D&D 4E 4E Rules first Role-Play second?

[BryonD]

Despite the fact that a significant majority of the non-D&D RPGs on the market today, including those produced by what by all accounts the second- or third- most successful company in the industry, White Wolf, have rather extensive roleplaying advice and make it one of their main selling points?

How does the first most successful handle it?
Maybe someone should go over there and point out that the RPG that kicks their butt does it a different way.

Obviously I don't really mean that. They are a different niche and they do what they are targeting extremely well.

I don't doubt that WotC can and does take lessons from the successes of many other games and WoD is high on the list they keep and eye on. But you need a better point than just that they are second or third when you are suggesting improvements to the game that is first, and first by a hell of a long way. I mean, come on, I don't want to get into it in this thread, but it is well known that there are some major negative reactions to the typecast RP stuff that is rather pre-loaded into the WoD games. I'm sure DnD could gain some players by going that way. But I'd wager they would lose 4 for every 1 new.

 

[BryonD]

I'm definately a fan of improved social resolution, but I'd lump that in a different area than How To RP advice.

That is a critically important point.
It is very frustrating that it keeps getting tossed aside.

It is funny how you get it from both sides. People who hate the very idea of social skills at all are constantly making the absurd claim that you aren't roleplaying if you use skills to resolve the matter. Now there are claims that RP is at least significantly wounded if the mechanics do actively carry the RP itself. :\

 

[HeinorNY]

Would it be correct to theorize that there are two types of RPG players?

-those who play the fluff with the crunch supporting it
-those who play the crunch with the fluff supporting it

 

[The_Gneech]

There are also those who play with the crunch and ignore the fluff all together in as far as they are able.

Me: "Okay, you're playing?"

Player: "Dwarf illusionist."

Me: "Uh, okay. Name?"

Player: "Who cares?"

Me: "..."

Player: "Fine. His name is ... uh, Tankard."

Me: "...Oooohkay. So, Tankard the Dwarf, what brings you to Hommlet?"

Player: "How should I know? That's your job!"

Me: "..."

-The Gneech

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

-snip differences between D&D and Vampire-

Here's the thing, though. D&D is not like GURPS or HERO. It's not a generic game by any stretch of the imagination. At least in the incarnations its had from AD&D to present, it's done a narrow subset of fantasy passably, and one specific subset extremely well: D&D.

In my opinion, D&D would be better served to come out and admit that what it does best is, essentially, itself. Its own unique niche, with its own genre tropes, its own conventions, and its own style. Inexperienced players would be better served to understand and embrace those tropes, conventions and style at the outset, because the game will run better for it 'out of the box;' experienced players and GMs can mangle the box as they see fit and make the results work, and lose nothing from the experience except a few pages of rules text and a few minutes grumbling about being 'talked down to.'

I'm definately a fan of improved social resolution, but I'd lump that in a different area than How To RP advice.

I disagree. I believe the latter should flow naturally from the former if at all possible.

How does the first most successful handle it?

By being first, by having two decades of being associated with "roleplaying games" in the popular imagination at least as tightly as "Kleenex" and "tissue paper," by attracting "negative" press in droves, by being a pop cultural phenomena in an industry so miniscule that even a moderate "hit" by the standards of other media made it a juggernaut, by leveraging its branding into bestselling novels and million+ seller electronic games, by using easy-to-grasp archetypes to speed up first time play - and by most of its first-time players and many of its veterans playing it as a sophisticated tactical wargame with little or no roleplay.

 

[HeinorNY]

There are also those who play with the crunch and ignore the fluff all together in as far as they are able.

The opposite to that also exists:

DM: Okay let's start, you're playing?

Player: My characters is an elf named Eloindros, that in the ancient elven language....(9 minutes later)... his mother, while she was an elven magician in the times....(13 minutes later)... and that was when he first met love and also dispair....(many minutes later).... so, to avenge his dead step father, he became an adventurer.

DM: Okay, so huh, what's your class?

Player: My character is a adventurer errant, who wields the sword of his grandmother and chants the powers of his divine gods.

DM: And which class from this book you chose to represent all that?

Player: Huh wait...here, he is a fighter.

DM: Thanks... Ok, you're all travelling to city of Darkport, but suddenly are attacked by some goblins bandits, roll initiative! Eloindros, your turn!

Player: Ok, I take my sword and look to the sky, and on the clouds I see the image of....(2 minutes later)... thrusting my sword, cutting air like the leaves....(1 minute later)... and the cold steel meets unholy goblinoid flesh.

DM:Ok... roll your attack, the goblin's AC is 14.

Player: Ok... let me see my attack roll.. here.. (1minute later) ... *rolls dice*... hmmm did I hit him? How much do I need??

 

[The_Gneech]

Sounds good to me. Get that guy into my group!

-The Gneech

 

[HeinorNY]

Sounds good to me. Get that guy into my group!

-The Gneech

Great! I have one to spare.
Sending to you in a box, I'll make some holes on it so he can breath and drink rain water

 

[pemerton]

<snip prolix player of elf>

I think it would be good if the PHB canvassed different approaches to declaring one's character's actions - eg third person vs first person description.

It could also address the extent to which a player (as opposed to a GM) is permitted to describe the gameworld (eg is the player permitted to describe the leaves swirling across the field of conflict? - which might then feed into some sort of "dirty fighting" manoeuvre).

Finally, it could talk about ways of getting fun out of the game. As well as mechanical optimisation in build and play, it could also note that fun can be got out of using the PC to explore certain goals/themes in play. This aspect of roleplay is (I think) different from that of thespianism.

 

[WayneLigon]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=906386

Not much new to report in my day-to-day work. I'm working on the "How to Play" chapter for the new Player's Handbook. It's short, since we know those pages won't get used much by experienced players, but we think it'll help new players to get going. 3E had a real dearth of "for the new player" material in the core rulebooks, and this time we're going to try to help out that player a little more.