D&D 5E Character play vs Player play

[iserith]

I guess the next question becomes, what happens if you bring assumptions from one game into another?

Dissatisfaction, in my experience. Mostly from GMs who try to one game like another and it falls flat.

But in what ways will 5e push back if a group approaches its action resolution and skill systems in a more 4e style? The rules state that it is the GM's game, but in what way do they enforce this?

It needn't be the game itself that "pushes back," and indeed that does not appear to be the case with the poster's game that is under discussion. It became a conflict between how the DM was running the game given his or her understanding of D&D 5e versus a player that wanted to approach play as he did in D&D 4e. Dissatisfaction followed.

 

[pemerton]

It became a conflict between how the DM was running the game given his or her understanding of D&D 5e versus a player that wanted to approach play as he did in D&D 4e. Dissatisfaction followed.

I guess I don't really see it as an edition thing. The scenarios that have been described (the food critic, the succubus) could have been run just as easily in 4e, and would likely have been equally unsatisfactory to the player in question.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Do you think sandboxes necessarily have to be the way you describe? Or is this an understandable generalization of the "level 1 stuff goes here, level 4 stuff goes here" style of sandbox?

I ask because this is not at all how I view the sandbox campaigns I run. The players -via their characters- are constantly pushing at goals they have. This makes the entire game seem rather connected, from my experience. It has a bit more of a "timeline of multiple individuals" feel than a "bunch of random unconnected events that don't have any relation to one another" feel. That description doesn't reflect my experience, but I could see what you mean if you were referring to the sandbox layout I described, above.

When I've been a player in those campaigns, I've felt that they are random, unconnected events. Player 1 wants to find his father and he is spending his time talking to contacts and attempting to track down his last known location. Player 2 wants to become the head of the thieves guild and spends his time coming up with plots that will eventually lead him there. Player 3 wants to be a pirate and spends his time at sea robbing ships. Player 4 wants to track down a holy relic of his faith that was stolen by Orcs.

There is no real reason for the PCs to help each other or adventure together other than an arbitrary reason they make up themselves or the DM forces on them. They have no common goals so they aren't really a team. They are instead just a bunch of individuals who happen to be nearby each other. Which isn't really a story, it's a bunch of dueling egos attempting to get as much game time for "their" story over everyone else's. Or, for less motivated players, it's a bunch of waiting around wishing someone would take charge and lead the game in an interesting direction.

I like structure. I like the idea that the DM says "Here's the reason you guys are together. Here is your goal. Now try to accomplish that goal using any means at your disposal."

To me it's the difference between throwing a bunch of actors on stage and saying "ACT!" and saying "This is a play about the Civil War. You are all Union soldiers who are trapped in a cave while a battle goes on around you. You've been ordered to get a message to your commander but there are a bunch of Yankee soldiers between you and your destination. Now...ACT!"

The former is likely to degrade into actors staring at each other trying to figure out even what genre they are acting out. One actor might like one genre better than another and will keep attempting to push the story toward that genre while another actor might hate that genre and keep trying to shift it in a different direction. I've seen it happen in improv acting before. I mentioned way earlier in this thread, but there is a play I go to every year called D&D Improv where it's basically an improvised D&D game with dice only being used in combat and rare circumstances. Each of the actors has made up their own character and their own backgrounds. They have a DM who has come up with an overarching plot and will narrate that events happen to push them towards it. You can tell that each of them wants their character to be more important to the story, however, so they will use dialog in order to mention their background more and more often to force the story to revolve around them more and more. Because the more their personal background is mentioned the more likely the other actors will attempt to revolve scenes around it and the more likely the DM will incorporate their backgrounds into the narrative of the story.

Luckily, that play involves a DM to push the actors forward. They've been doing it for years and I've seen years where the DM takes a very light hand in the show. Those years were the worst. It mostly involved actors talking past one another. For instance:

1: "What happened to my parents? I still haven't found them! I've been looking all over!"
2: "I know what you mean. I am supposed to become the hero of the realm by destiny but so far I've just been beaten by Orcs. When will my destiny come true?"
3: "I want to get better at magic. I still can't cast a single spell!"
1: "At any rate, maybe my parents are in that wood over there. Let's go in there and see if they are there."
2: "Yes. Perhaps my destiny is in that forest. Let's go in there and see if I can become a hero."
3: "Maybe there will be someone to teach me magic in the forest. Let's go."

Each of them is hoping that in the next scene in the forest, they can make the scene about their particular plot.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Yeah I have to admit that's a pretty insulting attitude. The "game" is made fun by everyone who participates. It's not a black and white situation where either someone is entertaining you or you are the entertainer. Everyone entertains everyone else by pulling together and creating a good social and gaming environment. If you want to be entertained, go watch Age of Ultron.

No offense but that's just AS insulting. You want entertainment? Get out of my D&D! You're doing it wrong! Watch a movie instead of playing my game that's not meant to entertain you! You are being an entitled brat!

I've been playing for 20 years and the DM has ALWAYS been the one entertaining us. I've yet to play in a single game where the reverse is true, despite playing with at least 50 DMs at this point. My original group consisted of 14 people, each of which took turns DMing their own games. We had favorite games because that DM was more entertaining than other DMs. I lived in Australia for a year and joined 4 different campaigns via people I met at the local game store. All of them ran prewritten adventures and felt it was their job to entertain the group. I joined a group of people I met off of Meetup.com that was the only group to even come close to running a "sandbox game". The DM there insisted on making up our backgrounds for us by constantly telling us we knew NPCs that he made up and that we had histories with them. I did not enjoy it at all. I wanted control of my own background. His game was weird because it was extremely improv, nothing planned in advance and you can tell the DM was purposefully working all of our character backgrounds into his story as he went. But as he came up with ideas, he'd just narrate us into the story, telling us what our characters thought and did. It was extremely railroady. Other than that, I've never played a game where the players drove the game ever. A couple of times the DM stepped back when they didn't have a currently planned adventure and asked us what we wanted to do and it would get sandboxy for a session or two during our "downtime" between planned adventures. But these were best kept to one session because they'd become stupid and boring if allowed to go on longer than that.

Being a DM is a responsibility. It is a heavy one and requires a lot of work to come up with an interesting adventure that people will find fun. But in all of that time, I was rarely even asked what my character background was. If someone did ask, they'd take note of the major details and forget about the rest. It never even came up in game 95% of the time. Sure, I was the lost, forgotten heir to the elven throne...but that's not what this adventure was about. That fact was an interesting personality quirk, not an adventure hook. I got to roleplay the crap out of it, bemoaning that fate had taken away my legacy. But the important thing was that the Holy Grail had been discovered and the bad guys were using it to destroy the world. My heritage could wait. And I was fine with that because I was enjoying the heck out of the storyline about the Holy Grail.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If I remember correctly, the D&D 3e DMG characterized the DM as the "Master of Fun," the guy or gal tasked with the "job" of entertainment and making sure the players have fun. In D&D 4e, that changed to everyone's responsibility. I'm not sure what DMGs prior to D&D 3e said about this, but if anyone cut their teeth on or played/ran a lot of D&D 3e, I could see why they'd have the impression that the players are there to be entertained rather responsible for everyone else's entertainment as well.

Of course everyone is there to at least partially entertain the other players. But I don't think the responsibility is on their shoulders.

Sure, I think everyone should come up with an interesting personality quirk and play it up whenever possible to make the other players smile and laugh every once in a while. I think it's the player's responsibility to attempt to engage with the game and not sit there idle. But I don't think that if the players are tired or unmotivated one day that the game comes to a complete standstill because without them driving the plot forward it goes nowhere. I don't think it's the player's responsibility to come up with plot at all. They are the actors, not the writers or directors. Actors are responsible for making the movie interesting. They aren't responsible for coming up with the villain's motivation.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I considered elaborating on this when I originally said it, but I thought it might be off-topic. Now though I'll explain my take:

NPCs sometimes make requests. The requests don't come from me, they come from the NPCs. It's up to you what, if anything, you do about those requests. If you help someone out and they stiff you afterwards, or turn out to have been lying to you about the mission, or steal your money while you're gone--that's between you and the NPC. The DM has no stake in it, he just imposes the consequences and rewards XP whenever you overcome an obstacle towards your self-imposed goals. (E.g. if you want to build houses for orphans, I'll give you bonus XP for finding a source of wood, assuming it wasn't trivially easy.)

If the king asks you to solve a mystery, and you decide you'd rather frame the king, depose him, and take over, I'll grant you XP for that. I don't give quests, so you won't upset me by "doing it wrong."

I do try to give you interesting things to do and interact with, but they're not "quests" in the sense I think modern players are used to from video games and such.

Why would giving out quests be "doing it wrong?"

Also, those are all still quests...they just aren't very epic. Which means they aren't very fun. To me, saving the world is fun. Killing 5 orcs because they want a pie is not.

Framing the king, deposing him and taking over just means that campaign is now in a situation that makes it nearly impossible for it to continue. The PCs now have to spend their full time ruling a kingdom and dealing with taxation issues, dealing with squabbling nobles and generally dealing with the mundane dealings of life. They are no longer adventurers and therefore aren't in the campaign anymore that deals with "adventure". Which means going into ancient dungeons, killing monsters and saving the world.

I will allow my PCs to take actions like that but unless they immediately step down as king or find a really good reason for their characters to continue to make the campaign focus on adventure...they become NPCs and roll up a new character.

 

[spinozajack]

Interesting thread.

Speaking about Gygax' 1st edition loot-and-play exploration gamestyle being encouraged (if not enforced) by the rules for XP rewards, based on getting gold, killing more monsters, casting spells, doing your classes' primary function well, is to my mind the definition of what a roleplaying game is.

If you are given class advancement rewards for defeating challenges, irrespective of how you go about it (the ends justify the means type XP reward system), then that is an anti-roleplaying game. It means, do whatever action is expedient to get the most XP for the smallest time. Or, you do not have to play that way, but if you play this way or that way, you get the same rewards. No. XP is a cornerstone of D&D. People who ignore it, I believe, aren't playing the game properly. I really do believe this, after many years of the trends of D&D being to just level people up at fixed points. I thought back to a very long term campaign in 2nd edition I was involved in for many years, and remember at the end of each session, looking forward to justifying my actions and roleplaying decisions to the DM to get the most XP, and consequently, when I played my character better (according to the kit and background description that was written down at character creation), I was rewarded with more XP. When we had other players trying to pretend like they were lawful good but instead were more selfish or greedy or smash n grab style players, the DM wouldn't award them with as much XP, and that was incentive for them to try and improve, or possibly alter their alignment so that their preferred ideal of what their character was would be reflected in what was written.

To reiterate, a roleplaying game should have rules for roleplaying. D&D no longer does, really. It has vague suggestions. It has an alignment system that is of no consequence. It has XP rewards that are undefined, even to the point of saying that XP itself can be completely ignored in the rules and levels awarded at plot chapter transitions. This to me makes the actual act of roleplaying one that is at best tangential to the game, one where roleplaying is not valued. They tried to add value to roleplaying well, with the inspiration, traits, bonds, flaws system, but who uses it? There is no benefit to doing so. My benefit for roleplaying my character well should be rewarded in terms of experience. If there's no competition between players or even with yourself, to improve your roleplaying, then there is no incentive to improve. At best it becomes "fluff" and the only important thing that determines if you level up this session is that you didn't die, and the group killed the BBEG in time for breakfast. That's not a roleplaying game, that's truly a hack and slash, and Gygax' D&D was so much more than that. You played a class, even in ways other than mechanics, the roleplaying itself was expected to be different. A chaotic neutral rogue was expected to play differently than a lawful good paladin. And that was supported by the rules by the alignment system, as well as the different ways that different classes were awarded experience. A wizard got XP by clever use of their spells, using mind over matter, researching new spells or finding scrolls and successfully acquiring them. A fighter gained XP by fighting. A rogue by stealing things, and acquiring gold. A paladin by being honorable and saving the children, not just by maximizing the number of orcs he killed. Those things are the core of what a roleplaying game is. It saddens me that D&D has stopped being a roleplaying game long ago. At best, roleplaying is something you do in between battles to give the dice a rest, it's not part of the actual game per se. If this was a roleplaying game, where are the rules for roleplaying? There are none. Except for inspiration and traits and bonds, but those things actually don't mean anything because few people actually award differential XP levels to different people in the group. I've never seen a group since 2nd ed where PCs gained levels at more than 1 session apart, or had more than 1 level of difference between them. This is negative reinforcement that playing your character well should allow you to progress faster than someone who doesn't play the game well. That's what a game is, to me. If you have individual XP values, and individual levels, why are they often if not always normalized among the group? Thanks for invalidating all that great roleplaying I did, dungeon master, you just leveled the guy who phoned it in and played his paladin like a greedy wandering murder hobo the same as you did my character who followed his character sheet's description to the letter and impressed everyone in the process.

True creativity doesn't come when there are no limitations, instead it thrives when constraints are placed upon you. If you pick a character with a certain background, with certain traits and flaws and goals, you should be rewarded in this game of roleplaying, for actually roleplaying and not just killing stuff. It's ironic that people say Gygax' D&D was hack n slash, when it was that only for fighters, whereas rogues often avoided battle because they could rise in the ranks faster and easier by sneaking around and stealing gold from under the ogre's nose.

Modern D&D is not really a roleplaying game, it's a game where you can roleplay in it, if you like to. Big difference.

 

[Sunseeker]

No offense but that's just AS insulting. You want entertainment? Get out of my D&D! You're doing it wrong! Watch a movie instead of playing my game that's not meant to entertain you! You are being an entitled brat!

You do realize the remainder of your post is basically saying this back to me right? That the way you've done it is the way you've always done it and the way you expect it to be done and any other way is wrong.

So sorry if I think you play a role in making the game entertaining even if you're not the DM.

I don't even know what the rest of your post about backgrounds and stuff is about.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Why would giving out quests be "doing it wrong?"

Also, those are all still quests...they just aren't very epic. Which means they aren't very fun. To me, saving the world is fun. Killing 5 orcs because they want a pie is not.

Framing the king, deposing him and taking over just means that campaign is now in a situation that makes it nearly impossible for it to continue. The PCs now have to spend their full time ruling a kingdom and dealing with taxation issues, dealing with squabbling nobles and generally dealing with the mundane dealings of life. They are no longer adventurers and therefore aren't in the campaign anymore that deals with "adventure". Which means going into ancient dungeons, killing monsters and saving the world.

I will allow my PCs to take actions like that but unless they immediately step down as king or find a really good reason for their characters to continue to make the campaign focus on adventure...they become NPCs and roll up a new character.

I think you misheard what I said about "doing it wrong". What I said was that I will never tell my players they are "doing it wrong" if they decide to murder the king and depose him instead of acceding to his request (e.g. to rescue the princess, solve a murder, whatever). I didn't say that other DMs are "doing it wrong" when they give out quests. Different strokes for different folks.

If you don't think non-epic activities are fun, I'm cool with that. Currently my PCs are busy trying to find a new planet for their kingdom to move to, after they basically rendered the old one uninhabitable with the vampires they created. (They've got 800,000 people in their kingdom, and a ship that can only move about 6000 people at a time even if they leave behind all of their livestock/furniture/etc., so in addition to finding a new planet they probably will also need a larger fleet... which is great, because my PCs are already interested in acquiring a fleet anyway!) Is that epic? Who cares? Not me! I just know that they care about it so I will support it. But it's fine if you don't think that sounds interesting and want to fight dragons and stuff--and if my players were interested in that, I'd tell them where the dragons are and let them go to work. (Oh yes, another reason they're fleeing the planet is that a adult red dragon has taken a personal interest in them, and not a friendly one.)

In short, I don't share your preference for restricting D&D to "ancient dungeons, killing monsters and saving the world", but I'm glad you enjoy your game.

 

[Hussar]

Of course everyone is there to at least partially entertain the other players. But I don't think the responsibility is on their shoulders.

Sure, I think everyone should come up with an interesting personality quirk and play it up whenever possible to make the other players smile and laugh every once in a while. I think it's the player's responsibility to attempt to engage with the game and not sit there idle. But I don't think that if the players are tired or unmotivated one day that the game comes to a complete standstill because without them driving the plot forward it goes nowhere. I don't think it's the player's responsibility to come up with plot at all. They are the actors, not the writers or directors. Actors are responsible for making the movie interesting. They aren't responsible for coming up with the villain's motivation.

Wow, I so do not want this.

I want the players to have those backgrounds and make them important in the game. If your character is the lost elven heir, it's your job as a player to make that important in the game. If you put that in your background and then never reference it? Fair enough, you put me, the DM in the driver's seat. But you make it important? You can guarantee in my game that my game will now be about your character.

I LOATHE campaigns where the PC's can be interchangeable. Where if you brought completely different characters, the campaign would be exactly the same. As a player, I get so frustrated by DM's who insist that their ideas are the only ones that matter and the player's are just along for the ride. No thanks. If a PC dies in my campaigns, that's a major campaign changing event because all those plot lines tied to that PC are now affected. And, I no longer let people make their characters in a vacuum. Your PC's are all interconnected, and it's up to you, the players to figure out what those connections are before play even starts.

I want the players to tell me what my campaign will be about. I might start with some bare bones elements to get the ball rolling, but, if you want to sit in the passenger seat, this campaign isn't going anywhere.