Captain Laserbeard
The following is an excerpt from an old post from my friend Clint's blog. He's talking about improv, and about the Tao, but what he's saying is applicable to roleplaying also, and any other collaborative creative endeavour:
Consider - If everyone onstage is supporting your delusions - that you're a space pirate
on a ship, with the experience and authority of the Seven Galaxies - and you, the
eloquent Captain Laserbeard, stumble in the midst of a speech because you, the actor,
messed up - what could happen? Do you pretend it didn't happen? No. Because it did
happen. That's the new story now. Pretending or covering is ingenuine, because it goes
against the flow.
Call it a promise to the audience, or the flow of the scene - call it the Tao - but that
stumble is the best thing that could have every happened in your scene!. Infinite
possibilities: You're losing your memory - treason: a nemesis; old age: a protegee,
an exotic energy field: everyone stumbles too? Wait! Captain Laserbeard doesn't stumble,
he conquers - is he an impostor? This is purposeless wandering, and you're as suprised
and excited as the audience. That's adventure.
The rest of his post is here.
I improvise a lot in my roleplaying. Improv is much more simple than it looks, and it's even easier in roleplaying because the audience is also your roleplaying group, and they understand if you start waffling.
That's all I've got to say about it at the moment.