So, what's actually playing a TTRPG face to face (as opposed to online) like...

>deer in headlights
Is there a scientific explanation for this phenomenon? It's kind of weird that a deer would see a massive death machine heading his way and not attempt to move out of the way.

I googled it and the first result says it's because of how the eyes of the Deer are. Without going into much detail, they're literally blinded. And being blind, they do not know what to do so they do nothing.

I don't know if this is true, but it's on the internet and who would lie on the internet.

Complex motives

As someone who has only ever played IRL I can say that there is certainly a reason this exists; however, it's still a stereotype, and not a good measure of reality.

In reality you'll likely group up with people you know in person for non-RPG related reasons like not wanting to go into a complete strangers house. These people usually have similar interests to you since you usually know them, and agreed to come to their house. Depending on the system you can expect to find rollplay, or roleplay. It also depends on the background of the person. E.G my group is made up of ex-theater actors who enjoy narrativist systems that focus more on storytelling such as GURPS, Fate, WoD, etc.

Tl;DR: That's called a stereotype, but you're OP so of course you're a faggot.

Personally I feel I can only do good roleplay IRL. When you roleplay online you don't get the body language and expressions neeeded to properly convey your character's actions and emotions. When you don't have that tangible connection with the other players the roleplay doesn't feel geniune and can never be as good.

>legendary swordsman
Nah, man, it's cool.

>slutty bisexual elf princess
Yeah, fuck that guy.

I'm trying to have an adventure here, your group is not your wank material.
Except when it is, but that's a different story, one I'm not part of.

>Be a teacher

>look at class roster for junior high

>Lestat Lopez

That feeling when you realize the creepy "Let's cut ourselves and have sex with each other" vampire roleplayers' kids are old enough to start asking questions about their parents' hobbies.

>Let's cut ourselves and have sex with each other

It was a lot wierder than that. One of my regulars from high school to college was involved with their group occasionally since he was banging one of those girls on the side. And one of my irregulars sort of drifted in and out of their group.

Another friend of a friend was part of that group as well. He joined the military and found Jesus and doesn't really talk much about it, but is still into roleplaying.

Needless to say, they were trying their hardest to actually take that shit seriously as a religion.

I only play tabletop games with my friends, and for us it's a social exercise which gives a framework to talking shit and drinking beers.
It's just hanging out with rules, silly voices, dice and occasionally narrative themes.

Can I say: I really don't understand what kind of games you guys play.

I've run TTRPGs for over ten years, and I've never run shit like that. I run D&D, first and foremost, as a beer-and-pretzels game. The fun is in killing things and taking their loot.

I don't dabble in romances, sexy women, fetishy shenigans or whatever. The dynamic is that the PCs are all solving the dungeon together, with a lot of fist-bumping and carnage.

Like, what kind of games are you even talking about? No-one plays that kind of shit at the table. Actual RPGs are mainly action-focused, and they're not awkward at all. Sure, characterization is minimal - I've actually never seen any of the stuff Veeky Forums does happen in a game - but it's a great time tallying up loot and hacking monsters to death.

Seriously, why the fuck would a situation like that ever come up?

>kaffe 1668
what's the context

Ok, so OP is ether really misguided idiot or probably trolling.

But you are just sad. "I have this one experience and obviously it mirrors everyone else experience too, I cannot fathom that other people have experiences that differ from mine."

You meet up with your friends and make some epic heist or dungeon crawling. Sometimes it lasts 2 or 3 hours and it gets the workday out of your mind, sometimes you do it all weekend basically cooking, rolling dice, role-playing, eating, drinking and having fun together.

I run D&D and I think I have the opposite experience from you. All they ever do is dabble in romances, taverns, and almost anything that doesn't involve fighting.

I think it's because I run Deathwatch for the same group of people, and compared to the D&D combat system, Deathwatch is deeper in terms of mechanics. The players probably want the D&D campaign to be significantly different from the Deathwatch campaign.

What I'm trying to say is, there is no one way to run a game and to assume that everyone runs the game the same as you is very short sighted even if it is the same system.

Give them support roles. They absolutely revel in it in my experience.

I find that the Shy ones like to either gravitate to healers or fill roles.

My one shy player once played a Cleric to a homebrew religion who had Sheep as a patron animal. I offhandedly mentioned a farm and he went to go find sheep. This was the first and only time this shy player took initiative to do something. I tried giving them a sheep related quest, but the others concluded that there were more important quests and ignored the sheep quest plot hook, dragging the shy player along.

It was at that point that I wish I could've just rail roaded them to that sheep quest. Maybe it's the team chemistry that is the problem.

what would you have done in a situation where a shy player's initiative was snuffed out by the initiative of the more vocal players?
Should I have stepped in as a DM and told them to let the shy one do his thing?

Usually you'd meet up with people you know already, rather than strangers. This is something people can do when they have friends.

I just recently got a group together, none of them had played D&D before (well, at least not within the last several years).
The one player who had played before took the initiative with acting in-character and I DM'd interactions in first person and the new players let go of their inhibitions really quickly.
It wasn't awkward at all, and everyone had fun.

Have you ever had a single friend ever in your life?

Maybe you could ask the shy player if they're enjoying themselves and what they expect out of the game. Maybe do a scene more focused on them during a downtime segment?

>Another possibility if its a party of strangers is if one or more of the players are not well adjusted to social situations, either through being sheltered and inexperienced with social situations or through mental illness, they will completely overshadow those who are more tame in roleplaying, and more often than not for the party members who are more tame are scared away and the party falls apart.

This is not my experience. The regular hostess for my party was incredibly quiet in game, but she kept having us over week after week all the same. For myself, I usually have much greater anxiety outside of games than inside of them. I am most well-adjusted and comfortable when I am GMing for like 11 people, despite normally doing poorly in larger groups.

>For a group of friends who went into the game knowing each other, they are more likely to pick character personalities that are similar to their real life personalities and it ends up just being a roleplay session of "What would I do in this situation?"
This isn't like... the POLAR opposite of my experience. I tend to play with the less-risk-averse character as avatar myself. But more of the paladin players I've known have been atheists fantasizing about a capacity for moral certitude. Some people are just more interested in the fictional situation they occupy than the fictional headspace they occupy.

There's a difference between putting all eyes on one person and giving that person something to do. There's a lot of "depends on the situation/game" here. For me, running mysteries that were decent enough to speculate on a little probably made my game more worthwhile for "spectators." But I'm a bit of a one-trick pony in that regard so I have little basis for comparison.

I do ask each of my players how they felt about each session. What I'm worried about is if some of these players are lying. The shy player has always just said "Yeah, I had fun." I mean I guess you could say they wouldn't come back unless they really did enjoy it.

>So, what's actually playing a TTRPG face to face (as opposed to online) like?

It's a shame OP didn't leave it at that. It's a worthwhile question, but we're kind of getting bogged down in anons' shitty assumptions instead.

Also,
>I'd probably try roleplaying for the first three minutes before excusing myself, going home and crying in my pillow.

Start singing along with the radio when you're alone. Find an excuse to read aloud to someone.

RPing is far less baffling to me than karaoke, fwiw.

More specific questions help. "Were you cool with x?" Though that specific one could generate a problem where there wasn't one.

For general shit, just learn to read a room a bit better. Even really emotionally tepid people still show on their face when they're enjoying themselves.

>what would you have done in a situation where a shy player's initiative was snuffed out by the initiative of the more vocal players?
Don't hesitate to talk with the vocal players about this. Something similar happened to us, I am the most vocal player, we all talked about it and now the group is better.

I don't know how people even form groups, online or offline. Even when I play MMOs I just usually solo it.
Sometimes people send invites out of the blue and I spill my spaghetti and decline becuase I'd like them to at least introduce themselves.
I guess most people already have friends and they start playing games together.

I always force these people to do something exciting, then I quietly fudge the die rolls so they succeed. It's all about letting someone know that yes, they can be the legendary hero too. Like, you guys aren't the fucking hobbits, you're Aragon and all the cool guys.

I really haven't seen any of this stuff. I also haven't seen shy players play support roles, either. They just play something simple like an archer.

I've found this more of a trend only because D&D is really popular and it is more easily done as a combat system due to how much more overhead a roleplay-heavy campaign requires. It's just a time investment issue and most of us have jobs. Roleplay campaigns also require a bit more trust since D&D makes no strong system-based trust assurances regarding RP.

I've had quite a few shy players. They kind of boil down to two types:

>Waiting their turn
These guys are easy to deal with. For the most part, their issue is in not knowing when they can take the spotlight. It's not that they don't know, they just are afraid of stepping on the toes of other players. Talk to the other players and encourage (but don't outright force) scenes where his character or build would shine the most. If you have a spotlight default, you can have them throw the spotlight at the shy player.

>Content with being there
Usually this means that they like the experience of being there and developing the scene in their own head. Ask them what they'd like to do scene-wise. Sometimes it's wisest to just not push them into the spotlight, especially if it's not a confidence issue and more of a preference. Some people just enjoy different things. They may surprise you, like drawing the entire cast in a wacky scene that happened in the campaign and then sharing it with the party.

Combination of being blinded by headlights and paralytic fear.