In-Game Mechanics: Role Play

or How to Maintain Clarity and Not Talk to Yourself

This post is part of a series on duet-specific mechanics geared toward those who have been playing RPGs for some time but are looking to transition from playing with a group to playing as a pair.

In a duet, the DM, and possibly the player, will more often be in a situation where they are playing multiple characters who are interacting all at once. To have active and engaged role play at the table, the primary goal will be to not carry on a one-sided dialogue that leaves one person stuck watching the other talk to themselves. Here’s how to do just that.

State who’s speaking or asking a question

Or declare a quick pause if you need to

There may be times when you, player or DM, need to clarify something. If possible, use a voice different from your normal one for your primary character and for each character in the central party.

If you’re like me and didn’t quite manage that at the beginning and now you’re kinda stuck, see if you can change your mannerisms when you’re in character. How would Gherysahn hold himself while speaking to this other member of the party? To this nobleman on horseback?

You can also switch back and forth between first and third person, if needed. “Gherysahn would like to…”, switching to first person when you’re in character. Or use your own name: “I, as Beth, have a question.” Or “A quick-out-of-game clarification” which you then ask.

Clarification with very occasional ret-con is your friend

The dice rolls, decision-making, and RP in D&D create stakes. Sometimes things go exactly how you wanted them to, if not better, and sometimes they’re a disaster.

I am not suggesting that you rewind every time something isn’t going well. However, there may be smaller or lower-stakes instances where you forgot to do something in a town or needed to speak with someone but it’s the next day.

This is of course up to DM-discretion, but I’ve found that duets uniquely empower you to back up slightly if needed and take care of a small thing for your character that you didn’t think of in the moment, especially with no other players to remind you.

Along similar lines, the two of you get a lot of leeway with how much hand-waving you want to do. Neither of you find buying supplies very interesting? Great! Don’t worry about that! Roll a D20 and move yourselves along!

A ret-con exception: Carefully guiding in-party conversations

We’ve only done this once or twice, so I am certainly not suggesting it for all the time. You may very rarely come across a situation that you need to re-do or re-start. Let me explain what that might look like with an example.

At various times, we switch up the RP for the central party. In developing one of those characters, he needed to have a high-stakes conversation with the other two central party members. We discussed this beforehand with the caveat that if it didn’t seem to be going well, we would pause and reassess, especially because that character and his backstory were still being fleshed out a bit.

The conversation took a turn. In-person for the characters, this could have been avoided as there would have been really clear body-signals to redirect the approach, but that was difficult to do with me playing two characters I often don’t. So, we backed up and started the conversation again, taking a slightly different approach that worked out a lot better.

Kinda like Matt Mercer’s “Rule of Cool,” I would call that the “Rule of Fun.” It would not have been fun to have a purposeless interpersonal disaster among our central party, so we meta-gamed it a bit and fixed it. Again, that’s not very typical, but I do think it’s important to give yourselves that option if necessary.

The primary character/player does the talking

In combats and social encounters, you don’t want the DM to have to have an ettin-like conversation where they’re speaking from multiple perspectives while the player watches. If the player gets stuck and needs help, they can say so and the DM may speak up as one of the central party members for a sentence or two, but then it’s going to be back on the player to talk to this person or group outside their party.

Depending on your primary character’s personality, it may feel really unnatural for them to be the spokesperson for the group. In that case, do your best to speak for the group as one of the other central party members. If possible, try to embody them in your role playing so it’s clear who’s speaking!

To simplify these social encounters, use the character stats from the most charismatic group member, or the one with persuasion proficiency, to see how the conversation goes.

A pattern emerges

A lot of the mechanics can be tweaked or dealt with through DM-player conversation. If one of you is having trouble or something feels off, kindly say so, and then the two of you, out of the game, can go about solving it. It will take a little while to find your duet rhythm, and even when you do, you’ll still make adjustments along the way.

Taking your time and being clear about preference

The flip side of not having to worry about the parts of the game that you don’t like as much or would rather not RP is that you get to work together to set the pace for your duet and decide where it goes. If you really like a certain area or character, consider slowing the plot down a bit or diverting it slightly to accommodate that preference.

Players, in some ways this is on you to make clear to the DM. Maybe tell them, before your game night, “This is what my character’s been thinking about, so I’d love it if we could…”

You should also clue the DM in on your long-term preferences. We’re working on a post about over-powering the primary character and central party, but I’ll state that briefly here—if there’s something your character wants to work on or build toward, make sure the DM knows, and they’ll (very likely) work to make that happen when it fits with the larger narrative.

For example, my character really wanted a direwolf companion, but I didn’t want her to have to be a Beast Master Ranger. It may have taken a few months to actually manifest in our game, but one day, walking through the woods, a direwolf puppy found her and has been a fun addition to our party ever since!

Some planning may take place away from the table and out of character

If you’re gearing up for something major for the party, some of the planning that would take place in-game for a group with a larger number of players might happen out of game for the two of you. You can then decide if you want to RP that decision process or not. We’ve done a bit of both depending on the situation.

Related to this series, we have some suggestions changes to consider for your main character and party in terms of their access to spells, subclass options, and customized magical items. These out-of-game tweaks to mechanics can go a long way in-game and create some really cool RP opportunities too!

If you like what you’re reading, please consider supporting the blog by purchasing our adventures and supplements in our shop or sponsoring us on Patreon. We appreciate you so much! Thank you for joining us on this adventure! – Beth and Jonathan