Fauchard1520
Adventurer
That's about where I come down as well. You can only riff off of straight die-rolls for so long. As a GM, or even as another player in the scene, it is so important to have a vivid mental image of what's going on!
Role-Players vs. Actors
That's about where I come down as well. You can only riff off of straight die-rolls for so long. As a GM, or even as another player in the scene, it is so important to have a vivid mental image of what's going on!
Celebrim
Legend
Well, I disagree VERY strongly, on two grounds - one minor and one major.
My minor disagreement is that even in real life, verbosity is not equivalent to eloquence. If you can make your point in a few words, do so. At the very least, all of your words should be essential to conveying your meaning, and as much as possible you should avoid redundancy. When I ask a player to RP, I'm expecting them to get to the point. I'm not expecting them to talk just because they like to hear themselves talk. A player can get just as much of a circumstance bonus for laconic wit and being pithy and on point as they can for flowery speech.
My major disagreement is that skillful play by the player is never power gaming. A player that makes good choices about when and how to use his spell resources is not power gaming. A player that makes good choices about where to position his character on the battlemat and what tactics to employ against a monster is never power gaming. A player how plays his character intelligently and creatively is not power gaming. If a player evades traps by making good choices for finding and disarming traps in a trap filled tomb, that's not power gaming. If a player solves riddles and puzzles, that's not power gaming. If a player skillfully navigates a maze like dungeon without getting lost and making steady progress toward his goal, that's not power gaming. Players playing skillfully is not power gaming.
Power gaming is on the contrary, attempting to substitute character skill for player skill so that the player never has to play well. It's associated with rules lawyering, system mastery, and seeking retcons because the player forgot about some rule or option. Power gaming is associated with the older term Munchkin, one salient characteristic of which was that the player always did "whatever gave the most plusses". Power gamers don't play a character. They play a collection of stat bonuses. The Thespian, which is the guy most likely to bore everyone with long monologues or get into pointless dialogues with every NPC, is usually not a power gamer and is usually playing some character which is deliberately sub-optimal from the standpoint of bonuses received.
If a player is eloquent and incisive and witty in his role-playing, either as a character that is eloquent and witty on paper or as a sort of Forrest Gump character or other Shakespearean fool whose stupidity cuts through the pomposity and pretentions around him, then that isn't power gaming, and the player ought to be rewarded and not denigrated and chastised. I'll happily give truly well done dialogue not only a circumstance bonus to succeed, but an award of XP for entertaining the DM and roleplaying well. As a GM I want the player to say things that make me laugh, or which otherwise strike me as well written lines from a good screenplay. That's part of the joy of playing.
I
Immortal Sun
Guest
That's not what I'm talking about at all.
I'm talking about word-lawyers. People who attempting not to say something well but to say something in a specific fashion so that they don't actually have to partake in the game and can use their linguistic aptitude to escape penalties or get benefits.
I'm talking about people trying to "win" D&D through words instead of dice.
Celebrim
Legend
I guess the problem then is I'm struggling to understand what you are saying.
Most of the play of D&D I'm familiar with involves a combination of words and dice. Sometimes it happens in D&D that you can win without dice, but I'm unfamiliar with a circumstance in D&D where you can win without words.
I've encountered players that dump stat Charisma and then imagine that they can avoid the penalties of that by simply RPing well, and I've already explained in part my take on that. I thought that that was what we were talking about, but now you are divorcing the idea of "saying something well" from what you are talking about.
Returning to what I'm talking about, a tactically proficient player gains a large benefit in play by making good choices for his character in combat, while a tactically inept player may struggle despite system mastery because he makes bad choices in play. It's not power gaming to make good choices.
So considering the social sphere, it's often the case that NPCs the players may need to manipulate have particular goals, particular vulnerabilities, and so forth and that if the players correctly deduce the players motives that the players are much more likely to have their propositions succeed. I do not punish players for figuring out what these motives are and making 'correct' pitches to the NPC simply because they have low charisma and low intelligence on their character sheet. I do reward the players for appropriate RP and well worded dialogue, with small bonuses (or conversely with small penalties for really poor RP).
None of this in my opinion falls out side of partaking in the game, and none of this precludes ultimately resolving the situation with dice if in fact its 'dicey' social situation. What it does mean that perceptive players are likely by good strategy to put themselves on level terms negotiating with an NPC compared to unperceptive players with nominally more social PCs, just as tactical players can play their martial characters well.
Let me try to give an example, since abstraction tends to lead to misunderstanding.
Suppose the PC's are negotiating with a very honorable noble who finds himself in a situation where he is torn between his loyalty and duty towards his spouse and his loyalty and duty towards his country. Perhaps his spouse is in an adulterous affair with another noble, and the sorrid thing threatens the very fabric of the kingdom.
The PC's are much more likely to get a positive result - lower DC on a social test - if they confront the noble with evidence of the wife's affair, than if they make an accusation against her without evidence. In this case, even if he suspects the accusation may be true, his since of honor demands that absent incontrovertible proof he defend his wife's honor. So the wise player will seek to have such evidence in hand and be as sensitive as he can about the subject before breaching it, otherwise in his grief the noble might turn hostile and unwisely challenge the player to a duel on the spot!
Likewise, if the PC's are trying to persuade the noble to undertake a course of action, the DC of doing so will be much lower, perhaps nigh trivial, if they can suggest some ingenious course that allows him to in his mind not break faith with his country or his wife (being the sort that would forgive his wife's unfaithfulness if he could), because that is precisely and secretly what the noble would wish to do if he could, whereas asking the PC's to break faith with one or both will be much harder (and again, much easier to flub to the point the NPC becomes hostile). And the DC to persuade the noble to betray his own convictions to a serious degree, such as suggesting an alliance with the powers of evil, would be very high indeed (and if so much as suggested by someone with less than the oiliest of silver tongues, likely to bring about immediate hostility)!
This is why I say content matters, and why the player has to give some sort of example of what he's going to say. Not all social approaches are equally effective but depend on the context, which in this case is the wishes and character of the person you are speaking to. PC's that arm themselves by investigating the situation well and then figuring out the crux of it, tend to do a lot better in social challenges. Which is not to say that you can get away with trying to be the party spokesperson if you are playing a feral misanthrope with 6 charisma and no social skills, because even if you do have a good plan, regardless of how well you the player present your case, what comes out of the character's mouth is mostly unintelligible grunting.
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PrometheanVigil
First Post
This one is... not so good.
But because I'm the curious type, I clicked on the home link up top...
... and was pleasantly surprised. This one? Hilarious!
(Players at my tables may have done this to another player once or twice...*grin*).
Doug McCrae
Legend
For me, the ability to portray character is the single most important element of participation in roleplaying games. First person speech is essential and I value the ability to do a distinctive character voice very highly. This applies to both players and GMs.
Fauchard1520
Adventurer
Hey, they can't all be winners. Glad you found one you liked though!
The longer this comic runs, the more I realize it should be "funny comic first" rather than "illustrated blog first." That's the goal anyway.
I read a few dozen - good stuff!
Hussar
Legend
I'm sorry [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], but, the irony of this statement just about made me blow my coffee all over my computer.
Really not meant as an attack. Honest it's not. Just honestly really, really funny.
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As a DM, I'm not there to police how other people play the game. If Bob likes to just say, "I bluff the guard" then, groovy. He's not the talky type. No problems. He's probably fun in other ways. Cool, not a problem. Getting all judgemental about it just seems to me to lead to really bad games.
If Bob's a kick in the door type player, why try to strong arm him into being something he's not? If he's not terribly interested in the talky bits, then don't force him to do the talky bits. Move on over to the other folks that do like to do the talky bits.
Like I said, I really don't have any strong preference. So long as we're having a good time, I couldn't care less about judging the quality of someone's play.
If Bob's not interested in doing the talky bits, he can play the strong silent type. It only hurts my enjoyment if he insists on playing the party Face and says "I Bluff the guard", when most or all of the other players could have done much better. I once had a guy like that at my table and it was terrible.
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