D&D General Styles of D&D Play

[Neonchameleon]

Again gotta push back against the community bias toward Freeform Roleplay and against Game Mechanic Rollplay.

Politics, Diplomacy, and Mystery at times can work very well or even better with more game mechanics.

The weakness of Freform is the limitations of the player's and DM/Gm's acting.

"Rollplay" can allow you to roleplay something you can't act.

The community's pushback IME stems from seeing it as a binary with simple pass/fail rules. With D&D it is almost entirely freeform vs game mechanic. But once you get into e.g. a PbtA or even Fate game you're getting much more nuanced uses of skills, success-with-consequences outcomes and, with the intentional rhythm of Apocalypse World, getting the advantages of both with minimal disruption to either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And this is the core of the argument that having a skill system at all with the player able to say "I use diplomacy" is a bad thing. And "I do this thing I'm good at and can make relevant" is not an RP problem as long as they can make it relevant in character.

However, by having context be important and having easy/medium/hard within the skill challenge there are good reasons to use your less strong skills when they are more relevant to the task at hand because that should be an easier check.

Fair enough. But as long as there are consequences for failure, there will be players (a lot of players IME) who will look at these situations prioritizing success over RP. If you haven't experienced this, then consider yourself fortunate.

 

[Aldarc]

What I was pointing out was that for me, and 99% of the people I played with (there was 1 guy in my associated D&D player group who wanted to stick with 4E), when we replaced almost all of the out of combat activities role play with rollplay, it was very detrimental to the game for us. So no, I don't want a system for handling social or other activities.

Please stop insultingly referring any socal mechanics or non-combat roleplaying that you dislike as "rollplay" as to imply that there is litlle to no roleplaying.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The community's pushback IME stems from seeing it as a binary with simple pass/fail rules. With D&D it is almost entirely freeform vs game mechanic. But once you get into e.g. a PbtA or even Fate game you're getting much more nuanced uses of skills, success-with-consequences outcomes and, with the intentional rhythm of Apocalypse World, getting the advantages of both with minimal disruption to either.

Conceptually I agree with you, but the knock-on effects of using such a system as is don't sit well with a lot of folks. I believe (and have seen) 5e-compatible rules that allow success with a cost etc.

 

[Oofta]

Please stop insultingly referring any socal mechanics or non-combat roleplaying that you dislike as "rollplay" as to imply that there is litlle to no roleplaying.

There was little to no roleplay in our 4E games when we used skill challenges. I don't mean rollplay as an insult, it's just a catch-all phrase. It's why I refer to combat as rollplay.

What other term is there?

 

[Aldarc]

There was little to no roleplay in our 4E games when we used skill challenges.

Of course, if you and your group chooses not to roleplay skill challenges, then that's entirely on you. That's not a fault of either skill challenges or 4e, much as people can likewise choose not to roleplay their use of skills in 5e or 3e before it.

I don't mean rollplay as an insult, it's just a catch-all phrase. It's why I refer to combat as rollplay.

What other term is there?

"Rollplay" is a loaded term that is often used in an insulting fashion to belittle mechanics, games, and people as playing in a way lacking of roleplay. It's hard to imagine that you are not aware of this highly charged and negative connotation of "rollplay" in your years here. To be clear, I think that even calling combat "rollplay" is belittling of the roleplaying that commonly occurs in this play.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Fair enough. But as long as there are consequences for failure, there will be players (a lot of players IME) who will look at these situations prioritizing success over RP. If you haven't experienced this, then consider yourself fortunate.

This is missing the point. The point is that with bounded accuracy (which yes, 4e does have at any given level) it is entirely possible that your best skill in a given circumstance won't be your highest number but whatever fits the situation best even if the number is lower. And one of the arts of good game design and good DMing is aligning success with RP.

 

[Minigiant]

What I was pointing out was that for me, and 99% of the people I played with (there was 1 guy in my associated D&D player group who wanted to stick with 4E), when we replaced almost all of the out of combat activities role play with rollplay, it was very detrimental to the game for us. So no, I don't want a system for handling social or other activities. Combat still remains mostly rollplay, but there's enough strategizing and dynamic play to make it interesting. But one of the things that makes D&D work for me and the people I play with is the mix of that tactical rollplay with freeform role play backed up by rules that a DM can use if it adds to the fun.

The point was that skill challenges were not for everything. They were for major situations that could be adjudicated and separated in many parts.

4e was so different, DM had to read the book.

But D&D has a "Don't tell me what to do" mentality.

 

[Oofta]

Of course, if you and your group chooses not to roleplay skill challenges, then that's entirely on you. That's not a fault of either skill challenges or 4e, much as people can likewise choose not to roleplay their use of skills in 5e or 3e before it.


"Rollplay" is a loaded term that is often used in an insulting fashion to belittle mechanics, games, and people as playing in a way lacking of roleplay. It's hard to imagine that you are not aware of this highly charged and negative connotation of "rollplay" in your years here. To be clear, I think that even calling combat "rollplay" is belittling of the roleplaying that commonly occurs in this play.

In skill challenges what you say doesn't matter according to the rules. No matter what you do, best you can do is maybe get advantage. I wouldn't call combat role playing either, and skill challenges as I saw them used had far fewer options than combat.

If you don't like rollplay, what term do you want people to use? That's why I asked.

 

[Oofta]

The point was that skill challenges were not for everything. They were for major situations that could be adjudicated and separated in many parts.

4e was so different, DM had to read the book.

But D&D has a "Don't tell me what to do" mentality.

We use roleplay for major situations as well, sometimes backed up by a handful of rolls. That's what I missed.