What exactly is "Roleplaying", Do We Think?

[pemerton]

Role-playing is the act of playing a character in a role-playing game.

Nothing more, nothing less.

This can mean treating the character as a game piece in a board(less) game, as a character being portrayed by an actor, as a character being written by an author, as an author-insert character being written by an author, and even a whole other person, complete with a (made-up) point-of-view and (makeshift) interior life.

OK, but I think you've deferred all the challenging bits via the phrase "in a roleplaying game".

At this moment, my broad summary of roleplaying would be:

Fiction -----> System -----> Fiction

Suppose I start from here, and add in:

*the fiction should include a signficant amount of content of which particular protagonists are at the centre;

*the system should focus to a signficiant extent on mediating the fictional deeds of those protgaonists.

Clearly I've now narrowed your summary. Do you think I've narrowed it too far to be useful? Or would I still capture some central and perhaps typical cases of RPGing?

I think roleplaying is...

...characterised by two steps:

1) I form a view of the world in my imagination as a character (which I am "roleplaying") sees the situation they are in, and

2) I have that character take decisions based on that view of the (imaginary) world.

This includes my two mooted additions to chaochou's account, but leaves out system. I agree with chaochou that if it hasn't got system of some sort, than it's not RPGing.

From my perspective, roleplaying in tabletop roleplaying games, is the first person interaction by one or more players (through their characters), with a virtual setting, its inhabitants, and one another, by means of a facilitator who acts as the sensory conduit for the player characters. The players detail the actions of their characters with first person narrative and/or dialogue, the facilitator describes the consequences (perhaps introducing additional exposition and elements of conflict), and the process continues in like fashion.

I think that this leaves out system - or, alternatively, it assumes a "drama"/"free roleplaying" approach to resolution.

I mean, suppose there is a big battle going on, and PC X suddenly confronts his/her rival warlord. "Drop your weapon and surrender" says X. If the GM (or whichever other participant has responsibility for determining what the rival does in the fiction) calls for a die roll (say, an Intimidate skill check) is this part of the roleplaying process, or orthogonal to it, or antithetical to it?

I agree with chaochou that this is part of roleplaying - the mediation of fiction by system. When the system involves dice rather than free narration it doesn't become less roleplaying.

IIn my experience everyone I have gamed with over the past twenty five years pretty much understands role playing to mean something like mark's definition. I am sure someone could try to deconstruct it into oblivion, but it has an obvious and real meaning for most gamers (or at least I think for gamers who have been around since 1 and 2e).

Whereas I think that there is no need to deconstruct it - it tends to break down on its own as soon as certain sorts of issues are thrown up by the rulesets that people are using - like reaction rolls and social skills (which I gather are the issue being discussed on the thread the OP forked from), or the role of fictional positioning in 3E and 4e combat, etc.​

 

[pemerton]

On the whole "how important is consistency in characterisation" issue, I'm strongly on Mallus's side. Player freedom to engage the gameworld is the most important thing.

I'm very hostile to heavy-handed GMing (eg in the style of 1st ed AD&D alignment mechanics) to keep player choices in line. I see it as a matter of social contract - what are our expectations at this table as to what is good, polite, non-disruptive etc play?

Apart from anything else, it always has to be open to a player to present his/her PC as undergoing a dramatic transformation, and in the roleplaying medium it's unrealistic to expect this to be handled in the same sort of way that it would be in a film or literature. As Mallus said, play is all, and dramatic transformations are demonstrated via the play that reveals them, not the (imagined) mental anguish that precedes them.

 

[Umbran]

I can't stop you from accepting poor acting as roleplay.

Wow. Condescending, dude.

Look, is anyone at your table an Oscar nominee? Anyone have a leading role in a national TV show? Or maybe playing with the Royal Shakespeare Company? No? Well, then maybe you (and we) shouldn't really be worried about the quality of the acting.

Here's the litmus test: If you were reading the adventure as a book or TV show, would you really accept crappy acting as good writing?

Here's the thing - it isn't my story. If it isn't a problem for my other players, I have absolutely no reason to pass judgement on the quality. If everyone at the table is having a good time, that's what matters.

 

[Wiseblood]

I got the impression from the OP that the question is " Do you think X, as a resolution method, is role playing?" My answer is yes? N
o wait, it's blue.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Whereas I think that there is no need to deconstruct it - it tends to break down on its own as soon as certain sorts of issues are thrown up by the rulesets that people are using - like reaction rolls and social skills (which I gather are the issue being discussed on the thread the OP forked from), or the role of fictional positioning in 3E and 4e combat, etc.

i dont see that at all. Mark is answering the question what is roleplaying, not what is a roleplaying game. He is addressing what people mean when they talk about roleplaying in the context of an rpg. You are describing the game element. So i dont see reaction rolls or social skills breaking down his definition or the term. These are tools used to help account for a characters skill level (though personally I think social skills can interfere with roleplaying when used in certain ways). There is a roll playing element to the hobby, but that part of it, imo, is different from the role playing aspect.

 

[jeffh]

On the whole "how important is consistency in characterisation" issue, I'm strongly on Mallus's side. Player freedom to engage the gameworld is the most important thing.

I don't think it reigns supreme over some minimal effort at consistent characterization. I'll accept some pretty thin rationales for apparent breaking of character, but surely not everything goes. Just because there's more than one "right" way to play a given character, doesn't mean some aren't better than others, and it certainly doesn't mean there aren't any wrong ones.

 

[Janx]

Wow. Condescending, dude.

Look, is anyone at your table an Oscar nominee? Anyone have a leading role in a national TV show? Or maybe playing with the Royal Shakespeare Company? No? Well, then maybe you (and we) shouldn't really be worried about the quality of the acting.



Here's the thing - it isn't my story. If it isn't a problem for my other players, I have absolutely no reason to pass judgement on the quality. If everyone at the table is having a good time, that's what matters.

I'm sorry for saying that in a jerky way. If you say your paladin who's been LG since day one, just snapped and went CE on the village, and I am sitting next to you at the table, I am telling you, that is crap role-playing.

Since I am not having fun, and the group experience is OUR story, you are tainting it by treating your character as a game piece, rather than playing the role you defined.

Don't mistake my use of the word acting. it is merely the word I've chosen to denote portraying your PC as a character, rather than a game piece, since the term role-playing has too unspecific of a definition. I am not talking about people speaking with flawless shakespearian accents and other silly crap.

I'm saying that when you tell me your PC is just like Jack Bauer on 24 but different, then I bloody well expect a consistent potrayal of your PC that reminds me more of Jack Bauer than Murdock from the A-Team. At least have the consistency to say "Damnit" every now and then.

 

[Desdichado]

What if that definition changes/evolves over the course of the campaign?

(consistency is the hobgoblin of little PCs)

As well it should. Like many words in the dictionary, roleplaying is a term that has multiple related yet different meanings and which one applies depends on context. At it's simplest, it means taking on a role that is not your own, i.e. playing a character. I've also been involved in roleplaying in training exercises at work that meant putting me (as myself) in a fictional yet realistic situation and having me go through methods to resolve it. I've also used roleplaying as the part of a roleplaying game when you're doing the whole "method actor" moments; speaking or acting in character, going through little details, etc. that is somewhat divorced from the game aspect of an RPG.

I actually don't think there's as much confusion about the term roleplaying as people sometimes make it out to be. For the most part, what it means is pretty obvious from context. A lot of times the charge of "that's not roleplaying" or "maybe you should get a new label for your game, because it's no longer a roleplaying game" or whatever are more about scoring points in an imaginary "playstyle wars" kind of way rather than indicating true confusion. It's a common failing amongst people that they pretend not to understand stuff that they don't like or don't agree with, when they actually understand it just fine--they just don't like it or don't agree with it.

I get that kind of playing dumb from my teenagers all the time when they're in a punk mood and just want to be contrary and ornery. But I get it plenty from other folks who are older too, and I've caught myself doing it plenty of times myself.

 

[Desdichado]

Wow. Condescending, dude.

Look, is anyone at your table an Oscar nominee? Anyone have a leading role in a national TV show? Or maybe playing with the Royal Shakespeare Company? No? Well, then maybe you (and we) shouldn't really be worried about the quality of the acting.

That's a rather classic fallacy there, Umbran. Not only does a player not need to be internationally recognized as a great actor to care about his acting, but there's a lot of ground between "Oscar worthy performance" and "caring enough about some consistency to not throw completely out of character actions in just because they're more convenient." You create a false binary here and then say that if you're not on one pole, then you have to be on the other. That's obviously not true.

Here's the thing - it isn't my story. If it isn't a problem for my other players, I have absolutely no reason to pass judgement on the quality. If everyone at the table is having a good time, that's what matters.

I think in the scenario Janx described it clearly and obviously is a problem for at least one of the other players--him! (and I include the GM here as a "player" in this context.) Therefore, saying that if it isn't a problem for the other players then it's not a problem doesn't answer the question at all.

EDIT: For the record, I think the answer of, "I don't think that's a problem, and if you think it's a problem, then you're probably too 'precious' to enjoy a game at my table," is a perfectly acceptable answer. Frankly, I wish more gamers would be that straightforward with each other. It would really cut down on all of the passive aggressive (and other) horror stories that everyone seems to have about gamers from their past that they never want to play with again.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think it reigns supreme over some minimal effort at consistent characterization. I'll accept some pretty thin rationales for apparent breaking of character, but surely not everything goes.

I guess I wonder who the arbiter is.

Now I'm not saying that there can be no stanards in the absence of an arbiter. I mean, there are no appeals from the Supreme Court, but that doesn't mean that it is not bound by law. But there is a huge administrative and cultural apparatus around the Supreme Court that helps hold it to the relevant standards - and even then, disagreements are common.

In the case of an RPG, where the stakes are so much lower, even if I assume there are standards (and I'm not sure this is true - where are they found?) what is the corresponding apparatus? The only one I can see is the presence of other participants at the table. If they are going to send some scorn your way for your sudden change of character, maybe that's a reason not to do it. If you want to soldier on anyway, good luck to you! Mabye your fellows will go along for the laugh, maybe they'll try to boot you from the game.

I'm not sure what I've written is very clear, but I'm trying to explain why I think it's more helpful to think of this in social contract terms ("Is this how we want to play our game together?") rather than in standards terms ("Is that good or bad RP?").