D&D General Has the meaning of "roleplaying" changed since 1e?

[Ovinomancer]

Funny, but I use both together, and so have most DMs I have played with. PCs have their skills and backgrounds for basic knowledge, and then rolls or DM decision determine if that knowledge is deep or broad enough to know what is occurring in the game.

Cool, so roleplay and rollplay together.

 

[Hussar]

I disagree those goals didn't exist. There's evidence others were playing that way even at the start. Now, no doubt, the application of those goals has improved, but narrativism didn't spring fully formed from the heads of Luke and Ron. It was evolved from things that were already there.

There was a concerted effort to establish how to talk about and manage these things, yes, but it wasn't invented there, just refined. And, there's nothing about narrativism that's an improvement over Moldvay Basic, for instance. It's different, but not better. That's an independent judgement over what appeals to you.

But, in the context of the thread - has the meaning of roleplaying changed, then you are actually agreeing with me. Things were "refined". The application of goals has improved. Thus it has improved.
I'm not really sure what you're arguing with me about.

 

[Hussar]

I don't find backgrounds/traits/flaws to be particularly compelling. I'd rather tell the story of my dwarf who grew up in a human city, always an outcast, while his uncle Glimp* struggled to keep food on the table. Or the story of my wizard who's mother tried to sacrifice him in some dark ritual. Those were the stories of two of my first PCs.

Maybe having a background wasn't a thing for you, for at least some of us it was.

*EDIT: not Glimnock. How could I forget the uncle Glimphopolus that took in an orphaned dwarven lad?

Again, I am not as gifted as you. I'm sorry for being such a poor, unimaginative person, but, I needed help back then. And that help certainly wasn't there. We were expected to just "figure it out". Well, some of us didn't. And we had absolutely atrocious games because of it.

 

[Oofta]

Never used before doesn't mean doesn't exist in the campaign world. Unless it's never been used in the world before, there's probably tales of it somewhere.

PCs can't invent gunpowder in my games because the laws of reality are different -- whatever IRL formulation the player might know doesn't work in the game world due to different physical and metaphysical laws. But, if a player wants their PC to set up a project to invent it, sure, sounds good to me.

Just like if a player wants to think they know things about a monster, that's fine with me. They may not be right.

And here's where we digress. I, personally, know many rare pieces of knowledge about my world, IRL. A lot most people don't know. And I learned a lot of it from other people telling me about it. So, yeah, I'm not sure at all that potential rarity makes it so that a PC can't know something. This is more GM reasoning, and still makes metagaming entirely the GM's problem.

As a DM if you decide it isn't a problem then it isn't. For me, if metagame knowledge is abused then it's a problem. Same way some people have no problem with evil PCs that I ban from my game.

 

[Hussar]

Nope. Never played 1st or 2nd edition that way at all, even though we still had our token Rules Lawyer in every group.

Kinda missing the point.

Did you actually read the 1e DMG? Claiming that AD&D wasn't about DM's being adversarial is pretty trivially easy to disprove. Take a look at the section on listening to doors in the 1e DMG and you'll see a prime example of adversarial DMing being written straight into the advice.

The claim that 3e was somehow more adversarial than 1e is just false on its face, regardless of how you or I played the game.

 

[Hussar]

As a DM if you decide it isn't a problem then it isn't. For me, if metagame knowledge is abused then it's a problem. Same way some people have no problem with evil PCs that I ban from my game.

I've tried to avoid this metagaming wank, because I know it won't go anywhere, but, here's a shot.

I played a paladin in the Dungeons of the Mad Mage module. My paladin could cast protection from evil/good. I chose to have this spell prepared when I first made the character and had no knowledge of what we would face in the module. Now, a little ways in, we discover Intellect Devourers - because one of the creatures we fight and kill has a giant brain bug explode out of its cranium.

Now, in the description of Intellect Devourers, it tells me that Protection from Evil/Good will expel an Intellect Devourer from its victim, meaning that it becomes a very good way of testing for brain bugs - those that have an Intellect Devourer in their head are already dead anyway. Can my paladin cast this spell or not? The information is only found in the Monster Manual. It is not in the Player's Handbook. Does my paladin know that this will work or not?

I honestly didn't know. I knew the information because I DM quite a lot as well as play, so, I, the player knew it. But, I didn't know if my paladin knew it. And, asking my DM, he punted it back to me. So, am I meta-gaming or not to know the effect my spell will have on a given monster?

 

[Oofta]

Kinda missing the point.

Did you actually read the 1e DMG? Claiming that AD&D wasn't about DM's being adversarial is pretty trivially easy to disprove. Take a look at the section on listening to doors in the 1e DMG and you'll see a prime example of adversarial DMing being written straight into the advice.

The claim that 3e was somehow more adversarial than 1e is just false on its face, regardless of how you or I played the game.

Not everyone played as if the DMG were dictates from on high. In fact, most games I played throughout the years were not.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But, in the context of the thread - has the meaning of roleplaying changed, then you are actually agreeing with me. Things were "refined". The application of goals has improved. Thus it has improved.
I'm not really sure what you're arguing with me about.

No, you said your roleplaying improved from earlier games. However, as you describe it, you changed play agendas AND improved your play in the new paradigm. You may have improved your roleplaying in the current agenda, but this has nothing to do with your roleplaying in the previous agenda.

 

[Ovinomancer]

As a DM if you decide it isn't a problem then it isn't. For me, if metagame knowledge is abused then it's a problem. Same way some people have no problem with evil PCs that I ban from my game.

So, then, we're in agreement that metagaming is a GM caused issue. Coolness.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

You the player are not competing against anything. Your character is competing against the fictional obstacles in the fictional world. Your goal as the player is to play the game...which you can do even if your character fails at everything they ever try. Your character's goals are to find phictional phat stacks and get to your fictional home safe and fictionally sound.

But not your skill as in you the player. Your character's skills. That's the difference. Video games test your skills as a player. Can you move the controller quick enough, precisely enough, etc. RPGs like D&D generally don't. Because it's not about your skills as a player. It's about your character. The point of role-playing games is to immerse yourself in that fictional character. The point of boardgames and wargames is to win against your competition, your opponent. RPGs are borne out of wargames, obviously, but they're not the same thing.

Right. Success, failure. Victory, defeat. Within the fiction. Not a player trying to win a game. Because RPGs are not that kind of game. There is no competition. No winning. No losing.

My character can't take on a challenge till i develop the plan, I still have to be the brains of the operation. When I choose to cast a fireball or a lightning bolt, or to heal involves me as the character weighing the tactical utility of my options to achieve victory. Thats an expression of skill.