How can I learn to roleplay as a character who is different from myself with personality traits that are not my own...

Just pick some cliches and try to live up to those. Like a stoic knight, who has strong sense of honor, but doesn't tolerate weakness. Or a scatter brained wizard.
If the character doesn't stick at first, you can change the personality to something that feels more natural. Usually it takes a couple of sessions till you "find" your character.

Read more or watch more films with well-developed characters and pay attention to what they do. Or go outside

Also, you'd have to be in a pretty shitty group that they would kick you for not speaking in-character for 5 minutes, especially as a non-charismatic character. Discuss with your GM/players why you think it's necessary if you're playing a shy/non-party face character to speak all of the time.

I don't even get immersion. Maybe a little bit in books, but not in movies, and especially not in role playing games. How are you not at all times violently aware that you are playing a game, when you are playing a game where you have to manually keep track of the mechanics yourself?

And this is from someone who loves role playing games and movies, by the way.

Same here. I mean, you could maybe make an argument for immersion in LARPs, but RPGs?

>How are you not at all times violently aware that you are playing a game
The awareness of the real world doesn't go away when you are immersed. You just allocate more attention to a parallel thought process.

>Specifically as for choosing the exact words that come out of my character's mouth

You are overthinking it big time.

The only way to think about this is to think about what words your character has heard in their life up to this point and if they have some sort of philosophy behind their use of language.

Essentially you are overthinking it so stop being a faggot and just have fun.

Confirmed for people who have never played roleplaying games.

Practice

Yes the answer is fucking practice you stupid fucking twat. When you say "it's never *just* practice" you are saying "how do I practice shit. Stop watching anime and playing videogames where everyone is godlike and doesn't practice or their training never actually comes up

How do I "practice" a tabletop RPG without needing other people to play it with me? If there are other people, they will get sick of me being too quiet and kick me out. It has happened before.

>How do I "practice" a tabletop RPG without needing other people to play it with me?
You don't. Either you practice by playing regular games with other people or you don't play at all. Ever.

>If there are other people, they will get sick of me being too quiet and kick me out.
Judging from this thread, I don't think they get sick of you being too quiet. They probably get sick of you, period.

When I plan the my games I run through it with. What would this PC do. What would that Pc do. And plan story beats .
I even do this with NPC interactions, I think about what my PCs will say and how the NPC will react.

You could also start taking quizs with that person in mind... Let's try that now. How would your PC respond with
1) an overly flirty barmaid. She is passed her prime but is keeping your drink topped up.
2)a super unhelpful shopkeeper, he's busy reading the paper and is annoyed at you for wanting stuff.
3) a crying child that won't calm down no matter what you do. Its been 10mins at least.
4) an old guy talking your ear off about nothing.
5) a gang of bandits that outnumber you demanding a toll for crossing the bridge.

It took me a minute because I thought this post was about how immersion-breaking it is when players just use a stupid accent for their characters.

My group likes to do voices for each character to the point where they've hounded me for not doing one. I just can't manage it without just playing a boring stereotype, and always found it counter-intuitive to immersion or realism. Am I just being unfun?

>You could also start taking quizs with that person in mind... Let's try that now. How would your PC respond with
I'm going to use my old PC for this, prior to entering the campaign. He was a very talented but stuck-up and somewhat knuckleheaded nobleman.
>1) an overly flirty barmaid. She is passed her prime but is keeping your drink topped up.
He'd indulge her, honestly. He didn't have any plans for tonight, and as long as she's passable he'd pay her back for the drinks with a quick romp- she obviously seems interested.
>2)a super unhelpful shopkeeper, he's busy reading the paper and is annoyed at you for wanting stuff.
He'd take away the paper and demand attention, giving it back when done. If he wasn't going to serve customers, then he should have closed his shop.
>3) a crying child that won't calm down no matter what you do. Its been 10mins at least.
Find someone else to take care of the kid, he has no experience raising children.
>4) an old guy talking your ear off about nothing.
Humor the old man while reminiscing about past victories. Maybe he would interrupt and share stories of his own so he could hear himself talk and pretend he was following the conversation.
>5) a gang of bandits that outnumber you demanding a toll for crossing the bridge.
He'd probably tell them to piss off and knick out or kill them. If he doesn't deal with them, who will?

My own wizard will do these things
1) not really notice her advances. End up getting drunk and tipping far too much. Will probably end up on top of a tree somewhere wearing a stawhat that he traded for casting fly on a pig farmer.
The pig farmer may also be there
2) Ask what the shop keeper is reading. Get brushed off by him. Say "hey no worries" and will come back later.
3) Will sit down in the mud next to the child and wait for as long as it takes. Maybe setting of light spells while doing so. Or getting his elf friend to play a song while clapping along and singing out of tune.
4) find it all very interesting use counter points and slip in magical theory into the Congo
5) "the dawlfs are half price right. Because they are short" real quote . it worked too. Payed the toll no issue

Not sure if your op but. From here go deeper into the convos. Who do you find to take care of the child. What do you say to them.
>yes you there peasant woman.
>yes ma lord
> this child seems to be disquieted . I have not the time to deal with such a thing
> oh that be old bills boy. He gone stuffed it last week. 'im and a few otha lad waz taken tolls on the town bridge. When some sod came an stab em up good and proper. Parden I say so sir
>well that's no matter of mine wench just see too it he is no longer in my way, or so help me I tan your hide in his place
> but my lord. I have not much meself after (blank )......

And so on.....

Then it's impossible for me to "practice" because I require other people to play with me and they will refuse to play with someone who is too quiet. It has happened before.

Not OP, but I'll take a shot at it.
>"You there, do you know this child's parents?"
>"No, sir, I can't say I do."
>"Where can I find out? Failing that, where do I bring him if they can't be found?"
>"Town hall, sir."
>"Appreciated. Take this."
>"Oh, thank you, sir."
>"Think nothing of it. What's your name, miss?"
>"Gerda, sir."
>"Well, I hope to meet you again, Gerda. Come on, kid, let's go."
>(Crying from kid)
>"Don't give me that, I can't stick around all day. Your parents are probably as sad as you, so get over here so we can find them. I'll carry you if I have to."

Accents are fun to get people into roleplaying who otherwise wouldn't. I definitely know what you mean, as a GM I'm reluctant to do accents past making NPCs sound a certain gender or age. On one hand I feel like it will get the players to role play a little bit more, but I'm 90% sure it will just come off as cringey.

My advice would be backstory. Writing up a backstory for your character will help you better understand who they are as a character and how they got to where they are, both spacially and psychologically. It will allow you to better understand their motivations and way of thinking.

I know it seems a bit absurd and romantic to talk about "getting to know" a character that you yourself have created, but the thing is, characters tend to take on a life of their own once you establish their basic personality traits. Those traits determine how they respond to situations, and their responses determine what new situations they find themselves in, and all of those things impact how they grow and develop as a person.

When you understand these things about them, you'll be better able to visualize what they will say and do in a given situation.

It's not even cringey, just boring. I'm sick of playing with generic stoner character, generic cowboy, and generic irish stereotype dwarf #7.

>people on an anonymous imageboard don't understand the concept of the mask and need an outside agency to explain it to them
This is where Veeky Forums is now. Jesus fucking wept.

You ever play pretend as a kid? Cops and robbers? Ever read stories out loud?

It's kinda like that.

Nobody likes the asshole who hides in the corner and never speaks. You want to practice? Then fucking do something and don't ask everyone else to cater to you. Bring something to the table, or go the fuck away.

Fuxk you. Your not even trying

After several years of trying and failing, it's obviously not that fucking simple.
I participate in the game but it takes me a very long time to think about each line of dialogue.

Think about what you would say in the situation, then say something else.

>You ever play pretend as a kid? Cops and robbers?
As a kid, I never put any thought ino the personality traits of the cops and robbers, and the dialogue tended to be short.
I never prepared a character sheet at the start of the game saying things like "this cop is compassionate, devious and independent" and committed to speaking as a character with those traits would speak.
>Ever read stories out loud?
Stories that were already written? I don't see how that's relevant to making up dialogue on the spot.

How do I know the "something else" is specifically what my character, with personality traits that I am required to write on a sheet before the game starts, would say, rather than what a totally different character would say? I feel like you're mocking me.

At this point I'm convinced you're hopeless if you're going to be that meticulous about it. Just make your characters carbon copies of yourself so people don't have to wait 5 minutes for you to compose a sentence. If you want to improve from that, make them yourself but with a quirk or two, and move on from there.

>I feel like you're mocking me.
He may or may not be, but I am. It's funny how you're pretending to be literally autistic on an Ethiopian competitive-eating imageboard for autists, tho.

Man. At first I though you where just shy. But no your an ass. You want a magical answer. There is a ton of good advice in this tread and your just sitting there giving up.
Try. Just fucking try.
Or quite the fucking group and give up a space to someone who will.
There's the question stuff. The accent stuff. The putting yourself into their shoes stuff but you don't give a shit.
>I don't see how that's relevant

>pretending
Huh?

Start off by mimicking an established character wholesale. Get your best-damn impression, listen to them talk, find what they like and immerse yourself in it. This is character acting and is easiest to do, imo. It's also nice because you can drop into your shitty impression and adopt the mannerisms after enough PRACTICE, which is really just repetition. It'll take a lot of time in the mirror saying stuff with different inflection until you sound like the person your mimicking. Once you have the personality FIRMLY established, you can branch out and try another. Make sure you practice ones unlike your previous until you get good enough to not have them bleed over. Eventually, you can say "I'll take X from A, Y from B, and Z from C" and be able to make a personality on the fly. Have a character who is very talented but has to put up with proteges? Channel parts of Dr Cox for the ego, but Bob Ross for the teaching method. Use an impersonation of Carl Sagan for the voice.

Don't mimmic Hitler.

I'm decent at some kinds of characters. Some are similar to me, some are not, but they fall into personality types I can comprehend better. I can do a good religious fanatic and snarky asshole, for example.

If you asked me to play a 'furious berserker who solved every problem with violence' I would have trouble, because I tend to play characters who use words and plans instead of reckless strength. What I do in these situations is keep a sticknote on my monitor with 3-5 keywords.

These keywords are the distilled essence of my character. For example for the barbarian I'd put RECKLESS, BLUNT, LOUD, FORWARD, and UNAPOLOGETIC. When I'm RPing and I'm feeling unsure of how my character would act, I pick one of those that fits the situation and I do something based on it.

So, I'm in a situation and I'm not sure how to RP my character. Well, I can always do something RECKLESS and FORWARD. Afterwards I'll be LOUDly UNAPOLOGETIC about it. Then it's just a matter of sounding gravely and shouting at a level that conveys loudness without blowing out the other players headsets.

I know it sounds autistic, because it is, but if you're having trouble, distill your character down to a few traits and make sure most of your actions fit those traits.

Okay, I kinda like the sticky note idea. At the very least it would be a constant reminder, instead of having to look away from the text chat.

Here's a good place to start

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trait_theory

Nah, they speak English.

That's fairly neat.

I haven't finished reading the thread yet so sorry if this has already been said, but I think the most important thing for enjoying and thus performing your roleplaying of your character is finding a way to mesh your character's story with the story the GM is telling such that you're invested in what's happening both to the world around you and the fate of your character - if you like the story but aren't interested in your character because they're just a pile of mechanics and numbers that you're not emotionally attached to, you'll give a wooden performance. If your character is a bit too individualistic and doesn't fit into the campaign well, you'll have a hard time going with the flow of events because your character's actions won't feel natural.

I highly encourage prioritizing playing characters that fit the story well over playing the character you've always wanted to play or that has the ability that seems the most interesting. You'll be surprised what cool twists and turns your character will take.

>went outside
>stumbled around the streets for a while
>returned home still alone and without a single word spoken

I haven't read the thread OP, but me as a GM, I took drama courses and that's what helped me a lot. That also taking part in discussion groups and trying to empathize with people different from me.

Then just keep reminding me with my "strict" guidelines like bullet points of what my character or NPCs are like.

>and can kick me out if I don't say anything in-character for five mniutes
fuark, that sounds intense

>DM turns to you, his hand hovering over the big red button that opens the trapdoor under your ass
>"You're next. You have 5 minutes. Go on, impress me."
>"Play. Your. Fucking. Role."

I'm a big fan of character voices simply because of how easy it makes the in-character/out-of-character divide, it's also helpful when the PCs are talking to multiple NPCs at the same time. I'd remind you that not every accent needs to be over-the-top and an accent doesn't determine a character's personality. You don't even need to do an accent to have a character voice, a subtle change in inflection, meter, cadence, a small vocal quirk, or even word choice is enough to make a character's voice stand out.

It wasn't the GM and it wasn't during a session, it was the other players who got together behind the GM's back to decide they would all quit and kill the campaign if I didn't leave. The GM had no idea they had a problem until it came to an ultimatum. I never want to go through that again.

I try to make characters that AREN'T like me, but I always worry that as time goes on they just become self-inserts. It's terrifying.

Step 1) Have empathy.
Step 2) Know what your character is like.
Step 3) Say what your character would be thinking.

You may have autism or some other undiagnosed mental illness if you're so bad at this that it's worth kicking you out over it. You might want to get that checked out.