Should strong players have an advantage?

[Umbran]

It therefore makes sense that everybody get at least a serving of Soup at each session. That might still mean somebody goes back for seconds. But nobody gets left out, or they will die of starvation and leave the group.

Yep. You got the idea. And sometimes, the pot of soup for the week may not be your favorite, and you really don't care if you get much. But next week's variety makes your mouth water just thinking about it, and maybe then the other guys will make sure you can get seconds...

 

[Dausuul]

Yep. You got the idea. And sometimes, the pot of soup for the week may not be your favorite, and you really don't care if you get much. But next week's variety makes your mouth water just thinking about it, and maybe then the other guys will make sure you can get seconds...

Now I'm hungry.

 

[delericho]

CHA does not define how you present yourself (actions, words used, fashion). CHA defines how others react to you despite your attempts to impress them.

That's true, and it's fine. Provided, of course:

- The DM requires a roll as well as role-playing. No auto-success for "good roleplaying", since "CHA defines how others react to you despite your attempts to impress them".

- and, in fact, no bonuses (or penalties!) given to the eventual roll, for exactly the same reason.

Otherwise, the logic isn't being applied consistently.

 

[Janx]

That's true, and it's fine. Provided, of course:

- The DM requires a roll as well as role-playing. No auto-success for "good roleplaying", since "CHA defines how others react to you despite your attempts to impress them".

- and, in fact, no bonuses (or penalties!) given to the eventual roll, for exactly the same reason.

Otherwise, the logic isn't being applied consistently.

[MENTION=40166]prosfilaes[/MENTION] in the other thread seemed to prefer a strict adherance to outcomes based on the #. It would seem if you wanted to minimize impact by outside player behavior, that's how you might have to do it.

the challenge is of course remembering to account for it constantly. P implied that a CHA4 person would experience things negatively through even mundane conversations. That requires the GM to remember to do that, not just for obvious skill checks.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Yep. You got the idea. And sometimes, the pot of soup for the week may not be your favorite, and you really don't care if you get much. But next week's variety makes your mouth water just thinking about it, and maybe then the other guys will make sure you can get seconds...

This is the core assumption behind my method of handling rewards. Use your natural mental advantages to short-circuit a character problem, means that you dumped a bowl of soup on the floor that someone else wanted. Use those same natural mental advantages to bring in another character or two on the problem, or even expand the scope a bit, means that you shared the soup or even found a way to make more of it, or add an ingredient to make it better.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

@prosfilaes in the other thread seemed to prefer a strict adherance to outcomes based on the #. It would seem if you wanted to minimize impact by outside player behavior, that's how you might have to do it.

the challenge is of course remembering to account for it constantly. P implied that a CHA4 person would experience things negatively through even mundane conversations. That requires the GM to remember to do that, not just for obvious skill checks.

Or, you can state intent, roll, then roleplay the result. Of course, if you do that, you have no choice but to have other rewards for roleplay than direct mechanical effect on the result. (If any such rewards. Some people are fine with roleplaying is the main point of the activity, and thus its own reward. If you aren't doing it, your loss.)

However, you could let the roleplay modify the situation coming out of the results. For example, completely blow this diplomacy check to the hostile forces that have you pinned, they are going to throw you in a cell. But how you roleplay that result determines whether they search you carefully or loosely, beat you up a bit beforehand or not, etc. And in general, even if I'm allowing modification by roleplay before the roll, I want it to be modification of complications, not the chance of success or failure.

 

[Hussar]

As I tried to explain earlier, I regularly meet people who TRY to be more charismatic than they really are. And others who are charismatic despite their lack of attempting to be presentable. People in top leadership positions being a pretty surprising study group.

10 CHA is not a concrete definition of personality and presentation.

So you can't say that my 10 CHA PC is out of character when he tries to speak all fancy to the Duke and I as a player actually give a nice speech.

Because people with average charisma do that all the time. And it works on SOME people. Others, perhaps those outside the social group, class or personality type it fails.

CHA does not define how you present yourself (actions, words used, fashion). CHA defines how others react to you despite your attempts to impress them.

You missed my point a bit though. I have no problems if this happens from time to time. Fair enough. As you say, it does happen that an average Cha person shines.

However, if EVERY time the talky bits come, you are presenting yourself as this highly eloquent effective speaker who is very convincing, then you're no longer actually playing your character.

As far as the more tactically minded player and the less one both playing low Int fighters go, I absolutely think the more tactical player should be toning it down. If the two players are both playing 5 Int barbarians, and the one is constantly looking for every tactical advantage and turns into a Special Forces operative as soon as they enter the dungeon, then he's not actually playing the character he created.

And, yes, I do think that player is a bad role player. He's not playing the character he created. I keep coming back to this, but, that's the long and the short of it. If your character doesn't have the ability to do whatever it is you as the player are trying to do, then you are not playing that character, you're playing something else.

And, again, I realize that this isn't something you can do all the time. It happens that you overplay your hand from time to time. Fair enough. No harm no foul. But, the player should always be attempting to stay within the bounds created by his character.

So, Janx, no, I don't agree with you. A 10 Cha with no applicable skills (depending on system) means that you really aren't all that effective at convincing anyone of anything. If you are regularly gaming your DM and playing beyond the capabilities of your character, gaining success after success in social situations that this character should never succeed in, then this is bad play.

I realize that's pretty strong and part of that is the medium and I know that people are going to absolutely fixate on that last sentence and ignore everything else I said. But, at the end of the day, there's no other way to put it. Playing beyond the capabilities of your character is not playing that character. Not playing that character is bad roleplay. There should always be the effort made by the player to play that character and if that means you make bad decisions, choices that actively put you at a disadvantage, then so be it. You made that character with those flaws. Play the flaws that you have.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I realize that's pretty strong and part of that is the medium and I know that people are going to absolutely fixate on that last sentence and ignore everything else I said. But, at the end of the day, there's no other way to put it. Playing beyond the capabilities of your character is not playing that character. Not playing that character is bad roleplay. There should always be the effort made by the player to play that character and if that means you make bad decisions, choices that actively put you at a disadvantage, then so be it. You made that character with those flaws. Play the flaws that you have.

As far as my preferences go, I prefer to play in games where what you have described is the way things are done. And I think for a particular definition of "roleplay," you are entirely correct. But where I think it goes astray is that "roleplay" as exercised in this hobby is broader than that.

For example, roleplay is wearing a certain set of clothes because your character likes that color or that cloak. Roleplay is describing something in 3rd person, or even as a narrator, in order to invoke a particular feeling in a scene. Roleplay is having your brave fighter charge into combat with the ogres because that is just the way he is. It is all that and more. I don't like it when people claim that things aren't good roleplay if one deviates from first person speaking, or isn't sufficiently dramatic, or breaks immersion, or any number of such things we have seen implied over the years. So it would hardly be fair to let one slip when I happen to share the preference.

Now, what I would say is that what you described is good characterization. And people who play a 10 Cha character as always doing well socially are thus displaying bad characterization. Since I value characterization a lot (far more than immersionist behavior or dramatic first person speaking in character, for example), then I probably don't want to play with them. But "bad roleplay" is a bridge too far.

 

[Hussar]

Ahhh, there is the word I was looking for. "Characterization".

I have to admit, I tend to think that role playing and characterization go hand in hand. But, CJ, you do make a darn good argument.

Let me try to take a slightly different stab at the beast. If I watch someone play their character for a session or two, I should be able to pick up that character sheet and there should be no surprises, IMO. If the player is playing a highly intelligent, tactical character, then I should see a decent Int score on that character.

OTOH, if the player is playing very tactically, turning his characters into some sort of Special Forces operative who never makes a mistake, and I pick up the character sheet and its got an 8 Int and 6 Wis, there's a disconnect.

For my own sense of immersion, there should never be that disconnect. Note that should is the operative word there. We all overplay our characters from time to time. If you're reading this, you've probably been gaming for a number of years and you don't make the rookie mistakes (most likely) anymore. Yes, your character is carrying those silver weapons "just in case". Yes, you search for secret doors. Yes, you listen at doors and don't just open them. That sort of thing.

We all do it. And, by and large, so long as it doesn't get too out of hand, it's not a big deal.

But, as I said, if I pick up a character sheet and go, "huh? What?" then someone, somewhere along the line has failed to characterize that character very well.

Or, to put it another way, if you're playing B.A. Barracus, don't be Face. For me, it's very immersion breaking to know that you are playing a character other than what's in front of you. In my mind, the measure of a good roleplayer is how well he can portray the character he created.

Characterization, to me, is probably the most important element of roleplay.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I agree Hussar that playing your character according to his stats is important. I still prefer RP be handled without rolls and have no problem with a charming person playing a charming character well (I don't want the system to reduce my enjoyment of the game in order to level the playing field for non-charming people). But as a GM I tend to give an A for effort. If a person who isn't charming at least tries to play his CHR 18 character to the hilt, then I will take his 18 CHR into account and most likely have NPCs respond favorably to him. For me the fun of gaming is the interaction between the characters and having a sense of being there on the scene.