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

[Hussar]

So, then many of the same players were in a couple of 4e campaigns I ran, 20 MORE years down the road, almost. The RP was palpably more a material element of the game, but now it was very much in alignment with the mechanics of the game. So there was never any tension between fun and RP, or 'playing to win' and RP. That seems to me to be the story of RPGs, the R part was, for some, less significant at the start, and it meant a couple different things to different groups, but modern games have largely made the G part ABOUT the R part, which is pretty cool!

Hey, whoa there. We're not allowed to say that. I've been told repeatedly that this isn't true and that there is absolutely no change in roleplaying over time.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Well, at it's most basic, I would say that behaving like an actor in a role (yes I added that bit for clarity), means that all of the actions that your character takes are filtered through the lens of that role. If your character is cowardly, then you act cowardly, regardless of how you, the person, feel or think. If your actions during the game ignore that lens, then you are no longer acting out that role.

I was pondering that, and it led me along this line of thought:

1. Sure, that makes sense.
2. Well...even cowards are sometimes brave.
3. Especially in fiction.
4. Especially in heroic fantasy fiction..
5. In fact, a coward finding their courage is a pretty established trope. (C.f. Bilbo Baggins)
6. Wait a second...which is the cart and which is the horse here? Does the established persona dictate what actions the player can/should delcare, or do the actions declared by the player determine what the persona is?

I suspect the meat of the disagreement in this discussion is found in that #6: that really a lot of the difference in opinion comes down to where we come down on that question. And it's another spectrum thing: it's a smooth continuum between the two extremes, and probably few or none of us are all the way on one side or the other. But leaning more toward one side or the other probably correlates pretty highly to some of the opinions expressed here.

 

[Lanefan]

The thing that keeps raising a red flag for me is the use of the word "reasonably" because everybody has a different threshold. Reasonable to who?

When I'm the DM, me; though I've usually got a - wait for it! - reasonably good idea what works for the table.

 

[Hussar]

hmm, it occurs to me that the fact that it could include Mario Kart could simply be ignored, and that would only be a meaningful quality if the 'use' is exclusion, Mario Kart being included makes sense if the purpose of roleplaying is to play a role and have your experience of that role be immersive-- Mario Kart certainly makes you feel like you're racing, albeit in a zany world, it goes out of its way to make you feel that role acutely with all of its mechanics where you make decisions as a racer might-- e.g. how to take corners, when to try to pass someone, rewards you for practicing and knowing the course.

Let's not get bogged down in the single example though. The point of the example is that there are a pretty broad swath of games that we wouldn't call role playing games - Magic The Gathering, Warhammer 40K (the tabletop wargame, not the RPG obviously), Halo, PUBG, etc. If our definition is so broad that it sweeps up all these games that no one would ever call RPG's, then the definition is too broad.

It's like an old user here used to claim that RPG's were all puzzle games and nothing but puzzle games. It really doesn't work, even though you can make a pretty good argument about why some puzzle games are RPG's.

Again, it's got nothing to do with gatekeeping. It's about having a useful definition. If I pull up to an RPG night at the FLGS and everyone is playing Catan, I might have a great time because Catan is a great game, but, not exactly what I would classify as an RPG.

Look, honestly, I really am a big tent kind of guy. I do believe that there are a huge variety of games that fit under the umbrella of RPG and will argue until my face falls off that 4e D&D is an RPG. But, at the same time, I don't consider basketball to be an RPG. I get that genre definitions are porous. Sure, that's true. But, not so porous that they become meaningless.

 

[Bill Zebub]

When I'm the DM, me; though I've usually got a - wait for it! - reasonably good idea what works for the table.

Maybe that's another factor that leads to the different opinions here. When I'm DM I'm happy to cede that authority/control and let the players contribute to the fiction as they see fit. It's their story, too. If @Hussar wants their paladin to know that spell trick, that's cool, I can work with that. If they don't want their paladin to know it, or they want the dice to decide, that's cool, too. Whatever they envision for their character works for me.

I mean, if I really don't want it to work I always have the prerogative to say, "Oh, is that what you heard in Paladin school? Really? Well at your next reunion you can beat that guy up because he was wrong; it doesn't seem to work and now you've wasted a spell slot and an action. Might want to try a knowledge check next time."* I can't imagine needing to do so in this particular scenario, but the option is always there.

*I wouldn't actually be that sarcastic, but I just finished reading that Angry DM piece somebody linked a page or two back.

 

[Lanefan]

6. Wait a second...which is the cart and which is the horse here? Does the established persona dictate what actions the player can/should delcare, or do the actions declared by the player determine what the persona is?

It goes in the opposite sequence.

When a character's just starting out, the sum of the actions declared by the player and things said by the character determine what the persona is. Very importantly, those early-days actions and words also set a recognizable pattern as to what this character's all about. Later, once that persona gets settled in, it in turn should greatly inform the player as to what actions to declare.

Further, once that pattern of personality is extablished and being adhered to then one can introduce incremental long-term changes to that pattern and have it mean something; and your example of Bilbo is a great one here.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

I suspect the meat of the disagreement in this discussion is found in that #6: that really a lot of the difference in opinion comes down to where we come down on that question. And it's another spectrum thing: it's a smooth continuum between the two extremes, and probably few or none of us are all the way on one side or the other. But leaning more toward one side or the other probably correlates pretty highly to some of the opinions expressed here.

But, at no point was the decision process not being filtered through the character. It's not like having a personality is a straitjacket that you can never vary from. Of course not. But, that being said, if the character is defined as cowardly, and then NEVER acts cowardly, then that's not really playing that character. If the character is defined as whimsical and impulsive, but never, ever acts impulsively, is always reliable and is 100% tactical all the time, then that's not playing that character.

I'm not even really talking about that to be honest. So long as the character filter is present, then you are role playing. Ignoring that filter is role playing badly, probably, and is generally frowned upon or at least seen as a form of degenerate play, but, at least the filter is actually there.

I'm talking about pure pawn stance where there is no character AT ALL. Your character isn't brave or cowardly or anything. It's just a bunch of numbers on a sheet and there is zero filter between the player and the game world. This isn't even a case of someone playing themselves in the game world, since, frankly, that happens so rarely. Very, very few players are playing a modern 21st century human in a D&D world. No, they are playing a fighter (or whatever) that overlays their own personality. Fair enough. Again, at least there's a character filter there. There is a distinction between the character (me+class+setting) and me (21st century human).

Yes, I realize there are examples where you are just playing yourself in a fictional situation. But, that's a pretty corner case and we can largely ignore it as a special case in and of itself.

But, if you are filtering your decision tree through the filter of that character, then you are role playing. If that filter doesn't exist - then you aren't. I don't make decisions in Magic the Gathering based on what a centuries old Planeswalker would do. I make decisions based on whatever strategy I think will win. I don't have to try to inhabit the head of a Tyranid in order to play Warhammer 40k and those games certainly don't expect me to try. The game certainly never expects you to run away in Halo and won't even allow you to do so. So on and so forth.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that my definition is getting this much pushback. I wouldn't have thought that "in a role playing game, you play the role of a character" was terribly controversial.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that my definition is getting this much pushback. I wouldn't have thought that "in a role playing game, you play the role of a character" was terribly controversial.

Speaking only for myself, my pushback is because I get the impression that your definition also has some requirements for how defined that character must be for it to count as "real" roleplaying.

I agree that playing Mario in a video game isn't roleplaying. But, for me, even my poorly defined, personality-less first AD&D character was still roleplaying. No, I didn't write a backstory or put any thought into his personality quirks or motivations or anything else. We barely talked to NPCs, let alone explored personae. We just killed monsters and took their stuff. But when I was playing Eärramë I was an improbably strong (18/33) elven fighter-magic user with a bitchin' bow. (I know, I know.).

It wasn't remotely like controlling Mario in a video game. It wasn't remotely like moving my little die-cast metal shoe around a Monopoly board. It was roleplaying. And while over the years I've become more interested in creating and exploring characters who aren't me, to me the only thing that has changed is the degree, not the substance. I'm not playing a totally different game today; I'm playing a slightly different game, especially when contrasted to non-RPGs.

So maybe my conclusion is that I disagree with your definition: roleplaying isn't when you filter your decisions through what you think your imaginary character would do. Roleplaying is when you feel like you are that character. Even if that character is just Blue Fighter.

 

[Maxperson]

Maybe that's another factor that leads to the different opinions here. When I'm DM I'm happy to cede that authority/control and let the players contribute to the fiction as they see fit. It's their story, too. If @Hussar wants their paladin to know that spell trick, that's cool, I can work with that. If they don't want their paladin to know it, or they want the dice to decide, that's cool, too. Whatever they envision for their character works for me.

This is a completely valid way to play the game and explains your position on metagaming. It's not the default way D&D is run, though. Players don't usually have that level of control over the game.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It goes in the opposite sequence.

When a character's just starting out, the sum of the actions declared by the player and things said by the character determine what the persona is. Very importantly, those early-days actions and words also set a recognizable pattern as to what this character's all about. Later, once that persona gets settled in, it in turn should greatly inform the player as to what actions to declare.

Further, once that pattern of personality is extablished and being adhered to then one can introduce incremental long-term changes to that pattern and have it mean something; and your example of Bilbo is a great one here.

So another fundamental difference here might be in how developed our starting characters are. I usually start with a build* that interests me, then come up with a one or two sentence story that both makes sense with the build and sounds fun to me. Everything else about the character I "discover" in play.

*And by "build" I usually just mean a race/class combination, with an intended sub-class, and maybe some signature spells or a feat I want.