How do I teach my players how to roleplay...

How do I teach my players how to roleplay? They're incapable of talking to people in character and can't create a character with personality or backstory for shit.

First ask them what kind of game they want to play. If it doesn't involve roleplay, or it does involve roleplay but they're assholes who don't rp anyway, there isn't much you can do. If they are genuinely curious, ask them if you can constantly chide them for not being in character. Chances are they'll eventually shape up or ask you to stop.

I've been GMing various systems for about 15 years. Very generally speaking, these are some pointers.
>Take the world seriously.
Build a world that has internal consistency, cause and effect. Have things react in a somewhat realistic manner, don't talk about things in "game" terms. "The bandit looks to be on death's door" is a lot more immersive than "The bandit has 2 HP."
>Encourage players to invest in the world.
This means the actions they take to RP should be reciprocated in some meaningful way. Roleplaying XP is ok, but I find it undercuts the idea of roleplaying and just promotes a single personality trait exclusively for XP gains. Maybe offer a game with lots of diplomacy or tricky social situations, or simply engaging set pieces like a great feast or tricky negotiation.
>Foster a "culture" of roleplaying
A LOT of roleplayers are shy. There's a social pressure when in a group to be aloof and cool that kneecaps roleplay. An experienced roleplayer, or someone who gets really into character, can be a great icebreaker to get others to join in. Failing that, roll with your players' ideas for characters and characterization. Pigeonholing your players into too narrow of a game can be rough for new roleplayers, since they may have a very clear idea of a character who's simply not fit for the game. Your own keeping in character and descriptions is CRITICAL to this. If you don't RP, they sure as hell won't.
>Sometimes it just doesn't work out.
Some people simply don't like to RP. That's not a bad thing, it's just a thing. If you're looking to run a RP-heavy game, you might have to look elsewhere. The shit part is having 2-3 people who may enjoy or try to roleplay and one memer who derails the atmosphere with a Monty Python quote. These suicide bombers can be talked to and compromise achieved, but in the best case everyone in the game should be on the same page when it comes to RP.

>derails the atmosphere with a Monty Python quote
i have a problem a bit similar to that, i'm only two sessions into being a dm/ever playing dungeons and dragons, and while 5 of my players are doing great (well, 3 are doing great, 2 are dicking around but in a fun way which i can still use to move things forward) I have one who is literally playing a retarded wizard who keeps trying to attack/rape NPC's and party members. I dont want to kick out him since he's a long time friend, but still, this is ludicrous...

This is going to sound retarded, but I promise you I'm not one of those REEE D&D fags:

Try playing a narrative or rules-light system. Just once. If you can throw them somewhere where there aren't many rules and gamist mechanics to hide behind, they'll either have to come out about not wanting to roleplay much, or they'll get into it.

It worked on me, anyway.

Have them essentially play themselves, or at least the type of characters that come naturally for them to play. Then, try to get them to just say what their character says. Rather than saying "my character asks about X", say "what about X?" No accents necessary. No need to act like their characters. Just say what they say.

You can give them a small bonus for doing this, or gentle and patiently remind them to just say the thing rather than saying "my character says..." each time they fail to do that. Eventually you'll wear them down, and they'll just find it easier to do things the way you want.

Once you have them reliably doing this (and it may take a good while), they should almost naturally start acting things out at least a little. Maybe they won't do accents (I don't even like accents and think they distract from more important things), but they'll start to at least hint at emotions, raising their voices when their character is angry and so forth. I mean, don't expect them to be all Shakespearean or anything, but as long as they're conveying enough of a hint of emotion that people know what to imagine in their heads, that should be fine.

At some point thereafter, maybe they'll be able to branch out into characters that are a little less like them, so that they're actually playing a particular personality that's different from what just comes naturally to them, but baby steps first.

Autistically screech at them.

I've never understood why roleplay turns seemingly normal people into these autistic wrecking balls

>I have one who is literally playing a retarded wizard who keeps trying to attack/rape NPC's and party members.
I'd pull him aside and have a talk with him. Tell him that this is a team game and if you were to accept that type of thing, it would derail the campaign. Try not to be confrontational about it, but simply explain that if 4 out of 5 people want The Godfather, it only takes one Jar Jar Binks to completely ruin their fun. See if you can get him to rein it in and be at least somewhat reasonable. Other than that, I'd flat out disallow attacks on party members, and tell him that you're going to be realistic about consequences if he does fucked up shit to other people. (And the consequences really should be realistic and not an attempt to get back at the player.) But for godsake, communicate with the guy and let him know he's being disruptive.

Ive found that the less i work on mechanics and the more i work on the npcs/locations/villians/etc. in a non-mechanical way, the more my players tend to get invested in those things. Like with most npcs and villians I try to write down their personality traits, mannerisms, brief histories, jot down some common phrases or word usage "Oh that is some lovely armor, dear", etc. I intentionally leave out things that only affect stats, usually any sort of class or level, most powers or spells and instead go very loose with the rules when actually interacting with any. Even if the villain is a wizard, he doesnt have to have the same spell list as the book.

I also found that removing the mat and minis has helped with this a lot too. Make combat short and deadly so it doesnt bog down the game. Enemies die in a few hits, players are down in a few hits, combat over in a just a few rounds. Then it's back to roleplaying, not just looking at mechanics.

Finally, I like to give players items, powers, or spells that dont have a particularly good use in combat so that the players are more likely to interact with things outside of the combat-focused mechanics. Scrying orbs, talking equipment, sending stones, ritual components, etc. all stuff that requires time to use or isnt particularly useful in combat but has most of its advantages useful outside of it.

All of this removes the players' mindsets from in combat or mechanical bonuses to out of combat stuff and helps to get them to interact with the world in a hopefully less mechanical way. Obviously, having them roll for some things is inevitable but if you try to make it about the stuff that isnt mechanics then the game should hopefully just be drawn into that realm. One unfortunate caveat to all of this is that there will simply be some players who just cant interact with the world this way and you should make it clear that this is fine and simply ask them "what do you say, roughly" and have them roll to see how well.

Maybe if they start by being cheesy and overly theatrical, the laughs may loose them a little bit.
Then build on it.

I don't ask my players to create a backstory. Nothing more annoying than writing pages of material that will probably never come up before even starting the game and seeing the actual world and its adventures.

Instead, I'll ask for a few bullet points. A few interesting tidbits about the character, and some indication what they would like to see in the game relating to their character. Nothing more. Fast to write, and easy for me as a GM to integrate into the actual game.

Then I'll just use those, and let the personalities of the characters come through naturally as the players get more and more invested in the game.

John? John, is that you?

>How do I teach my players how to roleplay?

Suggest them some good reading and some good movies (like your pic-related), and if that doesn't work, well, the hell with them!

you can't teach them anything if they don't want to learn. I would suggest turning it into board game night that way they can fuck around as much as they want.

Because it gives them an outlet to express their inner sperg without suffering any consequences for their actions. It's the same power trip that you see in villains when they go from being a weak shit to an all powerful being.

I bring people into it the same way I learned when I was 9: The Dragon Strike VHS tape. It has some unironically good, evergreen advice, and also sets expectations. It's okay to meander a little for character reasons. It's okay to feel silly. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to care.

>I bring people into it the same way I learned when I was 9: The Dragon Strike VHS tape
Sure, I mean, if you're feeling brave tonight.

1. lead by example
2. dont allow "i ask about food", let them spell it out.

It can be hard on new players but the whole "i explain what i talk about "thing gets entrenched in them fast if one of the players starts doing it.

Stop playing D&D.

Play a system that is built around role play not roll play.

This.

>Implying you can't do both

You can do both, but there's a question to be answered:
does the game's mechanics incentivise roleplaying?

Either it does or it doesn't.

Are there any roleplaying game centered around not roleplaying? I'm not interested in being an amateur thespian, but I still want to play an open free-form game where I can play a character as my own design. I enjoy role playing video games, I just want that experience with the freedom of a pen and paper game. Why is acting out your character so common and entrenched in these games instead of simply describing what my character says and how he says it?

Its not a case if it encourages, but it augments role playing. and still provide interesting and fun rules to resolve the conflict said role playing brings into a setting.

I think I'll stick with my answer when it comes to the resolution of OP's question.

I say this because I've noticed that if there's an incentive to roleplay, the quiet ones at the table will start roleplaying.
And that's what this whole thing is about, isn't? Isn't this what separates us from the board gamers?

>Separates us from the board gamers?

Like your shitty melodrama role playing makes you any fucking better pleb

Uh... it's not "shitty melodrama". It's roleplaying. Role. Playing. You play a role, a character, like in a play or movie.

Are you new here?

The use of the term “fantasy adventure game” over the more often used “role-playing game” is intentional. Strikingly, the term “role-playing” appears nowhere in the original 1974 texts. Ideally, we who like this sort of game are interested in adventure— cooperatively exploring a fantastical world of strange terrors and fabulous treasures—not perfectly simulating the attitude and behavior of some grumpy dwarf, or whatever. In- deed, too much “role-playing” should be discouraged. “We don’t explore characters; we explore dungeons,” someone once said. Or as C.S. Lewis explained, making a point about good science fiction that could apply equally well here, “To tell how odd things struck odd people is to have an oddity too much; he who is to see strange sights must not himself be strange.”

- Seven Voyages of Zylarthen

Instead of trying to change and reshape these people into different types of people, why don't you do the sensible thing and just find roleplayers.

Making a gaming group is much like making a successful album as a band. You might all be musicians, you might all be friends and get along, you might even like similar types of music, but not everyone wants the exact same things, and not everyone is going to succeed as a group.

That's ok. There's a game and a group for everyone out there. Find it or make your own.

Find some amateur actors to play with. Anybody who took at least one semester of drama classes in high school or college should be able to handle the light improv of a TTRPG session.

I've found that asking your players a lot of questions helps a bit in this regard. Ask them how their characters feel about things or what their character is wearing or other questions along those lines and you'll start to see a character develop.

The nose rule helps a bit. Introduce the rule that all out of character speech must be done while holding a finger upon ones nose. The landslide starts when the players have fun hounding each other on the rule, then find it to be a challenge and a game in itself, and soon they're finding that it's easier than they thought to communicate in character and a minor annoyance to break character.
Find a couple of character voices you can do that don't strain you or sound too cartoonish that it'll just devolve the session to giggles. Make sure you have characters with those voice around more often than others to interact with PCs early on. It'll ease them in. Make sure these are characters your PCs WANT to interact with, group favorites and such. Inevitably, this means that the questgiver prince is a throwaway role, save your good stuff for the hapless homeless guy pulled from your ass to a random street corner that the bard insists must know where "the elf wenches is at."
Tie the roleplaying to what the players already know. If any of them have done any kind of theater that's an instant link. Having just one or two players helping set the tone can help the others fall in.

Maybe they don't want to roleplay. Maybe they just want to mess around, or just kill goblins and get treasure and XP.

It's not a "wrong" way to play dungeons and dragons. As long as you're having fun then you're doing it right. Figure out what your players want out of the game.

Who mentioned D&D?

Not that guy but "play", does not mean "physically impersonate"

Also, the key word you're so strategically avoiding is "game". A role playing game, not role playing. If I wanted to play a role I would be a fucking actor not paying DnD or whatever the fuck. I want to play a game in which I have a specific role. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you autists who think we need to put on silly voices and have all dialogue in character. I don't want to fucking audition for the Hobbit every time I needed to get some information out of someone. It's people like you who have given this hobby such an incredibly stupid reputation.

>I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you autists who think we need to put on silly voices and have all dialogue in character. I don't want to fucking audition for the Hobbit every time I needed to get some information out of someone. It's people like you who have given this hobby such an incredibly stupid reputation.
If they're having fun then they're doing it right.

THIS. D&D and the likes resemble video games too much. That's where I've seen many of my players gone wrong, thinking of 'tanks and healers' while not actually thinking of the characters they make.

>players gone wrong
mentioned a few times in this thread, but there isn't really a "wrong" way to play these things as long as everyone enjoys it. Some players kind of just want to play a videogame, and kill goblins and get treasure.

Make sure you know what kind of fun your players want, and deliver it to them.

Of course I'm not saying it's badwrongfun but there are systems specifically tailored fit people who wanna do that sort of shit. What grates against me is guys like OP and others in this thread who seem to think it is mandatory for any game.

Tldr REEEEEE get out of my simulationist/gamist games FUCKING NARRATIVISTS

It's 'wrong' in the sense that OP seems to think he'd enjoy the game more if they roleplayed more. They're there for his entertainment as much as he is there for theirs.

The amount of work that a good GM should put in makes something so mindless you could get for zero effort in Orcs Must Die 'wrong'. The way I look at it, you're technically right, but at a certain point you're using a screwdriver as a hammer.

A good GM would, upon realising his players are like that, just put work into dungeon design and its satellites like monster creation. Anybody who does otherwise is an idiot wasting their own time.

>Demanding the players roleplay or else.

Do you roofie other people's drinks because they don't have sex with you?

If some kind of game is not fun for the GM, they're still an idiot wasting their time trying to deliver it.
If the players and GM's goals are incompatible, don't force a game out of it. Try another group or angle, and make sure to advertise your desires clearly.

Roleplaying like with weird voices and stuff and leering at people is the cringiest larp stuff I have ever seen. It's mindblowingly lame. You'll have some 40 year old man playing a swooning teenaged girl leaning on another player irl in no time.

Stick to something gamey like D&D and let people casually roleplay. D&D is basically a board game which is like a proto-videogame. People are there for XP/gear dopamine drips and to play a class/fantasy trope, with typically a light veneer of in-character action like a self-aware Zelda or some other fantasy game. If you make it all heady deep RP nonsense you're going to start getting people who sacrifice cats irl.

So you're essential forcing players roll for diplomacy?
You are literally turning roleplay into just rolling dice, and are literally asking for a diplomancer to ruin your game by having a PC get a 80+ on a skill check to rape every female NPC to death.

Or you can just roofie/kill their dog/murder their into family them for not doing what you want.

I am not sure how you got that impression, could you explain?