D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Bill Zebub]

This seems closer to just authoring a character in fanfiction than discovering a character through a roleplaying game. I could certainly write a story for my character, but I don't really feel as if I am engaged in roleplaying at that point. It's just authoring my own fiction.

And some of us feel the exact opposite way. Isn't that what we keep circling back to? There is no right and wrong here.

 

[Aldarc]

And some of us feel the exact opposite way. Isn't that what we keep circling back to? There is no right and wrong here.

Then write a book starring your character who is never challenged and whose "flaws" never comes up. When you write a book, you can even decide everything for your character. Your protagonist will never be affected unless you will it. No GM or player will challenge the authorship of said character. Authorship of the character's internal and external state is entirely your purview. And the rest of the group won't have to suffer with dealing with either you or your character as well as they play the game.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Then write a book starring your character who is never challenged and whose "flaws" never comes up. When you write a book, you can even decide everything for your character. Your protagonist will never be affected unless you will it. No GM or player will challenge the authorship of said character. Authorship of the character's internal and external state is entirely your purview. And the rest of the group won't have to suffer with dealing with either you or your character as well as they play the game.

Why the hyperbole and hostility?

I'm not suggesting you should write an RPG in which you roll dice for every single thought and action of your PC.

 

[tetrasodium]

Why the hyperbole and hostility?

I'm not suggesting you should write an RPG in which you roll dice for every single thought and action of your PC.

I don't feel it was hostile so much as superbly descriptive. How is deciding in the moment when it's an advantageous or meaningless injection into a given situation while ignoring & downplaying whenever it might e a problem anything but mary sue calling it roleplaying?

 

[Bill Zebub]

I don't feel it was hostile so much as superbly descriptive. How is deciding in the moment when it's an advantageous or meaningless injection into a given situation while ignoring & downplaying whenever it might e a problem anything but mary sue calling it roleplaying?

Happy gaming.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Much like my decision about my character.

Some risk? What I described wasn't "some risk." What I described was suicide. And who knows(well, I would), maybe he would mouth off anyway. Depends on the character.

Who knows? It's clearly a hypothetical scenario with multiple dials that can be turned to suit your purposes.

If I was the GM, the response of the emperor wouldn't be certain, either. This way we can......discover what happens.

It's not discovery. I didn't learn about the character. I learned about a random die roll or whatever mechanic was involved. The only way I will learn about my character is by immersing myself and making those decisions myself. All of those questions you ask there require me to answer them in order for me to learn about the PC.

But is that learning about a character? Or is that learning about your idea of the character? Is the character in any way beyond your control? Should it be?

That's not true. If I don't know the answer before I answer them, I've discovered the answer. Contrast that to a mechanic that might have me mouth off to one guy, but not the next(because mechanics have an element of randomness). What have I discovered? I've discovered that mechanics are inconsistent is all. I've learned nothing about the actual character.

Let's say there's a dragon terrorizing the countryside, and your character sets out to defeat it. How do we discover it he can do so?

Do you think about it for a bit and say "Yes, he can defeat a dragon!"? Or do you use the tools that the game gives us to discover what happens?

ROFL Now you're challenging my integrity if I want to make the decision myself? If I actually want to learn about my character, rather than only learning that rolls are random?

It's a hypothetical, right? So I'm not challenging your integrity so much as the hypothetical player who would willingly put the trait "Mouths off to authority" on his character sheet and then blatantly ignore it when there's a scenario where that trait puts him at risk.

If my character's trait is "Will always try to help the helpless" and then he sees a villager being taken prisoner by a stone giant, it'd be pretty poor roleplaying if I said "but I'm only 2nd level" and did nothing about it.

I often do the same thing, if that's what my character would do in that situation. I learn that when I enter those situations.

No. The trait remains. He just managed to control himself in that situation..............................or not. Maybe he didn't. It would depend on what I know of the character involved.

Then I would say the trait is meaningless. If I made that decision as a player, I'd be a bit let down in myself. If I saw another player doing it I'd probably say something like "Don't you mouth off to authority man?"

Now, that's my preferred method of play, but that doesn't make it the only way. If you prefer for these elements to be entirely up to the players, that's absolutely fine....but where I can't agree is the assessment that character is as important to play in such a game.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
A whole bunch of you seem to have decided that snark is constructive. As if after 50 pages the lines were not already drawn and largely set in stone...

These boards have zero interest in you folks building up lasting animosities that you will inevitably bring into other threads with you.

So, discussion closed.