Improv GDR - Ruolare meglio con l'improvvisazione teatrale

by Karen Twelves

This book provides a selection of fun and easy improv exercises designed to take your tabletop or live-action gaming group to a new level. Pick and choose exercises to develop a particular skill, or run through a variety of them at random! No improv experience required.

Some of the skills the book highlights include:
-Smoothly building on the information provided by other participants
-Using one small starting point to build a multi-faceted character
-Building authentic relationships between characters
-Interacting with invisible objects in a way that is believable
-Knowing when and how to end a scene and share the spotlight

Genres: Nonfiction, Gaming, Role Playing Games

116 pages, Hardcover

First published November 6, 2018

Reviews

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an almost 40-year veteran improv player, judge, teacher, coach and organizer who has been GMing tabletop role-playing games for even longer, I am probably not the target audience for Improv for Gamers. It's too concerned with beginners for that. I AM, however, well positioned to review its usefulness. Its crucial flaw is that it's workshop approach, presenting activities that rarely connect well to the role-playing game experience. The 2nd edition does better, with more focused activities and tips (usually by new contributors), but it's still, at its core, a handbook about improv basics being SOLD to gamers, but not always interested in the gamer experience. There are two main problem sections. One is the warm-ups, which includes a lot of silly activities we in the community no longer use because they don't really teach anything useful. The other is all the stuff about miming objects and spaces, which has very limited usefulness around a gaming table (never mind an online play environment - though the 2nd edition does talk about this). Even the examples are filled with "doing the laundry" type scenes that would almost never come up in an RPG scenario. The prose seems to jump from reality to reality, speaking to stage work, table top, larping, traditional RPGs and storytelling games, players and GMs, from sentence to sentence. These all needed to be different sections, but the workshop workbook aspect prevents a better organization of information. Still some good tips in here, especially for more storytelling-based games like Fiasco, but do get the 2nd ed. if there's a choice at all. It looks nicer, has more and better examples, and the tips offered are more illustrative of the gaming experience (add ½ a star to this review).

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I put off reading this book for a long time. In fact, the second edition came out and I still hadn’t read the first one yet. I had the impression that reading it would be pointless if I didn’t have a group to actually play out the exercises with, but I finally decided to read it anyway.

I think this is a worthwhile read, regardless of whether you use the actual exercises in the book, I’m just not sure who to recommend it to. It was worthwhile to me because it built off of a lot of ideas that were already half baked in my head from reading various RPG rules that incorporate some improv ideas. I think it’s probably useful to any roleplayer, but can’t say for sure as I already had that prior experience.

I read most of this leading up to an improv heavy one-shot I ran, and it really helped get me into the right headspace to have a successful game.

There was one exercise that seemed to make no sense at all. “Hidden Royalty” involves everyone having a playing card that indicates their status, but you can’t see your own, only everyone else's. The problem is that by the simplest process of elimination you should immediately know which one you have by seeing everyone else’s, not needing to suss it out through roleplaying like the exercise seems to intend. Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but I had someone else read it as well, and they agreed with me.

Overall, I’m glad I read it, and that it’s in my library.

[Ferio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vaya por delante que me ha parecido un libro precioso en su edición e ilustraciones, y también que no las tenía todas conmigo y que tengo un sesgo negativo hacia la impro porque no me hace gracia.

Dicho lo cual: el libro podría llamarse Técnicas de improvisación para "inserte Vd. aquí lo que quiera". Entiendo cómo la improvisación puede ayudar a jugar al rol, pero las técnicas propuestas son las mismas (o similares) a las que se imparten en los cursos de team building en las empresas, y probablemente en equipos deportivos, etc.

Son agradables los consejos constructivos y el fomento de un correcto comportamiento en esta afición, pero creo que la buena intención original del texto está un poco cogida con pinzas y mezcla churras con merinas. Si esto es causa o consecuencia de mi sesgo negativo aún no lo he decidido.

[Javier Viruete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aunque en un principio, el aspecto general del juego y el tipo de actividades propuestas, me decepcionó, tras leerlo con atención, he de reconocer que muchas de las actividades son muy interesantes, imaginativas y divertidas. En general una buena lectura que te enseña algunos principios básicos de la impro y te da algunas herramientas interesantes.

El punto negativo, es que es muy difícil que un master aplique este tipo de actividades a su grupo, esta más bien pensado para algún tipo de eventos y actividades.

Recomendado para casos concretos en los que vas a ser el dinamizador de algún encuentro rolero.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the second edition. There are elements of the book that I like, but the vast majority of it is just improv exercises with no real attempt made to adapt them to ttrpg's. I know that this was tested to an extent, but the author and contributors seem to be in a bit of an improv bubble.

The core principles of improv are very useful in ttrpg's, but the specific exercises are less so. This book treats improv and role play as almost the same thing. They are similar, but very different mediums. This book makes the case that gamers may benefit from an improv class, but it fails to deliver on its promise of an improv class tailored to gamers.

[Josie · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a general introduction to improv games than anything. While improv can be helpful for RPG's, I was hoping there would be more of a refined relationship in tying the two together. It's fitting for Evil Hat to sell this book though since their games rely heavily on collaborative story telling. In a true FATE game it would be fun to have everyone play Painting a Tableu to add dimension to new scene or location. So while there's lots of basic improv games in this book, it's still up to you to figure out how to incorporate them into gameplay.

[Sonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non male, non una meraviglia. Il libro è tratto da un workshop sull'improvvisazione tenuto dall'autrice, ed è un insieme di vari esercizi di improvvisazione teatrale pensati per essere fatti in gruppo. Non sembrano male, ma non è quel che cercavo. Proverò a metterli in pratica in qualche modo, ma un conto è leggerli, e un altro è portarne il senso durante il gdr. Apprezzo molto le appendici a fine volume, con un po' di recap, liste utili, tecniche di sicurezza, e gdr consigliati.

[Patrick Bostick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book / game! Karen Twelves is a theater person and a roleplayer, and wanted to bring improv skills and games to their roleplaying community. The product of that is this book. I've run games from this book at my local open mic night and with groups of friends. Great stuff! In addition to the games themselves, there is also a lot of insight as to how the games work, how they build together, and all that.

[Helios · Rating 4 out of 5]

After playing theater for 12 years, teaching theater to kids for 3 and also playing TTRPGs for 3, this book is a little too shallow and offers pretty much the basis that every theater and game nerd already knows. But what can I say: it’s nice to have so many exercises in one place, the characters in the illustrations are diverse and inclusive in a simple way and the instructions are clear, so I would definitely recommend this book to newbies.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less a reference book for individual players or GMs than a reference manual of exercises for a gamer-friendly improv class or a whole tabletop group who want to practice improvising together. The tone and explanatory text is very approachable for people who have never done formal improv before.

[Morgan (Turbo) · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few concepts at the beginning of the book were useful but I would not buy it again. Most of the exercises I can’t see a direct tie to Dungeons and dragons.

[Kathy Brown]

Interesting ideas.

[Mercè · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una bona proposta de dinàmiques per treballar la improvisació, si bé la relació amb el joc de rol és una mica vague. Les veig aplicables, divertides i concretes.

[Todd Landrum · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few bits of good advice in the chapter introductions, but mostly the book is a collection of improv exercises or warmups. Which I would never ever do with a group.

[Gabriele D'Amato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un manuale di improvvisazione teatrale che pensa al GDR. Tanti spunti per esercitarsi in due o più persone improvvisando situazioni che vengono ben esplicate. Si parte piano piano per arrivare a esercizi sempre più inclini al GDR, fino agli ultimi esercizi che strizzano nettamente l'occhio al gioco di ruolo.
Che si sia giocatori o game master, si può imparare davvero tanto lasciandosi andare e facendo uscire quella vena creativa e teatrale che è in ognuno di noi.
Le idee sono preziose anche solo da leggere, mettendo in moto quel pensiero che se siete giocatori vi farà dire "ah, la prossima volta giocherò in questo modo il mio personaggio...", mentre se siete game master "perché non ho pensato prima di descrivere questo contesto e giocare questa situazione...".
Esercizi veloci da leggere e ben "guidati", che possono essere selezionati anche senza un ordine preciso.
Mi ha ricordato molto alcune serate del campo scuola e qualche lezione di artistica di una professoressa illuminata, che già allora cercava di fare uscire la personalità e la creatività di piccoli tredicenni.

[David Williamson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Narrower focus than I was expecting - it's basically a list of fairly universal improv games & exercises, with very sparse info on how to actually use any of this in a game. I'm not sure many people could pause their campaign and get all their players to go through a bunch of improv exercises instead of running a normal session without it feeling very awkward, so I'm really not sure who this book is for.