Combat vs. Role-playing

[evilbob]

Here's an inherent problem with D&D with 3.x and most likely with 4e as well. The game tries to emulate everything you can possibly do. While this is nice from a play balance point of view, being able to make rolls for just about every situation or challenge means it's easier to do so, and thus, people are more likely to do so.

For example, with the interaction skills, such as Bluff and Diplomacy in 3.x, it's far easier to just make a roll than to roleplay it out. Not only that, even if you do roleplay it out, some DMs make you roll anyway, so what's the point of doing the roleplaying? Some DMs will give a bonus to an interaction roll for good roleplaying, and that's a good middle ground.

You can roleplay out of combat and you can even roleplay IN combat! But you aren't forced to roleplay, and I think that's a good thing. Some people are better at the whole roleplaying part of the game, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to require something in which some players have an inherent advantage over others.

There's nothing in the rules that prevents you from roleplaying your character through every situation, combat or not. However, there's also nothing requiring you to roleplay. Add to that the fact that the vast majority of abilities that exist in the same are for the expressed purpose of engaging in combat. I think that's why people sometimes want to contravert combat with roleplaying (and vice versa).

One thing that can help encourage roleplaying is to change the XP reward model. Switching from a strictly kill based XP system to a more task/accomplishment based XP system, while adding optional components for ad-hoc roleplaying awards, I think that would be something you could do in the rules to encourage more roleplaying without strictly requiring it.

This is an awesome post. I quoted the entire thing because it's just that good. I didn't even read the rest of the posts on this thread because this was it: this was the only thing that needed to be said. I completely agree.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is an awesome post. I quoted the entire thing because it's just that good. I didn't even read the rest of the posts on this thread because

Sorry, I stopped here. I didn't even read the rest of your post.

 

[JDJblatherings]

Yes, it is good stuff.

Now, keep it up for 20 combat rounds in a row, and see how that goes. I think you'll find that it gets a bit difficult and/or tedious and time consuming. Highly-descriptive combat is cool for short sprints, but it gets to be a drag if it goes on for too long.

20 rounds? How is that goign to happen with 3 orcs and a fighter?

Depending on how i felt about it and how dedicated to the fight the orcs are I might let the player get an intimidation roll there or simply have the remaing two orcs flee.

now with a whoel bunch of orcs and a whole bunch of PCs it might tedious but if everyoen tries to have fun it really shouldn't be. We are all there to play a fantasy game after all and descriptions of flashing blades and related mayhem should certainly be part of the fun.


the poor DM is certainly the person on the spot here but it isn't too hard to come up with a couple of dozen combat descriptions and run with that.

all of these work better then "you kill the orc" and didn't take more then a moment to think up-

Your sword bites deep.

The orc looks at you with surprise and slumps to the ground.

the orc crumples under the mace blow.

You lop the orcs head off.

Your blow splits the orcs helmet and skull it's dead.

The orcs stumbles to the floro and desperately tries to shove it's intestines back into place.

A great gout of black blood washed over yuo, the orc is clearyl finished.

You get that donald-duck woogilie sort of feeling while you spaltter the orcs against the wall.

pull that off for 20 rounds and players shoudln't get bored in a long fight.

 

[apoptosis]

20 rounds? How is that goign to happen with 3 orcs and a fighter?

Depending on how i felt about it and how dedicated to the fight the orcs are I might let the player get an intimidation roll there or simply have the remaing two orcs flee.

now with a whoel bunch of orcs and a whole bunch of PCs it might tedious but if everyoen tries to have fun it really shouldn't be. We are all there to play a fantasy game after all and descriptions of flashing blades and related mayhem should certainly be part of the fun.


the poor DM is certainly the person on the spot here but it isn't too hard to come up with a couple of dozen combat descriptions and run with that.

all of these work better then "you kill the orc" and didn't take more then a moment to think up-

Your sword bites deep.

The orc looks at you with surprise and slumps to the ground.

the orc crumples under the mace blow.

You lop the orcs head off.

Your blow splits the orcs helmet and skull it's dead.

The orcs stumbles to the floro and desperately tries to shove it's intestines back into place.

A great gout of black blood washed over yuo, the orc is clearyl finished.

You get that donald-duck woogilie sort of feeling while you spaltter the orcs against the wall.

pull that off for 20 rounds and players shoudln't get bored in a long fight.

I think Umbran's point was that those are nice for the end of the fight but with lots of rounds of combat where you are just nickel and diming the critter to death makes such an approach less appealing.

 

[evilbob]

Sorry, I stopped here. I didn't even read the rest of your post.

Lol - nice.

 

[JDJblatherings]

I think Umbran's point was that those are nice for the end of the fight but with lots of rounds of combat where you are just nickel and diming the critter to death makes such an approach less appealing.

Well for the parts where they aren't dead yet...

The orcs helemet rings like a bell when yuo striek him but the brute still stands.

Chainlinks burst asunder as the orc fights on.

The orc shrugs off your feeble blow.

Your sword almost slipped from your hand with that blow.

to your surprsie that blows seems to have been of little consequence to the fiend.

You slip in the blood covering the floor and striek far from your target.

The goblins jumps aside your blow misses entirely.

The goblin squeals like a pig after you jab him.

Teeth go flying from the orcs mouth but he seesm to give it no concern, it'll surely pain him later if he is victorious.

You slice his brow sendign blood pouring down over his eyes.



- Just kepe doing it and it becomes easier and easier.

 

[BryonD]

More rules decreases this 'role-play' space, although it does open up the possibility for people to play characters with greater social skills than they possess themselves, which can be a good thing IMO.

I strongly disagree that more rules decreases role play space.
Anything that could be done in an ad-hoc system can be done in a ruled system.

It may be that an ad-hoc DM is more free with what he allows the characters to achieve and a strictly followed rule system allows. But that is easy to solve by just letting the character be better through bonuses or whatever. Arbitrary bonuses in a set system is no worse that just making everything up on the fly. I'd say it is better even, because at least you have a set yard stick to compare against.

But if an ad-hoc DM is going to rule significantly differently on a situation that requires a PC to jump, for example, in two different cases then either a) the DM is being erratic and a good rule system would be an improvement, or b) there is a reason that the ruling should be different and the DM can easily adjust bonuses or DCs to account for this.

I'm not saying that free form is bad. A good DM can run an awesome game this way and no rules are needed. So I'm not making a this is right and that is wrong argument. But I do really disagree that rules force any kind of restriction on role playing.

They will prevent the Cha 7 Orc Barbarian from talking an ancient dragon out of some treasure. But I'd claim that a Cha 7 orc trying being able to talk an ancient dragon out of treasure is far removed from role playing. It may be fully in character for the orc to TRY. But the rules don't stop trying, they just stop success. If the DM and player want to play a game where any cool idea that occurs to the player can work then fine. Rules will prevent this type of playing. But this is more of a creative problem resolution game that now has nothing to do with the orc. And it isn't roleplaying. It doesn't make it any less fun or bad in any way. It is simply a different thing. Roleplaying means taking on the role of the character and accepting both the strengths and weaknesses of that persona. Rules don't limit the ability to do this.

 

[Mallus]

Anything that could be done in an ad-hoc system can be done in a ruled system.

So long as the players agree to the turn the rules "off" from time to time.

If the DM and player want to play a game where any cool idea that occurs to the player can work then fine.

Only some of the time. I hate to think I wasted all the money I've spent on dice.

Roleplaying means taking on the role of the character and accepting both the strengths and weaknesses of that persona.

That's certainly one definition. Or a part of part several...

 

[DM_Blake]

No matter how we slice it, combat is always going to require more rules than non-combat. Well, at least in D&D, since it is a combat-heavy game.

A rules system that covers how to bluff a city guard, or how to earn a free meal by dancing in a tavern, or how to negotiate with a merchant, or any other roleplaying encounter, even if there are charts and tables and many opposed die rolls, all laden with multiple layers of modifiers, is still a much smaller chunk of the Players Handbook than the combat system.

Given that weapons, armor, many feats, and most spells are designed to defeat opponents in combat, that’s a whole lot of pages in the PHB. No skill system, even enhanced by some feats and some spells, is going to take up that many pages.

So for all those saying “de-emphasize combat”, the simple answer is that D&D combat is complex. The sheer volume of tactical considerations of location, monsters and their special abilities, PCs and their special abilities, spells, and magic items, guarantees complex combat. It cannot be de-emphasized and still be D&D.

Sure, other systems have simplified combat. Heck, Amber was entirely diceless. The DM told you what you were encountering, you told the DM how you wanted to deal with it, and he told you the resolution.

But that’s not D&D.

D&D grew out of a tactical tabletop miniature combat system, and it has always been about finding strategic and tactical solutions to slay strange enemies in strange locations.

The real solution is to increase the emphasis on role-playing.

Having a great rules system in place to handle RP encounters is a start. But motivating DMs and players to engage in RP situations is where the solution lies. And the heart of the solution is to modify the reward system (XP, treasure, character advancement) so that players are rewarded for all their actions, rather than just the combat actions.

Just that simple step will go a long way toward encouraging roleplaying.

The next step is to provide examples in the WotC released adventures. Notice how the recent stuff has gone toward combat, combat, combat. They’ve even added sections in the recent stuff that lay out exact maps of the tactical encounters, with descriptive texts of what the bad guys do round by round.

That’s all fine and good, but what D&D needs is for those published adventures to also have as much detail on the roleplaying encounters, with rewards for success clearly provided. This would encourage DMs to use roleplaying encounters, and show them how to do it.

This would bring the RP back to the D&D RPG.

 

[BryonD]

So long as the players agree to the turn the rules "off" from time to time.

I disagree. Again, the rules can never account for everything and knowing when the rules don't fit the circumstances is critical. But that isn't turning them off, it is just knowing when you are outside the normal parameters.

Only some of the time. I hate to think I wasted all the money I've spent on dice.

Always for some people, never for others, in between for most.

That's certainly one definition. Or a part of part several...

Certainly I agree here. I don't think you can leave it out, but it is far far far from a complete description on its own. I didn't mean for it to be a definition, only one key element.