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

[apoptosis]

I deeply believe the books are about the "G". The "RP" is about the people. No game should prevent you from having some roleplay fun if you wish(but people can). No book should force you to roleplay if you don't think it's fun(but people can).

Question. What do you mean by 'Game?' (i mean this sincerely).

When I think of a roleplaying game, i think of it as an activity that allows my group, jointly, to create interesting stories, where some persona I am playing is explored in a specific setting or environ (or i help facilitate the story that is being created by my players).

For me the game part is just some mechanics that allows for joint control of the narrative so no single individual is composing the whole story and so that resolution of challenges has some standardization and reproducibility. Resolution of challenges are important IMHO as challenges are what are the basis of good stories and scenes.

My feeling is you think about the game as the rules and that roleplaying is some non-rules based add-on (please correct me if i am wrong, I am going by what I think you mean in your posts)

I feel that roleplaying should not be separated from the game. That they should be intertwined. For me the 'game' aspect is just a necessary 'evil' (i am kidding using this term) to allow the people at the table to roleplay (by this i mean explore the challenges that are important to their character and hopefully an interesting dramatic story is born)

ps this post was not meant to be as pretentious as it sounds, but realized when writing it that it was not as easy to verbalize as i had hoped

 

[F4NBOY]

My feeling is you think about the game as the rules and that roleplaying is some non-rules based add-on (please correct me if i am wrong, I am going by what I think you mean in your posts)

You are correct.
The game is the rules, the mechanics, everything "gamist"(i hate this term)about it. RP for me is just a "spice" you put in it to appease your taste while playing the game.

It's like invinting your friend to eat pasta at your place. Each one puts the amount of sauce he sees fit, and the kind of sauce he likes most. You can put a lot, or a just a little and sometimes it's good to eat it without sauce at all.
If you serve the pasta with an amount of sauce already on it, some people will like it, but some won't. You can't force them to like it, you can't prove them that's the right way to enjoy pasta, and if you say that's how it's gonna be from now on, you will lose some companions for dinner or you will force some people to eat it but not enjoy it properly.

Of course RP is part a part of the game, but IMO it's a product, a consequence of the game. The immersion in the story and in the character is not what helps and leads me to reach a desired state of the game or a "perfect" RPG experience. The desired state that I enjoy and want to reach is exactly that immersion in the story and character. It's a natural by-product of the game, the rules, the checks, rolls, mechanics. It's not a "requirement" of the game.

 

[apoptosis]

You are correct.
The game is the rules, the mechanics, everything "gamist"(i hate this term)about it. RP for me is just a "spice" you put in it to appease your taste while playing the game.

It's like invinting your friend to eat pasta at your place. Each one puts the amount of sauce he sees fit, and the kind of sauce he likes most. You can put a lot, or a just a little and sometimes it's good to eat it without sauce at all.
If you serve the pasta with an amount of sauce already on it, some people will like it, but some won't. You can't force them to like it, you can't prove them that's the right way to enjoy pasta, and if you say that's how it's gonna be from now on, you will lose some companions for dinner or you will force some people to eat it but not enjoy it properly.

Of course RP is part a part of the game, but IMO it's a product, a consequence of the game. The immersion in the story and in the character is not what helps and leads me to reach a desired state of the game or a "perfect" RPG experience. The desired state that I enjoy and want to reach is exactly that immersion in the story and character. It's a natural by-product of the game, the rules, the checks, rolls, mechanics. It's not a "requirement" of the game.

I believe we differ on a very fundamental level.

For me the RP is the important part..basically is the pasta (to continue your analogy..of course this always goes badly ) while the mechanics is just the heat and water that allow me to cook it. The mechanics are just a way to smooth and RPing and keep story elements consistent and keep it from becoming 'I shoot you..no you didn't type of exchange.

 

[F4NBOY]

I believe we differ on a very fundamental level.

Things like that usually happen

The important to me is that anyone should always be able to play the game and have fun with it, and play it the way they like with people from other "schools" or with other tastes or others views of the whole picture. The way I believe that can happen is: the game should keep the objective part of it, the rules, as solid and impartial as they can be; and the subjective part of it, the RP, as flexible and loose as it can be, in order to respect and allow all kinds of playing styles.

People should define what is the pasta and what is the sauce, not the books.

 

[KarinsDad]

"I think thou dost proclaim too much."


In 30 years of playing DND and other RPGs, I have very rarely seen the amount of proclamation of Roleplaying that I have seen on these boards.

Many people here shout to the heavens "WE ROLEPLAY", but in real at the table games, I can count on two fingers the number of players who were really immersed into their character as much as people here claim that their group is. And that's out of more than a hundred different players that I have ever played with.

In all of those years, most people, especially guys, play a competitive game. Their PCs are out to succeed. The players are not thespians, not even close. They sometimes stay in character, but mostly not. Sometimes when players are in character, it's to get a laugh rather than to immerse themselves.

I have heard "Grog (insert PC name here) goes up to the bar and orders a drink" 20 or more times for every 1 "I sauter up to the bar: "Hey barkeep, what nasty brew do you have today?"", let alone a voice in an accent.

The vast majority of players I have ever played with do a background sheet, then they go off and forget half of it. Every once in a while as DM, I bring in some organization or nemesis that they forgot about and they go "Oh yeah.".

I really think it is some form of self imposed status symbol to come to the boards here and shout "MY GROUP ROLEPLAYS". "Roleplaying is the important thing to us."

In our group, we just show up and have fun and don't worry about all that holier than thou RP crap. Sometimes we RP a little. Sometimes, we don't. I cannot comprehend a group that does it even most of the time like people here seem to indicate, because I have never seen it. I've seen it for two players total where my first thought was, this guy is a roleplayer, but not for a group. I think on average, more people are competitve and too lazy to roleplay well, than they are even vaguely thespian-like. It's not human nature for the vast majority of people and from my experience, the vast majority of gamers. I think RPing for most people is telling the DM what their PC is doing. But that is only my 30 years of experience observing over a hundred gamers talking.

Note: I have seen a lot of RPing on message boards where people with specific motivations get together to join an online group, but never at a table. I also think it is expected by definition online more.


Ok, you can go back to your regularly scheduled debate on whether the designers should offer RPing advice or not. Personally, I think it would be fine either way because from my experience, it ain't gonna matter much anyhow. YMMV and obviously does.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

"I think thou dost proclaim too much."
*snip*

Sigh... I know what you mean, buddy. I'm a roleplayer. It's really hard to be a roleplayer at a table full of people who aren't.

Not that I think I'm all super-duper for being the sort of player who likes lots of in-character dialogue, background connections, and a unique worldview. It's just one of the ways I like to have fun, and one that's sorely difficult to find.

Also, my ability to roleplay or not has little to do with the game system itself...although social encounter rules do streamline the resolution of a scene quite a bit.

 

[Hussar]

There is a danger in including too much role play information in the PHB and that is you sometimes start to define people's campaigns rather than simply providing examples. If you mention, for example, "elves don't like dwarves", that's defining a campaign element. Players can rightly ask, "Why don't elves like dwarves?" And the DM is pretty much forced to design his campaign to that end.

If you state that paladins look a certain way, say European crusader archetypes, then you get DM's and players who cannot move beyond that example and all paladins MUST be guys in heavy armor.

There's a very, very fine line between giving examples and dictating How the Game Shall Be Played! The 3e PHB actually contains a fair bit of flavour text for each race and class. Someone mentioned that there's only about a page and that's not true. Each class has a fairly large section devoted to flavour. But, as DannyAlcatraz mentioned, no one ever reads it and it gets forgotten about.

I'd prefer to keep rp considerations out of rule books. If it doesn't have a mechanical effect, then, put it somewhere else.

 

[Alt Boy!]

It's like walking on the street shouting that your religion is the truth for salvation and happiness. It's irritating, keep it to yourself! Let people choose what is good for them. If they ask you what's that about you do your best, of course, but if they don't, don't push it!

*avoids urge to start prozelityzing*

 

[Jib]

My brothers and sisters one thing you must consider in this debate. Most of the people who play World of Warcraft believe completely that it is a role playing game. Not a game where you play a character who is just like every other character and is limited by a computer program not your imagination (not that WOW is bad it just defines a current view).

I have to go with Ruin Explorer on this. A page showing how to create a character and a list of 20 questions to consider for your PC would help new and old players alike. Not so much to take away space that rules inhabit but enough to guide a newbie.

I'd also like to say for the record that the designers at WoTC do role play. You can see it when they post their blogs. Not always are they focused on who can do the most damage but on what is a fun D&D experience. I remember the Chris Perkins blogs for 3.0 and I could tell they had story first and dice rolls second. Those who I have had the pleasure to meet seem to think more like script writers for movies or novelists than rule crunchers.

And role play doesn't mean taking 10 minutes to describe how your PC orders an ale in the local tavern. It means that your character is more than a set of numbers (often tweaked for the best combat results).

 

[apoptosis]

Things like that usually happen

The important to me is that anyone should always be able to play the game and have fun with it, and play it the way they like with people from other "schools" or with other tastes or others views of the whole picture. The way I believe that can happen is: the game should keep the objective part of it, the rules, as solid and impartial as they can be; and the subjective part of it, the RP, as flexible and loose as it can be, in order to respect and allow all kinds of playing styles.

People should define what is the pasta and what is the sauce, not the books.

What is the pasta and what is the sauce i think has to be defined by the book and people who want one or the other chooses what book (game) that they want (ok analogy going too far)...

But I think this is an important question and ties back to my initial question of roleplay vs game and how to integrate the two facets. I think figuring out this stuff is important to good RPG design.

My theory (and it probably is full of holes and but it does relate back to roleplay vs game mechanics) goes back to playing lets pretend and games as a kid. When I was kid we played both "lets pretend" and cowboys and indians. You would think these games are basically the same but they weren't.

Star Wars came out when I was a kid and we would play and pretend to be Star Wars characters. Well my and my friend even if everyone played one of the protagonists they would switch off being the different villains so their would be a foe (though sometimes we just imagined Darth Vader and no one played him). There were not much in the way of rules and while it was collaborative we would have different ideas of what happens in this made up story, so we made up 'rules' like we got two times where we got to decide what happens. So as kids we basically roleplayed and made up some 'rules' so we could share narrative control and resolve situations where our story ideas were different.

Cowboys and indians on the other hand was not so much playing 'let's pretend' as playing a game. It generally was pretty much "i shoot you" but I remember there would be safe bases and other made up on the spot rules. Now while some kids really got into 'being' a cowboy or and indian (myself particularly) generally it was just a thin skin covering a game of tag as you could play cops and robbers interchangebly.

So this relates back to the roleplaying and game interaction and why i think it is useful to have roleplaying mechancs and advice in the rulebooks. i think that many people come to this game from one of the two above paradigms (or some mixture of the two). If your enjoyment of an RGP comes from the fact that it is a more codified version of "lets pretend" rules and mechanics that aid roleplaying can really help these type people enjoy the RPG more.

On the other hand people who come from the 'cowboys and indians' view it as a game with a 'skin' that allows the game to be more evocative. The flavor helps them enjoy the game. For instance even strict wargamers (vs RPGers) might prefer playing wargames about ancient empires vs. war games about eventeenth century europe etc (just an example, i have no ideas about which wars happenend in seventeenth century europe, i am sure they had at least one ). I think that some roleplaying advice/mechanics might help them get more drama (and enjoyment) out of the game part or possibly get a better feeling of what someone else (the other type player) might get out of the RPG.

So that is why I think that the roleplaying and game aspects should not be divorced and that both mechanics and advice for roleplaying is beneficial to the game as a whole.

I come to RPGs from the 'lets pretend' enjoyment side while I definitely respect that many people come from more of a cowboys and indians side (most people are probably a mixture). I think that while they call the 'roleplaying' people amateur thespians, i think saying they are closer to 'the amateur writer'. They come to game because of how it can emulate books that they read etc (similar to Gary having book sources for flavor in the original DM guide).

An obvious problem with my theory is that I think the overall game came initially from the cowboys and indians side, basically from wargaming. Though given the evocative nature of Gary's writing of the early books, i think he really has gets a lot of the amateur writer enjoyment side from this hobby (of course he is a professional writer, i know, but i will ignore that to not kill my theory) and that without this side of him D&D would not have as been successful.

So that was the longest-winded post I think i have ever written, i apologize in advance for anyone who couldn't get the 3 minutes of their life back.

Apoptosis