It's always been an odd thing for people to seek advice for being a better player. You're just playing the game right? If you can't play the game wrong, then it stands to reason that you can't play any better. It's different on the GM side. There's a lot of backchannel talk between GMs of dissapointment that things they experimented with aren't landing like they wanted them to. A lot of GMs take it in stride but y'know, rejection of stuff you're excited about is going to be hard when you're starting out. I think a lot of advice in the past 5 years emphasizing communication around the table has been a huge boon for this, to the point where someone could start playing ttrpgs and a month later feel comfortable giving that advice.
So I think we're due fresher, more critical advice that we can reflect on. I will share three skills you can practice that will help you begin your journey in maximizing your enjoyment from ttrpgs. (TL;DR in the tags below lol, you can now go comment and tell me how stale and self-evident this advice is).
One piece of advice I give to people, and that I try to follow as much as possible is: You should bother other characters. And by that, I don't mean you should annoy them, but you should do things to them. You should talk to them, you should spar with them, you should have lunch/dinner with them, and so on.
There's the usual old advice of helping someone with the spotlight if they aren't get enough of it - both coming from GMs and players - but we shouldn't try to make them act alone. When a GM asks what your character is doing, rather than centering the action and scene entirely on yourself, imagine who else would be there with them. Is it someone that shares a common interest or hobby? Someone that you already had a brief interaction before? Someone that would willingly spend some casual time with your character? Or how about someone who wouldn't? Who would not meditate together? Who would not do a training session together? Who would not have lunch together? Go bother them. You never know what kind of interactions will pop out, and acting by your lonesome can be very depressing.
Go bother those characters.
