Players choose what their PCs do . . .

hawkeyefan said:

Yup. It will indeed mean different things to different people.

For me, taking on a role most often means a role in a story....a persona, a specific character...and I play the game essentially advocating for that character within the story.

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This bginrs up a good point.

In a typical RPG you're not just playing the role of your character, you're also advocating for it against opposing forces provided by the game and-or setting and-or GM (and-or other players, sometimes). This differentiates our type of RPGs from, say, improv theater games; where you're just as much playing a role but the whole advocacy point is largely missing or irrelevant.

FrogReaver said:

An RPG isn't about the mechanics that describe the NPC's or the PC's. It's about the roleplaying.

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Er...almost.

The RP part is the roleplaying (and advocacy).

The G part is the mechanics.

Without the advocacy and the 'G' you've got a tent big enough to include storytelling games, improv theater, even some non-improv theater any time someone ad-libs a line, and maybe even some types of therapy session.

Lanefan said:

Er...almost.

The RP part is the roleplaying (and advocacy).

The G part is the mechanics.

Without the advocacy and the 'G' you've got a tent big enough to include storytelling games, improv theater, even some non-improv theater any time someone ad-libs a line, and maybe even some types of therapy session.

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As you've noted in other comments - you can have that advocacy aspect without resulting to any mechanical tools.

The game could simply be. Imagine a character. Tell the DM a bit about him. Now play that character while the DM places interesting NPC's and obstacles in your way - where any uncertainty he determines gets resolved in the method of the DM's choosing.

The above example is certainly not storytelling or improv theater or ad-libs. It's a roleplaying game devoid of basically all mechanics.

Lanefan said:

In the fiction, people don't walk down the street with little 'PC' or 'NPC' stickers on their foreheads - they're just people.

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In actual fiction, not the poor modeling job most TTRPGs do of fiction - it's pretty evident who's a main character, who's supporting cast, and who's an extra.

Lanefan said:

Er...almost.
The RP part is the roleplaying (and advocacy).
The G part is the mechanics.

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And they're not really separable. In an RPG, you are both playing a role, and playing a game. If you're every doing just one or the other, you've jumped off the tracks.

Thing is, you very rarely end up doing just one or the other, but people /talk/ like you do, all the time. They say "how'd you handle that impossible encounter in that terrible module?" "Oh, we just RP'd through it" like it stopped being a game. Nope, you used speaking in character as a resolution system, you were still playing a game.

Without the advocacy and the 'G' you've got a tent big enough to include storytelling games, improv theater, even some non-improv theater any time someone ad-libs a line, and maybe even some types of therapy session.

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Those are indeed all examples of roleplaying.
And, I think the label storytelling /game/, alone, makes it clear that's also an RPG. Maybe not a TTRPG, since the mechanics it might use could be quite different from those familiar to TT gaming.

FrogReaver said:

That's just the same sound good phrase you said before that still has no meaning because you refuse to assign it any.

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That’s because we’re talking broadly, about any RPG. I can’t really get more specific than that unless we narrow things down a bit and talk about a specific example of a specific game.

How I play D&D is different than how I play Blades in the Dark is different from how I play Microscope is different from how I play Dungeon World. And so on.

FrogReaver said:

So now a roleplaying game is not only a game where you can roleplay but a game that requires roleplaying to function. That get's us halfway there. The other half is - what is roleplaying - what is taking on the role of a character/persona/etc?

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I thought that was self evident.

What is roleplaying? I think I’ve already answered that. “Adopting a role” is probably the broadest definition.

I think there are enough examples that we might not need to drill all the way down to a scientific definition of 'role playing' assuming that such a thing even exists (probably not). The key is defining what happens when you set the term game next to the term role playing and then play portmanteau. You certainly do have roleplaying to the left and games to the right, but we are, I think, interested in both of those things at the same time.

Roleplaying in general shouldn't be too hard to get a broad fix on, issues in this thread non-withstanding. You adopt the persona of a particular person or type of person for the purposes of acting out that persona in the context of a conversation and/or activity imagined or otherwise. That's the whole range between just talking and performing physical actions. This covers everything from therapy sessions to improv to exciting bedroom sports. The game part is when you use rules and possibly randomization of some kind to stand in for actual physical action and to describe the stakes and consequences of those actions. Also generally part of a broad definition of game is the idea of teleos, of a starting point and an ending point, and possibly a winner and a loser - a characteristic also shared by most RPGs.

So, adopting a persona and using a set of rules and randomization to describe and measure actions and consequences along some sort of sequence of (generally) imaginary connected events.

I know that some posters who already have issues vis a vis definitions aren't going to be happy with my broad strokes answer. I'm not that concerned about the nuances of definition though, so I'm happy to go with what sounds broadly correct and has a certain occam's razor type of usefulness in describing the things I like to do as a hobby. I'm not 100% happy with the above, but it gets pretty close for my purposes.

Ovinomancer said:

Roleplaying is simply taking on an imaginary role in a shared fiction. There are a number of ways of doing this, including acting, therapy, and playing games.

A roleplaying gane is one where the players roleplay a character(s) in the game and where the player is expected to advocate for their character.

None of this is impacted by a GM being able to declare actions for a PC in some situations, especially if the action declaration is due to a failed attempt at action by the player.

This varues by game. In 5e, the expectation is that players have absolute authority to declare thin actions, except in specific cases, usually magic. But, in other games, where players often have much more control over the scene in general, this is countered by tge GM having control of PC actions in failure conditions. This does not reduce the roleplaying in these games.

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I'll leave this here again for [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION], as he seems to have missed it on his last pass.

pemerton said:

What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?

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Honestly I see it both ways depending on the importance of the situation. I mean if it's for them to decide the outcome, I can use that to give them a bit of information. Otherwise, it's a challenge, time to roll some bones and let chance have it's way with them. For example, both of those types of players exist in my Traveller game right now: those that want the deep role playing, and those that hunger to dice out a battle. This does challenge me as GM to provide both experiences.

Ovinomancer said:

Roleplaying is simply taking on an imaginary role in a shared fiction. There are a number of ways of doing this, including acting, therapy, and playing games.

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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?

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).

A roleplaying gane is one where the players roleplay a character(s) in the game and where the player is expected to advocate for their character.

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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.

None of this is impacted by a GM being able to declare actions for a PC in some situations, especially if the action declaration is due to a failed attempt at action by the player.

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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.

This varues by game. In 5e, the expectation is that players have absolute authority to declare thin actions, except in specific cases, usually magic. But, in other games, where players often have much more control over the scene in general, this is countered by tge GM having control of PC actions in failure conditions.

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

This does not reduce the roleplaying in these games.

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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.