D&D General Skilled Play, or Role Play: How Do You Approach Playing D&D?

[Charlaquin]

Put me in the “why not both?” camp.

I’m of the opinion that both player skill and avatar strength are important and neither should be ignored. The player skill component comes in with the action declaration - making good decisions about what to do will improve your chances of success. The avatar strength component comes in with the dice mechanics - having higher scores in the appropriate stats provides insurance against failure when you need to roll to resolve an action.

These components also feed into each other, as one element of player skill is learning to take actions that play to your avatar’s strengths. If you have high dexterity and low strength for example, it is skilled play to try to emphasize physical actions that are more rooted in agility and precision than direct force.

As for roleplaying, I am firmly of the opinion that roleplaying is no more and no less than the act of imagining yourself as another person and/or in a hypothetical scenario, and making decisions as you imagine you or that other person would in that scenario. Now, sometimes that might mean making decisions you as yourself wouldn’t make - the classic example of course being the low-Intelligence character eschewing the strategically superior option in favor of a more immediately gratifying option. And that’s fine. But it should always be the player’s decision what their character “would do.” It’s also an element of player skill to create characters who “would” be likely to make good strategic and tactical choices.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

P.S. you forgot the 10' poles that were absolutely necessary but magically evaporated when combat started only to reform when tapping your way down the hallway once more.

Is that 10' pole in your inventory, or are you happy to see me?

Forget?
To know the rules. To use a 10' pole to check for traps. To know how to use flaming oil.

 

[Oofta]

Is that 10' pole in your inventory, or are you happy to see me?

Forget?
To know the rules. To use a 10' pole to check for traps. To know how to use flaming oil.

Guess I need more caffeine EDIT: if it wasn't clear, I was making fun of the fact that all the 10' poles were also magic that disappeared and reappeared as needed .

 

[overgeeked]

It's not completely one thing or another, I think it is a complex issue.

If someone is playing a barbarian, I don't expect them to be able to bench press my couch. So if someone is playing a wizard with a 20 intelligence, why would I expect the player to solve a complex riddle? Along the same lines, I'm not a rogue trained in disarming traps. Why should I have to describe how I disarm a trap? If I can describe how I disable the trap, should that give me any advantage in the game? What if Bob the Body Builder (and yes, BBB insists that is his full name) can bench press my couch. Should I give some benefit to his 8 strength PC because he can describe how mightily he's flexing during his morning exercise routine?

On the other hand, if I enjoy describing how the trap is disabled that can also be part of the fun. I sometimes throw in complex traps and plenty of situations that can't be resolved with a die roll. So as a DM if I throw in a riddle, I do it as a hybrid. Set up the riddle and if the group seems to be enjoying figuring it out, great. If they're struggling (or simply groan "another riddle?") then I'll allow appropriate checks to get hints and clues to set them in the right direction

So it's a balance. Skilled play matters, tactics in combat matter, players figuring out how to avoid or neuter an obstacle. Tactics can make a big difference in combat. At the same time I want to also challenge the PC, not just the player.

P.S. you forgot the 10' poles that were absolutely necessary but magically evaporated when combat started only to reform when tapping your way down the hallway once more.

It’s the age-old problem of a charismatic player sweet talking the NPCs when the character has 3 CHA.

If I had to choose between roleplaying the interaction with the NPCs or environment and making a call based on that vs the players just declaring a skill check, I’d pick immersion in the world via roleplaying every time.

I think the 5E DMG rules for interacting with NPCs is a fairly good blend. Roleplay to possibly shift disposition, then roll when you get to the request or demand. Applying that more broadly to other areas could be useful in the player skill vs character stats debate.

 

[Monayuris]

To me, both are a part of the game, but Skilled Play is considered to be more important and more emphasized than Role Play.

Role Play exists to add spice and context to the Skilled Play. I can imagine my character being in a dungeon environment and role play how that character acts and makes choices. I can give my character as much personality as I feel. This makes the game feel real and provides a sense of immersion to me.

But my character is not what is sitting at the table, playing the game. That's me. My choices and actions and decisions as a player always eclipse role play considerations. I believe this both as a player playing the game and as a Dungeon Master.

Things like figuring out puzzles or developing tactics or determining to use resources in order to succeed are player facing elements. It shouldn't matter if your character has an Int of 6 or 18.

You should always be allowed to attempt to succeed, to play your best, and to make the best possible choices you can as a player, regardless of what it says on your character sheet.

Of course, it may be a decision by the player to act dumb or do stupid things because their character has an Int of 3, if that is more fun to them (assuming these choices don't infringe on other players' fun). But in no way should a player be forced to play sub optimally just because of role play considerations and/or numbers on a piece of paper.

 

[DND_Reborn]

For me: 75% skill/challenge/adventure driven, 25% role-play/narrative/player driven.

I look at the role-play aspect as the element that sets up all the rest. I don't want to just be part of a story-telling session, but neither do I want to just play a war-game or such. We will have sessions were we never rolled initiative but moved the story along a lot and maybe made some ability checks in the process. Then we've also had intense battles that were a series of gauntlet-style encounters which took nearly 10 hours to resolve. Most of the time, it is in between the two extremes, with the DM trying to foster a proper blend to make a great game.

The ingredients the players MUST bring are their imaginations and purposes for the PCs. Why is this PC an adventurer? I don't mind hooking the players into the game, but I don't want to force spoon-feed them all the time!

 

[overgeeked]

Interesting. See, the OP alludes to this here-
In some ways, this is also reflected in the design of adventures; traps and puzzles that are solved by DCs are definitely more conducive to RP, while traps and puzzles that are solved by the player's knowledge tend to be more conducive to the SP scenario.

But puts it in different categories. Feel free to expound on your thoughts- I'd love to hear them! (Maybe be a little more generous to the newer players- I think they'd say that they'd describe how they are searching in order to trigger the perception check. )

It’s weird, I‘m not sure I agree that having DCs for puzzles helps roleplaying. Quite the opposite, I think. They prevent roleplaying.

In my experience, players don’t roleplay when they know they can just roll dice to resolve an obstacle. See combat devolving to blandly repeating endless variations of “I swing, I hit, I do 3 damage”. The players immersing themselves in the fantasy world by describing what their characters actually do in that fantasy world is roleplaying.

Whether those actions are “in character” or not is beside the point, to me. You can’t really separate “what the character would do” from how the player decides to play them. Any version of “that’s not what a thief in the fantasy world would do” is easily countered by “well, this one would”. It’s not up to the table or the DM how a player plays their character.

 

[Charlaquin]

Guess I need more caffeine EDIT: if it wasn't clear, I was making fun of the fact that all the 10' poles were also magic that disappeared and reappeared as needed .

Actually, that does provide an answer to the age-old question, “why not just buy a ladder, cut off the rungs, and sell two 10-foot poles for a profit?” They wouldn’t disappear when they aren’t needed like a true 10-foot pole.

...Actually, actually, I jest, but that’s not a bad explanation if you make the portability of the 10-foot pole mechanical instead of magical. Collapsible staves are a thing in real life, why not collapsible 10-foot poles in D&D?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

...Actually, actually, I jest, but that’s not a bad explanation if you make the portability of the 10-foot pole mechanical instead of magical. Collapsible staves are a thing in real life, why not collapsible 10-foot poles in D&D?

Well, collapsible equipment (whether metal or wood) would likely require a greater level of "tech" (metal working, precision tools, etc.) than is present in the D&D world.

But then again, maybe not? The actual level of "tech" in the D&D world seems to vary from bronze-age to early Industrial Revolution depending on what you looking at.

 

[Oofta]

Actually, that does provide an answer to the age-old question, “why not just buy a ladder, cut off the rungs, and sell two 10-foot poles for a profit?” They wouldn’t disappear when they aren’t needed like a true 10-foot pole.

...Actually, actually, I jest, but that’s not a bad explanation if you make the portability of the 10-foot pole mechanical instead of magical. Collapsible staves are a thing in real life, why not collapsible 10-foot poles in D&D?

I think I actually explained it that way for one of my PCs. He also had things like a mirror on a stick for looking around corners, a drill with a "muffle" for making holes in doors to peak through and a periscope-like helmet for fighting gaze attack monsters.

I probably had more, I'd have to see if I still have the old character sheet somewhere (a handful of really old character sheets have survived) because they were all written down.