For those who've played TRPGs, how much "acting" is usually part of the experience?

[Galdred]

I sometimes act when I am GMing, but I hate doing it as a player, and I almost always use indirect speech ("I ask NPC 346 what he knows about the murder").

 

[Hagashager]

It's a group by group basis, but generally speaking acting should be kept to an amount fit for flavor, not gameplay. I've been in and spectated enough games to know, with empiracle evidence, the more players act out their characters, the more unhinged, weird and ideological they are as people.

Generally I don't use too crazy an accent and I usually declare my PC's feelings before acting them out, rather than having fellow players determine for themselves what I'm getting at. An example of me might be:

*Playing a 5e Ranger with a Southern Drawl*
We come upon a magic forest. I say, out loud:
"[Character name] looks at the magic forest, strokes his beard and says, 'I do declare, these here trees ain't normal, gentlemen. I be thinkin' we camp out in this here clearin' tonight.' I then go a few paces, unroll my sleeping bag and prepare a fire."

GM: "Yeah cool, okay, so [Character Name]'s doing that. What're you all doing?"

I don't take it any further than this. I'm not here to debate the finer points of my PC's ethics in-character with a southern drawl.

 

[Alex]

I always roleplay (or at least try to) my characters. By roleplaying, I don't mean making funny voices, I mean considering his motives, reasons and frame of mind. I did use a funny "voice" in an IRC game I played, writing everything as trying to give the idea of an accent similar to the peasant voice from Warcraft 2. It got to a point another player was annoyed because he was having trouble actually understanding what I was saying. So I asked him in character something like "what do you mean accent? Do you want me to talk funnly like you?". He said yes, I did a language skill roll and, as I succeeded, toned down maybe 80% of the fake accent. To be clear, the game was text only, so the accent was just writing things wrong to make it clear what vowels I was stressing or mistaking.

 

[Stella Brando]

 

[ColossusCimmerian]

Short answer: None. Cero.

You don't need to act.

You can find real gameplay on YouTube by people with theirs friends over Google Meets or similar tool. It's basically a group of friends talking and having fun.

No one acts or makes silly voices. Sure, sometimes during the game someone might get excited and start acting funny, everyone laughs and then continues playing normally. I guess it depends on the group and how close friends they are.

 

[Maxie]

I only do full voice acting if the character has a funny accent or speech impediment and it's part of his shtick.

the character is some generated schmuck whose whole ass personality is contained within a character sheet and expressed in numeric values
if there's any funny accent or speech impediment involved, it's yours, and you should be beaten up for it

 

[Caim]

Reminder that if you see a video of a group of people playing D&D and they have an entire set for them to play, complete with maps, props, miniatures and the like, the game is about as real and unscripted as professional wrestling.

 

[Stella Brando]

What, wrestling doesn't have scripts does it?

 

[FritzedProcess]

I only do full voice acting if the character has a funny accent or speech impediment and it's part of his shtick.

the character is some generated schmuck whose whole ass personality is contained within a character sheet and expressed in numeric values
if there's any funny accent or speech impediment involved, it's yours, and you should be beaten up for it

 

[Modron]

Zero.

 

[gooseman]

These videos are made to make money and for marketing the games. They are supposed to be "exciting" to the target audience, whoever that is. People doing it are either mentally ill imitators or the artistic kind. This will depend on who you play with, but you don't have to do it to play or enjoy the game, you can do whatever you want, which is the appeal of pen and paper games.