Solving the "Just Roleplay it..." problem...

[payn]

Just to clarify, did you mean "Exasperate" (Irritates and frustrate the people involved) or "Exacerbate" (i.e. make the problem worse)?

Exacerbate, I got autocorrected. This is, of course, based on my opinion and experiences which have not been positive with this kind of mechanical system.

An "old-school" player who cleverly searches a room based on their own high intelligence score is not properly roleplaying their cleric with an 8 INT. A personable and charismatic player with an 8 CHA fighter who gives a moving speech to a crowd is not properly roleplaying their character.

If you've actually never run this problem at your table, I would rank your experience as one in a million. If you have, but don't see it as a problem, that's different, because you're already treating them differently. I'm just suggesting that it might make sense to just use a different approach to represent that.

I've seen it, but its been rare. I find this to be an issue with the player and not the system. Mechanical enforcement isn't going to stop a player from trying to "game" away a weakness. Thats just my experience.

Would you care to restate this in a way that is not wildly insulting (by insinuating games that model psychosocial elements are basically crutches) and/or provides actual reasoning behind the claims it makes?

I want to issue an apology to readers of the thread. I did not mean to insinuate that these mechanics force a restricted and repetitive play experience. That has been my personal experience. I wanted to make that potential pitfall known. Many folks do quite enjoy these specific roleplay mechanics in their RPGs and are a valid playstyle.

 

[JohnSnow]

Every game has that the player behind it makes a huge change in effectiveness. D&D combat is no different that D&D roleplay in this aspect. A player making good tactical decisions, analyzing the foe and the environment, and acting as a team player will be enormously more effective than one who just seeks to do damage to the closest opponent. And that's before the player input to the character build, where combat-related is like 80% of the mechanics of the character sheet.

Now, that doesn't mean I don't have suggestions. And they are around that characters can do things the players can't. It makes no sense that a character that can, for instance, fly even though the player cannot, can't give an inspiring speech where the player cannot. So a character needs to be effective at everything their character sheet says they are effective in, even if the player is not. A player who knows nothing about woodland survival, and in fact makes poor decisions like suggesting a camping spot where it will likely get flooded on a rainy night, needs to have their result elevated to the character's skills, which would avoid this. You wouldn't penalize the wizard because the player narrated some really bad faux Latin when casting, this is more of the same. The character is the foundation of competence.

But playing well should have a positive effect. Be it strong tactics, an intelligent search plan, or framing something to be persuasion vs. deception when the character is better at one than the other. And there's an interesting place for your traits - should a silver tongued player be able to deceive someone when the character has no skill, or perhaps a negative. It may be that having a trait like Uncouth would not just have a mechanical effect on the role when it would come into play, but also limit the best effect so that a player can't exceed it through their own skill.

I don't know if there's an answer for that which will satisfy all players.

This is the exact conundrum I'm raising, which is basically "is there a way to change how we capture this distinction that will make it more transparent about the distinction between the skills that are part of "game mastery" and those that can be hand-waved away due to "my character would know how to handle this."

By contrast, some of the things that are part of what makes gaming fun should probably be put on the monkey who rolls the dice. As an example, since all novice characters would logically start as amateurs at the investigation part of whatever skillset "dungeon delving" is, it's perfectly fine to just hand-wave the distinction for beginning players. Fighters might be good at combat, and thieves or rogues at sneaking around or disarming traps, but the investigation of the dungeon environment is a somewhat specialized skill that the character acquires as the player gets better at it.

As I type this, I wonder if this is why they didn't want to include a "thief" class early on.

 

[JohnSnow]

I want to issue an apology to readers of the thread. I did not mean to insinuate that these mechanics force a restricted and repetitive play experience. That has been my personal experience. I wanted to make that potential pitfall known. Many folks do quite enjoy these specific roleplay mechanics in their RPGs and are a valid playstyle.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for myself, I appreciate both the apology and your willingness to keep an open mind.

I don't really have an answer for this conundrum that's been noodling around in my brain for almost a day, but I do think it's an interesting question to ask whether the encounters that we treat differently in game should have a different system for resolution.

And even if they should, I have no idea what that system would look like. I'm certainly not beholden to the Edge/Hindrance personality trait idea, as that was literally just the first thing that occurred to me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is the exact conundrum I'm raising, which is basically "is there a way to change how we capture this distinction that will make it more transparent about the distinction between the skills that are part of "game mastery" and those that can be hand-waved away due to "my character would know how to handle this."

By contrast, some of the things that are part of what makes gaming fun should probably be put on the monkey who rolls the dice. As an example, since all novice characters would logically start as amateurs at the investigation part of whatever skillset "dungeon delving" is, it's perfectly fine to just hand-wave the distinction for beginning players. Fighters might be good at combat, and thieves or rogues at sneaking around or disarming traps, but the investigation of the dungeon environment is a somewhat specialized skill that the character acquires as the player gets better at it.

As I type this, I wonder if this is why they didn't want to include a "thief" class early on.

One answer, if you want to go there, is to simply have the players specify intent. "We are resting", the character is responsible through some mechanic to resolve the details and the outcome. You can then zoom in or out, giving more or less general instructions, from a blow-by-blow combat to "we sail across the ocean" resolved as a single action.

 

[Blue]

This is the exact conundrum I'm raising, which is basically "is there a way to change how we capture this distinction that will make it more transparent about the distinction between the skills that are part of "game mastery" and those that can be hand-waved away due to "my character would know how to handle this."

If the character is the foundation of competence - a player being bad will not reduce a competent character to incompetence, that's a floor on the result. In D&D, a d20+4 will pass every DC 5 check but that's a boring example.

What if the character's abilities are not just the floor of competence, but also the roof? What if no matter how good speech a player gives, the bonuses can't push the top of the results higher than the characters competence. One way to think of this is that Advantage will tend towards trolling higher, but won't change the maximum.

Just for an example, let's say there was a system where skills were ranked as: Untrained, Neophyte, Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, and Grandmaster. Your random generation can give you a result between your competence and two levels up. Good play can, like the Advantage mechanic in 5e, give you a greater chance to get a better result, but can't change the roof. (Maybe it's roll X dice take the highest, and good play can get you more dice.) So if a character is untrained at Oratory, no matter how impassioned a speech the player gives it still can't go above Apprentice-level results. This means that player mastery will have an effect, but that the character's competence still defines the limits, both best and worst, the character will do under normal circumstances.

And, if wanted, there could be further advantages and flaws, like Uncouth could either reduce the number of dice, or drop the result one category, when it comes up. Just need to make sure not to double-penalize by having a mechanical effect of Uncouth, and then not give bonus dice for a player RPing Uncouth as opposed to trying their best to persuade.

 

[JohnSnow]

If the character is the foundation of competence - a player being bad will not reduce a competent character to incompetence, that's a floor on the result. In D&D, a d20+4 will pass every DC 5 check but that's a boring example.

What if the character's abilities are not just the floor of competence, but also the roof? What if no matter how good speech a player gives, the bonuses can't push the top of the results higher than the characters competence. One way to think of this is that Advantage will tend towards trolling higher, but won't change the maximum.

I think there's an interesting thing here. And it's starting to get at what I was suggesting. If we want the player to be engaged, we have to have a certain degree of benefit from being engaged. So, in your example, the player with the low level oratory skill gets Advantage on the check for roleplaying their poor oratory skill well - even if it's just a description that: "Brom, thanks to his poor influence skills, makes an impassioned speech to the king about his majesty's obligation to help the little people, because the kingdom has actually done a piss-poor job of it in the past, which is why people like us exist. I mean...err..."

Not a firmly fleshed out idea, just the kernel of one.

 

[bloodtide]

The short version is that people can't "just roleplay" a character with a mental or emotional intelligence that's higher than their own. And we've all had that player who dumps Charisma and then "roleplays" a moving speech to the King. And then the player gets pissed when you make them roll to succeed because their character has a 6 Charisma.

The first part is very true. The second part is just a player being a bad role player.

The "we" does not include me. I understand these types of conflicts, but I have found mechanical answers often just exasperate the issue. I also find the "people can't "just roleplay" a character with a mental or emotional intelligence that's higher than their own." to be completely untrue. Nobody makes a person bench-press a truck to prove they can play a high strength character. I think the general mechanics as they are work just fine.

Except nearby everyone can say that they use the strength in a fictional descriptive way. It's easy to say "Karg picks up the boulder".

But the people that don't have the ability to do so, can never role play a clever idea, or figure out a mystery or make a plan. And you can't fake it with rules. Bob is clueless and can't figure anything out. Bob rolls a d20 and asks the DM for a solution. The DM tells Bob the solution and then Bob "role plays" that his character figured it out. In no real way does Bob "feel" like he figured anything out: he was just told the answer by the DM.

An "old-school" player who cleverly searches a room based on their own high intelligence score is not properly roleplaying their cleric with an 8 INT. A personable and charismatic player with an 8 CHA fighter who gives a moving speech to a crowd is not properly roleplaying their character.

It's not so bad. Even "eight" is around average in most games, so that person can sure to around average things. Most intelligent or wise or social gamers either play a character with the same stats or are willing to "role play down" what they really are in real life.

This is the exact conundrum I'm raising, which is basically "is there a way to change how we capture this distinction that will make it more transparent about the distinction between the skills that are part of "game mastery" and those that can be hand-waved away due to "my character would know how to handle this."

I'm not sure there is a game fix. A person is smart, wise or social.....or they are not. While a smart, wise or social person can 'down play' what they are: the reverse is not true. You can roll for an effect, but it will always be false.

Maybe there is a way to make all the negative stuff a player can't do give a huge "The Opposite" reaction in the game?

Like Bob is a social dud, playing prince Zo with an 18 charisma. Bob wants Zo to talk to the beautiful princess Nessa, but Bob does not know how to. So the DM asks Bob what Zo does and Bob describes how he does NOT ever interact with women. So Bob says "I hide behind the pillar and peak out and watch the princess". Then the DM adds a +5 to the check because the princess sees the "peek" and thinks it is so cute and flattering. So no matter the socialy akward things Bob says, it will be a positive if his character has a high charisma.

 

[JohnSnow]

It's not so bad. Even "eight" is around average in most games, so that person can sure to around average things. Most intelligent or wise or social gamers either play a character with the same stats or are willing to "role play down" what they really are in real life.

Do they, and are they, though?

Old school gamers are always complaining about "just roleplay it," but I have rarely encountered anyone who deliberately handicaps their own social, insightful, or reasoning skills when playing D&D. And I think that offering some kind of in-game reward for doing so would probably make people more likely to do it. And it might be "better" (or at least more transparent) to have a system like that rather than simply declaring "people should/will do that."

Maybe it's not everyone's experience, but I honestly don't believe this is a "my table and players only" problem. Although I can admit that if you only play with people who've been RPing for 20 years, it may come up less.

I'm not sure there is a game fix. A person is smart, wise or social.....or they are not. While a smart, wise or social person can 'down play' what they are: the reverse is not true. You can roll for an effect, but it will always be false.

That's sorta the point I was getting at. Some of these mental stats are player-constrained. What is the best way to address that?

Maybe there is a way to make all the negative stuff a player can't do give a huge "The Opposite" reaction in the game?

Like Bob is a social dud, playing prince Zo with an 18 charisma. Bob wants Zo to talk to the beautiful princess Nessa, but Bob does not know how to. So the DM asks Bob what Zo does and Bob describes how he does NOT ever interact with women. So Bob says "I hide behind the pillar and peak out and watch the princess". Then the DM adds a +5 to the check because the princess sees the "peek" and thinks it is so cute and flattering. So no matter the socialy akward things Bob says, it will be a positive if his character has a high charisma.

That's a clever idea. I mean, it still requires the DM to either know, or guess at, what the "right" result/action would be, but there's not really any way to get around the limitation of a DM. But I think something like this could work.

 

[niklinna]

Old school gamers are always complaining about "just roleplay it," but I have rarely encountered anyone who deliberately handicaps their own social, insightful, or reasoning skills when playing D&D. And I think that offering some kind of in-game reward for doing so would probably make people more likely to do it. And it might be "better" (or at least more transparent) to have a system like that rather than simply declaring "people should/will do that."

My Torg Eternity group has a player who regularly makes up characters with a low Charisma or Mind score, and role-plays being creepy or cold or ignorant to the hilt, including taking consequential (but not party-screwing) actions in line with those low scores, but it's usually done contextually—for example, they aren't across-the-board dim, but there are big areas of thinking or general knowledge that they just don't have.

 

[JohnSnow]

My Torg Eternity group has a player who regularly makes up characters with a low Charisma or Mind score, and role-plays being creepy or cold or ignorant to the hilt, including taking consequential (but not party-screwing) actions in line with those low scores, but it's usually done contextually—for example, they aren't across-the-board dim, but there are big areas of thinking or general knowledge that they just don't have.

I probably overstated things with "rarely."

While I have encountered that better sort of player a fair bit, I have rarely encountered a game where I didn't have at least one player who tried to bypass a character's mental weakness with good roleplay when their results depended on it.