Players choose what their PCs do . . .

hawkeyefan · Jul 4, 2019

Lanefan said:
1 and 2 above carry an implied "try to" in there somewhere, as all player action declarations are in effect attempts to do or change something in the fiction.

3 and 4, however, don't carry that same "try to" vibe with them. Why? Because the GM's word is law, and if you've just been told your heart's been softened then softened it is - you don't get a chance to resist. Bloody blue murder!

Now if the GM had put it as "The maiden winks at you and tries to soften your heart" then both 3 and 4 become perfectly valid reflections of how a player might choose to have her PC respond.

That 4th example that made you cry Bloody Blue Murder is exactly how things can play out in Blades in the Dark. Sometimes, the GM will narrate a consequence. “You attempt to kill the Red Sash Swordsman with your knives, but he manages to draw his sword, parry your attacks, and run you through. You feel his sword slide into your gut and scrape alongside your spine. You take Fatal Harm.”

At that point, the character is dead, unless the player chooses to resist the Harm. He makes a Resistance Roll which determines how much Stress it costs him (6 minus his highest d6 roll). The Harm becomes Level 3 and the character is merely incapacitated.

I only bring this up because it shows how different games can function, and how they give different power to the players to influence the fiction.

aramis erak · Jul 4, 2019

FrogReaver said:
An RPG isn't about the mechanics that describe the NPC's or the PC's. It's about the roleplaying. If mechanics that favor PC's over NPC's also favor the roleplaying then those mechanics should be used. So no, its not a design level mistake - it's just a design level decision that doesn't match your preference. No mistake there.

For me, it is about the rules, and how they shape the story.

FrogReaver · Jul 4, 2019

aramis erak said:
For me, it is about the rules, and how they shape the story.

Of course! But if you are replying to me like that's a rebuttal of what i said then I'm not sure you understood my comment.

aramis erak · Jul 4, 2019

Maxperson said:
[/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR]Those games function by having players be GMs(even if they don't call them GMs specifically). The players step out of the duties that players have in RPGs and assume the duties that GMs have in RPGS when needed, effectively making people both a GM and a player, depending on what they are doing at the time.

They aren't really games with no GM.

Not entirely true.

There are GM-less story games. I don't consider Fiasco a Roleplaying game... but it definitely is a story game, and it's NOT shared/rotating GMing; the mechanics are not action centric, but scene centric.

Likewise, Once Upon A Time is a storygame, but even further further from RPGing than Fiasco - no character ownership, all about narrative control so that you can win by emptying your hand. No one even has a GMing equivalent. Either you're narrating, or the group is voting, or someone plays a card that you narrated... it's a game, it results in a story, and it's multiplayer, but it's also got no character sheets, no dice rolls, no mechanics to resolve actions, only wresting control by having a card that fits their narration.

And, another fringe case: games that use RPG mechanics, but are actually just board games.... WotC did a bunch using a lite version of 4E D&D...

Tony Vargas · Jul 4, 2019

FrogReaver said:
Hopefully this explains why this part is so important to me.

What does it mean to take on an imaginary role in a shared fiction?

Well, it means that you are assuming some correspondence between yourself and that role, and that it is /imaginary/ - it's not real, it can't be checked against to see if you're doing it "right." And that the fiction is /shared/ means that, though each person could imagine each element of that fiction differently, there need to be ways to create a consensus version of those imaginings that can be shared among them with some acceptable degree of confidence.

Doesn't a player who takes on an imaginary role of a specific character in a shared fiction of an RPG by necessity determine what actions said imaginary character is taking?

Not necessarily. He might imagine it flying, for instance, but the agreed upon consensus may not allow that. Or it /might/ if he has some way of influencing the consensus. Or, he might imagine it doing something very foolish, destructive to narrative of the shared fiction, or contrary to the way other aspects of the fiction have been imagined - then some negotiation would have to happen.

That's still a very murky, broad sense of RPG, though.

Now, a TTRPG is a narrower thing to consider, because it brings in the conventions & tools of TT gaming: rules, turns, dice, cards, tokens, pawns, play surfaces, keeping score, competitive vs cooperative, victory conditions...

FrogReaver · Jul 4, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
And that the fiction is /shared/ means that, though each person could imagine each element of that fiction differently, there need to be ways to create a consensus version of those imaginings that can be shared among them with some acceptable degree of confidence.

Yep. It just needs to be acknowledged that the act of determining which particular version of the shared fiction to use is itself not a roleplaing action.

Not necessarily. He might imagine it flying, for instance, but the agreed upon consensus may not allow that.

If you state you fly in a roleplaying game where the shared fiction is that you cannot then the DM's job is to remind you of the fact that the shared fiction doesn't allow for you to fly. Some may do that jokingly by saying your character flaps his arms but nothing happens - done solely as a form of comic relief and not to take away your actual control of your character. But regardless of what the DM does to remind you of the proper shared fiction, the end result is that you choose some other course of action for your PC. Ultimately that means there is no impact to roleplaying there.

Or it /might/ if he has some way of influencing the consensus.

Which is not playing a role - The act of determining which version of the shared fiction is real is not roleplaying. The act of inserting some truth into the shared fiction is not roleplaying. Roleplaying does involve inserting some truths into the shared fiction but it does so solely through the character.

Tony Vargas · Jul 4, 2019

FrogReaver said:
Yep. It just needs to be acknowledged that the act of determining which particular version of the shared fiction to use is itself not a roleplaing action. .

The whole activity is role-playing.

Without the other players and the shared fiction, you're just acting in front of a mirror or having a daydream or something.

Nagol · Jul 4, 2019

Lanefan said:
All of these are well and good, but all share one key element: they invoke game mechanics in order to force the reaction.

"The maiden winks at you and softens your heart" invokes no mechanics at all - the GM has just flat-out told you how your character reacts. See the difference?

Absolutely! And much like the player's version is assuming facts not in evidence, so is the GM! Perhaps she isn't the right type, right gender, or right species! Perhaps the PC has a one true love and will not be swayed, perhaps... so many possibilities. I have trained my players well enough that if I were to make such a statement, the player would clarify that I didn't misspeak and there is in fact some subtle effect forcing him to feel this way.

Ovinomancer · Jul 4, 2019

FrogReaver said:
Hopefully this explains why this part is so important to me.

What does it mean to take on an imaginary role in a shared fiction? That's the crux of the matter. Doesn't a player who takes on an imaginary role of a specific character in a shared fiction of an RPG by necessity determine what actions said imaginary character is taking? That's what is actually meant roleplay in this context right?

It means that you take the one the role, as in you think about how to interact with the shared fiction as if you were that character within it.

No, they do not, by necessity, always determine what actions said imaginary character is taking. So long as when they have the option to make a choice they do so from within the role, this is roleplaying. When and how they get choices has nothing to do with roleplaying.

No, it is not what is actually meant [by] roleplay in this context.

If that's correct, then isn't your definition actually the same as mine? That a player determines the actions of the character he is portraying in the shared fiction?

(I suppose by actions, it's best I clarify as being attempted actions for precisions sake - I say attempted because there is often a disconnect between the players fiction and the DM's fiction which can result in a player stating his character does something that doesn't actually make sense - so the process is to then reconcile the fictions and move on with play - which can be done in a variety of ways).

Your parenthetical is an extremely narrow view of how actions can be adjudicated. This thread was started to look at multiple ways actions can be adjudicated, but here you are limiting your understanding by retaining only one of those ways -- the thin declaration.

What begs the question - what does it mean to roleplay an imaginary character in a fictional world. I say it means that you determine the characters actions in that world.

That's not what begs the question means. I say it means that, when you have the option to make choices, you do so from the role you have assumed. You're assigning a separate axis here -- what limitations exist on choice -- to roleplaying. It doesn't belong there. This is, again, your preference for how to play the game leaking into definitions that have nothing to do with that preference.

There's no way that the GM declaring actions for the PC doesn't impact what we are talking about above. It may have a minimal effect, but an effect it does have. - And more importantly, if I am right about what it means to take on an imaginary role in a fictional world, it by definition precludes the player from doing that for the period of time the GM is controlling their PC's actions.

You are not right, this is what pretty much everyone in this thread is contesting with you. Maybe pick up on that?

But, as an example, the play that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] gave for AW -- in the fail state, the GM has carte blanche to dictate actions for the PC. This doesn't reduce the roleplaying occurring, it limits when the player can make choices. Orthogonal to roleplaying.

I'm not sure what you mean by control of PC actions in failure conditions. Maybe you can elaborate.

Sigh, it's been mentioned a number of times in this thread. If you're only going to read/engage with posts aimed at you, then I'm not going to bother to try to restate those posts you've skipped.

If your definition of taking on an imaginary role in a shared fiction is as I elaborated on above then it most definitely does impact their ability to take on an imaginary role in a shared fiction.

Don't see it. I'm still roleplaying that character just as much as I was -- I'm still representing that role within the shared fiction when I have a choice to make.

Frankly, your argument is steeped in a single-point-of-view of how RPGs are played. It shows a lack of understanding of the broader context of RPGs and the varied playstyles. It relies on a one-true-way of playing, at least if you want to be able to claim you're still roleplaying. It fails to be a practically applicable definition -- it doesn't even work within the game you prefer without using special pleading for mechanics that subvert it (ie, "magic").