"Roleplaying": Thank you, Mr. Baur

[Nlogue]

Whether or not the player in this situation is no longer role-playing, role-playing poorly or something else is entirely based upon the situation and the specific people involved that I don't think it makes a good example. I mean, 5 Int and 6 Wis is still 'smarter than an animal' and an experienced warrior is going to know the value of flanking and not getting stuck with pointy things repetedly despite how dumb he might be. It is more of a matter of consistency: if the dumb barbarian has always rusheds forward without thinking, and the current situation is rreally no different than those in the past, the player might have crossed some invisible 'meta-gaming' line that may or may not be an issue in a particular group. Then again, the situation is actually important to both the player and the character and maybe even Dumb Barbarian realizes that getting waxed by AoOs before being able to get revenge for the destruction of his village is a waste.

Like I said, it is too person and siuation specific and I don't think it can be held up as an example of 'no longer roleplaying'.

I totally see what you are saying, but I still like to draw a distinction if only to enhance the excitement value (by taking big risks) in my games. I feel like the strategy elements of the game (let's keep in mind that RPGs were developed out of table-top wargames, and D&D is arguably the closest kin to a straight-up strat game out there) can detract from the excitement of immersion (which I'll admit is my favorite thing about playing an RPG...doesn't have to be everybody's though). If the focus becomes the mechanics of the "world" we live in and not the visceral, emotional responses of the characters living in it, I lose interest pretty quickly in the game...but then again I'm a theatre guy, it's just what I dig more.

You bring up excellent views on this topic Reynard that really help me understand where other people who enjoy making optimal strategic decisions in every situation are coming from. Thanks!

 

[seskis281]

Reynard,

I agree with your insightful comments. The rules definately inform the cosmology of the "world" we create when we play. I like your example and agree that thinking about your character is still roleplaying for one major reason - the focus is on the character, regardless of whether or no its 1st or 3rd person, the role is being "played" so to speak.

In this example the part when I would say someone is no longer "roleplaying" is when they see said Lord who razed their 5 INT, 6 WIS barbarian's village and instead of rushing through his bodyguards to cut the Lord down they double move around them to avoid the attacks of opportunity, set themselves up to flank with the rogue first.

But, yeah, I see no reason to draw a distinction as to when you are roleplaying, as long as your emphasis is on the role you are playing and not on "winning" the game through perfect strategy...unless of course that IS intrinsic to your character's ethos (he is an 18 INT master strategist who prides himself on keeping his cool and out maneuvering his opposition).

Nlogue I am actually in agreement with everything you say here.

Just be aware that there are those who vehemently say that the playing the Barbarian like that is stupid and that winning IS the most important thing... so those will argue that the character should flank and use the optimal rules advantages at all times.

It's with those arguments that I get a little bothered. Both you and Reynard have very valid points and approaches here and I don't think either of you are really far from me... I just disagree with those that say merely "playing the rules" sans ANY reference to personality, background or individuality in characters (i.e. the only thing that separates my fighter from player B's rogue are the stats, abilities, skills or feats on our pages) is still "roleplaying." I don't think either of you is advocating that.

I think the boisterous claims of "combat is all too often not roleplaying" aren't referring to any inherent problem with a system, or a distinction between types of encounters, but with a general trend of some players who tend to drop the WHO of their characters completely and so would have their Barbarian do said rogueish flanking attack because it's the smartest thing to do in combat at that moment. After all, if the rules say they can do it, why shouldn't they?

John

P.S. I am also a theatre guy Nlogue, and most of my games involve other theatre people.

 

[fusangite]

Seskis281,

I would like to challenge some of your assumptions. You seem to believe that INT is the only attribute in D&D that measures brain function. The fact is that, if you look at what we now know about various types of intelligence, what our culture understands as mental capacity is spread quite evenly amongst the attributes INT, CHA, DEX and WIS.

If you want to get a sense of how socially intelligent someone is, clearly you reference their CHA. If you want to understand how geometrically intelligent someone is (and I would suggest that this type of intelligence is of paramount importance in combat), you should be referencing their DEX and WIS.

Of course, innate intelligence is not actually the main way that people develop skills to a professional level. The way you get your skills there is to practice practice practice. BAB progression does not reflect characters magically becoming physically stronger over time; BAB progression tracks how well-trained/practiced a character is at martial skills. I don't care how many IQ points you have on some guy in the Marines; in a ground-level fast reaction-time combat situation, his superior training and practice will flatten you. That's what BAB progression reflects. If you really want to reference a quantitative in-game measure of your character's short-term tactical capacity, BAB is far more likely to be an accurate reflection than a person's INT.

If we were discussing long-term strategic decision-making, I might buy some of your arguments about INT. But we are talking about a series of 6-second segments during which a person must think, move and act. When you are in such a situation, you are not engaging the speculative aspects of your mind at all. You are reacting; the parts of your brain that are making decisions are largely subconscious. You don't have time to think "If he's twenty feet away and my ally is 45 degrees from his back I need to run to just this point to flank him" and carefully calculate all the steps. Rather, in a real combat situation, you just do.

Think of all the great athletes in contemporary culture who exhibit great tactical acumen on a hockey rink or football field who are not traditionally intelligent. It is the combination of practice (~= BAB) and subconscious intelligence (~= WIS, DEX) that is getting them to the proficiency they have.

The big problem in D&D is not the fact that too many people are playing low-INT Barbarians like competent tacticians. The problem is that most players, even given 50x as much time to decide what to do in melee as their character has are not going to be as tactically proficient as their characters. Why? Because your average player spends 4 hours a week being their character whereas the character spends 168 hours a week being herself. People who pore over the PHB and DMG and run a tape measure across the board to calculate everything just right are representing their character's expertise far more realistically and authentically than someone who sits back and makes stupid, elementary errors because their barbarian is somehow monolithically stupid.

This problem is further compounded by the fact that we are not used to all of the physical laws of the world in which characters live whereas they know no others. While we have to make allowances for possible magical effects, the impossibility of disabling someone by severing a limb or the weird way people fall, our characters know these things intuitively.

I pore over the battle map and rule books and make careful tactical calculations because I am trying to make a vague stab at representing just a fraction of my character's accumulated knowledge about combat. To me, this is authentic role playing; my character is so much more practiced and knowledgeable about the use of physical force than I am, I am unlikely to even come close making as smart a decision as he would given no time to think and the heat and chaos of combat around him.

 

[buzz]

I just feel strongly about what I like and sometimes that probably comes across as saying what others should think... believe me it's not.

100% understood. I'm very passionate about my opinions as well. I think we all know that there's a big "IMO" on every post here, so you don't need to apologize.

These forums would sure be boring if we all agreed all the time.

 

[buzz]

How exactly is rolling dice and strategic planning related to the playing of a role?

Because I'm still determining the actions of a character who is not me within the imagined world of the game. Whether I choose actions based on my imagined personality for the PC, based on his stats, or based on whether an action would be "cool" or set-up interesting consequences is irrelevant. It's all roleplaying.

And I would take issue with the idea that adding roleplaying decision-making to a boardgame is "roleplaying" in these sense being discussed here. But that may require a separate thread.

 

[seskis281]

Fusangite,

No problem - as I said above I don't mind if others disagree with me.

My questions here are merely honest queries to understand your point of view better, so that as a GM I can understand where any players who come to my table might see things. I use these threads as a tool for my GMing, so they're not meant to be assertions of what "is" or "isn't" "proper" gaming... if there is such a thing.

I used INT only as one example of a factor I'd expect to be encorporated into a player's character. Your progression description is well-founded and I respect the logic behind it.

Do you think there is a difference in application of tactics at, say 1st level, for the Barbarian than 9th? (i.e. at the lower level the flaws and single-minded ways of attacking should be more prevelant and as a character grows the tactical knowledge should be expressed?) If not, what does "experience" mean?

Switching to a different example I've used: the Druid who employs flame strike to kill a Troll in the woods despite the fact that said Druid torches a lot of trees in the process. Does the smartest tactical move trump whether or not a Druid is supposed to revere and protect nature?

In applying tactics... many players, having played a long time or having really absorbed the books, know quite a bit about all sorts of monsters. Should a player react to any encounter using their knowledge as players about the dangers of a lich or a Nightmare or should they stick to playing a character who has never encountered such? I.E., the player playing a Barbarian who meets a lich for the 1st time announces "I look for the lich's phylactery so I can smash it," rather than attacking (using whatever level of tactical awareness) the lich and hacking it to bits. Or should the player's knowledge that this won't "kill" the lich be allowed and given priority?

Just some questions - again, I'm not trying to argue or say "you're wrong"... just trying to get a firm handle on your philosophy.

John

 

[buzz]

If there wasn't a distinction, in views like ours, "Dreamblade" and "Axis & Allies" would be RPG's as well.

You're not taking on a role in either of those games. In each one, you're basically controlling an army, and there is no expectation that your decision are going to be based upon anything other than strategy. They are not roeplaying games.

I think this is a fair mechanical description of the famous scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. But it in no way creates what was unique about Indiana Jones - the rolling of the eyes, the shrug, the "ah the hell with this" attitude as he simply shot the laughing swordsman who obviously (through laughter, glee) thought he was a badass.

I think bringing in movies—which are not roleplaying games—only confuses the issue, and is not really relevant. It's suggesting that you can't roleplay unless you're a good actor with a flair for the game's genre, which I think is very misguided.

Not to mention (and to give in to your comparison for a sec)... that scene was originally supposed to have a big swordfight between Indy and the swordsman. Harrison Ford was suffering from severe food poisoning at the time, though, and couldn't muster the action scenes. So, they said, "What if Indy just shoots him?" The rest is history.

See? That decision had nothing to do with being in-character; it was the movie equivalent of a metagame decision. It also could have been arrived at tactically ("My pistol skill is way better than my sword skill; I just shoot him"), or from director stance ("It'd be pretty cool if you just shot him").

The flair and flavor of the scene is arrived at after the fact. Immersion is not the only way to get there.

 

[buzz]

Great post, Reynard.

Some people seem to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and assume that any ecounter in which mechanics come into play is suddenly not a role-playing encounter. The most common example is social interactions in which skills come into play. A lot of OneTrueWayers think Diplomacy, Bluff and Intimidate kill roleplaying. I disagree: thyey enable it, because a player now has a perspective into the world, via the mechanics -- to judge how their character might handle a situation (being an experienced adventurer and all).

I find it interesting that the immersion argument often ignonres the fact that actors (real actors, not gamers who like acting in character) generally work from scripts. Their job is to present the script, not improvise it (well, not usually). Ergo, I don't see how letting the dice decide social situations is at all an impediment to immersion-style play. You simply act out the consequences. And who knows what kind of fun, wacky scenes can arise due to the way in which you choose to do it?

 

[fusangite]

No problem - as I said above I don't mind if others disagree with me.

That's what I come here to do. The only thing better than ENWorld when it comes to an esoteric argument about an agreed-upon text is when the Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door.

My questions here are merely honest queries to understand your point of view better, so that as a GM I can understand where any players who come to my table might see things.

That's most laudable; you see I mainly come to ENW for a good debating workout.

Do you think there is a difference in application of tactics at, say 1st level, for the Barbarian than 9th? (i.e. at the lower level the flaws and single-minded ways of attacking should be more prevelant and as a character grows the tactical knowledge should be expressed?) If not, what does "experience" mean?

I don't worry too much about that because of two things:
(a) I assume that player knowledge about combat is going to be inferior to their character's pretty much regardless -- I see the knowledge gap as being that big
(b) low BAB primary combattants are limited by their lack of feats and single attack to intrinsically less complex combat manoeuvres (no spring attacks or whirlwinds etc.); hence I see the mechanics of the game as already imposing the main limitations on the battle tactics a low level character can use

Switching to a different example I've used: the Druid who employs flame strike to kill a Troll in the woods despite the fact that said Druid torches a lot of trees in the process. Does the smartest tactical move trump whether or not a Druid is supposed to revere and protect nature?

Well, let's move off druids and nature. I have a whole pile of objections to how D&D defines druids and I tend to throw out all the flavour text around them.

Let's switch instead to a paladin or monk breaking her vows (this is equivalent, in my reading of the Ex-*character class* sections in the rules of the druid "ceasing to venerate nature"). Here, there are mechanical consequences, and severe ones at that, to a character ignoring an RP requirement of her class. Spells, special abilities, advancement in the class, etc. are all threatened by a character using battle tactics that vitiate her eligibility for membership in her chosen class.

If you have a DM who is enforcing the rules, these combat manoeuvres are not rational or efficient solutions to the problems your character is trying to solve because each time you make such a move, you risk having your character's powers severely curtailed.

In applying tactics... many players, having played a long time or having really absorbed the books, know quite a bit about all sorts of monsters. Should a player react to any encounter using their knowledge as players about the dangers of a lich or a Nightmare or should they stick to playing a character who has never encountered such?

It is one thing to play like you have never encountered such a beast. But it is quite another thing to play as though you have never heard stories, rumours or legends about it. I tend to assume a base level of character knowledge about species in the world equivalent to our knowledge of emperor penguins or sea elephants.

That stated, again there is solid mechanical guidance available here. Knowledge (*) skills determine how much a character knows about a creature he has not encountered before. If a PC appears to be acting on specialized esoteric information about a creature that his character would be unlikely to know, I demand a roll on the appropriate Knowledge skill at the appropriate DC.

the player playing a Barbarian who meets a lich for the 1st time announces "I look for the lich's phylactery so I can smash it,"

My reaction as a DM would be to ask "how does your character know this?" If no solid in-game justification is forthcoming, I'll demand a Know (Religion) roll at DC10+(creature's HD) (or is it 15? don't have my PHB handy) and if they fail the roll, they will probably be shamed by the group collectively into abandoning the plan, or spending the next few rounds coming up with a credible in-game justification for it.

 

[seskis281]

Hey Buzz,

The differentials you see with the board games are well-taken.

The movie reference was meant to be a point of reference - but I'd disagree that this represents "metagaming." Cinematic metagaming would be the movie suddenly stopping an Steven Spielberg appearing on screen to explain why the originally scripted sword and whip fight was changed. I'd still say the scene represents a good improv (an role skill) that emerged because the actor and director were aware of WHO Indiana was, and so could adapt.

I hope you don't confuse my advocacy for preaching that "total immersion" is necessary or you're not roleplaying... not saying that at all. I'm a theatre director, but I certainly don't want my game players to start applying Stanislavski techniques and emotional exercises to "become" their roles. That'd be a bit... well, that move with Tom Hanks from the 80's about the "dangers"(lol) of RPGing comes to mind. If a game suddenly turned to all "roleplay" and the rules be damned, well then I'd argue we'd lost the "gaming part."

I do like a good healthy balance between roleplaying and tactics, and only sort of think that tactics should emerge from the role rather than the rules. I had a party once that all decided they should hide, flank and sneak attack at every encounter. Now to me, that's jettisoning the characters of the Paladin, the Barbarian, etc. But again, that's just my opinion :\

So I don't think "total immersion" means "good roleplaying." My only real argument is that the background, history and personality of an individual character should be the primary factor for making decisions on HOW they fight, rather than skipping to the mere question of WHAT do the rules allow me to do here? That's all.

John