues rather than the game
- Rambo syndrome, runs into every scenario as if life has no meaning

- Borrows anything & everything, but does not return said items at the end of the session. (Basis for the game-ruling of: Bring your own, no on-site game item leaves the premises).

- Gripes & complains when anything & everything doesn't favor him & his character.

- Gets bored too quickly & leaves mid-session.

Uses player knowledge.

Plays D&D...
... and in a hack&slash way.

Not bathing.

- Stop showing up for sessions without so much as an email
- Assume they're better than LoneStar
- Fail to do necessary legwork
- Assume legwork and information gathering can only be done by a hacker

IC/OOC divide. This is the key to good roleplay. All other issues are also social/gameplay issues.

-Has no sense of tactics and commits fratricide by stupidity as a result.

-Does not think before he/she acts. Becomes a dumb bunny.

-Borrows everything

-Mooches off the snacks/drinks instead of adding to the pot luck

-Doesn't develop his own character's life. The PC "exists" in the game only during combat.

-Doesn't track their character's in game money and either can't buy anything or will buy everything with a side of munchkin.

-Uses out of game knowledge as PC's knowlege

-Does not get into the cooperative mindset. Competitive gaming is fun - but rarely in roleplaying.
-Does either hog the spotlight or tries to avoid it. If you don´t tell your story, noone benefits from your creativity. Or attendance.

But that's what a good chunk of the rules cover. Also, what if that's the game that you want to play? Playing a high-combat game doesn't make someone a bad roleplayer, any more than playing a face adept makes someone a good roleplayer.

The gamemaster should be as subject to the rules as the players are, and the players should be able to call the GM out if he's not playing by the rules.

Unless he's playing a character who sees his life as meaningless. This is ultimately the fault of the group not accounting for the game that everyone wants to play.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on what you mean.

Here's some additions to the list.

*Keeping secrets. If your character has a super-secret past, it should come out in play, and it should happen quickly. Secrets aren't interesting if nobody knows what they are.

*Not being connected. Usually this results from not talking to the other players. Characters should have a reasons to be together, and reasons to be in whatever situation they're in. This doesn't mean writing a novella as a background.

*Not talking to the other players. It's everyone's game, take everyone's ideas and priorities into consideration. Everyone is responsible for everyone else's fun.

*Turtleing. Being passive. Don't rely on the GM to feed you a game. Take some responsibility and push the game forward in new and interesting directions. Turtleing also covers being passive as a player. Don't let the loudest players run the game if they're doing stuff that isn't fun for you.

*Not knowing the rules. Excusable when you start a new game. If you've been playing for a while, you should at least know the basic dice mechanics, and how to find specific rules in the books.

Edited for readability

* Having your character be only a collection of statistics on a sheet, refusing to roleplay and just throwing dice instead.
* Having an attitude that you are playing "against" the gamemaster

Being passive is one of the most common things I've seen newbies do. It's perfectly understandable, but causes a lot of problems if a lot of the group is like this. Story kinda lies there, characters don't get developed, and the more active players may push them off to the sidelines.

-Not learning the basics of the rules.
It's perfectly fine if you're new, or don't learn the more obscure bits about the game (the exact stats of the great dragons for example), but you really should know after a few months what your total dice pool is for your most common rolls. This goes double for matrix and magic people.

-Failing to reach equilibrium with the group
This can make or break even the best games. People like to play different kinds of games, and that's just fine. It simply makes for a better game when everyone consents to a certain type of game. That's why I'm a big fan of group character creation. It prevents characters feeling left out when they realize that their specialty or mode of having fun is inappropriate or otherwise needless.

Personally, I'd go with stopping the game/session being entertaining for everyone...

I've seen whole groups be Rambo's, Rules Lawyers, and more.
...They think they're mature players and don't see anything wrong with what they're doing.

I leave groups like that alone.

There's enough people on these forums that think having the biggest guns and doing the maxxest damage is what roleplaying is all about...
...But they'd not think themselves "less skilled".


Peter

If everyone is having fun, then it's fine. But that isn't what most people really think of role-playing.

What do most people think of role-playing?

The use of player knowledage (aka meta gaming) would be my biggest complaint.

Also, there is a flipside to this and that is when the PC would know something that the players don't. This is especially important for handling new players. The GM should let the player know a particular piece of information and let the new player make a decision from there. (If they still do something stupid well.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dead.gif) )

Metagaming is considering the world outside the game. It can also be using mastery of the mechanics to gain advantage in the game. Neither of these are necessarily bad things.

These are very good points, especially the first one. It's really tough to get a player into the game if they're being aggressively targeted by another player.

The second point is more about the comfort level and social ability of the players. I know I was very quiet in my first few games, simply because I didn't know the people I was playing with, and wasn't a very outgoing person. Once I got comfortable, though, I got to be one of the stronger roleplayers in my group. It's not really a question of roleplaying skill, or a mistake made by the player, it's a question of comfort.

Gothfather, I think they're referring to using Player knowledge to alter how your character would react in game. Such as knowing that NPC A is the Lead Bad Guy for the adventure, though the character doesn't know yet, and yet still treating NPC A with more suspicion/attitude/etc than the character normally would.

Or the reverse. Knowing that Jerkoff B is actually a Good Guy, but that doesn't come out until later, and yet still trusting him implicitly because you (the player) know he's on your side in the end.

In all instances of this, it's bad.

Metagaming is actually, put simply, using out-of-game knowledge or resources to affect in-game decisions, & is the single worst thing for roleplaying games.

Most of those already listed in this thread should not have been, as although they can be problems, they are not directly related to roleplaying, but rather group dynamics or character/player stupidity.

I don't think this can be stressed enough.

That may be what's meant, but the blanket statement that "metagaming is bad" simply isn't true. Especially in a thread that's about mistakes that "less-skilled" (whatever that means) roleplayers make.

Except that you have to in order to play the game well. Like in combat. You have to rely on your tactical ability as a player in order to be truly effective in combat. That is using out-of-game knowledge and resources to affect in-game decisions. Unless you have a double-standard when it comes to non-combat related conflicts.

I'd truly love it if this thread could be collated and stickied. Seriously.

Have I ever mentioned that I think Stickies suck?