 Howdy how's it going my name's Davy Chappy and I get it the spotlight's weird everybody's staring and you're expected to do something amazing or get off the stage and let people who've already got it figured out handle it so where does that leave you cold and alone sitting in the corner of the game and waiting for your next chance to not blow it a moment that might not come because you just psyched yourself out of trying for some of you you might arrive at that point and decide that you're not going to fall into the trap of silence or maybe you're just overly excited with the story that's going on so you stand front and center and try to jump on any opportunity to give your character a chance to shine after all it's a role-playing game everybody should be trying their hardest to get in some good roleplay and neither side of this coin too quiet or too extra is inherently wrong with their intentions but more likely both sides do have a crucial misunderstanding of social interactions that makes it harder for them to participate either through internal or external backlash I know that me being a big youtuber man and everything might not seem like the kind of guy who ever had to worry about weaseling his word in edgewise but of course I did I think everybody has to deal with it eventually and for some people it's a lot harder to pick up on social clues that let them know when they're being a bother or pick up on when they're not being a bother and it's all in their head so today I'm going to talk about some good old-fashioned life hacks that'll help you fake it until you make it in the realm of either talking too much or too little as always keep in mind that a lot of this is just my opinion so do not take this advice and use it as a shield toward against evil because every situation is different and my words will fail you eventually take it as the pirate code guidelines not rules but with that out of the way let's begin I'm going to start with the more extroverted side of things because truth be told it's the side that I just have more experience living with so it's the side that I'm better developed to guide people through if you're talking too much you'll know it not at first but your party members will start giving you side eye and they'll start shooting down your sentences before you can even say them once it reaches critical mass and by that point it's already too late usually this effect of being seen as that guy comes from just inserting yourself into the scene too much as a rule I usually only lead the charge in both action and in conversation when no one else has done it for a while and only to steer us in the right direction before I slink back into the sidelines like a socially awkward ninja when it is my time to be the big talky man I usually play a game of who hasn't had the chance to speak and make sure that I get a valid role play moment with someone in the party who might be looking for their own opportunity to break into the screen time and that's sort of the goal here when the camera's on you it should be because you're helping someone helping someone can be as simple as making people laugh it can mean adding unspoken information to a conversation it can literally mean helping somebody either in game or out of it but if what you're saying isn't to the benefit of the other players even tangentially then you don't need to say it I know it sounds shitty to have to constantly be worried about what other people think but like nobody wants to hear about you being such a big important dude when it's a team game I'm sorry that's just the truth they might want to feel the payoff of a particular moment that you've thrown yourself into but if it's just you acting as the setup the fall guy the punchline and the laugh track then you're not playing dnd you're masturbating stop masturbating at my dnd table and that helping people thing also comes with a flip side where if you're constantly the one going out of your way to help people then whether you want it or not you're drawing everybody's attention and the longer you have it the more annoying you'll be your entire existence as a player is to make the lives of your fellow players better and they should be doing the same for you because that's how mafia works you have to find that balance of being able to let most of your opportunities pass by so that you can save your social credit for the small moments that you think really matter and you always have to remember you are a character in a story where your name is not on the title but what if you feel like you're one of those players whose name isn't just not on the title but it isn't even anywhere on the credits list which you can totally be and by the way by pledging to my patreon for you the fear of being belligerent and annoying is so strong that it's keeping you locked in a tiny little pill that's just sitting at the table waiting for the moment that you dissolve into water and disappear from this anxiety ridden game of plastic and dice and the source of that anxiety doesn't require tips or tricks to overcome it requires a change in mindset dungeons and dragons is a team game it requires people in that team to work together and prop each other up because you're all friends and you should all be supporting each other you dinguses if you're afraid to speak it's probably because you're in a group that you don't know that well and in that case it's important to realize that all those other players are probably walking on eggshells too since they don't want to make a bad impression but you must have gotten into the group somehow either through a friend or you responded to a looking for group or you wandered into a room one day and a dnd game materialized around you in any case at your next dnd session i want you to do one thing for me just one i want you to pick a player any player it doesn't have to be one you know but it can be if you feel more comfortable just pick a player that you think is sociable and talk to them it can start slow at first maybe a sentence there a conversation here and if you feel weird about cornering one unfortunate soul and subjecting them to the disappointment that is you then start by talking to the dm about things that the other players can jump on if they want oh a dead body give your thoughts about how it might have died weird npc giving you weird npc vibes share your thoughts with the ether and if your teammates are any good they'll respond with their own thoughts and then you're halfway to a conversation already also if your dm is any good then they should be helping you out by throwing you a bone every once in a while and it feels like you're not getting any moments to yourself but you can't rely on them to do all the leg work because they're human too and that means they're likely to fail you so it's ultimately up to you to figure out when being silent is fine and when you've just been silent for too long and on that note i want to take a moment to talk about something that i don't often see talked about regarding this topic and that is sometimes opening up to your party and breaking out of your shell is hard just because your party isn't that good one of the biggest worries that i see with new or introverted players is well what if my party doesn't like me and to that i say bullshit the only reason why your party wouldn't like you is if you're a dick you talk too much or there are a bunch of clicky assholes that want to boost their friends but don't see you as their friend i know that feeling as a kid that just started in dnd i played for years with a group of clicky assholes and my characters were beaten killed forgotten and put down because hey that's how they saw me it wasn't until after i started playing with other groups that i realized being stuck in a corner doing nothing isn't normal and it wasn't my fault a dnd group should be helping each other they should be making the environment as inviting as possible to the people that they want to play with and if you're having a really hard time speaking because you don't feel invited then that might mean that they don't want to play with you so i have another request even if it's a group of your friends i challenge you to find a different group to play with just to feel out whether it's a better or worse experience because you'll never know if you're actually the problem if you only hang out with people who are under no compulsion to treat you differently and once you find that super talkative super friendly group or you realize that you're already in it you'll be surprised at how much easier it is to open up to people once that initial barrier of getting your foot through the door is over with so tldr if you talk too much try to only talk at the benefit of other people and if you don't talk enough try to make sure that those other people are benefiting you nobody plays dnd alone the best thing that you can do is talk to your teammates and try to make sure that everything goes well the next time that it's your turn to roll but that'll about do it i'd actually like to take a moment to ask you i do these breakdowns of playing at the table every once in a while and they're the things that i like to write about the most because they're the ones that make me feel like i'm helping people the most so i'm interested to know what topics regarding social player etiquette do you want me to talk about in a later video feel free to leave a comment down below as well as a like subscribe to my channel check out my social media and maybe support me on patreon so that i can afford to install an actual stage headlight above my gaming table for dramatic effect but yeah davio