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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8324031" data-attributes="member: 16814">Why are you tossing mechanics?  This is circular argumentation -- the best way is to disregard mechanics, unless there's another way that disregards mechanics.  You haven't done anything to establish that freeform RP is in any way superior aside from assertion.You should recalibrate your between the lines reader app as this is entirely wrong.  The point was that for you to be aligned with your character here, you'd have to want to steal as yourself for the character to do so.  This kind of freeform RP is one directional -- you push on the game, the game doesn't ever push back.  So, to have your character steal, and for you to be inhabiting the character, the only way that can effectively happen is to want to steal yourself.  Which is quite silly, generally, or, if not, disturbing.   So, there's no real way to engage this flaw and inhabit the character if it's entirely up to you when to activate the play of this flaw.  As I said, it one-directional:  you push this into play, play never pushes it back onto your character.And that is entirely different from real life and how such things work, so there's no real inhabitation there.  And this same applies in lots of other examples.  Freeform RP starts with the assumption that the player is the only one who can say what the character does, feels, or says.  This is far to perfect, though, and leads to "inhabitation" in this regime to really mean, "things do not upset my understanding of the fiction."  I mean, having an uncontrollable urge to steal something that will clearly have very bad repercussions is something that happens in real life, but can never happen to a character with that flaw in a freeform RP session because it can only ever be invoked by the player's direction and it would be bad play to force this onto the character without the player's say so.  I struggle to find how this kind of play can be "best" at inhabiting the fiction from the point of view of the character when the character is immune to the fiction in all ways (except for magic, in D&D, or supernatural effects).  It's far too one sided.That said, you can absolutely have a great time with this, especially with good players that riff well and gel well enough to handle PCs occasionally causing bad fallout through player directed actions.  It also leads to quite a number of bad play examples -- however, I prefer to focus on good faith play and only mention this because you're putting forth this approach as the best option while ignoring it's downsides.Maybe.Again, my argument isn't based on a clear separation at all times.  I mean, there's an entire movement of RPG play that focuses primarily on causing bleed, or having players experience the emotional state of the PCs at moments during play.  [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] is very clear this is something he finds desirable.  I don't think you can categorically excise this from the argument.Mostly in games you're excluding, and certainly not in any game that's following your advice.  I mean, one of the games that clearly does this, to me, is FATE, which pins quite a lot of play on invoking PC tags (or aspects), both by the player and by the GM.  When I look to D&D, though, I don't see this at all -- outside of magic spells or supernatural abilities, there is zero way to mechanically enforce anything on the PC with regard to social interactions.  You cannot make a character feel, think, or do anything with the game (again, outside of magic).  Magic gets the pass because, well, magic, and that's the fullest extent of any explanation anyone's ever been able to provide why magic is special and can do a thing otherwise impossible in any degree.  I cannot convince another PC of anything using the mechanics of any D&D edition ever unless I resort to magic, which, quite often, is viewed as PvP and mostly disliked (I know you're just fine with PvP, but you're a minority on this).Pick a magic spell that isn't mentally oriented, and I can do something towards that without magic -- perhaps not at the same scale or effect, but I can try.  Fireball?  I can use oil and fire, or alchemist's fire.  Weaker, less effective, but I can do this.  Fly?  I can climb to high buildings and construct wings, or ride a griffon.  Invisibility?  I can try to hide or camouflaged myself.  Magic in other areas does do magical things, usually by expanding the scope of the effect.  But, I cannot convince an NPC or PC of a thing if they don't want to be convinced outside of Charm Person.  Flatly, if the GM says, "this guard will not let anyone unauthorized past," I cannot talk my way past him, no matter what, with freeform RP but I can Charm or Dominate him and do it.  My only option is to try a different approach.  Thus, "it's magic" doesn't even hold water compared to other magic when it comes to Charm.  It's a totally weak argument that sums up to "because."</blockquote>

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