D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

[Bill Zebub]

Well, if you don't get that there are, and have for may years been people, lots of people, who dump INT and CHA with the specific idea that they're going to RP it out, I can't help you. This is a real thing. Whether or not you believe in it.

Ah, so it's another one of those things that's meant to prevent "cheating", like requiring somebody to act intimidated if an NPC "uses intimidate" on them.

Anyway, I was thinking about the following while putting my kids to sleep:

Imagine a game in which you (as a player) don't see other players' character sheets, and you also don't see their dice rolls. All you know is whether they succeed or fail when they do roll dice.

Now imagine that you're playing a character with a low attribute, but you describe (and roleplay) your character as being exceptional in the associated areas...but with some kind of restriction or limitation. So you have Strength 6, but you describe yourself as being a hulking, muscle-bound brute, but when you were a child you accidentally killed your puppy, so you are hesitant to use your strength and went to wizard school. Or....well, you get the idea.

Then, in play, the goal is to maintain that illusion. Let's say the party needs to climb over something, so everybody makes an Athletics roll. (Maybe you're proficient in Athletics, maybe not?). If you succeed in your roll, you narrate how easy it was. If you fail in your roll, you get an astonished look on your face, as if the RNG gods have just betrayed you, and narrate some reason why you were just incredibly unlucky on that climb, and mutter something about "should have taken Athletics".

The thought experiment I'm pondering is how long you can maintain the illusion before the other players realize you don't really have a high Strength score that you're hesitant to use.

Would be kind of fun, and possibly illustrative.

 

[Lanefan]

God save me from a game where the roleplaying is so sacred that it overrides everything else.

We might not be a good fit, then, as that's pretty much exactly what I want from a game.

 

[Lanefan]

First, I think this is a super uptight way to play.

But even so, what happens if your not-so-clever friend is playing the high-int puzzle solver? How do they roleplay that? Constantly roll dice, and if they roll high the DM hands them the answer, while you keep silent about your solution?

More or less; or failing that the DM just puts a good interpretation on any ideas coming from that player.

The "you keep silent" part applies, however, unless you can come up with a good in-fiction reason why your PC would think of this.

Why not give the player a cool idea that you don’t think your character would come up with, and they could roleplay that it was their character’s idea?

Because then in effect you're RPing the other player's character rather than (or in addition to) your own.

 

[Lanefan]

I just don’t interpret stats the way you do. 6 Int means -2 to Int rolls. That’s plenty of penalty.

To me it means that 6-Int PC is over 40% less intelligent than the population average (which would be 10.5 on the 3-18 bell curve), assuming Humans all round here for simplicity.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not 100% sure what you have in mind here.

And in the context of 5e D&D, for me at least this always get back to the question why can't the devout fighter pray to the gods for miracles, and have them answered, even though there is no divine spellcasting ability recorded on that character's PC sheet?

While I get what you're saying here I'm not sure this is the best example if one is using a setting where deities are nigh-omnipotent and thus can do anything (and maybe, just maybe, hear anyone's heartfelt prayer).

A better example might have been having watched the wizard cast Magic Missile for months, why can't the fighter go through the same incantations and hand-waving and get any result?

 

[pemerton]

Vague action declaration: Something where I, as DM, need to fill in the details to adjudicate (in this case, I won't make assumptions and will ask the player for more detail)
Specific action declaration: Something where I, as DM, can immediately adjudicate

1. "I prepare defensive fortifications" is (probably) too vague.
2. "I prepare defensive fortifications using rope and timber" is reasonably specific.
3. "blah blah blah I know all about tank traps" is even more specific, but it's really no better in play than 2.

Your 3 and 2 here are not what I anticipated.

I personally think the distinction is important. The move from 2 to 3 shows that the player actually has something in mind.

The same is true, in my view, if the player can actually say what their PC is saying.

This difference can apply in 5e easily enough. If the player gives a rousing speech, or actually describes how tank traps work, this can grant advantage on a check. That wouldn't necessarily be relevant at your table, where - as I understand it - it is considered desirable to avoid rolling the dice. But it would be relevant at @Oofta's or @clearstream's table.

 

[pemerton]

I want players to play whatever mechanical build they want and whatever roleplay persona/description they want regardless of build.

<snip>

I prefer to have mechanics and roleplay be separate.

I have to confess that I can barely get my head around this! Maybe it's my primordial RM/RQ-ness; but for me the way that I express that my PC is muscled is via a high STR score; is charming is via a high Persuasion score; etc.

And then, as per @Hriston's OP, roleplaying consists primarily in saying what my PC does, having regard to what their build suggests they can do. And the GM's job is then to adjudicate the outcome of that, via application of the rules.

 

[pemerton]

A clever DM can get around players trying to "out-smart" their INT or "charm-up" their CHA, and have fun while doing so. I mean, maybe a low CHA character has a low CHA partially because they're not nearly as charismatic as they think they are, and maybe one definition of a low intelligence person is someone who thinks they're much smarter than they actually are. So even as a smart player with a low INT character comes up with a clever idea that is inconsistent with their character, the DM can either say, "Wrong" or just make them roll for it. Similarly with CHA.

I don't see the benefit, to play, of the GM using the adjudication of the fiction and of action declarations to tell a player that their self-conception of their PC is wrong. To me that seems more like something to be discussed in a non-resolution context.

I mean, why not just tell the player that the truth about their PC will reflect the PC's attributes?

 

[pemerton]

Imagine a game in which you (as a player) don't see other players' character sheets, and you also don't see their dice rolls. All you know is whether they succeed or fail when they do roll dice.

<snip>

The thought experiment I'm pondering is how long you can maintain the illusion before the other players realize you don't really have a high Strength score that you're hesitant to use.

Would be kind of fun, and possibly illustrative.

This strikes me as no different from the INT 5 genius that was discussed a few years ago, or the mind leeches and curse that @AbdulAlhazred mentioned upthread.

It will run into some problems - eg as AbdulAlhazred said, why does the Water of Curing All Ills not kill the thought leeches? Why does the spell of instilling great confidence not allow the PC to unleash their mighty thews?

More generally, there are so many points of contact between resolution and fiction in a RPG that this sort of thing readily easily comes under pressure.

Upthread I suggested that, at a certain point, free descriptors start to make more sense. Another option is to drop the notion of stats measuring anything (I mean, you are saying that a low STR can be a measure of self-confidence, in direct contradiction of the rulebook saying that it measures natural athleticism and bodily power) and just treat them as bonuses as you have said. But then you get mechanics that are divorced from the fiction, as @Voadam has posted about not far upthread.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Let's go with the exact extreme example.

A player comes to me as DM and says they want to imagine their Str 8 Con 10 stat warlock as descriptively having the mighty thews and physical prowess of Conan.

I would tell them I have no problem with them describing their character how they want, but they will still have a -1 on strength checks. If it does not cause a dissonance problem for them and is what they want to play, I am fine with accommodating the descriptive self image they want for their roleplay character.

If someone wants to roleplay as much of an ideal of a person as they can across multiple aspects, I am fine with that.

Mechanically I want it balanced so stats have mechanical impact and I suggest players assign stats according to their class build so all the characters are roughly stat optimized for their combat style and build. I want players to play whatever mechanical build they want and whatever roleplay persona/description they want regardless of build.

This approach prioritizes player choice of character portrayal and mechanical balance over balancing optimized build stats versus concept when a player goes against class stat build in character roleplay portrayal concept.

Aesthetically I prefer to have the game not incentivize slotting mechanically optimized character builds into only certain roleplay roles. I prefer to have mechanics and roleplay be separate.

Super hard disagree on this one. To me the main purpose (I could almost say the sole purpose) of the mechanics is to represent the things that are true in the fiction (at least in somewhat vague and abstract way.) I have no use for rules that are disconnected from the fiction.