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

[Oofta]

So, metagaming has never really come up as an issue in games I've played or run. Reading this thread, though, I can understand but why the Angry GM got so angry about the topic.

I can't really imagine playing a game where players are required to justify whether their character would have come up with the same good idea they did. Sounds excruciating.

To each their own.

It's not about coming up with good ideas. It's announcing to the table that "This is an X, therefore it's immunities are Y and it has legendary actions A, B and C and it recharges attack D on a 5 or 6". It's "We go down the left corridor and the third room where we find a chest. We'll have to disable the trap first, but there's really cool loot in there. Then we can go to...".

If, as a DM, I think killing trolls with fire with common knowledge (it is in my campaigns) then it is. If I think you have no possible way to know a marilith when you see it, you don't. If your PC has no way of knowing exact position of every creature on the board even though I've left the minis on the table then you don't get to use the knowledge of mini location to cast that fireball so that it only hits enemies.

It's about at my table I want to assume the role of the PC and interact with the world as the PC the best I can. I want my players to make a reasonable effort to do the same because it's the expectation several people at the table have. If you and yours don't care then it's not an issue.

 

[Hussar]

Being friend and respecting people has NOTHING to do with entitling the players, creating conflicts and empowering ruleslawyers. The game, on the other hand had EVERYTHING to do with the players trusting their GM so that they have a good time. It was the worst mistake of 3e, worse even than uncontrolled power options that made each subversion of the game explode in less than 4 years, to think that every player was worthy of the trust of making rulings benefitting the whole table as a DM does. Instead, it created entitled mini-DMs who thought it was their right to argue for hours about their own personal benefit.

It's funny how people's experiences vary so wildly. Once 3e hit? My table arguments virtually disappeared. Where I would expect to lose at least an hour every session (and was pleasantly surprise when it didn't happen) to player arguments in my AD&D days, I can't actually remember the last time I had a rules issue with players in the last twenty years.

Did we have the odd one? Sure. It happened. But, as a general rule? Nope. Having an actual playable ruleset that was written in pretty clear language ended virtually all arguments. To the point where I relied on players making rulings far more often than I bothered looking up the actual rules because I knew that my resident rules guru knew the mechanics far better than I did.

 

[Mannahnin]

Ovinomancer said:
Everyone did roleplaying. If you picked a class, and played the game, that's roleplaying. Let's not confuse "playacting" or "character goals" as the definition of roleplaying, because that's just trying to claim the term for your set of preferences.

We played in-character using character motivations, speaking in character, making decision that made sense to the character even if the player knew it wasn't the best idea. It was not "I'm a wizard". I don't know why you refuse to accept that not everyone played like you did.

Again, you're misreading your interlocutor.

He's not refusing to accept that not everyone played like you did. He's saying BOTH are roleplaying, and that what you are describing as "roleplaying" is a play style. A form of RP but not the only kind of RP.

 

[Aldarc]

We played in-character using character motivations, speaking in character, making decision that made sense to the character even if the player knew it wasn't the best idea. It was not "I'm a wizard". I don't know why you refuse to accept that not everyone played like you did.

I don't think that he is refusing anything or trying to invalidate how you chose to play. I think that he's trying to argue for a more inclusive understanding of roleplaying that doesn't simply limit it to a more restricted understanding as play-acting and the like. IMHO, he's trying to include your play preference as well as other's.

 

[Lyxen]

We played in-character using character motivations, speaking in character, making decision that made sense to the character even if the player knew it wasn't the best idea. It was not "I'm a wizard". I don't know why you refuse to accept that not everyone played like you did.

Some people still don't do it today, even though the game has gone further than before in the direction of roleplaying. It's fine to play that way, it's less fine to say that nothing ever explained how the game could be played in a storytelling / acting way, because that is demonstrably false.

He's not obsessed with anything.

Lyxxen opined that 3rd created or substantially worsened the issue of adversarial play between DM & players. Hussar opined that this seems absurd "utter bollocks", because in the 1979 1E DMG we can see massive amounts of evidence of adversarial play in the official materials, endorsed by the game's creator.

I'm going to go back to my 1st ed DMG to see what it is about, but I can guarantee that I will also find instructions to the complete contrary. So if you have actual references to adversarial play, I'd also like to see them.

The fact that you personally ignored that adversarial advice from the start doesn't mean that it wasn't common or happening.

Let's see what we find. In the meantime, I agree that adversarial play certainly happened at some tables and still happens today, it's just not my cup of tea.

 

[Hussar]

No one has ever claimed that the authors of the original books (especially Gygax) and several mods did not have a DM vs player feel

What?

In this thread. In the post I originally responded to, was a claim that the original books did not have a DM vs player feel. I mean, good grief, @Lyxen has REPEATEDLY made the statement. Is there some reason you're not seeing these posts?

Ahh, is there an ignore issue going on here? You can only see my posts and not what I've been responding to?

That was the whole point of my response. That somehow 3e added in the notion of DM vs player that wasn't there before.

 

[Hussar]

I'm going to go back to my 1st ed DMG to see what it is about, but I can guarantee that I will also find instructions to the complete contrary. So if you have actual references to adversarial play, I'd also like to see them.

I will again refer you to the 1e DMG section on listening at doors. It's a pretty good example.

 

[Mannahnin]

I'm going to go back to my 1st ed DMG to see what it is about, but I can guarantee that I will also find instructions to the complete contrary. So if you have actual references to adversarial play, I'd also like to see them.

The directions and advice on listening at doors were already cited.

Off the top of my head, the advice on PCs negotiating with NPC henchmen and hirelings, and NPC wizards, are pretty darn adversarial. The advise on making treasure difficult to identify and transport. The advice on making magic items difficult to identify and to create. The advice on monster PCs. The section on poison as well.

All the stuff in OD&D and AD&D about dungeon mapping and ways to screw over the mapper. Shifting rooms, sliding walls, teleporters, etc. This is a part of the game that some old schoolers like Mike Mornard really swear by- that creating your map was critical, and tension-filled, and thus engaging for the whole table, because your survival depended on it.

But it seems to have aged really badly. In practice mapping from DM descriptions seems a bit of a slow and frustrating process for most players, not exciting or interesting*. And thus dungeon maps with teleporters and stuff become just ways to ensure players HATE mapping and feel like the DM is just screwing with them.

*Although it CAN have its satisfactions if the players are on board. I'm currently usually the Mapper in a 1975-style OD&D group I play in online using just Zoom. It's sometimes a bit a slog, but when my communication with the DM is on point, it runs pretty smoothly. The maps I've created become interesting artifacts to puzzle over and make plans around. Finding maps or map fragments NPCs have is exciting too!

 

[Hussar]

I don't think that he is refusing anything or trying to invalidate how you chose to play. I think that he's trying to argue for a more inclusive understanding of roleplaying that doesn't simply limit it to a more restricted understanding as play-acting and the like. IMHO, he's trying to include your play preference as well as other's.

Fair enough I suppose. I don't consider Pawn Stance or "Avatar" play to be role playing. It's certainly playing the game. But, it's not recognizably role playing. Like I said earlier, I barely consider AD&D to be an RPG by today's standards. Which, I suppose, explains a lot about why I seem to not be able to get my point across.

 

[Lyxen]

Personally I think I get what Lyxen is getting at; WotC did try to empower players more by standardizing rules in ways which could be said to bind the hands of bad DMs. I don't think this in any way created adversarial play, but it might have fueled adversarial play and player entitlement in ways that 2E very much fought against, with its pretty strong DM empowerment stance. The 2E DMG is full of all kinds of wishy-washy "you could run it this way or that way" advice, trying to cater to lots of different play styles and preferences and largely leaving is up to the DM. The 3E DMG is full of all kinds of crunchy mechanics and definitions, which are GREAT for defining and rationalizing and standardizing the game and helping newer DMs, but also can serve as handles for players to grab and say "hey, that's now how that's supposed to work!"

It's exactly that, as I mentioned, I am sure it was not the intent at all, but the end result was a multitude of rules and options spread across a multitude of books, often conflicting, and the mass of information meant that apart from very special people, it was much too easy to make assumption and defend one's viewpoint even in front of a GM's ruling. Combined with the 3e attitude towards players which, again, had the very best intent of empowering them, it generated a lot of trouble at tables, and created a different balance at the table, where the DM was no longer really in charge. In some cases, it was a good thing, but in others, it was really bad.