Bayesian probability analysis. Estimate the likelihood that someone would have made a given decision on the basis of honest character interpretation, compared to the likelihood that they would make that decision on the basis of some other motive. If an observation is too improbable, then we can feel a degree of confidence in how it came about.
The likelihood of an adventurer walking into a dungeon and immediately proceeding to the treasure, without hesitation and without triggering any of the traps along the way, is too small to really consider. Call it one-in-a-thousand, if we're being generous.
The likelihood of a player having their character act in such a manner, if they've read the source material, is much greater. Call it one-in-ten.
Given the relative likelihood of the observed outcome, given those possible motivations, we should believe that it's one hundred times more likely that the player is cheating than that they are not.
This one I'll give you, because that player has a challenge before them, and they've acquired an unfair advantage to defeat that challenge. In this case, sure, I'd agree that this is a form of cheating, and I wouldn't advocate for it.
But this kind of example wasn't really what we were discussing.
And likewise, with a DM manipulating the background to contrive drama for the players. If there are a dozen evil cultists, then there would be a one-in-twelve chance that the character's brother is the one sent on the mission to where the PCs happen to show up, if the DM was acting impartially. If the DM was acting on a bias to create drama, then the likelihood of that outcome is much closer to eleven-in-twelve. Thus, given the observation that the brother does show up, we should believe that it's eleven times more likely that the DM is acting with bias than that they are not.
Okay.....how does a DM not contrive drama for the players? Do your characters all remain on the farm and you play out their weekly trips to market?
You act as if coincidence is bad......but it'd all be coincidence, wouldn't it? Oh, you guys showed up in a new town.....there just so happens to be a bandit problem here! Oh, you went on to the next town.....my, my there are some ruins nearby where strange things are happening....imagine that!
You're making up stuff for the players to engage with. It's all made up.....it is not a real world.
It also exists in the therapist's office, the war room, and any number of other scenarios where our true goal is to understand what someone else is thinking. Sometimes, it even exists in this very forum.
Right! Here you yourself explain that role-playing is a tool. It is the means used and the goal is to understand someone else. Understanding is the goal of therapy, not inhabiting a role.
The point of playing a game.....any game....is entertainment. For a RPG, adopting a role is one of the ways that you achieve that goal.
Just like so-called "players" who prioritize story-telling over role-playing.
And here's where your bias shows. Even if you don't agree that they are role-playing, they are still players in a game....your insistence to refer to them as "players" is a bit much, no?
There are lots of ways to play an RPG, but only one of those ways is actually role-playing. I'm not going around and forcing everyone else to role-play, unless they want to play at my table, in which case they've already agreed.
I'm also not going to let people get away with using weasel words to imply that out-of-character decision making (for whatever motive) is actually role-playing. Words have meaning, and to claim otherwise is disingenuous.
Words can also have multiple meanings. You've shared what you think role-playing is. You've brought up out of hobby uses, and none of those have actually fit your description, so I don't know why you introduced them to the topic.
Obviously, people have disagreed with your insistence that your definition is correct. People has asked you to cite where you get this definition. You have not done so.
So at this point, I think that it is on you to explain why we should all accept your rather specific definition of role-playing.
And that's one more little veiled insult....."weasel". This is a third time I'm going to ask you to please be respectful.
If we're going to ignore history and common sense, then nobody can ever claim to be role-playing. Labels are only meaningful if they facilitate communication, and you insist on rejecting that. Whatever. The key idea is still in the underlying process, which the label is supposed to represent.
The point of an RPG is to engage with the world as our character does, as though it was a real place, and not just a story. That's the unique thing, which distinguishes an RPG from any other type of game.
That may be
a point to roleplaying, but that doesn't make it
the point. Perhaps I role-play to spend some time with my friends and have fun. That's the point of it all, to me.
Meta-gaming is bad because it means you aren't doing that anymore. You aren't engaging in the world as your character would, if they were a real person, living in a real world. Once you start operating on story logic, then all you're left with is a story. It no long reflects that unique thing, which is only possible in an RPG.
Hey, I'm glad that your immersive approach to roleplaying works for you. Keep on doing it. Just stop telling others who don't adhere to that approach that they're cheaters, or weasels, or that they don't know what "true roleplaying is" and so on. Because all of that is really pure nonsense.
The difference between the common definition of a TTRPG, or even a very academic definition of a TTRPG, and the other definition in play here is one best measured in light years.
