Because of the unique nature of this game, the following tips are provided on role-playing for "no-rules" live games. These tips were originally written by Scott Martin for his live game Imperium.

Drama

Remember, the main point of this "game" is to create drama. Your characters will purposefully have far more goals and background than could ever be dealt with in a single evening. This is not to make you rush around trying to get everything done, but simply to provide you with numerous possibilities to interact with other characters. These are goals for the character, not for you the player. There's no winning or losing involved here.

Never fear overacting! Don't worry if one or two plots end up "taking over" the game. We're certainly hoping that the game will include at least one all-out screaming match, a few shocking revelations, and maybe even a few tears. There's a fine line between high drama and melodrama, but you can only achieve the former by walking the edge of the latter, so take the risk!

Staying in Character

In order to present a full-immersion role-playing experience, we strongly encourage players to remain in character at all times. Even if you need to do something "out of game", try to translate it into the terms of the game world as much as possible. Instead of saying "Hey, where's the phone, I need to make a call?", you might politely inquire if the phone lines are working in this part of the city again.

Ideally, everyone will have their character sheets memorized, but there's nothing wrong with carrying a copy around and glancing at it now and then. If anyone asks, explain that you're "consulting some diplomatic notes".

Of course, there's always a part of you that has to remain focused on the staging of the event. If you've got any acting experience, then you're probably used to the double-think of remaining emotionally in character while simultaneously remembering your cues and marks. If not, then we simply encourage you to concentrate on the character side of things and go for the drama!

Improvising New Material

Despite the extensive background material produced for the game, it's nowhere near sufficient to cover all of the possible topics of conversation which may come up during the evening, let alone enough to create a "real" character. Furthermore, even an expert on historical society and customs probably wouldn't know enough about day-to-day life of the era to make small talk for five hours. So what do you do? The same thing that any improvisational actor does -- make it up!

During the course of the game, feel free to invent any appropriate background material that you like. Reminisce with your friends about that embarrassing childhood incident during confession. Confidently spout statistics about coal production in Newcastle. Do humorous impersonations of the funny accent of an otherwise undescribed NPC. Of course, to prevent such fabrications from turning into a game of Calvinball, there are a few rules to such improvisation:

1. Don't contradict something already established, either in the written background or by another character's improvisation. If your sister Marie complains about the way you teased her when she was 12, don't respond "But I was in Innsbruck at the time!"
2. Keep any improvised info reasonable. Don't ask a character about his activities at a Comintern meeting unless his presence at such an activity would be in keeping with his character.
3. Never use background improv as a plot weapon. It exists as a tool to provide plot and character depth, not to sway events to your character's advantage. In other words, only improvise relatively unimportant background events or details. For instance, don't manufacture evidence of past crimes by a rival. If your character is the one manufacturing the evidence, you need to make sure this gets into your written character background so that any character with accurate knowledge about the incident (such as the accused!) will have that information.

Basically, as a rule of thumb, don't make up any information that could directly affect the resolution of a dramatic plot or mislead another player.

While some players will relish the challenge of responding to a sudden need to improvise, if another player is uncomfortable with this then back off. Not everyone can switch gears and make up an entire background story on the fly if you walk up and demand to know why they opposed your (previously unmentioned) business deal. If the target of such a conversational gambit is obviously flustered, back off and change the subject to something else.