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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7391965" data-attributes="member: 97077">Roleplaying is just playing a role - determining how your character acts and thinks and what he or she says. If you choose to get into a fight, you're still roleplaying. You're also roleplaying when you talk to NPCs or when you try to sneak past some orcs. Just because someone "powergames" to get the best bonuses when fighting, talking to NPCs, or exploring doesn't mean he or she isn't roleplaying.Step 4 of the character creation process are things that may influence the kinds of determinations you make when roleplaying. See Basic Rules, page 8 and 9. This includes appearance, personal characteristics (personality traits, ideal, bond, flaw), background, and ability scores. Inspiration is the game mechanic that incentivizes playing to personal characteristics, but can be expanded beyond that to include other ways of roleplaying at the DM's discretion. In this case, we see that game mechanics encourage a particular way of roleplaying. (I talk about this more in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?629330-The-Case-for-Inspiration" target="_blank">The Case for Inspiration</a>.)The "junior thespians" who complain should either get over themselves or understand that they are advocating for a particular way of communicating the act of roleplaying, not roleplaying in and of itself, and thus explain what they want better. Using the rules (to the extent players have recourse to the rules) while roleplaying does not undermine roleplaying. It can, however, change how that roleplaying is communicated which may not be desirable at certain tables.</blockquote>

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