D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

pemerton said:

Re your first sentence: that's not a contrast that resonates with me. When I declare the action, and then the GM calls for a Steel check, and then I put together my dice pool and roll, I'm not performing. I'm feeling the anticipation and the weight of what I (as my character) may be about to do.

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It's performative in the sense that the focus is on what your character ends up doing, as opposed to how the player ends up feeling. In contrast to a goal of experiencing what your character is experiencing. And not that those two things are by definition mutually exclusive, but for some people (e.g, me) they do seem to conflict.

But it's possible that wrt this Steel mechanic I'm not understanding how it works. If the outcome of the dice can be that you may not perform the action you intended...not that you failed to do it successfully, but that your character decided to not do what you wanted it to do...then this just isn't the game for me. I would feel that the dice are telling me how to control my character (marionette?) without any factoring in how I feel about it.

If, instead, the outcome of a 'failed' roll is that the cost of performing the action is raised (and maybe I still have the choice about whether or not to follow through) then we're good. The raised stakes would raise my internal stress, which nicely reflects what the character is presumably feeling. Experiential roleplaying.

pemerton said:

Re your second sentence: that brings us back full circle to Matt Colville's video.

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Yes, exactly. Again, I think it's about the conflict between performative and experiential roleplaying.

(I'm on a mission to keep using these terms until they are at least as well-known as the Stormwind fallacy fallacy. And, no, that's not a typo.)

Bill Zebub said:

It's performative in the sense that the focus is on what your character ends up doing, as opposed to how the player ends up feeling.

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But I keep telling you that it's about how I (the player) feel: the feeling of anticipation, the anxiety, the doubt - that's what the PC is feeling (the rules of the game tell us that, by requiring a Steel check) and that's what I feel (the process of play brings that about, by making me roll the dice and wait on the answer they provide).

I'm not performing anything: I declare an action, the GM calls for a Steel check, I roll the dice and fail the check, I choose my hesitation response, Alicia's player (who on this occasion is also the GM - we are both playing and co-GMing with each taking responsibility for managing the others' adversity) decides, as Alicia, to take advantage of that hesitation and use Persuasion.

What there is is intense inhabitation of the character.

Bill Zebub said:

In contrast to a goal of experiencing what your character is experiencing.

<snip>

Again, I think it's about the conflict between performative and experiential roleplaying.

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I don't understand. What I've posted just above is a repetition of something I've already posted many times in this thread: I am feeling what my PC is feeling, namely, the weight and dread of this decision to murder the innkeeper, here and now.

Bill Zebub said:

But it's possible that wrt this Steel mechanic I'm not understanding how it works. If the outcome of the dice can be that you may not perform the action you intended...not that you failed to do it successfully, but that your character decided to not do what you wanted it to do...then this just isn't the game for me. I would feel that the dice are telling me how to control my character (marionette?) without any factoring in how I feel about it.

If, instead, the outcome of a 'failed' roll is that the cost of performing the action is raised (and maybe I still have the choice about whether or not to follow through) then we're good.

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There are RPGs that use "increased cost" as a method of enforcing emotional burdens or external influences. Apocalypse World is one of them. Sorcerer is another. Cortex+ Heroic is similar (the burden/influence is expressed as Stress or a Complication, which like all traits in that system is rated from d4 to d12, and the appropriate die is included in the opposed pool whenever the stress or complication would bear upon a declared action).

But Burning Wheel rests on a different premise. It rests on the premise that doing, and confronting, dreadful things is hard. That, by default, such doings or confrontations will cause hesitation unless a person has the Steel to press on. We could say that this premise is as central to BW as the premise, in classic D&D, that a warrior who is bold and lucky has a chance to survive even the most deadly poison or blast of dragon fire (see Gygax's discussion of saving throws in his DMG).

If you don't want to play a game in which that premise obtains, eg because you think it's unheroic, then you don't use the Steel subsystem from Burning Wheel. Likewise if you don't like the premise of saving throws, you don't use them (there have been innumerable house rules to saving throws for classic D&D, and systems like Rolemasater abandon that sort of approach altogether in favour of "realism"-oriented rules for crits and damage and so on).

A player who approaches BW and it Steel framework with the thought "My character will never feel the weight of dreadful things unless I choose that they do" is making the same sort of mistake as a player who approaches D&D thinking "My deadly poison can bring down any warrior, no matter how bold or lucky". Ie the player has a false premise.

That doesn't mean the D&D saving throw rules are an obstacle to inhabiting one's character; but they might be an obstacle to playing a certain sort of assassin. Just as the BW Steel rules are an obstacle to playing a certain sort of happy-go-lucky murderer.

Oofta said:

When I say metagame, I'm simply referring to a set of rules in the game.

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So you would count all the action resolution rules in D&D - combat, ability and skill checks, spells, etc - as metagame mechanics?

Just checking I'm understanding your usage, which is not the usage I'm familiar with.

Oofta said:

As far as your scene, I don't feel the need for game mechanics. Guess I'd have to see it in play to be sure I understand though. Thanks for trying to explain.

But it is really just a preference. I'd simply rather just run the scenario as a back and forth between PCs with no rules or game system involved.

But where I'm confused is when you talk about persuade one another. In D&D, the players talk it out. There may be a knowledge check here and there, but that's it. No player can influence another player's decision based on rules of the game barring magic. It sounds like that is not true for the scene you describe.

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Re mechanics: I think @Aldarc has already tackled this a couple of times, and @Umbran also. There are different variants of Cortex+ - it's a family of systems that are related like (say) 3E D&D, PF and StarFinder.

The version I play is a fantasy adaptation of Marvel Heroic RP. Everything that matters in the fiction - be that on a PC sheet, or in a scene - is rated by a die, from D4 to D12. Actions are opposed checks. Players build their pools out of the traits on their sheets; the opposed pool is either an opposing character (PC or NPC) or the Doom Pool, which is a separate pool of dice that grows and falls with the action and various decisions that participants (especially the GM) take and which serves as an all-purpose source of adversity, GM-side power ups, and pacing management tools.

Social/influence actions can be attempts to impose Emotional stress (eg Wolverine is good at this), Mental stress (eg a cursed Crystal Hypnosis ball would be good at this), or Complications (eg You Will Help Me Kill the X-Men!). Like everything else, these are rated with a die size. If a character has that sort of effect on them, then whenever it would hinder them (eg if they have that Complication, whenever they're not helping to kill the X-Men) the effect die is included in the opposing pool.

PCs can use these rules to try and persuade or bully or confuse one another. It's an expected part of the game.

In the situation I described, I (as GM) had also established a Scene Distinction - ie something that matters in the fiction, as I mentioned above - that was (from memory) rated at D8 (which is the default for a Scene Distinction): Uncertain of What to do Next. This was not a "material" or "physical" aspect of the scene - it was a "mental" or "emotional" aspect of the scene, that reflected the fact that it was (in my view) in fact uncertain among the players what they should do next, with each (as their character) having a different idea on that score. By framing the scene in that fashion, with that Distinction, I made the resolution of the doubt and debate a focus of the action. As I mentioned in my play report, it was the player of the Ranger who succeeded in eliminating the Distinction, which meant that - in the fiction - he was the one who was able to resolve upon a course of action and impress it upon his fellows.

Obviously I'm aware that there are other possibilities, like - as you say - "talking it out".

There are several reasons why I decided to substitute a resolution framework for talking it out. (1) It's quicker. (2) It's more fun, in the sense that instead of back-and-forth bickering or disagreement with no guarantee of a resolution, it's a process that leads directly to an outcome via the procedures of the game. (3) It makes the issue of leadership something to be settled by application of the mechanics, where everyone is - subject to their PC build - on an even footing, rather than something determined by out-of-game social realities at the table. (4) As I posted upthread, it produced a scene that was reminiscent of Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas at Parth Galen, or even - at least a bit - of the Council of Elrond. Which is fitting for a MERP/LotR game.

In other systems, when debate at the table has dragged I've used different approaches: in Burning Wheel it's a Duel of Wits; in Traveller, it's opposed throws with bonuses to the side that has nobles and/or Leadership expertise; in Prince Valiant it's opposed Presence checks (perhaps influenced by significant differences of Fame or other modifiers to prestige); in 4e D&D I used opposed checks once but can't remember now how the modifiers were handled.

In the Cortex+ LotR game I had little hesitation in framing it as I did, because the system made it easy the 4 reaasons above applied.

EDITed to add:

Oofta said:

I need a metagame for combat, I can't imagine running a game without it that wouldn't devolve into Cops and Robbers where one kid says "I shot you" and the other saying "No you didn't".

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"Talking it out" is a lot like this. Because at the table, unlike in an actual debate, no one has any reason to yield because there is nothing actually at stake other than the passage of time in the session. This is related to my reasons (1) and (3) above.

Oofta said:

I tried watching the Blades in the Dark ... gah. Just can't. Skipped around a bit and at the 48 minute or so mark they talk about the devil's bargain where (if I understood it) anyone can come up with something with potential negative consequences to get some kind of bonus.

Not sure I followed it though and stopped listening, I just couldn't do it any more.

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I will admit that watching a lot of roleplaying in actual plays is not fun for me at all. Almost unbearable at times. (Same is true for Critical Role.) I primarily watch them to learn how various games are played or to see what games/mechanics are like in action.

Oofta said:

Having to take into consideration some metagame consideration on what my PC would do or having a contest would take me out of the zone.

In any case, I appreciate that we've actually been getting into mechanics with explanations. Doesn't really change my mind for reasons I've explained. If I get time I might watch the actual play streams.

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To echo and expand what @Umbran said earlier, what it means to be "in the zone" is something that not only one can learn but also something that one can become acclimated to with experience. My experience of being "in the zone" while playing poker is different from my experiences being "in the zone" while playing backgammon or some other board game. Many new players to D&D, IME, are rarely "in the zone" because they are learning what the zone of the game (and its metagame) entails. Again IME, being "in the zone" often entails internalizing the game and metagame considerations, which is also true for D&D.

Fate has a pretty clear metagame mechanic with its fate points. I have seen and experienced plenty of players staying "in the zone" for roleplaying their characters while using them in the same way as talking mechanics (e.g., damage, rolls, HP loss, spell effects, etc.) in D&D. It sometimes just requires basic things like addressing characters (and not players), asking questions, and keeping the primary focus on the fiction.

Bill Zebub said:

In my mind that's where roleplaying comes in. (And also the word "murderhobo".) I, for one, do feel hesitation (and remorse) with most of my characters for committing murder. I don't need dice to tell me to feel that way. But if my blood is up over something outrageous the NPCs have done, I feel less hesitation...although later I might feel just as much remorse. Depends on the circumstances.

And if I did use the dice to determine how my character felt, I don't think I would personally actually feel it anymore. Or perhaps the dice would tell me that I have no qualms about killing them, but I personally would still feel unsettled about it. Now I'm even more disassociated.

I'd much rather actually feel all this than just perform it. Even if that means I'm really roleplaying a character who is, to some extent, myself.

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In the case of many of @pemerton's examples I think that it's less about using dice to tell you how you feel, and more about testing who they are in the fiction. It's not about roleplaying a character you believe would never be afraid. It's about roleplaying a character in the fiction who just had that self-conception tested, and in that moment they hesitated. I still don't know how you or the character feels about it. How your character feels about the results still seems entirely up to you.

The dice in some regards aren't so much telling you "how" you feel, but, rather, they are putting some limitations on the fiction in a way like how a "miss" on an attack swing can be the result of a wide range of possible actions, but it still results in a "miss." (The same being likewise true for a "hit.")

I think that it's incredibly easy to say that your character is "brave" if it never gets tested or challenged. It's quite another if they can say so if they succeeded after having had it challenged. It's similar in some regards to the Czege Principle, which is variously phrased as "creating and running your own opposition isn't fun" or "satisfaction drops when the player is the author of their own adversity" or "creating your own adversity and its resolution is boring." In this case though, it pertains to the character's character.

Sidebar: I will also note that if we were playing 3.5 or Pathfinder 1, then the game could absolutely tell you how your character felt in a number of non-magical occasions. For example, dragons had Frightful Presence, which was an Extraordinary Ability, which is explicitly non-magical. You fail your save, and your character becomes afraid.

Aldarc said:

Sidebar: I will also note that if we were playing 3.5 or Pathfinder 1, then the game could absolutely tell you how your character felt in a number of non-magical occasions. For example, dragons had Frightful Presence, which was an Extraordinary Ability, which is explicitly non-magical. You fail your save, and your character becomes afraid.

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The whole it's magic thing doesn't really resonate with me.

In real life people get persuaded and influenced all the time, although that's presumably mostly if not exclusively non-magical. So in the world of the fiction, presumably similar things happen. (5e D&D seems to assume that it does, given it has a non-magical skill called Persuade.)

So the magic/non-magic things seems to have little bearing on the verisimilitude of influence-type mechanics.

And it has no impact on the rationing of influence-type mechanics, given that a GM can use as many dryads or 1st level MUs as they like.

So it seems to me that what is going on with the magic/non-magic is this: that people want to be able to author their PC's choices, as part of maintaining control over the nature of their PC's character/personality. If the PC chooses something different from what the player would have chosen, but in the fiction it's magic, then the player hasn't lost authorial control over the nature of their PC's character/personality.

The sort of mechanical systems we've been discussing in this thread reduce that degree of authorial control - as per @Manbearcat (I think it was?) upthread, the player remains a major but not a sole "shareholder" in respect of the PC's character/personality.

How non-magical dragon fear fits into the "sole shareholder" preference that seems typical of many D&D players is a circle I'll leave for someone else to square. I don't feel a strong "sole shareholder" imperative myself.

Aldarc said:

In the case of many of @pemerton's examples I think that it's less about using dice to tell you how you feel, and more about testing who they are in the fiction. It's not about roleplaying a character you believe would never be afraid. It's about roleplaying a character in the fiction who just had that self-conception tested, and in that moment they hesitated. I still don't know how you or the character feels about it. How your character feels about the results still seems entirely up to you.

The dice in some regards aren't so much telling you "how" you feel, but, rather, they are putting some limitations on the fiction in a way like how a "miss" on an attack swing can be the result of a wide range of possible actions, but it still results in a "miss." (The same being likewise true for a "hit.")

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I would say yes and no. If my PC fails a Steel check then the character is hesitating, and I have to accept that. In some sense they couldn't steel themselves to forge ahead as they hoped to. I don't really need to portray that, though, as the mechanics do that for me - it's like being Stunned in 4e D&D (which the roar of the Fang Tyrant Drake - labelled a Fear effect - can do; maybe another example like the Ex draon fear?); or like being "pushed" by the Deathlock Wight's Horrific Visage (I use inverted commas because the push is really recoiling in fear). The debuff or forced movement does the work of "portrayal".

And as you say, how Aedhros feels about not being able to steel himself to murder the innkeeper absolutely is up to me. Maybe it will be part of his redemption arc? Or maybe he will interpret it as just a marker of justified ennui (Elric-style). It's too early to know, one session in!

pemerton said:

Obviously I'm aware that there are other possibilities, like - as you say - "talking it out".

There are several reasons why I decided to substitute a resolution framework for talking it out. (1) It's quicker. (2) It's more fun, in the sense that instead of back-and-forth bickering or disagreement with no guarantee of a resolution, it's a process that leads directly to an outcome via the procedures of the game. (3) It makes the issue of leadership something to be settled by application of the mechanics, where everyone is - subject to their PC build - on an even footing, rather than something determined by out-of-game social realities at the table. (4) As I posted upthread, it produced a scene that was reminiscent of Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas at Parth Galen, or even - at least a bit - of the Council of Elrond. Which is fitting for a MERP/LotR game.

In other systems, when debate at the table has dragged I've used different approaches: in Burning Wheel it's a Duel of Wits; in Traveller, it's opposed throws with bonuses to the side that has nobles and/or Leadership expertise; in Prince Valiant it's opposed Presence checks (perhaps influenced by significant differences of Fame or other modifiers to prestige); in 4e D&D I used opposed checks once but can't remember now how the modifiers were handled.

In the Cortex+ LotR game I had little hesitation in framing it as I did, because the system made it easy the 4 reaasons above applied.

EDITed to add:
"Talking it out" is a lot like this. Because at the table, unlike in an actual debate, no one has any reason to yield because there is nothing actually at stake other than the passage of time in the session. This is related to my reasons (1) and (3) above.

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Part of the fun for me of this resolution framework is that it elevates the drama surrounding the stakes of the conflict. The stakes may even escalate as part of the contest. Which party will come out on top? I don't know. Let's roll and find out! Because the players and GM don't know the outcome, each dice roll feels impactful. But even once we know, will the respective characters try pressing their luck or will they concede?

IME, even while "in the zone" with roleplaying, it sometimes feels like "talking it out" can devolve into a prolonged spat of trying to find and guess the "magic words" for the GM's NPC or that the "talking it out" becomes less about the characters and more about the stubborn wills of the respective players/GM behind the characters. As you say, sometimes the "roleplaying" of "talking it out" feels more like a matter of "out-of-game social realities at the table." The latter is not necessarily fun to watch transpire, and it can easily take me out of both the roleplaying and fun zone.

Moreover, there's less opportunity for railroading or stonewalling outcomes by the GM, which is also something I appreciate even as the GM. So off-loading this onto a contest or stress mechanic can keep things rolling smoothly, quickly, and with greater tension.

pemerton said:

The version I play is a fantasy adaptation of Marvel Heroic RP. Everything that matters in the fiction - be that on a PC sheet, or in a scene - is rated by a die, from D4 to D12. Actions are opposed checks. Players build their pools out of the traits on their sheets; the opposed pool is either an opposing character (PC or NPC) or the Doom Pool, which is a separate pool of dice that grows and falls with the action and various decisions that participants (especially the GM) take and which serves as an all-purpose source of adversity, GM-side power ups, and pacing management tools.

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For the sake of @Oofta, I can also post a few character sheets from various Cortex games. As you, @Umbran, and I have noted, it's really more of a family of games, with Cortex Prime being more of a Build-Your-Own Cortex game toolkit.

Hammerheads (think Thunderbirds)

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So when a character in Hammerheads is assembling a dice pool to roll, they will be taking one die from each primary set (i.e., Attributes, Training Packages, Distinctions) with the optional possibility of gaining an additional die if it pertains to the Relationship. Once they roll, it's essentially (often) add the two highest dice and beating the result of the opposed roll. A similar principle works for the other Cortex games.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Shadowcat / Kitty Pryde

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The Dragon Prince: Tales of Xadia

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So when making these rolls, you are leverging who your character is (e.g., attributes, values, skills, relationships, assets, etc.) in the situation of the fiction. And yeah, sometimes your abilities can be Challenged and may change (or reshuffle) as a result.

With all this debate "are social/mental/whatever mechanics are needed?" there's a very important question.

How often do such situations happen without such rules?

How often do characters hesitate when it comes to a killing blow, even if the poor bastard has forced their hand? How often do characters fall in love? How often do they actually show their scars, instead of merely talking about them?

In my personal experience, not that often. I've seen parties being hesitant about unleashing violence against civilians, but I've never seen a single D&D character that couldn't bring himself to kill an armed and violent bandit, in all, what, 15 years I've been playing? I don't doubt for a moment that there was at least one, sometime, somewhere, but I'm sure they're rare beasts.

I've very rarely seen anyone asking themselves, "was lethal force justified?". Most of the time, it's so simple, so cut and dry. Armed and hostile? Kill'em. Unarmed or friendly? Let them live.

Yesterday, we were playing Vampire, game I hate with white-hot hatred, hotter than Dante from DMC3, so don't accuse me of being a fangirl. A group of enforcers attacked us, we sent two of them to torpor and my character shot the last of them in the head, killing him. It called for Humanity roll. My character did succeed, hey, it was self-defense after all, but it still felt like rationalizing an unnecessary murder.

In D&D I'd forget about this situation, like, two minutes later. Of course, D&D isn't Vampire, and, of course, a daring adventure of a rag-tag bunch of misfits who set out to stop the Big Bad Evil Lord Of Bad Evil Things and his army of minions wouldn't work if killing someone bad was triggering a check for humanity, but, role-playing games are capable of things other than daring adventures.

Bill Zebub said:

It's performative in the sense that the focus is on what your character ends up doing, as opposed to how the player ends up feeling.

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I think I misunderstood what you meant by "performative" vs "experiential" roleplaying when you first brought up the distinction. I interpreted "performative" roleplaying as concerning the performance at the table--the player showing the other participants what their character is thinking and feeling by emoting. In contrast I interpreted "experiential" roleplaying as concerning the subjective experience of the player making decisions while immersed in the persona of their character.

But from the quote above it sounds like you might be using "performative" quite differently than I'd thought. Are you instead using "performative" roleplaying only to refer to the player deciding what actions the character takes (i.e. what actions the character "peforms") in the game world?

If so it sounds like you may be focused on an actions/emotions distinction, rather than the internal/external distinction I thought you were making? (And in that case I think you need a different word than "performative" since performing in its "acting" sense is also discussed as part of roleplaying.)

loverdrive said:

I've very rarely seen anyone asking themselves, "was lethal force justified?". Most of the time, it's so simple, so cut and dry. Armed and hostile? Kill'em. Unarmed or friendly? Let them live.

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In my first Rolemaster campaign, one of the PCs was a paladin. Because of the RM crit system, it is quite common to defeat foes in combat without killing them.

The first time the paladin killed an enemy was when he had reached 5th level - he rolled a fatal crit result (decapitation, from memory). He took himself into the wilderness to repent and mourn. I rolled a random encounter, with a demon. The paladin took the demon as a punishment sent to him for killing, and didn't resist as the demon beat him to a pulp while mocking him.

I don't think I've ever seen something like this in a D&D game; perhaps because D&D generally doesn't have the same scope for victory via non-fatal violence.