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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6413644" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think it's fairly clear why the characters should talk to the people in the room: because the players know that this is the scenario into which the GM has framed their PCs. In other words, the motivation is almost entirely metagame - the players know that they're playing a game, and to progress the game they will have to talk to these people the GM has described to them.The in-character motivations that are meant to throw a figleaf over the metagame motivation - the offer of pay, or acclaim, or doing good - seem so feeble to me that the fig-leaf may as well not be there. Especially if earning money, or gaining acclaim, or doing good has no impact on the content of the campaign, and makes no difference to how the game unfolds in the future.Just speaking for myself, this is an approach to RPGing that has almost no appeal. In the context of the soup module, for instance, I would expect at least one of the PCs to have a genuine reason to care about the forest, or perhaps about one of the NPCs.Christopher Kubasik isn't giving a definition of characterisation taken from Wikipedia. He's not describing literary criticism - he's engaging in it! He's putting forward a view of what makes for compelling character, in drama and in RPG play.Especially in an RPG, the inner life of the PCs is not easily accessible to the audience (ie the other players), because there is no narration and, generally, little or no soliloquy. It is by declaring actions that a player shows what his/her PC is moved by.You are describing here an approach to RPGing that has very limited appeal to me.In the last Rolemaster campaign I ran, two of the PCs were samurai, wielding katana and wakazashi (anachronistic but fun), wearing heavy armour, etc. One did study the history of swords, while the other did not, but this came out not through esoteric monologues but because this character made swords, appraised swords, etc. Being a crafter, a builder and also a giver (whereas the other fighter was a taker) was part of his character expressed through his actions over the course of the campaign.Even if we focus just on attacking, there are different ways of attacking: different targets to choose, for instance, and - at least in some RPG systems, including some versions of D&D - choices to be made between recklessness, caution etc. Different things to fight for.And there are different things to search for, too.I don't see this as a counterexample to the idea that, in RPGing, character is best expressed through action.I don't agree. It just requires a different approach to adventure design and adjudication from the one that seems to be presupposed in the adventures you describe.</blockquote>

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