Challenge the Players, Not the Characters' Stats

[Terramotus]

I think it would be difficult to disagree more with the Original Poster. When all you do is challenge the player, it ceases to become a role-playing game, and just becomes a game. Like Magic: The Gathering. Or Clue.

Obvious you can't (nor should you want to) elminate completely the player element. That's what brings life to these imagined characters. If nothing else, the character chosen is a reflection of the player. It's much like a First Person Shooter that has a jiggle effect on the crosshairs to reflect your character moving, or to reflect natural hand shaking. The character is the interface through which you play the game, and player skill is filtered through it.

But someone who is looking for the old-school "gotcha" gameplay, of dungeons, traps, obstacles, and cursed items placed in the world for no rational reason other than to cause trouble for the players will be extremely disappointed in my game, or any of the games around here that I know of, for that matter. We don't go in for checking every inch of a dungeon for hidden doors, and tapping every inch of ground with a 10 foot pole to search for traps.

If I want to play a scholar, I shouldn't have to personally BE a scholar to play one in a D&D game. Similarly, if I'm running a game set in the real life middle ages, I wouldn't allow a well-read player of a Mongol horseman to engage in philosophical discussions about Aristotle just because HE happened to know it.

Do people who agree with what the guy from Grognardia wrote REALLY want a game where they try to haul some wood back to town and the DM hands them a piece of rope and a dowel and says, "Tie me a timber hitch or it doesn't happen?"

To bring that even closer... I will sometimes tell my PLAYERS about some of the backstory of the world their characters are running in, or some tidbits about character motivations if it won't spoil future adventures, particularly if it's something they missed finding out about in an adventure. This helps them get a better sense of their characters' struggles in the world. However, this info is off-limits in-game.

I'd even go so far as to say someone who wanted to be challenged more as a player than a character would not be invited back to my game.

 

[howandwhy99]

Someone goes fishing.

After an hour of standing by the riverbank, his line in the water, he goes to his cooler, grabs a beer, returns to his rod, and continues standing by the riverbank for another hour.

Then he goes home.

Was he fishing for two hours? Or was he fishing for an hour, at which point he ceased fishing, did something else, and then resumed fishing for another hour?

I'd say that the act of grabbing a beer, while perhaps outside the literal definition of fishing, was something that occurred during the greater context of the activity of 'fishing'.

Similarly, if someone, while participating in the activity of 'role-playing', performs an out-of-role action, it doesn't necessitate them ceasing to engage in 'role-playing', performing the action, and then resuming 'role-playing'. In similar fashion to walking and chewing gum at the same time, the out-of-role action occurs in conjunction with the role-playing, and if someone says "So you were role-playing all day?", he can in all honesty say "Yes", because he didn't cease the role-playing activity just to perform the out-of-role action.

-Hyp.

Of course, but no one's trying to claim eating Cheetos is role-playing. Or throwing dice at the DM. Integral to gaming? Maybe But no one's trying to redefine these under "What is an RPG?". I've said I call these hybrid games. That's not a bad thing. Same as Poker is not necessarily a bluffing game. It's a game about statistical analysis and the telling of lies and guessing of tells.

What about a more complex example (a version of which actually came up in my campaign)? A Paladin has to find a way to bind an Elder Evil, and the player has to choose what his/her PC should do. There are at least 2 options:

a) Research a spell that will do the job.

b) Start working out the resources of her monasitc order (which have never really come into play before) and explain to the GM how she is able to found a branch of her order on the earthly side of the gate, which will then oversee the gate and make sure that it is not breached.

I think you're missing the pleasure of role-playing out how the player can succeed at this endeavor. Researching a spell doesn't need to be "roll a die". Nor working with your Order need be "tell me what your Order consists of", so you can "just say" a good explanation of your Paladin's success. This is the Skill Challenge irrationality all over again. Defining a part of the world so it makes sense with what has come before is a challenge, but it isn't a role-playing challenge. You can't define the world in order to win and still be winning at role-playing. This is what I meant by make-believe.

 

[pemerton]

1- The players should at most, and I am not saying they should, but at most narrate their own character not the world.

Obviously we disagree. I think it is possible to have a functional RPGing playstyle in which players can also narrate/determine the state of the world.

The east river will not change directions because a player deems it so.

Well, if the east river is already known to have a certain geography in the gameworld, then neither player nor GM can simply deem it to be different. Whether the player or the GM is permitted to narrate the actions of a river dragon that change the flow of the river will depend on the details of the game rules (and other factors as well). In my view this wouldn't necessarily be absurd for a high-level Epic character resolving a skill challenge.
Wel

Role playing definition...

<snip>
You have to look at things form the character perspective in order to see what the character could do in the situation.

I was focussing more on "would" than "could". In a certain sort of educative roleplaying activity (which I think HowandWhy takes to be the paradigm) the focus is on doing what one's character would do.

An RPG can take a similar approach - the character is (more or less) predetermined and the challenge to the player is acting out that character. But an RPG can also be about the player using the character as a vehicle to make some other (aesthetically interesting) point. So the question the player asks him/herself is not "What would my character do here?" but rather "What should I have my character do here, given where I want this story to go?"

I don't see role-playing as a novelist attempting to see things through the eyes of his characters and then writing a believable story. The success can only be a success of portrayal.

Are you agreeing here (at least roughly) with Just A Nobody? That is, are you thinking of the player primarily as a describer of a predetermined character rather than as an author of a character whose nature isn't (fully) known until the course of play brings it out? If so, then I think that this is one way of RPGing but not the only way. I also think there can be "authorial" RPGing. (Is this a pre-modernist/modernist thing? Or am I wrong to deploy categories from literary criticism here? I'm sure there could be post-modernist RPGing as well, in which the fourth wall is constantly broken, but I don't think I'd enjoy it.)

You believe you can narrate (determine) the world by saying what it is alone, but all the while stay in-character. I don't believe so. I believe the term role-playing pretty much defines itself.

I guess I have a more liberal notion of what is involved in "staying in character". It need not be role exploration/description in Just A Nobody's sense. But even when RPGing in an authorial fashion, the PC is still, in some sense, the locus of the player's participation in the game (eg in the monastic order example upthread, the player is not just arbitrarily stipulating the world, but is doing it in terms of the relationship of various gameworld elements to his/her PC).

The act of "role-playing your character" is often referring solely to in-character or improvisational acting play. I'm sure there are many definitions of role-playing, I simply disagree with both swamping the term as "collaborative storytelling" or redefining it to include out-of-role actions.

<snip>

I think we're defining role-playing differently. I am in the "Play your character/role" crowd. And I believe you are more in the "any kind of make believe is role-playing" crowd. But correct me if I'm wrong.

I think we're defining it different. I don't agree that any kind of make-believe is role-playing. I don't think that all RPGing is storytelling. I do think that some RPGing is storytelling. I don't know that I can give necessary and sufficient conditions for a gaming activity to count as RPGing - but a certain richness of story, combined with the notion of a particular PC as the locus of a player's participation in the game, even if not the limit of the player's participation in the game, might be sufficient conditions.

 

[justanobody]

-Nope, the world if what the DM plays.

-Action is not narration. A PC can TRY anything they want, but that should not gaurante they get it just because they want it so.

-"What would my character do here?" is exactly the question that should be asked, yup.

 

[pemerton]

-Nope, the world if what the DM plays.

-Action is not narration. A PC can TRY anything they want, but that should not gaurante they get it just because they want it so.

-"What would my character do here?" is exactly the question that should be asked, yup.

Obviously these are statements of personal preference. Is that all that they are? I've tried to explain an alternative way of playing RPGs, and I can understand that you don't like it, but I'm not sure if you're also trying to deny that it exists/is possible.

 

[justanobody]

Obviously these are statements of personal preference. Is that all that they are? I've tried to explain an alternative way of playing RPGs, and I can understand that you don't like it, but I'm not sure if you're also trying to deny that it exists/is possible.

Cancer exists, but I don't think it should. This is why I don't think D&D can be as popular as it was before because of how many different ways people want to play it and sometimes expect it to be the same way every time they play with someone else, and it hurts.

The law should be laid down in some form, and the RPGa tries to do so, to unify the game so people can move from game to game, but it will never happen outside of it. Too many people playing too many ways since 3rd and an insurge of people playing that never did before.

I wouldn't play in a game with many of those things, but nor would all people play in games the way I would.

Just something doesn't feel right about many things people say of how to play, or what the game is.

Again this all has little to do really with skill challenges. Have we totally taken this thread off track never to return, or is this stuff some kind of point to skill challenges, that I missed a dozen pages back when it started?

 

[howandwhy99]

I was focussing more on "would" than "could". In a certain sort of educative roleplaying activity (which I think HowandWhy takes to be the paradigm) the focus is on doing what one's character would do.

An RPG can take a similar approach - the character is (more or less) predetermined and the challenge to the player is acting out that character. But an RPG can also be about the player using the character as a vehicle to make some other (aesthetically interesting) point. So the question the player asks him/herself is not "What would my character do here?" but rather "What should I have my character do here, given where I want this story to go?"

Actually, I was differentiating between would and could, (WWMCD "what would my character do"") acting and role-playing "what can my character do?" The third option is storytelling, probably with some acting thrown in so it can be considered at least some kind of role-play, and maybe some modeled challenges to swap between the two forms. Perhaps how far one is willing to go away from challenging the Player, modeling the role-playing challenges, is the matter of degree for your definition? For me, they are two different things activities in one game.

Are you agreeing here (at least roughly) with Just A Nobody? That is, are you thinking of the player primarily as a describer of a predetermined character rather than as an author of a character whose nature isn't (fully) known until the course of play brings it out? If so, then I think that this is one way of RPGing but not the only way. I also think there can be "authorial" RPGing. (Is this a pre-modernist/modernist thing? Or am I wrong to deploy categories from literary criticism here? I'm sure there could be post-modernist RPGing as well, in which the fourth wall is constantly broken, but I don't think I'd enjoy it.)

I don't see many who would disagree with justanobody outside our hobby's community. As I differentiated above, "predetermined nature" is only meaningful in acting (or perhaps through defining some personality characteristics as that kind of nature can be more and less defined). Role-playing is all about what is possible for the Player to accomplish, while in the role. Telling a story that fits an accurate portrayal of what a PC can do is different than role-playing.

Also, just because a portion of background is undefined (as in your Paladin example), it doesn't mean defining that background in the course of a gaming session is playing the character. Perhaps that focus of attention is the boundary for what counts as "staying in character" by your definition?

I guess I have a more liberal notion of what is involved in "staying in character". It need not be role exploration/description in Just A Nobody's sense. But even when RPGing in an authorial fashion, the PC is still, in some sense, the locus of the player's participation in the game (eg in the monastic order example upthread, the player is not just arbitrarily stipulating the world, but is doing it in terms of the relationship of various gameworld elements to his/her PC).

There is no "authorial" role when role-playing. You would have to go back to "me, authoring my choices in life" to fit the definition. A Player telling a story with their PC as the focus and then fitting it into what other stories have come before is round-robin storytelling (with some assignation of characters thrown in). It doesn't add up to "staying in-character" from a role-playing POV, but does from a storytelling POV.

I think we're defining it different. I don't agree that any kind of make-believe is role-playing. I don't think that all RPGing is storytelling. I do think that some RPGing is storytelling. I don't know that I can give necessary and sufficient conditions for a gaming activity to count as RPGing - but a certain richness of story, combined with the notion of a particular PC as the locus of a player's participation in the game, even if not the limit of the player's participation in the game, might be sufficient conditions.

I think Illusionism and Participationalism are forms of storytelling in an RPG. I think plot lined adventures admit to that style's popularity. I think hybrid games mix the two activities for Players and may call themselves RPGs like Poker is often called a bluffing game. Unfortunately, their "philosophy" used to count as role-playing completely role-playing games only confuses the hobby community by altering our vocabulary. Further, I disagree with games calling themselves RPGs when they have no role-playing at all in them. That's probably few of the Indie games, but at least we two can agree certain definitions of role-playing (a.k.a. storytelling) are inaccurate.

I'm not really looking to plumb the depths of what qualifies as both storytelling & role-playing for your definition here. By my own account, I think the two don't crossover (it takes an outside 3rd-party like a referee). I assume it is a matter of degree for you like CRPGs discerning between an RPG (widely-focused simulation, MMORPGs), an Adventure game (probably participationalism here, like later Zelda games), and an Action Game (narrowly-focused simulation, like Duck Hunt).

 

[howandwhy99]

Again this all has little to do really with skill challenges. Have we totally taken this thread off track never to return, or is this stuff some kind of point to skill challenges, that I missed a dozen pages back when it started?

That is probably my fault. I don't think the Skill Challenge system is a system for role-playing. Sooo, we've entered a discussion of what enters into "challenging the player". The test of coming up with a plausible story of what the character can do? Or actually facing the challenge through role-playing the character (to what ever degree, with or without some abstractions like skill checks)?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Cancer exists, but I don't think it should. This is why I don't think D&D can be as popular as it was before because of how many different ways people want to play it and sometimes expect it to be the same way every time they play with someone else, and it hurts.

It hurts if everyone is a "True Wayer" and is unable to accommodate to a different play style or at least try it out sometimes. It doesn't hurt if people want some variety, and if different people can use different games.

Aside from maybe WotC position, D&D (4E) doesn't have to be the only game around that is being played.

And comparing different play styles to cancer seems a little too much like hyperbole - it wasn't anyones play style that killed my uncle, it was cancer.

Spoiler

I feel dirty for this cheap shot

.

The law should be laid down in some form, and the RPGa tries to do so, to unify the game so people can move from game to game, but it will never happen outside of it. Too many people playing too many ways since 3rd and an insurge of people playing that never did before.

The only way to adhere to only one play style is to exclude people from the hobby and shrink its audience? Sounds like a really great idea.

Just something doesn't feel right about many things people say of how to play, or what the game is.

I agree. It feels wrong if people say that certain play styles are invalid, bad for the game or even claim that the play style doesn't even work for the people that use it.

Again this all has little to do really with skill challenges. Have we totally taken this thread off track never to return, or is this stuff some kind of point to skill challenges, that I missed a dozen pages back when it started?

Threads topics change, evolve, move around. The original discussion was "challenge the players, not the characters stats". Skill Challenges might have been used as an example for the latter, but as I'd like to point out - every game challenges its players. The distinction being made here is inappropriate. Tactical combat in 4E challenges the player, because he has to figure out how to use his character abilities. Skill Challenges challenge the player because he has to figure out which skills he should use and how he can explain it in a way that makes "sense" in the gameworld.

I still don't know a catchy term for the real difference. Maybe using howandwhy99 strict definition of what role-playing means to him might fit. "Solving problems in character, pretending you where there and had no knowledge of the fact that it's a game". (Which is still not catchy enough, but I suppose any catchy definition would be imprecise.)
The alternate playstyle is more "Narrating how characters solve problems, using game mechanics and player goals for the game to tell a story".

And there is a wide spectrum in between. No edition of D&D ever was purely the first kind of game - otherwise, we wouldn't have game constructs that we need to use to solve certain situations (particularly combat).

 

[howandwhy99]

snip

Mustrum_Ridcully and I may disagree on different things, but he is telling it straight here. Don't let your preference for certain games or your beliefs about gaming stop you from trying any game out. Any kind of game can be fun.

As I like to say, there is no badwrongfun when playing a game. Only the That's Just Wrong kind. You know, ...like in F.A.T.A.L. ...or some of those Furry games.