D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Bill Zebub]

Do you react similarly to combat?

After all, the DM is telling you that you have lost HP. You have lost conciousness. Hell, you might even be dead, with zero input from you. Do you have a similar level of "I don't think Mr. B would really do that?"

I can only answer for myself, but for me there is a clear distinction, and a hard boundary, between "You get hit by a sword and you bleed" and "You get hit by a persuasive argument and you believe." One affects the body, the other affects the mind, and what goes on in my character's mind is exclusively mine to decide.

The only exception is magic (or psionics or whatever).

Even systems that have mechanics that affect the mind (such as Sanity) should still respect this boundary. It's fine to impose penalties or restrictions ("you can't take any actions until your Sanity score is above X" or whatever), but thoughts and decisions still belong to the player, and flavorful play should be incentivized, not dictated. A player who refuses to play along with the game in this regard is just another flavor of jerk, and the solution to jerks is to not play with jerks, not come up with more rules.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'm not sure I understand how you are getting to explore the character, though. Can you provide an example? Maybe a precipitating event that reveals something about the character to you? Because, given the insistence on absolute authority over the character, I don't follow that any change can happen to the character that isn't just you authoring it -- what are you exploring?

And, again, to be absolutely clear, I don't see how I can get to explore my characters when I retain absolute authority over them. And I enjoy 5e where I have this absolute authority. I mean, I can be posed a moral quandary or hard choice, but the result is still what I want it to be, so I'm not really exploring my character in these I'm just expressing the choice I've made. Where does having absolute authority over character result in being able to explore that character and discover things about them?

I agree with most things you've been posting, but this one has me puzzled. I think we must be using the word "explore" differently.

Sometimes I'll be faced with a decision in a game, and something will occur to me that both a) is a really cool thing to do, and b) gives me an idea for an evolution of the character that hadn't occurred to me before. So basically the ongoing fiction has led to a creative epiphany that would not have occurred if I were just in a room by myself trying to flesh out this character.

I think of that as 'exploring' the character. Do you not?

 

[Campbell]

Question for everyone here : How would you feel if either the GM or the player of another player character wanted to have a conversation to critique your play or discuss why you performed a particular action? Would you be open to critiques around fictional positioning?

 

[prabe]

Question for everyone here : How would you feel if either the GM or the player of another player character wanted to have a conversation to critique your play or discuss why you performed a particular action? Would you be open to critiques around fictional positioning?

So, I'm having conflicting if not contradictory thoughts, here. I'm open to critiques as a player and as a GM, but actively criticizing play seems like something that'd need to be done tactfully. If I'm playing a character inconsistently either with previous characterization/s or with action outcomes, I don't mind that being brought to my attention. Just like I don't mind (or at least I don't object to) it being brought to my attention if something I do as a GM doesn't work.

 

[Ovinomancer]

When I make a character I don't have a plan for what direction they're going to develop. I make decisions as the character in the moment based on the IC situation. Particularly if I'm strongly immersed, I can be surprised by the decisions I make for the character (especially upon reflection once I'm out of the character's headspace.)

Similarly, when I design a character I may expect to emphasize certain characteristics, mannerisms, or personality traits, but then find that in actual play I express the character differently.

By contrast, I personally don't see having a mechanic that simply tells you about changes to your character as more exploratory--you're not finding anything out for yourself through experiencing it, you're just being told. I see it as sort of like the difference between experiencing a plot twist while immersed in a good movie or book, versus being told about that plot twist by a friend. The former I would consider to be discovery, the latter not so much.

This is the same kind of argument used when it's claimed that authors feel the characters are writing themselves -- it's not really true. You're authoring the character. At no point is anything about the character at stake. It's a safe space to imagine within.

And, again, this is fine and good and I enjoy doing this. I don't try to dress it up flowery-like, though, to try and claim my safe acts of authoring are exploration of the character. Everything that's happening is me making choices about how to express the character -- nothing is discovered about the character through play.

I'm not trying to bag on you, here, but to point out a pretty salient difference in how roleplaying can be approached. I tend to see that the strong aversion to staking character is closely tied to primary experience or preference for games where the GM has all or almost all other authorities in the game -- like D&D. Here it's the only holdout where the player has full authority to declare character while the GM presents the world. Even here, there's close correlation to play in the Trad or Neo-Trad styles. And, again, nothing at all wrong with that. I'm quite enjoying the Trad Rime of the Frostmaiden game I'm in right now, but I make no qualms that I'm exploring my character even when I put on the funny voice and playact in character -- nothing about my characterization is ever at stake due to the game. Any changes I make are because I want to.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Question for everyone here : How would you feel if either the GM or the player of another player character wanted to have a conversation to critique your play or discuss why you performed a particular action? Would you be open to critiques around fictional positioning?

Had them. Can be very good conversations. So long as they're from the curious side, or the constructive side. If they're demanding an explanation because they think I played it wrong -- yeah, no.

 

[Maxperson]

I was not talking about the MERP RPG. I was talking about the ME:TW CCG, which is in fact (in its play) really a board game.

I'm not that familiar with that game. It creates a shared board like the other two? Or do they just set up their cards separately?

 

[Ovinomancer]

I agree with most things you've been posting, but this one has me puzzled. I think we must be using the word "explore" differently.

Sometimes I'll be faced with a decision in a game, and something will occur to me that both a) is a really cool thing to do, and b) gives me an idea for an evolution of the character that hadn't occurred to me before. So basically the ongoing fiction has led to a creative epiphany that would not have occurred if I were just in a room by myself trying to flesh out this character.

I think of that as 'exploring' the character. Do you not?

I see your point, but here's my take -- that choice is mine, there's no pressure to it, and it's no different, really, than if I had thought of it and applied it without the precipitating event. It's authorship, and nothing is at stake. I'm surprised by a new line of thinking for me, which I then apply to the character -- nothings flowing from the character to me, it's all me to the character. I'm in total control of this process the whole time. So, to speak of this as exploring the character strikes me as off because the character is just the receptacle being filled.

I think I'm driving towards the need for stakes to be involved -- for my character to do something that isn't what I might want as a player, and thereby learn something about this character.

Let me perhaps provide an example -- I have a character I think is brave. So the character does brave things. However, one time, the character is in a situation where it makes the most sense to run from a tactical perspective -- this gives the best overall outcome. I choose to run. I then say I've discovered my character is actually a coward. To me, this chain of events isn't exploring the character, it's finding justifications for actions. Even if I choose to remain and be brave, I'm mostly learning about which choice I'd make and then downloading that to the character.

Alternative, same character, but this time in the situation I have my character try to be brave, and so stake my bravery on an action. If I fail, though, my character doesn't act brave, they do something else, perhaps they break and run in the crucial moment. Here, I have a belief about my character, I test it, and I learn something new -- my character is a coward when the chips are down. This is revelation flowing from the character to me.

 

[Malmuria]

Question for everyone here : How would you feel if either the GM or the player of another player character wanted to have a conversation to critique your play or discuss why you performed a particular action? Would you be open to critiques around fictional positioning?

I would be open to that conversation, as long as it was not related to alignment.

 

[tetrasodium]

Question for everyone here : How would you feel if either the GM or the player of another player character wanted to have a conversation to critique your play or discuss why you performed a particular action? Would you be open to critiques around fictional positioning?

Had them at the table both as GM & player in fate. Likewise in d&d where it was more one sided from the GM imparting cjaracter knowledge to the player and allowing the player to flesh out their understanding of relevant world details through questions. It works great and is no big deal.

D&d is very much not a system where players have enough narrative control over the world to engage in unpredictable off rhe cuff "it's what my character would do" style story telling. Those systems exist and tend to have ways that the gm along with other players have the ability to say " isn't 'this' what your character would do" completely unexpected to you or have "its what my character would do" type actions somehow come at a cost to the character with a "yea i think it's (not) a fair call" level of control on it from across the table.