This mentality needs to die

[fuzzlewump]

@nedjer

Objectivity may require people to agree on what the game is primarily focused on, which as you can see, will not happen.

Judging by the amount of words spent on describing combat and combat related accessories, then D&D is incredibly combat-focused. But, is it true that the more rules that go into roleplaying the less fluid and more contrived it becomes? In other words, by not devoting a ton of the book to roleplaying, is D&D actually making roleplaying a more legitimate focus? It's counter-intuitive, but I find the more mechanics attached to speaking and describing in-character the more 'tactical wargame' it becomes. A tactical war of words, as it were.

So, is the purest role-playing game actually a game with no rules at all? Maybe not even a GM of some sort?

My opinion: The line where RPG meets tactical wargame well, isn't really a line at all. When I was still a kid, not many years ago, I would play the game Super Smash Brothers with my friends as a roleplaying game. I kid you not, we would pick characters and basically create movies despite the game itself only supporting the ability to fight.

Same thing, in a different way, I had this play-arcade basketball game made out of plastic tubing. My friends and I took it apart and created "swords" and "axes" and jumped around on my trampoline and roleplayed. Obviously, we were using both of these games outside of what we can perceive as their intentions. But, can you objectively say that we were playing a Fighting Game and we were playing a Sports Game?

Even if you still say yes, the point is, not everyone will agree.

So, what do you think, does having a game primarily focused on 'roleplaying' in terms of mechanics actually just make the game a different sort of tactical 'wargame?' Not in physical combat, strictly, but some sort of tactical conflict? What is the ideal role-playing game, if something like Call of Duty 2 let's say is the ideal wargame?

 

[nedjer]

@nedjer

So, what do you think, does having a game primarily focused on 'roleplaying' in terms of mechanics actually just make the game a different sort of tactical 'wargame?' Not in physical combat, strictly, but some sort of tactical conflict? What is the ideal role-playing game, if something like Call of Duty 2 let's say is the ideal wargame?

Good question To me the ideal roleplaying game is one where instead of the game constructing your imagination, your imagination constructs the game.

Videogames have great difficulty offering truely open-ended, imaginative roleplaying, because the game constructs so much of the players' experience of the game.

I guess I'd say that titles like MW2 and Borderlands, offer too little variety of roles, plotting and gameplay to be considered RPGs. While Darksiders or Oblivion go some way towards being open-ended the best I've seen, oddly, is Free Realms.

The combat is pretty mince but the advancement, exploration, mix of gameplay, immersive settings, player customisation and moderated chat gives players massive freedom in terms of how they interact with the game.

There would need to be level creation and editing to let players' own imaginations have free rein to roleplay but I'll take a couple of hours with my kid on Free Realms over COD5 or HADDOCK 7 anytime.

 

[Hussar]

Wow, that7s a whole lot of video games I've never really heard of. MW2? Borderlands? Darksiders? COD5? HADDOCK 7?

Aren't those fish?

 

[Plane Sailing]

That is highly offensive.

Considerably less offensive than your characterising anything non-rules like as 'Mother may I'.

Just saying.

 

[BryonD]

Is it really so offensive to be objective and accept that a game primarily focused on killing monsters/ enemies, through labyrinthine mechanical processes, is a tactical wargame rather than a roleplaying game?

I don't think your statement was offensive. But I do dispute your claim that this is an objective position.

I don't consider WOW to be remotely the same kind of "roleplaying" that I consider my home D&D game to be. But WOW is certainly a roleplaying game. You may subjectively disagree, but this is subjective.

In D&D, I enjoy *being* a character in a fantastic setting. I believe my D&D experience matches your limited definition of roleplaying.

When I was playing WOW (clean and sober 7 months), I enjoyed the sense of being in the person of a fantastic and powerful avatar. It isn't the same thing at all. But it is most absolutely roleplaying, just a different degree of roleplaying.

I believe that the great majority of WOW players are in the same basic level of RP as I was. But there are a few who really get into character and play the part of someone who cares about their quest and its impact on their character's values. I think these players are pretty rare, but they certainly exist. And despite the fact that WOW mechanics constrain their ability to express their roleplaying, the RP exists between their ears and is quite real. I also know that their are players who just want to kill Boss X because it might drop Epic Y. I think these players are probably a step below the avatar step, but are still RPing. And there are other players who just want to "win" the encounters as a tactical exercise. This last group is very possible not RPing at all.

I read an article about wow players. (sorry, no link). Some psy researchers measured the active parts of the brain when talking to players.
When discussing themselves, the part of the brain that relates to self was active.
When discussing their friends the part of the brain that relates to others was active.
When discussing friends' characters, the part of the brain that relates to imagination was active.
When discussing their own character, the part of the brain that relates to *self* was active. (!!!)

If you want "objective" data, then these WOW players were OBJECTIVELY roleplaying.

All D&D does not have to be the same roleplaying. I've known "beer and pretzels" groups that I think fall much more under the "powerful avatar of orc-ass-kicking" class than the RPing I look for. But that is still roleplaying.

 

[nedjer]

Wow, that7s a whole lot of video games I've never really heard of. MW2? Borderlands? Darksiders? COD5? HADDOCK 7?

Aren't those fish?

Don't even think about buying HADDOCK 7, it's not nearly as good as HERRING 3, which comes with free batter and breadcrumbs

 

[darjr]

Heh.

I'm wondering how many people didn't experience the "well, you said it was ok before, so why can't I do it again" style of gameplay that the "say "YES if it seems cool" style of DMing encoruages at times.

I have. I'd like to think I let it go most of the time, there certainly were a lot of gimmicks and tricks that my players would gear up for. In the right circumstances it can be really cool. But there were plenty of times where I just had to let a tactic fail miserably.

Like the time the green slime went into spasms, flailing about and splashing a toxic mixture of burning oil and green slime. Though I think that one was just for my own fun.

 

[nedjer]

I don't think your statement was offensive. But I do dispute your claim that this is an objective position.

I don't consider WOW to be remotely the same kind of "roleplaying" that I consider my home D&D game to be. But WOW is certainly a roleplaying game. You may subjectively disagree, but this is subjective.

In D&D, I enjoy *being* a character in a fantastic setting. I believe my D&D experience matches your limited definition of roleplaying.

When I was playing WOW (clean and sober 7 months), I enjoyed the sense of being in the person of a fantastic and powerful avatar. It isn't the same thing at all. But it is most absolutely roleplaying, just a different degree of roleplaying.

I believe that the great majority of WOW players are in the same basic level of RP as I was. But there are a few who really get into character and play the part of someone who cares about their quest and its impact on their character's values. I think these players are pretty rare, but they certainly exist. And despite the fact that WOW mechanics constrain their ability to express their roleplaying, the RP exists between their ears and is quite real. I also know that their are players who just want to kill Boss X because it might drop Epic Y. I think these players are probably a step below the avatar step, but are still RPing. And there are other players who just want to "win" the encounters as a tactical exercise. This last group is very possible not RPing at all.

I read an article about wow players. (sorry, no link). Some psy researchers measured the active parts of the brain when talking to players.
When discussing themselves, the part of the brain that relates to self was active.
When discussing their friends the part of the brain that relates to others was active.
When discussing friends' characters, the part of the brain that relates to imagination was active.
When discussing their own character, the part of the brain that relates to *self* was active. (!!!)

If you want "objective" data, then these WOW players were OBJECTIVELY roleplaying.

All D&D does not have to be the same roleplaying. I've known "beer and pretzels" groups that I think fall much more under the "powerful avatar of orc-ass-kicking" class than the RPing I look for. But that is still roleplaying.

Great answer and I'd have to agree on principle that everything's subjective.

However, WOW is a resource-based, combat-orientated game, which is largely defined by the game's designers. It, therefore, incorporates features of roleplaying but does not, in my opinion, offer a roleplaying game where players develop open-ended characters and contexts drawn largely from their own imaginations.

By way of an analogy. Playing Basic D&D and Classic Traveller immediately puts players in the position of having to build on an imaginative framework. In contrast Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader offer an elaborate setting, which encourages GMs and players to define their roles in terms of the setting.

The personal example that comes to mind for me is of buying a stack of Lego blocks on eBay and buying a Lego pre-pack designed to build a lion.

The lion was an exercise in following instructions and, though we could have just used the bits, the specialist blocks and the challenge presented by the lion shaped the 'gameplay'. The lion was only made once.

The lego blocks have made every animal, tower, castle, dinosaur . . . that ever came into our imaginations.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm wondering how many people didn't experience the "well, you said it was ok before, so why can't I do it again" style of gameplay that the "say "YES if it seems cool" style of DMing encoruages at times.

I roll with it.

What's the worst that could happen? "Oh no, I can't throw challenges like X at the party anymore because I was too broad back there a few sessions ago, now I'll just have to use some other of my trillions of DM tricks to challenge the party, how awful."

If people are having fun (and being cool is part of the fun), I don't give a frig.

I think a lot of DMs are too paranoid of powerful characters, with the ability to shape the story and bypass threats. It is not like "frozen shut doors" are the only things that can challenge your party. Even if they get a free pass on every door that is frozen shut for the rest of the campaign (and in a one-shot, that's not much time), and perhaps even some other ice-encrusted things, so what?

Though this is my view only. I like rolling with powerful characters, reacting to the wrenches they throw into my plots, letting them feel powerful and making their enemies even more powerful in order to threaten them.

Perhaps the next frozen door I want to challenge them with is shut with Levistian Ice from a glacier the Nine Hells in which a rouge devil is trapped for eternity. It takes more than mortal magic to unfreeze it.

Perhaps I just don't hurl frozen doors at them anymore.

I get that some DM's panic over the prospect, but for me, at least, it makes the game MORE fun.

 

[Rel]

Yeah, nedjer, I think you're starting to stray a bit into "badwrongfunism" with that sweeping generalization. Are you saying that Rogue Trader is less of a roleplaying game than Traveller?