D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[pemerton]

Why would you need or want the system to do romance in a role play heavy game?

Asking for a friend who never understands statements like this. How does romance , likes, dislikes, PC interactions in general get boiled down to rules and charts if people are trying to make their PC come to life by doing what their PC would do?

The second paragraph here - especially the reference to charts - shows a fairly limited understanding of the range of possible RPG rules.

And the first paragraph shows a misunderstanding of my point as reiterated by @Malmuria. The problem that mainstream D&D causes for romance is that romance is a strong source of motivation that affects a person's choices and actions; and mainstream D&D doesn't have much room for those choices and actions, because they lead to departures from "the mission".

 

[overgeeked]

The goal of play may be to succeed at "the mission". The purpose of play, however, is not the same as the goal of play.

If they succeed at the mission, but he players have a miserable time, would you call that a successful RPG session? Probably not. So, the conflation really needs to be questioned.

This is where the distinction between the player and the character is really important.

The character's goal is to succeed at "the mission".

The player's goal is to have fun playing the game.

Those don't always have to line up.

Death, dying, injury, and yes...even failure can all be fun and entertaining gaming experiences.

Conflating the two is also where you get a lot of disruptive behavior and problems in play. Players seeing the game as a competition that can be won. Players telling other players how to play their character. Players complaining about other players doing the "sub-optimal" thing. It's like they see the game itself as a sport they're competing in rather than a game they're playing. Adversarial DMing also seems to come from a similar place. The DM thinking they are in competition with the players and out to win.

 

[overgeeked]

And I'm just fine with this. Not all adventuring parties are always going to get along perfectly, and nor should they; and if following one's character turns out to disrupt party unity then so be it - let 'em fight.

For the longest time I agreed with this. But not anymore. For a sizeable subsection of players group cohesion is one of the main draws of play. Cooperative play is the goal, not head-to-head play. For those players PVP basically destroys one of their main reasons for playing the game. It's the equivalent to forcing the tactically minded minis collecting wargamer to play theater of the mind.

 

[Malmuria]

Why would you need or want the system to do romance in a role play heavy game?

Asking for a friend who never understands statements like this. How does romance , likes, dislikes, PC interactions in general get boiled down to rules and charts if people are trying to make their PC come to life by doing what their PC would do?

That's a fair question. But it's not a question of, 'should a game be fun?'--that's a given. Rather it's a question of, 'does system matter?' Does the ruleset, orientation, and genre of a game affect gameplay, in particular enabling some types of gameplay. In apocalypse world, one of your five stats is "hot" and the game tells you that

Each of the characters also has a special move that kicks in when they have sex with someone. For most of the characters, the special sex moves apply when they have sex with another player’s character, not with oh just anybody, but for a few of them, oh just anybody will do.

I could see how this could be unappealing for some; indeed, I find AW to be pretty unappealing and I've never actually played it. But it's a fairly influential example of "system matters"--the rules and mechanics are telling you what the game is about. Similarly, basic dnd has save vs dragon breath and save vs spells; that's also a game that tells you what it's about. There might be charm effects in basic dnd, but there is not "save vs seduction," and so the game doesn't account for that roleplay space. AW, on the other hand, lists seduction as a basic move.

The counterpoint to "system matters" would be, "play worlds not rules." In that sense, as long as everyone at the table has an understanding of genre and tropes, any system can handle any kind of roleplay scenario.

I actually lean toward the latter, but recognize that by starting your game with DnD, or CoC, or Vampire, or Monster of the Week, you are already pointing your game in a particular direction.

 

[pemerton]

This is where the distinction between the player and the character is really important.

The character's goal is to succeed at "the mission".

The player's goal is to have fun playing the game.

Those don't always have to line up.

What does playing the game consist in, in your view?

For instance, if playing the game consists in portraying a character who is (in the video's terminology) "3D", then why use the context of a "mission" or a dungeon crawl as the backdrop for that? Why stick to the structure that was invented for one sort of game if we're playing a different sort of game?

Conflating the two is also where you get a lot of disruptive behavior and problems in play. Players seeing the game as a competition that can be won.

Well, D&D as typically presented clearly is a game that can be won. I win White Plume Mountain by getting the weapons out of the dungeon. I win Speaker in Dreams by learning about the shadowy figure behind the Baron and defeating its evil schemes. Etc.

If we want to play a game that has different, or no, win conditions then why use these sorts of set-ups for play? Or to flip it around - why would a GM go about setting up a dungeon to be crawled, or a mystery to be solved, or other standard sort of prep, if the goal of play is not for the players to beat the dungeon or solve the mystery?

For the sake of clarity: I'm a great believer in RPGing as portraying the character. It's the main thing I'm interested in as a RPGer. I just don't think the typical structure of D&D play is a good fit for that goal of play.

 

[pemerton]

Not all adventuring parties are always going to get along perfectly, and nor should they; and if following one's character turns out to disrupt party unity then so be it - let 'em fight.

For the longest time I agreed with this. But not anymore. For a sizeable subsection of players group cohesion is one of the main draws of play. Cooperative play is the goal, not head-to-head play. For those players PVP basically destroys one of their main reasons for playing the game.

I don't think either of these posts takes us very far in thinking about the portrayal of "3D" characters in RPGing.

If we're talking about 3D characters, who have rich inner lives, undergo changes, etc then why would they be in an "adventuring party"? And what affirmative answer to that question is consistent with them fighting one another?

And from the other side of the issue, if we're talking about group cohesion in pursuit of cooperative play, what are we trying to do together? What is our success condition? It clearly isn't simply all of us faithfully portraying our characters because that is quite consistent with conflict among them!

 

[pemerton]

The counterpoint to "system matters" would be, "play worlds not rules." In that sense, as long as everyone at the table has an understanding of genre and tropes, any system can handle any kind of roleplay scenario.

I'm not sure what you mean by system here. I'm also not sure what you mean by scenario.

I don't think that D&D, played in accordance with (i) its procedures for preparing content and allocating authority over the fiction among the participants, and (ii) its PC build and action resolution rules (even stripped down to their most basic), will be able to reproduce the experience of playing Wuthering Heights, or even Agon or Prince Valiant.

EDIT: We can spell this out a bit more. Compared to Wuthering Heights, D&D has no framework for being unable to do what you want to do because of ennui, or of being carried away by your rage. Making this interpersonal rather than "inner", it has no framework for being persuaded to do a silly thing against your better judgement, which is central to The Dying Earth.

If we compare to Agon, there is no resolution system - unless you're a cleric or similar class - for tracking your relationships with the gods and the effect of those on your fortune. If we compare to Prince Valiant, there's no social conflict resolution (cf a CHA check) which can result in the PC being outwitted or rebuffed.

I'll chuck in Burning Wheel as well. D&D has no analogue of the Circles check - all determinations of chance (or not-so-chance) encounters are under the GM's control. This doesn't limit the "stories" that can be told but has a profound effect on the RPGing experience - and I play RPGs for the experience, not for the post-hoc content of the fiction imagined from the audience point of view.

 

[Hussar]

It's not the existence of a shorthand that bothers me, it's the terminology that elevates one playstyle above the others.

I get that. And, I'm not unsympathetic. The only problem is, we all understand what is actually meant here, so, instead of quibbling over the words, either suggest a better terminology, or just let the terminology stand because it's right there in the definition that it's not supposed to be an elevation of one over the others but simply a spectrum of playstyles from simpler to more complicated. (Dammit, it really is HARD to find words that differentiate without sounding judgemental. )

 

[pemerton]

The counterpoint to "system matters" would be, "play worlds not rules."

I just read the blog. It's hardly a counterpoint to system matters - it's a huge piece of advocacy for a particular system, namely, descriptor-based drama resolution (using "drama" in the Jonathan Tween/Ron Edwards sense of fortune, karma, drama as methods of resolution).

The use of free descriptors, together with the following passage, actually reminded me of a different RPG:

Have you read Brideshead Revisited? The Wizard of Earthsea? Foundation and Empire? Any captivating novel, regardless of timeframe, setting, or genre? Well now you can run a full FKR game based on that book. You don't need an RPG sourcebook because all books are now sourcebooks. All television shows are sourcebooks. All movies and songs and comics and memes and medical brochures are now sourcebooks.​

This could be lifted right from Robin Laws HeroQuest Revised. Except that Laws's game uses fortune rather than drama as its resolution method, which shifts the dynamic of play away from tactics (to quote from the blog, "The freedom of the Player Characters to attempt any tactic to solve a problem, subject to the adjudication of the Game Master") and onto the narrative qualities of the fiction (especially pacing and success vs failure, which are big parts of HQ rev).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I get that. And, I'm not unsympathetic. The only problem is, we all understand what is actually meant here, so, instead of quibbling over the words, either suggest a better terminology, or just let the terminology stand because it's right there in the definition that it's not supposed to be an elevation of one over the others but simply a spectrum of playstyles from simpler to more complicated. (Dammit, it really is HARD to find words that differentiate without sounding judgemental. )

The problem is that you're looking for a terminology that says that one is a better form of the other -- that it is more. So, more dimensions is clearly better than fewer dimensions, so this terminology fits your conception that roleplaying has an arc of worse to better. I reject this concept outright. There are different ways to roleplay that achieve different goals. Playacting for entertainment purposes, for instance, is very valid and I engage in it often, but it's not superior to not playacting. It serves a different goal.

To express this, I find there's a big difference between expressing a character and exploring a character. In D&D, the overwhelming mode of play is expression of character -- when you roleplay here, it's more to present a characterization and set of tropes. D&D focuses play on the party as the unit of interest, so building a character here has to align itself to this group identity first and foremost which leaves little room for exploration of the character and encourages just expression of some character. Even the BIFTs are on the lines of expression -- things you do but that don't cause any questioning of who the character actually is at any given moment. The zeitgeist expectations for this characterization have grown, such that now there's the idea that you'll at least do some playacting, but at no point has the idea that you're exploring this character to find out who they are caught on in any popular way. The levels of "but it's what my character would do" are still very shallow and often considered gauche if they conflict with the group identity. This is fine, though, and I very much enjoy this and engage with it -- I'm doing so now where I have a tiefling literally raised by his devil father who, nevertheless, is well-adjusted enough to adventure with the other misfits in the group and treat them as valued family even when expressing rivalries. This is expression of character.

On the other hand, you can have exploration of character. Here you're playing to find out who this character is, at least in some way. Individuals are important, even at the expense of the group -- characters can actively work against each other, even. In this mode, I'm looking to find things out about my character, so I need to risk my character in ways that do this. The mechanics may tell me that my character has changed -- such as when my Blades character stressed out of a scene and had a trauma applied. I learned something about my character here that I didn't invent. This isn't better than the above -- it's different, aimed at achieving a different objective.

And, both of the above can be accomplished quite fine with the video's description of dimension.