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

[overgeeked]

I look at that in the light of "even the most repulsive personality can sometimes make a point that is uncontestable." A character with a 3 Charisma is going to have enough mechanical penalties, I don't see a need to also penalize the player for wanting to roleplay.

Agree with handling it with role-playing.

Although, I don't require the player to act out in character. All the player needs to do is state what they want from the interaction and how they approach the NPC. We can imagine what the PC actually says to the NPC through the filter of the PC's Charisma. To me, it is player skill to determine how their PC approaches the NPC. Do they use flattery?, intimidation?, deception? to achieve their intent... this is not something I just handle with a roll.


I approach Charisma checks backwards (it may be my experience running older edition games*). I have a Charisma roll at the start to set a baseline disposition (if it is not clear already) and then have role-playing determine the outcome of the interaction.

*This comes from the concept of the Reaction Roll, where if you don't know ahead of time the reaction of an npc/monster, you roll to determine their initial reaction. Which then determines how close to hostility the npc/monster is.

I do much the same. If I don’t know how the NPC feels towards the PCs, I’ll make a reaction roll to start things off. But I really like the mixed approach from 5E’s DMG on handling interaction. Conversation between DM and player to possibly influence the NPC, then a roll—if necessary—to determine whether the NPC goes along with the request. The player can RP the character in such a way as to make success automatic or impossible. But you don’t skip over the roleplaying and go straight to the roll.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

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

I'd go even further. I don't think players solving puzzles is roleplaying. At all. I don't think it's skilled play, either, because puzzles aren't really about the mechanics of D&D.

Puzzles are orthogonal to the rest of the game entirely. You walk up to a magic door that says "speak friend and enter" and you're just trying to solve it given the scenario. That's not testing your ability to pretend to be a character in the game world. It's just testing your ability to solve a puzzle. It's not something you can plan for, either. Most puzzles can only be solved by solving the puzzle. It's neither a game skill nor a roleplaying skill.

I'd say, done right, a puzzle can easily incorporate both roleplaying and mechanics. Then again, I'm not one to worry at all about separating player and character skill.

A player can certainly roleplay their character trying to figure out a puzzle. And the DM can, through ability checks, provide clues (with setbacks on failure) as appropriate depending on the goal and approach of the PCs.

Another tactic I've read about is having a puzzle with no specific answer. If the PCs come up with a reasonable approach to solving it, they solve it. One might consider that an emergent storytelling puzzle. Not something I've actually done, but I'll probably give it a try in our next campaign.

 

[prabe]

Another tactic I've read about is having a puzzle with no specific answer. If the PCs come up with a reasonable approach to solving it, they solve it. One might consider that an emergent storytelling puzzle. Not something I've actually done, but I'll probably give it a try in our next campaign.

The approach I've taken to using when puzzle-esque things appear in my campaigns is to figure out a way (not the way) to solve it, in case the PCs get otherwise hopelessly stuck; then, if in play something else makes sense, I go with that.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Put me down solidly in the "skilled play" camp.

I was having this discussion elsewhere not too long ago, and I think I can make my feelings on the matter clear enough by simply quoting myself.

"You're at the entrance to the dungeon. Two passages tee off to your left and right. To the right, the passage has a bloodstained floor and smells faintly of oil. To the left, cobwebs cling to the ceiling, just thick enough to obscure it from view. Ahead of you in the entry-chamber stands a demonic-looking statue, ten feet tall, with faceted eyes resembling gems, carved from some black stone and surrounded by a green glow that pulses every few seconds. Each pulse of the greenish light is accompanied by a faint sound that resembles a distant human scream. What do you do?"

What you do next is roleplaying in the only sense that I consider worth my time. Not talking in a voice, not improvising in-character dialog; that stuff is playacting, not roleplaying. And amateur improvisational playacting is not the reason I'm playing this game.

This isn't to say that improv acting can't be fun—if the players are actually good at it. But it's far likelier IME to be a source of pure cringe.

And that's not even scratching the surface of the infamous "BuT iT's WhAt My ChArAcTeR wOuLd Do!" problem.

Huh. The title made me think of the divide between old school approach where you interacted with the environment via roleplaying vs the new school approach of just rolling dice to see what happens. See describing how your character is searching and what they’re searching for vs excessive perception checks every time you use your eyes.

The thing is, even though I'm firmly on the "skilled play" side of the continuum, I don't have a problem with dice at all. I play OD&D, but I don't buy into the whole OSR, "rulings-not-rules" thing or the idea that skilled play (in the sense of searching for traps with 10' poles and finding secret doors by knocking on walls) means that there isn't also a place in the game for skill checks.

After all, even in Basic/Expert D&D, you find a trap or a secret door by rolling a 1 or 2 on 1d6.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm firmly in skilled play.

To me, an RPG has a degree of separation between the player and the world. This is the PC.

So no matter what, in someway the PCs' features and abilities must matter.

Now I can let it side a bit. If the players solve a puzzle or make a good argument, if a PC with the appropriate score or skills is present, I'll might just say that PC did it.

So don't dump Int around me. Or I'll say "Yall too dumb to think of that plan. Make another. A dumber plan."*

*I've done this many times.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I look at that in the light of "even the most repulsive personality can sometimes make a point that is uncontestable." A character with a 3 Charisma is going to have enough mechanical penalties, I don't see a need to also penalize the player for wanting to roleplay.

Other than the rather rare Charisma saving throws, a character with a 3 Charisma has almost no mechanical penalties if they can "play the DM" well enough to never have to actually roll it in a social situation. Rather than a penalty, they just get the bonus of putting those ability points where they will give a bonus to attack and damage rolls, on which the DM probably doesn't let them talk their way into automatic success.

Likewise Intelligence: If a player has read the monster manual and most of the novels, dumping Intelligence probably isn't going to hinder them that much mechanically, but having a stat to dump with very few repercussions does aid them in maxing out their primary stat. It doesn't matter if the character was raised at the bottom of an isolated well, and is regularly outsmarted by the ranger's pet: If the DM lets the player come up with the required information or strategy all the time, the character never has to roll against their dumped stat.

This can be superior even to having invested character resources to be good at the thing: Rolling, even with a high bonus still has a chance of failure. Talking the DM into your character succeeding without rolling doesn't.

This can be viewed as the epitome of Skilled Play: Knowledge, (whether from experience with the game, good guesswork, or reading the manual/module) and manipulation of the DM grant you the advantage over the adventure challenges. And the points saved by being able to dump scores without suffering the usual downsides for doing so grant you the advantage over the other players.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm firmly in skilled play.

To me, an RPG has a degree of separation between the player and the world. This is the PC.

So no matter what, in someway the PCs' features and abilities must matter.

Now I can let it side a bit. If the players solve a puzzle or make a good argument, if a PC with the appropriate score or skills is present, I'll might just say that PC did it.

So don't dump Int around me. Or I'll say "Yall too dumb to think of that plan. Make another. A dumber plan."*

*I've done this many times.

This seems to be describing what Snarf called the Role Playing approach.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Other than the rather rare Charisma saving throws, a character with a 3 Charisma has almost no mechanical penalties if they can "play the DM" well enough to never have to actually roll it in a social situation. Rather than a penalty, they just get the bonus of putting those ability points where they will give a bonus to attack and damage rolls, on which the DM probably doesn't let them talk their way into automatic success.

Likewise Intelligence: If a player has read the monster manual and most of the novels, dumping Intelligence probably isn't going to hinder them that much mechanically, but having a stat to dump with very few repercussions does aid them in maxing out their primary stat. It doesn't matter if the character was raised at the bottom of an isolated well, and is regularly outsmarted by the ranger's pet: If the DM lets the player come up with the required information or strategy all the time, the character never has to roll against their dumped stat.

This can be superior even to having invested character resources to be good at the thing: Rolling, even with a high bonus still has a chance of failure. Talking the DM into your character succeeding without rolling doesn't.

This can be viewed as the epitome of Skilled Play: Knowledge, (whether from experience with the game, good guesswork, or reading the manual/module) and manipulation of the DM grant you the advantage over the adventure challenges. And the points saved by being able to dump scores without suffering the usual downsides for doing so grant you the advantage over the other players.

That is most certainly not skilled play. That's being a jerk.

Players not participating in good faith to achieve the goals of play (having fun and creating an exciting, memorable story together) will soon find themselves without an invite to the next session.

 

[Minigiant]

This seems to be describing what Snarf called the Role Playing approach.

Nah. I firmly cap roleplaying with PC stats. How brutal the cap is based on how tired I am. The final step is always stats, not acting.

If you split the party and put the idiots with low Int together, they will be idiots.

 

[Charlaquin]

Nah. I firmly cap roleplaying with PC stats. How brutal the cap is based on how tired I am. The final step is always stats, not acting.

If you split the party and put the idiots with low Int together, they will be idiots.

Yes, I understood that. What I’m telling you is that Snarf called that approach “Role Playing” in the opening post of this thread.