D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Malmuria]

I'll confess that I wasn't willing to watch a 14 minute video to get the full impact of your point, especially given the snark apparent in your parting shot:



But I will say that I've tried to watch Critical Role and it bores me to tears, so "waste of time" might actually be appropriate.

I mean the video is kind of both. It's actually quite funny in parts, but it also could have played out by the wizard saying "does this store have any spellbooks by any chance" and the dm saying "no."

 

[Blue]

I don't think this is an effective way to talk about RPGing. It doesn't distinguish RPGing from any other sort of gameplay.

That it doesn't distinguish from other gameplay does not make it less true. And when you try to move up alevel to talk abotu tasks to try to accomplish the pursuit of enjoyment, you find that there are no universal ones - including "completing the adventure". The reason why you need to talk about it at this level is that this is the least common divisor that you must always make sure is satisfied. When you get at removes from it, you are moving towards personal preference.

To use a light hearted (and hopefully not emotionally invested) example, there is no correct answer to "do we disallow Monty Python references during a session." For some tables it may break immersion, or it may slow play, or do lots of things that are detrimental in-game. But at other tables the socialization is a primary enjoyment factor and they fly fast and furious.

I need to get to this level to show that "completing the adventure" or "play my character as they would" are a remove. Many tables have preferences that include one or both of those, but trying to say that any in-world goal for the characters is also the goal for all players isn't true.

If I turn up to play a typical D&D game in which the GM has said (say) Let's play White Plume Mountain and I focus on the portrayal of my character at the expense of beating the dungeon and recovering the stolen swords, I'm probably a problem player. There are RPGs where portraying my character is a central goal of play, and I personally prefer those RPGs to Gygax-ish or mainstream contemporary D&D. But one of the starting points for those games is to completely abandon the assumptions about prep phases, participant roles etc that are inherent in a GM saying Hey, who wants to play White Plume Mountain.

Here you are talking about a specific table. A table can be aligned and have (mostly) the same goals. A player base is too wide and can not.

 

[Blue]

I wonder if there is any correlation between those who are pushing hard against this idea and the stability of their gaming groups? As in, people who have stable gaming groups whose membership doesn't change terribly often, have no need for this sort of framework and see it as insulting, vs, someone like me, whose table membership varies often, sometimes month to month. In 3e, for example, I played exclusively online. I actually started counting the number of players I'd had at my table and stopped when I reached a hundred in under 4 years.

Heck, even now, since I've started rebuilding a new group since a year ago last April, I've seen close to 30 players at my table. Having something like this as a shorthand would be a godsend.

I have two rather stable groups, and I welcome additional bias-free terminology to describe. Even stable groups have turnover, plus I'm part of a larger community - new groups form, tables get discussed, etc.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think this is an effective way to talk about RPGing. It doesn't distinguish RPGing from any other sort of gameplay.

But, does everything we talk about HAVE TO BE specifically about RPGs?

I mean, we are engaged in gameplay. So, it seems to me that discussion of gameplay, in general, is still going to be useful to folks.

 

[Umbran]

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?

Have you ever seen a player of a wizard character turn to their spell list to figure out what they are going to do next round?

Same thing here - broadly speaking, a game should have rules for those things that the designers expect and want players to engage in. If your game is in large part about romance, you should have rules for romance. If your game is about combat, you should have rules for combat, and so on.

 

[Oofta]

Again, you have those rules, they're just "I say." And you fit that into either consensus storytelling approaches or into GM-led and moderated storytelling approaches. Ad hoc rules are still rules at the moment of application.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

In my games, there are no rules for personal interactions other than the standard "if uncertain roll for it". The majority of personal interactions, whether romantic or otherwise, are handled through role playing it.

Much like how I run my campaigns, I place opportunity for a variety of interactions in front of the PCs, it's up to them what they do with it. Sometimes I'll roll for NPC reaction, that's it.

It's not about rules, it's about deciding NPCs will act and respond based on my conception of who they are and the situation at hand

 

[Oofta]

Have you ever seen a player of a wizard character turn to their spell list to figure out what they are going to do next round?

Same thing here - broadly speaking, a game should have rules for those things that the designers expect and want players to engage in. If your game is in large part about romance, you should have rules for romance. If your game is about combat, you should have rules for combat, and so on.

I simply disagree. I understand how human interaction works with enough fidelity to resolve situations that come up in-game. Reactions to getting romantic with someone (or any number of other concepts) is best dealt with by the person running the PC or NPC for me.

But no one style works for everyone, D&D can't have a rule for everything. When it comes to social interactions, I don't want anything more than what we have now.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

In my games, there are no rules for personal interactions other than the standard "if uncertain roll for it". The majority of personal interactions, whether romantic or otherwise, are handled through role playing it.

Much like how I run my campaigns, I place opportunity for a variety of interactions in front of the PCs, it's up to them what they do with it. Sometimes I'll roll for NPC reaction, that's it.

It's not about rules, it's about deciding NPCs will act and respond based on my conception of who they are and the situation at hand

That's what I said! What I said what you're still using a system, it's just ad hoc and GM-says and this is your ruleset.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I simply disagree. I understand how human interaction works with enough fidelity to resolve situations that come up in-game. Reactions to getting romantic with someone (or any number of other concepts) is best dealt with by the person running the PC or NPC for me.

But no one style works for everyone, D&D can't have a rule for everything. When it comes to social interactions, I don't want anything more than what we have now.

Really? Because I'm a smart person who's pretty good with people and I have largely no idea. I'm very excited to hear how you know how real people react to things, and then curious as to why you post the way you do if you know how it will cause people to react when you could just make perfect communications with them!

 

[overgeeked]

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?

Because not everyone wants to try to make their PC come to life or makes decisions for their PC based on what their PC would do. Some people play D&D like it’s a boardgame. For some of them, rules for this kind of thing are necessary.