What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[TwoSix]

Eh, there's still plenty of trad-style games out there. I'd argue other than the focus on bennies, Savage Worlds is, and its not exactly a game lacking in footprint.

Fair. I’m aware of SW, but have mostly ignored it, precisely because I’m not looking for new trad games when the 800-lb gorilla fills that space.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Not necessary for roleplay in general, but if the game has them I believe they should be part of the roleplay of your PC.

Ok, but, again, HP are in the game, too. But if you have low HP it "means" something, even if that something is abstract. Shouldn't somebody with unlucky/low HP somehow be roleplaying that, and likewise somebody with lucky/high HP?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ok, but, again, HP are in the game, too. But if you have low HP it "means" something, even if that something is abstract. Shouldn't somebody with unlucky/low HP somehow be roleplaying that, and likewise somebody with lucky/high HP?

Like I said, HP don't matter until you take damage, and barely matter until you hit zero.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Like I said, HP don't matter until you take damage, and barely matter until you hit zero.

"Attributes don't matter until you have to make a roll that uses them."

Why are attributes and HP different?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Well, I've indicated before that I think if you're going to have both physical and mental attributes, they should both be similarly binding. The big part of the problem is broader I think; people can be really soggy about mental attributes having associated mechanics at all outside of a very narrow range.

I've been thinking about this thing about mental stats, and how I've frequently seen arguments along the lines of "it's especially important to enforce roleplaying around mental stats because those are the ones players want to ignore."

Except...

We ALL know that guy who thinks he's Mr. Smooth, and yet he rubs everybody the wrong way.

We ALL know that guy who is dumber than a sackful of hammers, but still pontificates about any and all topics.

We ALL know that guy who makes terrible life decisions, but tries to give everybody else advice.

And the crazy thing is they NEVER SEEM TO NOTICE. I mean, I'm still completely shocked when somebody blocks me on Enworld. It must be some kind of bug in the code.

(As the old saying goes: "Stupidity is like death. You don't notice when you have it; it's only the people around you who suffer.")

It's hard to kid yourself about your physical abilities, but people delude themselves about their mental abilities all the time.

So doesn't it make sense that characters with low mental attributes would be roleplayed as if they didn't?

What keeps them in line are the mechanics.

Player: "I'm going to go and put my patented moves on that cute barmaid."
GM: "Sigh. Ok, let's have a roll."
Player: "Let's see...uh-oh. Eight."
GM: "Yeah, she rolls her eyes and walks away."
Player: "She must not like the strong, handsome, successful adventurer type. Either that or she's being mind-controlled. Yeah that must be it."

 

[Maxperson]

Conversely, the dumb merc with -1 Int and 10 years experience is still going to know a hell of a lot about making battle plans to win fights, or else he would be dead.

He's more likely to look to Major Dan and be good at following orders. Forest Gump is a great example of an 8 intelligence at work.

 

[Maxperson]

For reference of newer posters:

G

D&D 5E (2014) Thread 'Geniuses with 5 Int'

Apr 6, 2016

Obviously inspired by that other thread, the goal of this thread is to describe characters who are geniuses, but for whatever reason they often fail at tasks that, in game terms, require a dice roll with an Int modifier.

How might you roleplay it?

My offerings:

Milton von Schlumberg the wizard is a genius, but he is also nearly crippled with self-doubt and insecurities. He'll often be halfway through casting a spell when he'll suddenly have an irrational fear that he's doing it wrong, and he gets so distracted by this fear that he actually bungles the spell, causing it to miss...

• Guest 6801328
• Replies: 601
• Forum: *Dungeons & Dragons

Holy hell. I can't believe it has been 10 years since that thread. I need to go hide under a blanket.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Attributes don't matter until you have to make a roll that uses them."

Why are attributes and HP different?

Attributes say something about the PC's character, and speak to their traits. Hit points are a deeply abstracted system that owes its existence to a strong sense of convenience.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Fair. I’m aware of SW, but have mostly ignored it, precisely because I’m not looking for new trad games when the 800-lb gorilla fills that space.

Well, SW is a multi-purpose power tool (which I'm aware some people have tried to do with D&D 5e but I've expressed my opinion of trying to use wrenches as hammers before) so in part it doesn't serve the same purpose, and while you can make an argument that its a level system, its certainly not a class one. So its really not serving the same purposes that games in the D20 sphere do.

Which doesn't mean it has to interest you at all, of course, and depending on your perception, one trad game may be too much like another in the ways that matter to you. Since that's where I primarily live as a gamer (though in the more modern parts of it) there seem like some pretty big differences within it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

"Attributes don't matter until you have to make a roll that uses them."

Why are attributes and HP different?

Well, arguably because nobody really knows what hit points represent, so they're going to be not really visible to a character, where at least avowedly, attributes are (though obviously this gets a little fuzzier with the mental attributes, but its not like people don't use the three attribute names there to describe other people in the real world, which you can't really say about anything similar to hit points.)