D&D 4E The "We Can't Roleplay" in 4E Argument

[Crazy Jerome]

Personally I would argue that immersion (like the western sky) is a fundamental, if not all encompassing, aspect of roleplaying (the total sky)... and with that said, if a system does impede immersion... it thus does impede roleplaying since even if it only impedes a smaller part of the whole, the whole is affected. Now I think the question may be how big of a part immersion is to roleplaying both objectively (if such a thing is even quantifiable) and subjectively which would be personal in nature. But to claim immersion is something wholly seperate from roleplaying, IMO, is erroneous.

Sure. The concepts are wholly separate, but immersion is one of the legs upon which roleplaying stands. If you don't have (much*) immersion, to have "roleplaying", you'll need a strong contribution from the other legs. In that sense, me running with RC's sky metaphor breaks down somewhat.

* I have a hard time envisioning a roleplaying session that has no immersion whatsoever. Even our group, happily switching in and out of pure OOC, metagaming, shallow immersion, and characterization--does use some immersion. And I think we are pretty extreme on that front. But I'm willing to concede that there might be roleplaying where immersion all but disappeared. My experience says it would be strange, but I'm not willing to logically rule it out.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The metaphor was just to demonstrate that two people, saying very different things, might both mean the same thing. Arguments are not always about differences in viewpoint; sometimes they are purely semantical, and parsing out the terminology brings a measure of agreement.

I'm wondering if you'd be willing to concede that there might be roleplaying where immersion not "all but" disappeared, but actually disappeared? And, if so, what does "role-playing" mean in that context?


RC

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Also to be clear, I am not claiming that role-playing is immersion, but rather that role-playing is the action within the game that is taken while immersed. Thus, immersion =/= role-playing, but role-playing requires immersion.

I don't agree with this as univeral, either. For us, immersion is a result of roleplay (and other things). I'll happily grant that what happens at our table is not universal either. It is the difference between:

1. If you are happy, you will probably smile.
2. If you smile, you'll probably be happier.

I've found both of those to be true at times.

 

[Imaro]

The interesting thing for me is that narrativist mechanics don't interfere with my roleplaying, but coarse granularity often can and will. 4E's granularity pushes right up to my limit (e.g. skill list coarse scope of each skill).

I've hardly done an exhaustive survey, but I get the impression that many narrativist mechanics are managed via coarse mechanics. So either I'm a strange outlier, or there is more to the question than simply "narrativist mechanic".

I like something more akin to the granularity of Burning Wheel, though its hodge-podge, unorganized approach isn't really my cup of tea, either. There is a picky middle ground there that so far seems to be explored mainly in traditional games.

I'm not sure if it necessarily has to do with the coarseness for many people... I honestly think it is having to step out of the role of their character and into a sort of sub-GM role... whether this is using a fate point to create a piece of the world that didn't exsist before or spending it to resist a compel... these are oth instances where you are nolonger playing the game from the perspective of your character but instead switching to a metagame interaction. These rules don't get out of the way... they get right up in your face and force you to interact with them on a level that isn't immersive, but can make for a great story.

Don't get me wrong I like Legends of Anglerre, a Fate based narrative game so I don't think it's badwrongfun to play and enjoy games that aren't necessarily sim... but they do provide an experience I can easily see not being everyone's cup of tea... I can also see this in 4e's gamist play and how it can disrupt immersion in trying to accomplish it's gamist goals, and thus make roleplaying harder for many. In the end though, I do think sim games, given the largest player base are casual gamers, actually have a wider appeal than either gamist or narrativist games.

I think the majority of casual players just want to roleplay their character and leave most of the mechanics and creation stuff up to the GM. Often times it seems narrativist games want their fun to come from players getting to sub-GM when they just want to be a player playing their character... while gamist games seem to base their fun on one understanding and learning to manipulate the rules system when most casual players just want to get on with playing their character. Of course I could be way off and it is just my opinion.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't agree with this as univeral, either. For us, immersion is a result of roleplay (and other things). I'll happily grant that what happens at our table is not universal either. It is the difference between:

1. If you are happy, you will probably smile.
2. If you smile, you'll probably be happier.

I've found both of those to be true at times.

Sure; I'd agree to that. Role-play leads into immersion, and immersion leads into role-play.

But, again, can you have role-playing without immersion? And, if so, what does "role-playing" mean in that context?


RC

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'm wondering if you'd be willing to concede that there might be roleplaying where immersion not "all but" disappeared, but actually disappeared? And, if so, what does "role-playing" mean in that context?

Hypothetically, one way in which it could occur is a complete focus on author/actor stance via characterization, in a session where every participant moves the conflict in a highly stylized setting. Maybe something akin to the original "Tron".

My caveat on "all but disappeared" is that even in that environment, I would shallow immerse. So I am willing to concede that I can't imagine a rolepalying session where I did not immerse at least a small amount. (Distractions could do it, but that is really outside the scope of your question, and should be controlled for.)

But I'm one of those people that picture the individuals in the unit when playing a wargame with cardboard counters. So I don't know for other people. It is an interesting question. I'd give you some XP for it, but I can't yet.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Don't get me wrong I like Legends of Anglerre, a Fate based narrative game so I don't think it's badwrongfun to play and enjoy games that aren't necessarily sim...

It is, I think, very important not to confuse "X impedes Y" with "X is unfun" or "X is bad". Y is not the only measure of a good game. For some games, and/or for some players, not-Y might be superior to Y.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Hypothetically, one way in which it could occur is a complete focus on author/actor stance via characterization, in a session where every participant moves the conflict in a highly stylized setting. Maybe something akin to the original "Tron".

My caveat on "all but disappeared" is that even in that environment, I would shallow immerse. So I am willing to concede that I can't imagine a rolepalying session where I did not immerse at least a small amount. (Distractions could do it, but that is really outside the scope of your question, and should be controlled for.)

But I'm one of those people that picture the individuals in the unit when playing a wargame with cardboard counters. So I don't know for other people. It is an interesting question.

Interesting post, and I'm sorry I can't XP you for it at this time.

Perhaps someone will cover for me?

 

[Mallus]

Big multi-quote post go!

It was watching a bard kill three minions in a row with Vicious Mockery that led me to ban bards from every 4E game I ever run*. It's not because I think the class is broken or overpowered or even excessively fiddly... but every time a bard uses a power called "Vicious Mockery" or "Satire of Fortune" or "Disorienting Ditty" to kill something, I start grinding my teeth. Just. Freaking. NO.

I had the same initial reaction to 4e's introduction of wound-inducing witticisms. Then I decided killing with a song or jape, while somewhat out of place in more contemporary commercial fantasy fiction, was entirely appropriate in real mythology and folklore, which wasn't written for or by people with engineering degrees, and thus tended towards towards the more fanciful (and less systems-oriented).

So in a way, deadly mockery is more realistic, in that it resembles the stuff for real legend and folklore. It's certainly closer than Vancian magic, which resembles only, in a kinda-sorta way, the magic system in the Dying Earth stories.

3E was loaded with crunchy mechanics, but they were woven together with the fiction. You couldn't skip the flavor text and go straight to the rules bits; in order to find out what your fireball spell did in mechanical terms, you had to read the description of what it was doing in the game world. And every time you went back to check on the details, you got it reinforced.

My group reskinned 3e mechanics all the time, because, while the rules were often sound, the attendant fiction didn't jive with the admittedly idiosyncratic fiction of our setting. So I'm really not seeing the necessary connection/reinforcement between mechanics and fiction in 3e you're talking about.

I would consider role-playing to be taking the role of a fictional character within a fictional game milieu, but I would add the caveat that actual "role-playing" isn't based upon colourful descriptions or pithy one-liners, but rather upon identifying with the fiction.

I completely agree with the description of role-playing in the first part of the sentence, but I'm not sure about the caveat. What does "identifying with the fiction" mean?

When a character of mine spits out a pithy one-liner, I sure feel like I'm identifying with that fictional character. I'm writing him or her, performing him or her, and sometime feeling as if I am him or her, roughly all at the same time. Ditto when I colorfully describe a non-speech action, or their mode of dress, or anything else that falls into the category: characterization.

[*]4e largely dropped the idea of simulation.

4e abandoned any pretenses of physics-engine style simulation via the rules (and no version of D&D had a credible "physics engine"). It left the more informal simulation of a fictional setting untouched. My group prefers the latter to the former, so we experienced no loss of simulation/undue cognitive dissonance.

However, most of us got a little fed up with the combat maths and the spread of overly-conditional powers.

There's nothing wrong with D&D as comedic farce, but not everyone wants or enjoys that. If I wanted a comedy game, I'd be running Paranoia.

D&D is a game where men, dwarves, and elves can team up to fight Jello. Or tentacle-faced brain eaters from space. Or vaguely dog-like things with a beef against ferrous metals. Or floating eyeball-puns who shoot laser beams...

You were saying something about farce? The farce has always been with us D&D players. Unless you scrub most of the Gygax & Arneson out of the game...

 

[Talok]

You can roleplay in 4E just like you can in any system, though 4E does make it more difficult by it's design. The game is so focused around combat, that it's hard for players to focus on anything else, and the massive amount of time combat takes means that there is literally less time for roleplay, exploration, problem solving, etc.