Role-play oriented

We decided with my group to do, every week, 1h of improvisation exercises remotely to improve our skill for roleplay. If you want to do the same, I hope this will give you some inspiration!

You just need a facilitator to guide the session, good willing people, and it’s fun guaranteed.

Attribute one number to each participant, it will be the order.

Exercise 1: Warm-up – word association

Objective: To develop quick thinking and association skills.

Instructions:

1. The facilitator begins by saying a word (e.g. “dragon”).
2. The next participant quickly responds with a related word (e.g. “fire”).
3. Continue the chain, encouraging participants to respond quickly.

Variations:

• Random order: the person who says the word chooses the next participant (to make a complete loop, everyone must participate).
• Then give a max 3 sec for responses and let it go all over the place. Strangely enough, no one was left out. Even though the rounds were chaotic, everyone gave a word at least once in a loop.

Exercise 2: Character swapping

Objective: Practice adapting and using what others set up, understand your mates.

Instructions:

1. Each participant creates a character in his or her mind, but does not reveal it (2min).
2. Facilitator assigns a scenario (for example, a medieval town under attack).
3. Participants take turns describing how their character reacts to the scenario.
4. After a complete loop, one participant chooses the next scenario.

Variations:

• Add unexpected twists to the scenario.
• Encourage participants to exaggerate character traits for comic effect.
• Stay with one scenario and when the facilitator announces: “Change!”, participants must then take on the role of another character.

At the debriefing, it can be interesting to ask how participants created their characters, as there are sometimes many similarities. There was one, however, who had a different technique.

Exercise 3: Scene construction and dialogue (situation play)

Objective: Develop skills in storytelling and collaborative scene construction.

Instructions:

1. The facilitator assigns a scenario on the TTRPG theme (for example, A Haunted Ruin).
2. Each participant takes a turn in building the story.
3. The scene should progress organically, with participants reacting to each other’s contributions.

Variations:

• Introduce a specific objective or conflict to be resolved during the scene.
• Use one recurent element that should be mentioned by each participant.

You can have completely crazy scenarios. For us, for example, In a haunted ruin, a group of children comes face to face with the spirit of a grandmother who awakens the living dead and summons a pack of wolves to eat them. And the brave kid of the group starts dancing like Michael Jackson in Thriller, only for a beam of light to pierce through the clouds and surround the kids who then see a dancing Michael Jackson descend from the sky while throwing lightning bolts at their opponents. The kid was dreaming.