10 Ways To Be A Better TTRPG Player

Every convention, the Inkwell Ideas team finds games to play in the evening—in addition to our regular home games. Over the past year, we’ve been paying attention to what other players do well and what we can easily change to become better TTRPG players ourselves.

Here are our top 10 tips for being a better player:

1. Quickly Envision a Character by Combining Popular Media Characters

When you’re trying to envision a new character, think of a few attributes from two or more popular media characters and combine them.

Take Scotty from Star Trek: his ingenuity, accent, love of Scotch, pride in his heritage, wearing kilts, or general resourcefulness. Then consider someone completely different, like Marge from The Simpsons: blue beehive hair, levelheadedness, always trying to make the best of what her husband and son are doing wrong, groaning when she hears what they’ve done, etc.

Combine a few of these traits to create someone completely new!

2. Sprinkle in a Few Quirks to Be Memorable

Building on the previous tip, think of a few things you can do to make your character stand out.

A common choice is an accent, but if you’re not great at accents, add a cough, sniffle, strange laugh, or mannerism. Maybe your character is always scratching their chin, adjusting their glasses, or moving their hands when they talk.

You don’t need a dozen quirks. One or two memorable details can make a character much easier for everyone to remember.

3. Put Out a Table Tent

Especially in one-shots and convention games—or even during the first few sessions with your regular group—fold an index card (or small piece of paper) in half and write your character’s name and 2–3 other key details on it, such as class, race/ancestry, or a quick description of what they look like.

Other players will almost always follow your lead, making it easier for everyone to remember who’s who. In the rare chance they don’t, at least scribble down everyone’s character names on the back of your character sheet in the order they’re sitting.

4. Take Notes, Make a Map, and Record Treasure

Personally, I started out as the fill-in character in my current regular, longest-running campaign. Because I expected to only be there about half the time, I figured my notes would be incomplete anyway, so I didn’t bother taking any.

This is probably my biggest regret. It turns out I get invited to about 90% of the sessions after all! Without notes, I can only remember a few of the key players and factions in our campaign.

So jot things down: people you meet, who you think they’re working for and what their goals are, where you met them, deals you’ve made, key events, revelations, treasures, and anything else you think you’ll need later.

And if you’re playing a game where maps and locations matter, make your own map. Your GM’s map might not be available between sessions, and making your own can help you remember what happened.

5. Be Ready to Describe Your Background—and Include It

Work with your GM to learn a little about the world and pick a place where your character is from. Ask what details your character would reasonably know.

And if you’re so inclined, ask whether you can flesh out the town you’re from, give your religion some broad strokes, establish a few contacts, or add other details to your background. Of course, your GM has final say, but doing this gives both you and the GM more material to work with.

It lets your GM say, “Oh, your uncle told you a bedtime story about that religion/artifact/old king…”

Or you can say, “Hey, GM, my religion is _____, and it’s related to this god whose temple we’re raiding. Would my character know anything about that?”

A little background can add depth to your character.

6. Have a Combat Cheat Sheet

As you gain levels, some crunchy (or even semi-crunchy) games give you a lot of options. Casters might have 15 spells they can cast plus other unique actions and magic items. Even non-casters might have several types of attacks, special abilities, and magic items with their own rules.

And even if you have a go-to attack combination, there can be different modifiers depending on the circumstances.

For example, my high-level ranger has two attacks, possibly with each hand (4 total), a bonus damage die against marked foes, another bonus damage die if the target has already been hit, and perhaps another attack if they kill an opponent—but only if that kill was made with an off-hand attack. Truly you need a dizzying intellect!

To help keep your turn to a minute or two, jot down the actions or combinations you’re most likely to use, along with their bonuses and the circumstances for those bonuses.

7. Find a Rules Cheat Sheet

Often, you can find 1–2-page summaries of the rules for whatever game system you’re playing. This overlaps somewhat with the previous tip, but it can make that other step much easier.

These quick-start guides or rules summaries will often explain the order of a combat turn and options common to all players. They may also cover things like chances to find secret doors, when you can use certain special abilities, typical task difficulties, and other rules you don’t want to stop the game to look up.

Don’t rely on memory when a one-page cheat sheet can save everyone five minutes.

8. Put Your Spells, Powers, Feats, and Other Abilities in One Place

This tip is probably more useful for campaign play than a convention one-shot because it requires some preparation, but it’s a great one: copy and paste the descriptions of your various powers, spells, feats, and other abilities into one place. In this day of character builders and rules PDFs, there’s no reason not to make have them all in one place.

I print mine out as cards which lets me sort them for the situation or discard them as they are used each in-game day or encounter, but simply putting them on a page (or two or three) works well, too.

My high-level ranger is now represented by a character sheet and a literal deck of 50 cards when you count the class abilities they’ve gained, subclass abilities from various levels, spells, ancestry abilities, and spell effects from magic items.

Having all of those abilities in one place means less flipping through books, character sheets, and PDFs when it’s your turn.

9. Be a Team Player

Everyone wants to have fun! Give your fellow players a chance to take the spotlight or act first.

If the group is a little shy and you’ve already had a couple of opportunities to shine, serve one up to someone else.

“Those markings look like magic—hey, Wizard, can you read them?”

Or:

“I think our character with the noble background should lead this negotiation.”

You’re still contributing to the game, but you’re giving someone else an opportunity to be the hero for a moment.

 

10. Keep Distractions to a Minimum

It’s so easy to get distracted when it isn’t your turn. Here are a few things you can do to stay engaged:

• Look over your options—powers, spells, attacks, etc.—so you’ll be ready when your turn comes.
• Catch up on your notes or update your own copy of the map.
• Sketch something your character is seeing or doing—even if you’re not an “artist.”
• Pay attention to what’s happening so you can react when it’s your turn.
• If another player seems stuck, be ready to remind them of something their character might know or suggest an idea.

 

Bonus: Use & Respect Safety Tools

Safety tools have become increasingly popular over the past 10 years. Starting with the venerable X-Card, these tools give players ways to communicate when something happening in the game crosses a personal boundary.

Lines & Veils lets players identify topics the group should avoid entirely and topics they would prefer to gloss over without going into detail. It’s also important to make players comfortable revisiting these boundaries during the session or using an X-Card when something unexpected comes up.

Another tool is Roses & Thorns, or the more positively worded Stars & Wishes. These are usually used after a session to discuss things people enjoyed and would like to see more of, as well as things that didn’t work for them or that they’d prefer to avoid.

And we’re emphasizing “Respect” because even grizzled RPG veterans like me—I’ve been playing for 40 years—don’t always know what we don’t know. I recently had a game where something unexpectedly hit much harder than it normally would have because of some major things happening in my life that week. I ended up walking out.

If the GM had been using safety tools, I could have asked 30 minutes earlier that we avoid the issue, or left the game more gracefully.

What are some ideas you have to be a better player?