Challenge the Players, Not the Characters' Stats

[Hussar]

HowandWhy, a question.

What is the purpose of this model? If the model of roleplaying excludes elements like Hypersmurf's example, which most people would consider to be part and parcel to role playing, then what does this model actually tell us?

I guess I just don't really understand the point of a model that draws such stark distinctions in a system that is as muddled as roleplaying. In any game, we narrate all the time. "Krusk walks up the stairs" is narration. I don't roll to walk up the stairs, nor do I ask the DM for permission to do so. I simply make an event occur in the game world. That's narration. Yet, you would argue that this isn't role play?

If that's true, then by this model, almost no one ever role plays. If, at any time that you narrate, you stop role playing, then how much do people actually role play in this model?

 

[IceFractal]

IMO, at least, there's quite a bit of difference between narrating how something happens, and that something happens. Hypersmurf's example falls into the first category. If the player didn't have a Thunderburst weapon, and was still able to get the explosion effect by narrating the gunpowder into existance, it would be in the second category.

Simple example:
A) You are in a locked room <description here>. You have a hammer and a chipped dagger.
B) You are in a locked room <description here>. You have a blunt instrument and a small cutting tool - what exactly those are is up to you.
C) You are in a locked room <description here>. You have two tools. What they are is up to you.

In A, your goal can be fully to escape the room. In B, that's still true, with the exception of some fringe cases. In C, you could just decide that one of your tools is a key to the door - so your goal must actually be to tell an interesting story about escaping the room.

 

[howandwhy99]

Sure they are. At its most literal, it's modelling a magical weapon that makes the projectile explode on impact.

I didn't see any lashing; all I saw was Awesome.

It was sensibly defined earlier, when the crewman left the keg of gunpowder on the deck.

We as players just didn't know it was defined earlier, until it was pointed out in that combat round.

But when Assem leans out of the rigging and blows up Big Axe and his henchmen with his rifle, the player who's causing that to happen is being a roleplayer I'll sit down with any time.

-Hyp.

I have no desire to badmouth 4E or its' design. I think the hobby's better with Wizards' success and do not want to get into a debate about their game's merits. For what it's worth, IceFractal does a nice job of explaining the difference between a system where the Player narrates the world, one that does its' best to model a world, and one where the model leaves the explanation up in the air - like using Chess rules in an RPG: you have to "skin" the player's actions in order for them to make sense in the imagined world.

HowandWhy, a question.

What is the purpose of this model? If the model of roleplaying excludes elements like Hypersmurf's example, which most people would consider to be part and parcel to role playing, then what does this model actually tell us?

I guess I just don't really understand the point of a model that draws such stark distinctions in a system that is as muddled as roleplaying. In any game, we narrate all the time. "Krusk walks up the stairs" is narration. I don't roll to walk up the stairs, nor do I ask the DM for permission to do so. I simply make an event occur in the game world. That's narration. Yet, you would argue that this isn't role play?

If that's true, then by this model, almost no one ever role plays. If, at any time that you narrate, you stop role playing, then how much do people actually role play in this model?

I do not wish to build a model or RPG Philosophy. Nor am I saying anyone should exclude certain types of playstyles, RPGs, or RPG designs. I am as simply as possible trying to explain how certain terms are actually defined and how role-playing isn't the telling of a story, no more than living one's life is telling a story. Rules that remove one from role-playing exist because folks want a story where one can't possibly exist. (Hence we get plotline adventures, world warping DMs, and more)

The point you may have missed given your response (and this has been a lengthy discussion) is that Players never narrate what their PCs do because they are directing them. Saying something, even in a narrative mode, doesn't mean fictional narration is going on. All direction is successfully resolved as it would be under any game system. But narrative authority is never resolved unless you have the power to be an author.

As has been pointed out before, for Big Modelers there is no distinction between "NAR" rules and any other kind of game rules. It amounts to "story enough" and "intent". It's a confusion between playing an author/God to the world and playing a role.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I am as simply as possible trying to explain how certain terms are actually defined...

But I don't agree that your dictionary definition of 'roleplaying' encompasses what is meant by the term within the hobby of 'roleplaying games'.

The definition you are using is a lot more restrictive than the one used by roleplayers. Over the last thirty years, they've taken the term, made it their own, and it now covers a lot more than your dictionary realises.

Consider, for example, dictionary.com's definitions of Martial Art:

1. any of the traditional forms of Oriental self-defense or combat that utilize physical skill and coordination without weapons, as karate, aikido, judo, or kung fu, often practiced as sport.

2. Any of several Asian arts of combat or self-defense, such as aikido, karate, judo, or tae kwon do, usually practiced as sport. Often used in the plural.

3. any of several Oriental arts of weaponless self-defense; usually practiced as a sport; "he had a black belt in the martial arts"

So, is Kendo a martial art? It's not weaponless. Is Savate a martial art? It's not Asian or Oriental.

Or is the definition found at dictionary.com less inclusive than that used by people within the martial arts community?

-Hyp.

 

[justanobody]

Why would you use dictionary.com in the first place?

martial art - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Main Entry:
martial art
Function:
noun
Date:
1928

: any of several arts of combat and self defense (as karate and judo) that are widely practiced as sport

Sorry, I just hate that dictionary.com

Role Playing

The act of putting oneself in another person's position in an attempt to see his or her point of view in a situation.

Isn't that what we all do?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Why would you use dictionary.com in the first place?

The dictionary.com page for 'roleplaying' contains the same definitions howandwhy99 posted here. I used it for consistency.

-Hyp.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Why would you use dictionary.com in the first place?

So, you're telling me I might also get better results if I do not use howandwhy99 definition?

I have to agree with Hussar - if you define a term so narrowly that it doesn't work for how much most people use it, the definition is not useful. Language use changes over time and with the context you use them, and people understand them accordingly.

 

[howandwhy99]

So, you're telling me I might also get better results if I do not use howandwhy99 definition?

I have to agree with Hussar - if you define a term so narrowly that it doesn't work for how much most people use it, the definition is not useful. Language use changes over time and with the context you use them, and people understand them accordingly.

I've admitted theatre acting is one form of role-playing. What I disagree with is the claim all RPGs are storytelling games. Most of what people do in hobby TTRPGs is not theatre gaming. In a thread about, "Challenging the Player, not the Character" I have to believe my definition has validity for certain types of role-play existing outside the storytelling practice.

I think some of this stems from the D&D community originally dividing itself from wargaming, needing to call "in-character" play (or improvisational acting) by the term "role-playing". It's inadvertently carried over to CRPGs which are all about role-playing. I'm actually for a broader interpretation of the term than what is put forth in the Big Model and our hobby's traditional colloquial usage. I also say it for my own preferences as you cannot win a storytelling contest in the same way you win a role-playing contest. It is the storytelling definition which is narrow. It has even caused folks in this thread to claim certain games aren't "real role-playing games."

 

[justanobody]

The dictionary.com page for 'roleplaying' contains the same definitions howandwhy99 posted here. I used it for consistency.

-Hyp.

Ah. That makes perfect sense. I am so getting lost trying to find the content about skill challenges in this thread, I am missing many parts of posts.

 

[pemerton]

there is a real difference, in the state of mind you can approach a challenge from. In a game with little narrative control, you can approach a challenge from the standpoint "I - the player - am going to do everything I can think of to overcome this challenge". In a game with significant narrative control, you can't.

Agreed.

I think the big difference is not "Challenge the players, Not the Characters stats", but:
Challenges that require the players to pretend he was in the situation and think of what he would do, and Challenge the player so that he uses the tools given by the mechanics to succeed.

Agreed, as per my taxonomy upthread.