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

[FrogReaver]

I've been looking at it, but honestly, I have trouble seeing how adversarial it is. It does not promote conflict. I agree it is a bit harsh and once can sense the potential irritation of DMs with players insisting to listen for hours at doors, but how does it promote conflict of the kind that we are discussing, I'm not sure.

Here's the text: "In addition to the simple exercise of observation, many times characters will desire to listen, ear pressed to a portal, prior to opening and entering. This requires a special check, in secret, by you to determine if any sound is heard. Because of this, continual listening becomes a great bother to the DM. While ear seekers will tend to discourage some, most players will insist on having their characters listen at doors at every pretense. First, make certain that you explain to players that all headgear must be removed in order to listen. Those wearing helmets will probably have to remove a mail coif and padded cap as well, don’t forget. The party must also be absolutely silent, and listening will take at least one round."

Does it really promote Player vs. DM conflict ? You tell me.

If a DM modified those 'rules' in anyway it would. That's where rules lawyering and all else comes in. Especially if such modification made it worse than the players reading of those rules.

I think what we find today is more rules savvy players, whereas in the early editions players were much less rules savvy. I think alot of that came about from trying to determine what was different about newer editions of D&D compared to older ones. Those edition changes really pushed players to understand the rules better IMO.

 

[Aldarc]

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.

There are many games that are considered "roleplaying games," whether that is a TTRPG or a Video Game RPG, that do not necessarily involve "play-acting" as the character or even require being "in-character" when playing it. I also know a number of people, whether longtime players or newcomers to the hobby, who aren't necessarily comfortable with "play-acting" and prefer approaching the game primarily from the Pawn Stance. Likewise, there is a subset of OSR that values skilled play and creative player solutions rather than in-character play-acting. I'm not comfortable with gatekeeping anyone with accusations of not engaging in "proper roleplaying." So I think think that whatever notion of "roleplaying" we adhere to has to include these different approaches without relying on purity tests.

 

[Mannahnin]

I don't think understanding how the game mechanics work is metagaming. I don't remember anyone making anything like "knowing initiative order is metagaming" on this thread. If they did, please point it out because I would disagree. If not, stop constructing strawmen.

I'm not constructing a strawman. Please try to understand that we're talking about two (maybe three) different meanings of the word "metagame" here, and only one is pejorative.

Metagame also refers to "the game outside the game". If I ever have a thought like "DM Melissa and I are experienced old hands, but everyone else at the table tonight is a newbie, so this session will probably be pretty easy and light." that's a metagame thought, and any decisions I make in the game based on that information are functionally metagaming, but that's not the same kind of metagaming as reading the module ahead of time and knowing that these trolls are actually immune to fire, but acid affects them normally.

As others have pointed out earlier in the thread, if I think (or say) "Wow, Bill seemed to know exactly where to search for that secret door! He must be cheating and metagaming by having read the module*" that is itself metagaming. That's me NOT inhabiting my character, but instead engaging in out of character speculation about how someone else is playing the game, at the cost of my own fun!

(*ironic in the initial example, of course, because in the real example Bill Zebub actually suspected a trap, guessed where one might be, Investigated, and turned up a secret door he wasn't expecting.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

It is recognizably roleplaying. You are taking on a role in the game. If I'm a wizard, that comes with lots of role-based abilities and ways to interact with the game that differ significantly from the fighter role.

The issue here is that there's been decades of inserted assumptions that have narrowed the definition of roleplaying and a confederation of playstyle approaches has coopted the word.

 

[Mannahnin]

There are many games that are considered "roleplaying games," whether that is a TTRPG or a Video Game RPG, that do not necessarily involve "play-acting" as the character or even require being "in-character" when playing it. I also know a number of people, whether longtime players or newcomers to the hobby, who aren't necessarily comfortable with "play-acting" and prefer approaching the game primarily from the Pawn Stance. Likewise, there is a subset of OSR that values skilled play and creative player solutions rather than in-character play-acting. I'm not comfortable with gatekeeping anyone with accusations of not engaging in "proper roleplaying." So I think think that whatever notion of "roleplaying" we adhere to has to include these different approaches without relying on purity tests.

Yup. Personally I'm a big fan of both playacting and in-character decision making, and of OSR Gygaxian Skilled Play, where the player skill matters as much or more than character abilities, at least in some circumstances. Both are a ton of fun.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm not constructing a strawman. Please try to understand that we're talking about two (maybe three) different meanings of the word "metagame" here, and only one is pejorative.

Metagame also refers to "the game outside the game". If I ever have a thought like "DM Melissa and I are experienced old hands, but everyone else at the table tonight is a newbie, so this session will probably be pretty easy and light." that's a metagame thought, and any decisions I make in the game based on that information are functionally metagaming, but that's not the same kind of metagaming as reading the module ahead of time and knowing that these trolls are actually immune to fire, but acid affects them normally.

As others have pointed out earlier in the thread, if I think (or say) "Wow, Joe seemed to know exactly where to search for that secret door! He must be cheating and metagaming by having read the module*" that is itself metagaming. That's me NOT inhabiting my character, but instead engaging in out of character speculation about how someone else is playing the game, at the cost of my own fun!

(*ironic in the initial example, of course, because in the real example the player actually suspected a trap, guessed where one might be, Investigated, and turned up a secret door he wasn't

And, in 5e, the only admonition to be aware of metagaming is in the sense of thinking that the GM will not put a serious challenge in front of the party because the party is low on resources and it's a game. There's nothing about player/character knowledge divide. A divide I find requires the reification of the character, which strikes me as the first critical mistake in reasoning.

 

[Lyxen]

See, @Lyxen, I think the mistake you are making is thinking that 3e took power from the DM and gave it to the players. It didn't. The players were still beholden to the rules. It took the power from the DM, and then wrapped it up in the rules to standardize answers. The player still had no way of changing the rules. They could challenge a DM's interpretation of the rules, but, that was about it. And, frankly, since the rules were pretty solid, there really wasn't a whole lot to challenge.

And this is where we disagree. First off, there's a reason there as a 3.5, the game was/ really unbalanced at start (no criticism here, it was a huge undertaking). But more importantly, when the supplements came out, the trouble began, because these were much less playtested, much more imprecise, and the combined results of these masses of contradictory rules resulted in a bit of a free for all for all those wanting to grab power, in particular at a high level.

And this is why we had 20 pages of our own house rules to correct the huge mess of that uncontrolled ball of rules, because in the end, almost everything was to be challenged.

What it did though was hold the DM to a much higher standard. You can't really get away with "Roll High" as a means of task resolution in 3e because there really was a rule for everything. And, a DM who was used to just winging it and using the "roll high" method of resolving things suddenly found that the players weren't all that interested in the Calvinball approach to gaming.

I imagine it came as quite a shock to a LOT of DM's who suddenly were expected to actually learn the rules of the game they were running.

And this is where I love 5e again. Rules should never dictate the game. Imagination should. So what 3e gained in terms of clarity was immediately drowned into oceans of rules-lawyering, checks, verification, paperwork. It took me 3 hours to create a high level NPC just to make sure that it was technically correct. It took me 9 hours to run one combat at high level, just because of the hassle.

So basically, it killed the game for many DMs who just wanted to run stories and have reasonable rules, and very quickly, that killed the game as well.

5e is a dream, rules don't matter that much, they are just tools to be ignored when they are not convenient and do not match the situation. And our games are much better for this. We don't ditch rules on purpose, actually we are quite RAW, but we don't feel constrained by it.

Does it really make us bad DMs ? I argue not, I argue that it's not a question of valor but of fun at the tables, and we have tons. And I argue that this is the real spirit of 5e, as described by the designers, supported by many quotes. It is not better, but it's the "new standard".

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm not constructing a strawman. Please try to understand that we're talking about two (maybe three) different meanings of the word "metagame" here, and only one is pejorative.

Metagame also refers to "the game outside the game". If I ever have a thought like "DM Melissa and I are experienced old hands, but everyone else at the table tonight is a newbie, so this session will probably be pretty easy and light." that's a metagame thought, and any decisions I make in the game based on that information are functionally metagaming, but that's not the same kind of metagaming as reading the module ahead of time and knowing that these trolls are actually immune to fire, but acid affects them normally.

I'd just add that if the DM's challenge relies on not using metagame knowledge to bypass the troll then that's when its a bad thing for the players to do.

Sometimes though the DM fully expects the players to use metagame knowledge to help bypass challenges. He may have sent 3 trolls after them instead of 1, thinking they would know to use fire.

So IMO metagaming isn't what's bad, it's not aligning yourself with the groups/DM's metagame assumptions that is bad.

 

[Lyxen]

Yup. I'm playing a wizard, so I'm pretending to be one in the game. This is sufficient. What you're doing is reading more into this and adding things you like to the definition that aren't required by it.

No, once more biased reading, it says "That means that you will be like an actor". Are there many actors just saying "I am a wizard" and no more caracterisation than this ? sigh

 

[Lyxen]

If a DM modified those 'rules' in anyway it would. That's where rules lawyering and all else comes in. Especially if such modification made it worse than the players reading of those rules.

I still don't see how it creates more conflict than other rules. It never says, in particular, that the players are playing against the DM or the other way around.

I think what we find today is more rules savvy players, whereas in the early editions players were much less rules savvy. I think alot of that came about from trying to determine what was different about newer editions of D&D compared to older ones. Those edition changes really pushed players to understand the rules better IMO.

It's true that A&D was hard to read, but I distinctly remember that, in our club in Lyon, all the DMs (and there were at least 12 of them) and all the players really knew the rules well, and these were French people reading english rules...