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lowkey13
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This distinction is part of what feels artificial to me.Tony Vargas said:That's why portraying a personality, alone, is not the 'role' in RPG. The ability to impact the narrative if a question of function within that narrative, and is also arguably not enough, alone.
I don't think 'function' /is/ entirely on the game side of things, that's an artificial distinction hearkening back to the old role vs roll thing.This distinction is part of what feels artificial to me.
By performing a personality in an RPG, you do impact the narrative, regardless of the "function" of your character abilities on the "game" side of things.
This distinction is part of what feels artificial to me.
By performing a personality in an RPG, you do impact the narrative, regardless of the "function" of your character abilities on the "game" side of things.
Like, your party comes to an end of the path they're following and they need to choose to go Left or Right. So they negotiate: Falstaff wants to go Left because the last time they went Right, they found a trap. Falstaff's player is performing Falstaff's personality: he's cautious, and anxious about what he doesn't know. Lidda wants to go Right because she still thinks the MacGuffin is in that direction. Lidda's player is performing Lidda's personality: she's goal-oriented and confident. Rath wants to toss a coin. Rath's player is performing Rath's personality: he's indecisive, a little flighty.
Rath gets the tie-breaking vote, flips a coin, and the party goes Left, much to Lidda's consternation. Thus, their personalities have affected the narrative: they've gone Left as a consequence of each character's unique personality.
None of them needed a specific function within the narrative to be able to impact the narrative with their personality-driven choices.
Yeah, I think being "a protector" (for instance) is as much a personality thing as a mechanical thing, sure. And Rath's flightiness might be exemplified in him also being a wild mage. The main thrust there was just that personality impacts fiction without needing an appeal to function. Rath can be a flighty front-line defender as much as he is a flighty thief or a flighty cleric. Maybe his flightiness affects his choice of party role, maybe it doesn't, but either way it can affect the fiction.Tony Vargas said:I don't think 'function' /is/ entirely on the game side of things, that's an artificial distinction hearkening back to the old role vs roll thing.
This counterpoint seems weird to me for a few reasons.Faenor said:Your contrived example is premised on game rules don't matter. In your example, the party wizard is proficient in insight and makes a check and gets some information that leads to a better decision. Or the high wisdom druids makes a perception check. Or the ranger does a survival check and sees sign of a bbeg. If there is a choice in game where the players' class choices don't impact the outcome, then that's poor game design.
By the same token, personality is not necessarily independent of mechanics.Yeah, I think being "a protector" (for instance) is as much a personality thing as a mechanical thing, sure.
Every false dichotomy has two sides, yes.In fairness, as we just recently saw, there is also a tendency to make the mechanics everything, which is also problematic and counter-productive.