D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Maxperson]

Because the player is never objective.

No matter what the player decides, it will always come from the very subjective position of the player. Even players who delight in torturing their characters are still making choices based on that particular preference of play. IOW, the player will nearly always choose a response that the player thinks of. Obviously.

Take a DM's example. The monsters have downed a PC but there are still standing PC's around. The monster's turn comes up. Now, as the DM, you could instantly kill the downed PC - two automatic death fails kills the PC in this example (assume the character has already failed one death save). So, as the DM, do you whack the PC or attack someone else? Well, either way you decide is tainted by your awareness of the table. If you choose to kill Dave's character, he might be kinda pissed off. OTOH, if you choose not to kill Dave's character, are you making that choice because it makes sense in the fiction or because you just don't want to kill Dave's character? But, if you kill Dave's character, are you doing it to avoid looking like you are avoiding not killing a character - on and on and on, around in circles.

So, if you're me, you let the dice decide. 1-2, kill Dave's character, 3-6 move on to the next target. It's objective and fair and doesn't put me, as DM, square in the spotlight for whacking Dave's character.

The same goes for players. Players will never choose something that they don't think of themselves. They can't. Obviously. So, that's where mechanics come in.

Before I was speaking as a player. Now I'll come at it from the DM side of things.

As a DM I much prefer to have control over whether the monsters kill the downed PC or not based on the circumstances surrounding the fight. Below I'll give some examples.

Example 1: The PCs are facing ravenous ghouls and the downed PC has a ghouls standing over him. Ghouls aren't that smart and really exist to eat human flesh. The ghoul would stop and start eating the PC, so the PC gets attacked while he is down. (this happened in one of my campaigns and the druid died).

Example 2: The PCs are facing an experience mercenary band who knows that downed enemies often don't stay down, so tactically the best thing to do is make sure they don't get back up. The mercenary over the downed PCs finishes the job.

Example 3: The PCs are facing off against townsfolk who have been enraged by an anger entity that is plaguing the town. The downed PC has farmer Joe standing over him. Angry or not, farmer Joe doesn't know tactics and isn't familiar with enemies getting back up in battle, so he just moves on to the standing PCs and tries to attack one.

Example 4: A new town guard that has only had a few weeks of training is standing over the PC. He has some small training in tactics and the idea that enemies can get back up, but he's very new and there's a good chance he's not going to think of it in the moment. I don't know for certain which way it will go, so I'm going to assign 1-2 he kills the PC, 3-6 he moves on to attack the others.

I don't want there to be set general mechanics for making that decision, because those mechanics cannot take all the details of the moment into consideration and give me what I consider to be reliable results on what the monster/NPC would do.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yeah, I think most of this is just about preference. Or about the perceived pros and cons of each.

So what makes combat in RPGs exciting....or at least one of the things....is that it's dangerous. We don't know what will happen to our characters. They may get hurt or die. It's uncertain. We will make decisions that will determine how dangerous it may be, but there will be decisions made by others, and there will be chance, that will also be factors.

Some folks like that kind of excitement when applied not just to the state of our PCs during combat or other physical activities, but also their mental state in more social based interactions.

Others really hate it.

Again, I'd like to note the strong correlation between hating it and preferring/experiencing only games where the GM has full authority over everything else and where the densest concentration of player-facing rules is in combat. I'm honestly not sure about the direction, though, as this seems like a classic chicken/egg problem.

 

[Desdichado]

No they aren't. I'm utterly confused by this.

Well... yes, they are. I guess I don't know what else to say about this then. So, for that matter, is almost all fiction, or all fiction that's any good. When I was younger and I used to read a lot of books by science fiction authors about science fiction authorship, almost all of them made this point explicitly; that the only good stories are the stories about characters; not plot, not setting, etc. Again, I think the problem here is that you've defined "character exploration" so narrowly that it has no relation to the way anyone else uses the phrase, and it's a major distraction, making discussion about whatever it is exactly that you meant (mechanical options for character behavior, I presume, although I'm even then not completely sure) impossible to have.

 

[Oofta]

It became kind of confusing, with all that mixing of mechanics telling what the PC feels and GM doing the same. I'll focus on the first case, as the second is a bit more debatable.

So. Mechanics, rules, dice, all that fancy jazz.

Is there really any meaningful difference between using dice to determine whether the character can hit a head-sized target at 800m and using dice to determine whether the character can actually pull the trigger, knowing that this head-sized belongs to her lover? I, honestly, don't think so.

I can't see how something like



is somehow different from



After all, dice is a tool to choose between two equally interesting outcomes. If one of them is uninteresting, then there's no point in touching dice. Any rule out there exists to allow you to disclaim decision-making, after all.

There's a difference between the player making the decision, even if it's random and the decision being made for them.

Maybe my PC pulls the trigger because their lover doesn't really mean much and it was just for fun. Maybe they don't pull the trigger, consequences be damned. Maybe as a player I'm uncertain in the moment what they would do, so I roll a die.

Frequently I make the decision without conscious thought, especially if I've been playing the PC for a while. Occasionally that decision will surprise me.

Or not. It's just a game.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ok, so I think what you mean by "learn about this character" is "what happens if I follow the path this concept is leading and find out happens, even if those consequences seem undesirable"?

I thought you were about to answer that in the long paragraph, but you kind of changed tack before telling me how the story unfolded. Was the denouement that you played out that flaw and "abandoned" another PC, rather than deciding to mitigate/change the flaw?

I don't think so, because your question is phrased in a way that makes me think something was missed. That could easily be my fault for failure to adequately explain it, but it's a complicated concept.

If I retain 100% control over my character, I cannot learn anything about it, I can only learn what I think about my character. My character can never surprise me, I can only surprise myself.

If I stake something about my character such that it's at risk and no longer entirely within my control, then I'm essentially engaged in trying to learn who this character is -- I've risked my control to get an answer, and will then be stuck with it.

In the example, I posed a possible question about my character (and this happened in game), but went with the first bit -- my character chose to just be dismissive and snarky towards the other character rather than take any other action. This choice was made because, well, 5e is foremost about the party, so I needed to take that into account and say that my character's flaw, in this case, was expressed very mildly. I didn't learn anything about my character, here, I learned what choice I was going to make, and just expressed it with my character. In another game, it's quite possible I wouldn't be free to make that choice because I've staked that my character has this flaw and it might be triggered here, forcing new actions and finding out something about this character -- that the party's goal is not more important than their personal beliefs. Or maybe I find out they are. I can't say, because it's not really my choice in this matter. And, key to this, is that when I make a character in these kinds of games, I'm expressly giving up this choice during creation and staking this point of my character as something I want to learn about in play. It's not ever just a random die roll to tell me what my character thinks, it's a question I've demanded the game challenge so I can learn the answer.

 

[tetrasodium]

Heh, @Aldarc and @pemerton, you have rightly hit the nail on the head.

For some reason, it is perfectly acceptable for the mechanics to dictate your actions, but, for some reason, things like emotional responses, while just as involuntary and beyond a person's control as missing with an attack, are completely unbelievable and rip people from their immersion.

I would LOVE to meet people whose control over their emotional responses were so completely under their control that no matter what, no matter what the stimulus or in the face of anything, they are 100% in control at all times.

But, apparently, that's more believable than having the mechanics tell you that you believe a lie or that nameless horror from beyond is just really damn scary and makes you wet your pants. Hell, even apparently being beaten literally to death, and then being ripped from whatever just rewards you have shuffled off to to reinhabit your scarred, broken, body has zero impact on a person's psyche.

A person with that sort of conscious control over their emotional responses would likely be deep into wide range of mental illnesses far beyond mere psychopahy & sociopathy. In the context of such a person acting as even the most well behaved murderhobo d&d PC it might be difficult to class them as anything but a starfish alien simply because you could no longer reliably map understandable motives & desires to their actions.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well... yes, they are. I guess I don't know what else to say about this then. So, for that matter, is almost all fiction, or all fiction that's any good. When I was younger and I used to read a lot of books by science fiction authors about science fiction authorship, almost all of them made this point explicitly; that the only good stories are the stories about characters; not plot, not setting, etc. Again, I think the problem here is that you've defined "character exploration" so narrowly that it has no relation to the way anyone else uses the phrase, and it's a major distraction, making discussion about whatever it is exactly that you meant (mechanical options for character behavior, I presume, although I'm even then not completely sure) impossible to have.

Yes, I know it's a popular thing to say. It's also popular to say it's raining cats and dogs. Metaphors do not become true on repetition. At no point is an author's character actually making any choices. If surprise happens during the process of authoring, it's because the author has surprised themselves with an unexpected thought. I surprise myself all the time this way. I've used that phrase to describe it. But, it's not actually true -- it's a metaphor.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Again, I'd like to note the strong correlation between hating it and preferring/experiencing only games where the GM has full authority over everything else and where the densest concentration of player-facing rules is in combat. I'm honestly not sure about the direction, though, as this seems like a classic chicken/egg problem.

Oh I think there is definitely a connection. I think it's kind of about the established distribution of authority. In D&D (most editions, though it varies a bit) the DM has the majority of the authority in this area, and the players receive authority over their PCs. So any time the DM intrudes on that authority in any way, you tend to see strong reactions.

Which is kind of understandable.....it's the established dynamic of the game. A DM taking control of a PC is not really different from a player deciding what creature is in the next room.

 

[Desdichado]

Again, the issue is one of volition. If you always choose the path of the character, then, yes, you may have an unexpected thought, but the character is still just you directing it. You can ignore that thought, use it now and refine it later, follow it, whatever, but this path is solely because you chose it for the character. You aren't engaged with the character, the character is just an expression of what you're thinking.

Here's an example: My current D&D character has a Flaw that they will abandon those that don't contribute. This is tied to backstory, party due to upbringing by a literal ice devil and also due to the outlander background after he ran away and lived with barbarian tribes in the frozen north -- if you don't pull your weight you're exiled. So, a situation came up in game where another character not only didn't pull weight, but made a choice that actively endangered everyone's lives. This should have been a pivotal moment for my character if I was interested in finding out who this character is -- are they the kind of character that will demand this other be exiled or take action against them or will they suppress this and go along because it's for the greater goal? Here's the choice, and it could be one where I get to learn this about my character. If I, like I do, retain 100% control, then I'm just going to pick one of these and express it through my character. I haven't learned anything about the character in this situation, I've instead decided who the character is and then apply that. I chose the latter, because 5e isn't a game where this kind of conflict actually works. Had I been playing a different game, then I might still have chosen but it would cause problems if I did so because my character would have to be working through this conflict -- perhaps I have a penalty or there's a new distinction that can be triggered. Dogs in the Vineyard works like this, in that I can choose to escalate or bail on a conflict, but I'll likely suffer various forms of fallout due to this that pose changes to my character (Dogs is all about this). Other games might make this kind of choice something that gets directly challenged and I don't necessarily have control over the outcome - my character's flaw may overwhelm them and I now have to deal with the fact that my character absolutely wants to toss the other character down an icy ravine to die from exposure.

The difference here is if I'm just picking the outcome myself and can justify it however I want, then I'm just expressing the character I'm choosing. I haven't learned anything new here, I've just decided something new. And, note, in none of the examples I've list above is a die just picked up and I'm told what my character things. These all come from things I've intentionally staked as conflict points for my character, so I've picked these. It's a big difference in how roleplaying can be approached. Although, I'm not terribly surprised at the resistance to the concept because, quite often, this difference gets viewed as one being somehow lesser than the other rather than different. They do different things.

Also note that I didn't once use "explore" in this response. "Explore" is not at all crucial to the point I'm making.

OK, so we got rid of explore, but now we are likely to be stuck on "learning something." If you had mechanics like Dogs in the Vinyard, and I admit to not being super familiar with the social conflict rules of that game, only having read them once years ago and never played with them, but if I remember correctly, you still roll dice for that. You didn't learn anything about your character. All you learned was "this one time I rolled the dice and the result was 13." Suggesting that that teaches you something about your character is egregious hyperbole, in my opinion, so it's hard again to see what you're talking about when you say things like, "You aren't engaged with the character, the character is just an expression of what you're thinking." As opposed to what; just being an expression of some dice rolls?

In any game, no matter whether it has this kind of narrative stuff built into like like Dogs, or if it doesn't, like D&D, you're still engaged with 1) your character, 2) the setting, as presented to you by the GM, and 3) the mechanics. In fact, I would suggest exactly the opposite as what you conclude from your example. That's not more engagement with the character, it's less, and is instead favoring engagement with the mechanics. Making a decision about how to handle it yourself, rather than referring to a mechanical solution, isn't just "expressing what you're thinking" as a player it's actually engaging with the character, and using your knowledge of the character's (ahem) character to determine what the result will be. Having mechanics to do that for you is more disengaging from the character, in much the same sense that making a Search check rather than narratively exploring a room is more disengaging from the setting as opposed to the mechanics. Mechanical solutions to questions of setting and character tend, in most cases, to be shortcuts for when you're not interested in engaging with the setting or the character.

I know that there are some exceptions, and some (admittedly, quite unusual in relation to where the rest of the hobby is) games that specifically address trying to grapple with the setting as presented by the GM or your character in a mechanical sense, but they are so out in left field compared to the rest of the hobby that I'm honestly kind of surprised how much they come up in discussions about D&D playstyle, and why they tend to dominate those kinds of discussions.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I don't think so, because your question is phrased in a way that makes me think something was missed. That could easily be my fault for failure to adequately explain it, but it's a complicated concept.

If I retain 100% control over my character, I cannot learn anything about it, I can only learn what I think about my character. My character can never surprise me, I can only surprise myself.

If I stake something about my character such that it's at risk and no longer entirely within my control, then I'm essentially engaged in trying to learn who this character is -- I've risked my control to get an answer, and will then be stuck with it.

In the example, I posed a possible question about my character (and this happened in game), but went with the first bit -- my character chose to just be dismissive and snarky towards the other character rather than take any other action. This choice was made because, well, 5e is foremost about the party, so I needed to take that into account and say that my character's flaw, in this case, was expressed very mildly. I didn't learn anything about my character, here, I learned what choice I was going to make, and just expressed it with my character. In another game, it's quite possible I wouldn't be free to make that choice because I've staked that my character has this flaw and it might be triggered here, forcing new actions and finding out something about this character -- that the party's goal is not more important than their personal beliefs. Or maybe I find out they are. I can't say, because it's not really my choice in this matter. And, key to this, is that when I make a character in these kinds of games, I'm expressly giving up this choice during creation and staking this point of my character as something I want to learn about in play. It's not ever just a random die roll to tell me what my character thinks, it's a question I've demanded the game challenge so I can learn the answer.

Ok, then either I'm still not understanding your answer, or you misinterpreted my last attempt to translate. (I'm not being disingenuous...I think this is interesting and I want to figure it out.)

Because the character is entirely fictitious, and in your head, I've been struggling to understand what you mean by "learn" about it. What you can learn about is where the traits you've chosen might lead in the fiction, if you commit to them and try to keep more gamist desires of you, the player, out of the equation. That it in turn might lead to an interesting and genuinely surprising portrayal of the character. Which, I suppose, must be what you mean by "learn about the character".

Is that correct?