D&D 5E Role playing and wargaming

[Tony Vargas]

I'm familiar with the passage. I typed it out into the thread I linked to in my previous post.

I didn't say it's lip service.

You wouldn't have been far wrong if you had. There wasn't a big trend towards denigrating 'ROLLplaying,' yet though, so that's the only reason you'd've been off. He couldn't have been paying lip-service to groupthink prejudices the group hadn't started thinking as a group, yet.

But, yeah, it's a vague idea in an intro that is never built upon. It's nice to know the idea had flitted across his mind at some point (and typically, writers pen a 'forward' last, anyway)...

 

[Sacrosanct]

But, yeah, it's a vague idea in an intro that is never built upon. It's nice to know the idea had flitted across his mind at some point (and typically, writers pen a 'forward' last, anyway)...

Vague idea? How much more clear do you need from the game to tell you role playing is important beyond the "YOU act out your character as if you were him/her! You go on adventures, drink, party, gamble, everything you can think of! You're not playing FAllstaff, you ARE Fallstaff! You'll be an artful thespian by playing this game!"

You sure have a funny idea of what vague is. I don't see how that can be more explicit than it already is. And it doesn't need to be built on because it's not needed. Did you need detailed instructions as a kid on how to play pretend?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Vague idea?

Compared to those backed up by hundreds of pages of rules, yeah.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'll also note this fallacy that you (and Saelorn and Tony) seem to keep repeating. That the importance and impact on gameplay of a rule is directly correlated to how many pages it takes up. I said it before that you quoted earlier. How many pages of "role playing is important part of the game" do you really need? You don't, because there is no mechanic around that. When Gygax says something like "you'll be an artful thespian [by playing the game]", that seems pretty obvious, especially with all the other supporting evidence we've already provided, of what the intent of the game is..

Compared to those backed up by hundreds of pages of rules, yeah.

I'm pretty convinced you're trolling at this point. Because I know for a fact that at least 3 times in the past week or so, it's been shown to you how that is a fallacy. And yet you keep repeating it as if repeating it makes it true. It doesn't. You don't need instructions on how to play pretend. You do need instructions for how to mechanically resolve detailed rules. And even IF it were true, it's also a fallacy to argue that the less pages a rule has, the more vague it is. Simply untrue. If something is simple, it can be incredibly explicit and brief in explanation. Just like in this example. There's nothing vague in that paragraph. It literally tells you that you play your PCs in the first person in all interactions, just like an actor with a role. It's the literal definition of what role-playing is.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Because I know for a fact that at least 3 times in the past week or so, it's been shown to you how that is a fallacy.

In one context, the old 'RPGs are violent' accusation, sure, it was used fallaciously.

I'm pretty convinced you're trolling at this point.

Then block me rather than stooping to personal attacks.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm pretty convinced you're trolling at this point. Because I know for a fact that at least 3 times in the past week or so, it's been shown to you how that is a fallacy. And yet you keep repeating it as if repeating it makes it true. It doesn't. You don't need instructions on how to play pretend. You do need instructions for how to mechanically resolve detailed rules. And even IF it were true, it's also a fallacy to argue that the less pages a rule has, the more vague it is. Simply untrue. If something is simple, it can be incredibly explicit and brief in explanation. Just like in this example. There's nothing vague in that paragraph. It literally tells you that you play your PCs in the first person in all interactions, just like an actor with a role. It's the literal definition of what role-playing is.

The prominence of the piece of text is determined by the reader though.

One game my friends like to play is Descent: Journeys in the Dark. They include text passages on the story that is unfolding, each character as a backstory tying them to the world, but I've never felt like I am Syndrael the Elven Knight. Even if the book states I become my character, like an actor on the stage, that is not the expeirence I have playing.


For people in 80's the mention of magic and demons in DnD was enough to label it as evil and satanic, even if a certain group never encountered a single demon or devil in the course of the game.


You clearly see that passage as incredibly important to the play of the game, the entire intent of the game. I agree with you, but I can see how someone who had a different expeirence would not emphasize that passage to the degree you are, and may even discount it as mere puffery.

After all, if I were to take the same paragraph and adapt it to Monopoly or Risk for instance, it would seem like an absurd attempt. Those games also don't have rules for playing pretend, but like you say you didn't need rules for playing pretend as a child. I'd bet though that an attempt to add that into those game rules would seem like an attempt at selling you on something.

I think that is the debate, did the author really want to focus on that aspect, or was it simply a thought they had and hadn't quite figured out how to implement it beyond a single page of advice on how to act while playing the game?

How important is it that he compares the player to a thespian? That depends on your reading and expeirence, it is subjective.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The prominence of the piece of text is determined by the reader though.

One game my friends like to play is Descent: Journeys in the Dark. They include text passages on the story that is unfolding, each character as a backstory tying them to the world, but I've never felt like I am Syndrael the Elven Knight. Even if the book states I become my character, like an actor on the stage, that is not the expeirence I have playing.


For people in 80's the mention of magic and demons in DnD was enough to label it as evil and satanic, even if a certain group never encountered a single demon or devil in the course of the game.


You clearly see that passage as incredibly important to the play of the game, the entire intent of the game. I agree with you, but I can see how someone who had a different expeirence would not emphasize that passage to the degree you are, and may even discount it as mere puffery.

After all, if I were to take the same paragraph and adapt it to Monopoly or Risk for instance, it would seem like an absurd attempt. Those games also don't have rules for playing pretend, but like you say you didn't need rules for playing pretend as a child. I'd bet though that an attempt to add that into those game rules would seem like an attempt at selling you on something.

I think that is the debate, did the author really want to focus on that aspect, or was it simply a thought they had and hadn't quite figured out how to implement it beyond a single page of advice on how to act while playing the game?

How important is it that he compares the player to a thespian? That depends on your reading and expeirence, it is subjective.

That isn't what was argued though. Sealorn said it didn't even exist, when it clearly does. Permeton said "don't use personal experience, look at what the actual rules say", when those actual rules are very clear. This isn't a matter of interpretation. Did early D&D emphasis the importance of role playing? Yes it did, objectively, and we can point right to where it does that. My opinion or anyone else's isn't relevant. It's literally right there, in black and white, with unambiguous text. and it's not just one passage. That was used as evidence, along with all the other cited passages from a lot of other sources of the day. So clearly it was important.

 

[pemerton]

I completely agree that it is an interesting thing to look at and consider, however, you will find nothing but frustration if you attempt to apply objective truth to something as subjective as reading interpretation.

It seems clear to me that for [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION] that paragraph was more than enough to encourage all the levels of role-playing they engaged in back when they played that edition.

That's not in dispute.

But if you think that what is said in Gygax's PHB is just the same as what is said in the 2nd ed PHB, then frankly I'm baffled. Nowhere does Gygax actually talk about creating a unique personality.

And have you actually read pp 107-9 of his PHB? Have you read the articles I referred to in early White Dwarf?

Back in the 70s through at least early 80s there was an approach to RPGing called "skilled play". Here is an example of how that unfolds, from Gygax's DMG (p 98):

DM: ”The floor is damp and rough. There are arches supporting the ceiling, starting from a spot about 8 above the floor and meeting about 20' height in the central dome of the place - it is difficult to tell, because the whole ceiling area is covered with webs . . . . Possibly old cobwebs. Oh yes. There are some mouldering sacks in the southwest corner, and some rubbish iumbled in the center of the floor - which appears to be dirt, old leather, rotting cloth, and possibly sticks or bones or something similar.”

LC: (A confused babble breaks out at this point, with players suggesting all sorts of different actions. The leader cautions them and tries for a careful, reasoned, methodical approach.) “The gnome and the halfling will hand their torches to the fighter (me) and the cleric. They will then look down the east and west passages, while I check the one straight ahead to the south. The cleric will check the sacks, and the magic-user will examine the pile of refuse in the center of the chamber. Everyone agree?”

OC: ”Sure!” says the player with the cleric character, ”I’m moving over to the sacks now, sticking close to the lefthand wall.”

DM: ”What are the rest of you doing? As indicated? Tell me how you are doing it, please.” (If miniature figures and a floor plan are being used, each player can simply move his or her figurine to show route of movement and final position. Otherwise, each player must describe actions iust as the cleric character player did above.)

LC: ”They are now in position, what is seen and what happens?”

DM: ”Just as the three are about in position to look down the passages, and while the cleric is heading for the rotting bags, the magic-user cries out, and you see something black and nasty looking upon her shoulder!”

LC: “EVERYBODY, QUICK! SEE WHAT’S ATTACKED HER!” Then turning to the referee: “We rush over to help kill whatever has attacked her! What do we see?”

Etc​

Notice how PC personalities play absolutely no role in that example of play. What is important is that the players imagine themselves into the fictional situation, and declare actions for their PCs on that basis. A player in that sort of game does not need to be especially good at creating a unique personality, but does have to be good at imaginative problem-solving.

A readily accessible module (I'm pretty sure there was a free 3E re-release by WotC), that shows something of a high watermark for that sort of play, is White Plume Mountain. That module contains, just as one example, a frictionless corridor with pits that have spikes at the bottom that inflict "super-tetanus". Working out how to get down that corridor (eg by surfing dungeon doors down it) is not primarily a problem of characterisation. It's imaginative puzzle-solving.

If you and [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION] are denying that that style of play ever existed, or that it has relatively little in common with the sort of play espoused by a 1990s module like Dead Gods, or even a contemporary PF adventure path, then I'm not sure what to say - I've got pages of essays by Gygax, Pulsipher and others that talk about it, that talk about the differences between it and the style of those later modules, not to mention my own lived experience.

Personally, one of the more interesting relics of the game that I've heard about is that Gold=EXP.

From this I infer that you were not playing D&D in the late 70s or early 80s, when these rules were not "relics" but were current.

There's nothing wrong with being younger than me!, but I'm not sure then what exactly you are arguing with me about. Are you trying to tell me that discussions in the late 70s/early 80s of the difference between "skilled" play and "story/character-style" play were all confused because there was no difference to be talked about? Are you telling me that the play advice in Gygax's PHB, pp 107-109, is no different from the play advice in the 2nd ed PHB? Are you saying that you can't see any difference between White Plume Mountain and Dead Gods in terms of the sort of play the seem oriented towards?

That is fascinating to me, and has a ton of logistical problems along with it unless it was interpreted as getting the same amount of EXP as you receive gold.

I'm not sure what you mean by "logistical problems", but the rule is fairly simple: 1 XP is earned for each gp equivalent of treasure removed from the dungeon. There was a disagreement over whether or not magic items earned XP (originally the answer was "no", but AD&D said "yes").

This rule was invented in the context of a game of dungeon exploration. It operates against a background assumption that the main focus of play is entering dungeons, exploring them, finding valuable treasures, and then looting those treasures. (The basic mode of play is explained by Gygax in his DMG, pp 107-9. The example of play that I quoted above shows it at work.)

As the assumptions of play tend to change - eg people abandon ecologically and economically nonsensical "mega-dungeons" and try to build gaming settings that somewhat resemble an imagined fantasy mediaeval period (LotR, Conan, etc); that have villages and cities that aren't just abstract bases for buying gear and storing treasure but have their own politics, social customs, etc; then the logic of the gold-for-XP rule breaks down. (Empire of the Petal Throne is a curious example of this: it presents this amazingly thought out setting which seems ideal for intrigue, politicking, etc, the actual play of the game is presented as classic D&D dungeon crawling with XP for treasure. Weird.)

it is too easy to break if you allow selling things for gold to equal EXP

On the contrary, that is part of the point of playing in this style - you take not only coins but other looted gear and sell it. (See eg the discussion by Gygax in his DMG, pp 91-92, under the heading Placement of Monetary Treasure, where he emphasises that monetary treasure should often take the form of hard-to-lug-out gear that can then be sold for coins.)

why do you think we still have EXP= Monster killing these days?

Mostly for legacy reasons. But also because the default event of play, which the rules for D&D continue to support reasonably well, is the PCs fighting monsters or NPCs.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

And, as an honest question, why do you think we still have EXP= Monster killing these days?

Class progression, especially now that bounded accuracy has placed the burden of advancement more squarely on your Hit Points, is mostly about how well you can fight. Why would you expect to get better at fighting, by doing something other than fighting?

Or coming at that from the other direction, if your table doesn't particularly care about fighting, then why would it matter to you whether or not you gain levels? If you're playing a game of courtly intrigue, which eventually culminates in one battle against the evil chancellor, then how would that story suffer in any way if the party stayed level 1 for the entire duration?

 

[pemerton]

I'm rebutting a claim that Saelorn made that you seem to agree with.

I don't remember exactly what [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s origingal claim was.

I am agreeing with the OP. I think that what Gygax and others called "skilled play" was emphasised in the classic rulebooks and was once a widespread approach to playing the game. Certainly from 2nd ed AD&D on it has received almost no attention in the rulebooks, and I don't think it is very widespread anymore except among some OSRers.

To that extent I agree with the OP.

How many pages of "role playing is important part of the game" do you really need?

Gygax thought roleplaying was incredibly important. It's just that he though of RPing in different terms from how it is mostly used today. As is shown by pp 107-9 of his RPG, he thought of RPing as imaginatively engaging the ingame fictional situation. Not primarily as cultivating and expressing a pesonality for one's PC.

Permeton said "don't use personal experience, look at what the actual rules say", when those actual rules are very clear. This isn't a matter of interpretation. Did early D&D emphasis the importance of role playing? Yes it did, objectively, and we can point right to where it does that.

I'll also note this fallacy that you (and Saelorn and Tony) seem to keep repeating. That the importance and impact on gameplay of a rule is directly correlated to how many pages it takes up.

I'm pointing to the actual advice on play given by the author of the book at pages 107 (RHS)-109. These are the only pages I have pointed to (and p 108 is a full colour illustration, and there is an illustration at the bottom of the RHS of p 109 - so a bit less than 1.5 pages). These are headed "Successful Adventures". They open with the words "Few players are so skillful at fantasy role plauing games as to not benefit from advice," and they conclude with the words "If you believe that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is a game worth playing, you will certainly find it doubly so if you play well."

I therefore think it's fair to say that this is what Gygax thought was important to playing the game. And that advice doesn't say anything about character personality. It talks about buying equipment and preparing a party as a completely metagame affair, not something that would be roleplayed through at the table. (Quite different from the assumption at every 2nd ed table I ever played at.) It emphasises a proper mix of classes, spells etc, but doesn't say anything about ensuring PC personalities are compatible.

Thespianism is not mentioned once.

You don't need instructions on how to play pretend. You do need instructions for how to mechanically resolve detailed rules.

I think the thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) of posts on this and other forums, and the letters to Dragon magazine and other magazines before that, debating how to integrate "lets pretend" with rules-governed RPGing actually shows that some instructions, or at least advice, might be helpful.

Here's a very simple example: a player decides that his/her PC has a phobia of kobolds. The GM decides to run B2. When the PCs see kobolds, that player has his/her PC run screaming - with the result that the phobic PC is caught and killed by kobolds, and the presence and location of the other PCs is betrayed and the kobolds kill some and drive the others off.

How is this meant to be handled? Is the player of the phobic PC playing the game wrong? Did the GM do something wrong? Is this an example of the game working properly?

And in case anyone thinks that it's impossible to write RPG rules or advice that answers these questions, well, it's not, and if you're interested I'm happy to point you to some examples.

You didn't just get XP for killing monsters.

And I never said you did. But you did get XP for killing monsters. Why? Because they were a major obstacle to extracing treasure from dungeons.

Why was there no XP for defeating traps? No good reason that I know of, and Don Turnbull in a very early number of White Dwarf (c 1977) indicates that he awards XP for surviving traps, though he doesn't tell us how much.

Awarding XP for killing monsters makes relatively little sense if the main goal of play is to create and evince a unique personality. That's why RPGs were invented which didn't give XP for killing monsters (the first two I know of are Traveller and Runequest; I'm not sure about C&S).