What system elements promote and hinder roleplaying (inspired by "does 4e hinder ")

[dmccoy1693]

I don't see how a social system can encourage roleplaying. IN fact I think it does the opposite.

I like White Wolf's social combat system. You have your base roll (which can do as you described) but then you get bonuses if you do things like, actually give the speech you say your character is giving. Social combat shouldn't be used for just another conversation, but for swaying the hardest of hearts or changing the mind of someone firm in their belief.

If you are a terrible speaker IRL and are playing someone that is an excellent speaker in game, how are you going to ever convince someone of anything without some kind of system to mechanical system to represent the abilities of your character? Conversely, if you're an elequant speaker and you're playing someone that can't put two sentences together, how are you suppose to represent that limit in game terms? Won't you just frustrate the player that is playing the elequant character when your dumb character is doing all the convincing? The limit is the player in that case, not the character.

If I am swinging a sword ingame, I don't need to pick up a sword IRL and demonstrate my actions. I can describe it well, I can give all kinds of details of how I am taking my sword out of my sheath and letting it glisten in the sun for a split second before bringing it down to slice the goblin's head in two. But ultimately it is a roll that determines how well that was done. Conversely, if I want to convince the goblin captain to join our side I have to do the talking myself. I might forget a detail because its been 3 weeks in real life since some important detail was unearth, despite it being 3 days in game time. I might insult the goblin by asking it to go to dinner and serving it some meat that goblins avoid, that I would know in game but do not know out of game.

The limit of my character's abilities when swinging a dumb metal stick is my character's ability scores. The limit of my character's abilities when talking is my own speaking ability. At that point, I am not role playing, but am playing myself.

 

[Halivar]

Are we talking roleplaying, or roll-playing? Saying, "my paladin makes a diplomacy check to convince the duke that the senechal is a doppelganger; I rolled a 25" is not roleplaying. IMO.

 

[Andre]

One of the things that I've always found to help or hinder role playing is the rewards system.

What hurts is when mechanics try to shove players into a predetermined block for playstyle...

Systems may or may not encourage "role playing", however one defines the term. But they have a huge impact on play styles.

For example, when FASA first released the Star Trek RPG, they intentionally made phasers overwhelming. A near miss would knock out the average person, much less a direct hit. The point was they wanted to discourage combat, so they made combat very deadly - literally one roll could wipe out your character. So the rules encouraged - through risk/reward - to find non-combat solutions (in theory, at least).

D&D, on the other hand, has always encouraged combat. Many of the rules center around combat. "Balancing" classes centers around combat abilities. In earlier versions, XP were awarded for only two achievements: acquiring treasure and killing things. I still remember Gary's article saying that characters who do not kill a monster deserve no experience because, well, they didn't kill the thing.

Likewise, Champions/HERO uses various character disadvantages as part of character design. Psychological disads are generally seen as "cheap" points and many players load up their character with them. Those rules encourage players to develop that side of their character - not just the stats, but the character's personality. Systems, such as D&D, which ignore such fluff do not discourage players from developing backstories for their characters, but Champions actively encourages it.

Does this add or subtract from roleplaying? That's up to the individual group. I've gamed with any number of players who always roleplay the same, regardless of the character and the rules. But the system seems to always impact how people will play a particular game - more for some than others, but always some impact.

 

[Imaro]

I personally think the key to a good roelplaying system is reward. D&D activley hinders roelplaying in so far as one ascribing to their role is not tactically efficient, whether that is in combat or outside of combat. The problem is that the average person rarely thinks in such tactical terms. The PC's need some type of system that rewards them if they choose to do something interesting instead of what is tactically best. I think D&D has always had this problem. Some examples of systems that get around this...

nWoD by giving into one's vice you gain willpower.

Angel/Buffy by allowing the GM to have something bad happen to your character you can gain a drama point.

DitV/Heroquest where a seemingly negative modifier can be used in a positive way if it is viable.

Another thing is making actions outside of combat as interesting as combat. I honestly think White Wolf is making some great strides in this area... their social combat from Exalted is a good step in the right direction and I actually used the debate rules from Requiem for Rome to play out a debate in the Hedge during a Changeling the Lost one shot.

I feel like skill challenges could've been a step in the right direction on both of these fronts... but they fill like they weren't handled well by the development team, didn't get enough polish and haven't been presented in a clear manner (as far as execution and or game goals in using them). Tis is all IMO of course.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Are we talking roleplaying, or roll-playing? Saying, "my paladin makes a diplomacy check to convince the duke that the senechal is a doppelganger; I rolled a 25" is not roleplaying. IMO.

Actually, I will disagree with this. What you just described is roleplaying, or at least it could be.

Trying to convince the duke that the senechal is a doppelganger expresses something about the character. It says something different than, say, trying to kill the senechal in the middle of the duke's castle without bothering to warn the duke first. It is also very different from just ignoring that the senechal is a doppelganger and leaving the duke to his own devices, or trying to blackmail the senechal using that information in order to further your own ends. Whether the player acts out these actions with gestures and funny voices or simply makes a roll of the dice, it is roleplaying so long as the player is doing things that establish and develops a character.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using the mechanics to roleplay. Sure, many players may roll the dice without thinking about character motivation and such, but just as many players would try to have an Int 4/Cha 4 Orc Barbarian be eloquent and polite when trying to convince the duke. You can roleplay whether you use dice or not and you can fail to roleplay whether you use dice or not.

So, to answer the original question, I will say that I don't think mechanics exist that can either limit or help roleplaying. There are mechanics that can change the nature and style of such roleplaying, but not mechanics that can inhibit or promote roleplaying itself.

 

[blargney the second]

The only system element that promotes roleplaying is if it lets you play a character. And even then... I've seen roleplaying in Settlers of Catan.
-blarg

 

[Negflar2099]

In my opinion the problem with a question like this is that it misses the point. A better question might be should a roleplaying game encourage roleplaying in the first place? It would seem the answer is an obviously yes and in fact it seems so obvious that people skip over the question but I would submit to you that things are not so clear cut as they seem.

What does it mean to encourage roleplaying? How do we define those terms? In my experience I've found that people that are new to the game can be very introverted and nervous. Sure you occasionally get some people who are natural improversationists but not everyone has those talents. Most of us feel very self-conscious about acting out like this in front of a group.

For a game to encourage roleplaying that implies a reward/failure system centered around the ability of the player to act as their character. That means that those who are less shy and self-conscious will be rewarded while those who are nervous and afraid will be punished (or at least denied the reward which amounts to the same thing). If a system doesn't do that then it's not really "encouraging roleplaying" in any meaningful way.

Then there's the people who are good at improv. Let me tell those people don't need any encouragement to get into character or act out. They just need an excuse and by its very nature an RPG already provides that excuse. For many of them a system of rewards is just not necessary to compel them to roleplay.

It might seem on paper to be a noble goal for a roleplaying game to encourage roleplaying but it does so only at the risk of alienating some players without adding anything significant to the others, except rewarding them for what they would have already done anyway.

In my experience the #1 most successful way to encourage the shy and timid to roleplay is by having other people roleplay at the table. Once they see that it's okay to talk in character or act out they tend to feel less self-conscious and more open to roleplaying. A system can't really force that to happen. It has to happen on its own.

 

[SteveC]

Very interesting discussion!
I would say that role playing games can encourage good roleplay by mechanics that encourage the sort of actions that the genre wants you to attempt. Conversely, they can discourage it by having rules or mechanics that actively discourage in-character actions.

I'll give an example: I played in a GURPS game many years ago that the GM intended to be a very heroic swashbucklery sort of game, with lots of swinging from chandeliers and last minute desperate actions. At the same time, he ran the game with all the advanced combat options that can make the game extremely dangerous, and made actions like swinging from those chandeliers extremely complicated and difficult to do. The result was that we played that game much more conservatively than he was hoping for, both because we wanted to stay alive and because we just got sick on the tedium of calculating how to do different maneuvers.

This is one of the chief reasons that I respond to comments about "game system X doesn't do Y very well" with "use a more appropriate game." At least most of the time.

--Steve

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Interesting. Negflar2099's post really addresses the reason behind why I posted the question in the first place.

I've often seen in the edition wars where people will say that roleplaying is system independent. Even in this thread which is edition neutral (so far, lets hope it stays that way), someone has mentioned that they've seen rping in Settlers of Catan.

I'm not making any claims that the rules HAVE to define roleplaying. I do wonder, though which systems are better and worse...but not really the systems themselves, but the aspects of them that make them that way (no need to name names).


I absolutely agree that the players/gm will have more impact on the roleplaying than the system, both the social environment (comfort level) they create, and their individual personalities.


I just can't wrap my mind around it being independent from the system. Sure, it's not decided by it, but, for example, I'd wager that while it is POSSIBLE to roleplay in Settlers of Catan or even chess, few would disagree with me if I said "Yes, but those games are not as good roleplaying as, say, Vampire, GURPS, or D&D (any edition)."

Or do those who believe that roleplaying is indepndent of system/edition claim that it really is equal? (I'm not being snarky- If this is the case, there must be a fundamental difference in how we define roleplaying or how we play those games mentioned; both sides-chess and catan and Vampire, GURPS, and D&D)

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I've found rules-lite systems and systems in which your characters thoughts are very important tend to lead to a lot of roleplaying. Call of Cthulhu, for example, I've never seen turn into just dice rolling. Unknown Armies tends to have a hell of a lot of roleplaying as well, and, if you're playing a very light hearted game, Risus is perhaps the best in existance.

Which isn't to say rules-heavy systems are bad. I think the key point is in games in which your thoughts are just as important as your actions. Like I said, CoC rarely - if ever - goes into straight dice rolling auto-drive.