Do RPGs' Wargaming Aspects Overshadow RPing?

[Umbran]

That said, my experience has been that games that focus more on combat, tend to minimize role-playing.

Well, here's a question - is the issue the combat, or the wargaming nature of the combat?

If the combat were handled in some way that was very much unlike traditional wargames, would it still get in the way of RP?

I'd suggest that if you took out all the "traditional" elements that say "wargame", you'll still have the same problem. If you modelled combat by playing a hand of poker, you'd get folks obsessing on the rules and strategies of poker. If you do it by rock-paper-scissors, you'll get folks going into the psychology of that mechanic to try to beat the opponent.

Combat is life or death, win or lose - a bit too important to the character to expect players to avoid a tactical mode of thought that will tend to break them out of role-play.

 

[Ranger REG]

Do RPGs' Wargaming Aspects Overshadow RPing?

Nope. It is assumed in many RPGs that if you know how to play "Let's Pretend" then you know how to improvisational role-play.

But I guess in this busy days and age, one needs a self-teaching book to learn role-playing in general. Perhaps someone should write Let's Pretend for Dummies.

 

[buzz]

Well, here's a question - is the issue the combat, or the wargaming nature of the combat?

This is kind of the fundamental problem with the poll question. There are plenty of RPGs which utterly lack tactical combat mechanics, i.e., "wargaming". RPGs like HeroQuest and Dogs in the Vineyard handle fighting with the same mechanics used to handle a political debate. Both involve rolling dice in the process (quite a few dice in DitV), but by no stretch of the imagination are they "wargame-y".

So, again, we're back to problems of terminology. Does "wargaming" mean "combat" or just plain "rolling dice and dealing with rules". People in the thread have been using both meanings. Without knowing what RPG we're talking about and what the terms refer to, answers don't really mean all that much. All I'm really seeing is the whole "rollplayer vs. roleplayer" thing, and that's a bogus dichotomy to begin with.

And the whole idea that I may not be "roleplaying" while playing a roleplaying game seems just nuts. I'm playing D&D, I'm roleplaying. Period.

EDIT: I gotta lay off the coffee. Sorry to jump all over your thread, Mark.

 

[cthulhu_duck]

The problem with this poll? Terminology.

I see Roleplaying (I don't tend to use the hyphen) used to mean two separate things:

Roleplaying: To play a roleplaying game (whether tabletop, computer, complex, simple, etc)

Roleplaying: To play a role, whether in a roleplaying game or some other situation.

The terminology is a problem, since there are those who have none of the latter in their games, when they are undeniably playing a roleplaying game, and hence can be described as 'roleplaying' per the former.

Your question is too vague, you need to refine your question and explain what you mean by roleplaying (and wargaming as well) before I can answer the question.

 

[Odhanan]

Do RPGs' Wargaming Aspects Overshadow RPing?

Absolutely not.
If they ever do, then the problem's with the player, not the game.

 

[I'm Cleo]

Ranger REG hit the nail on the head. Of course the rulebooks are obsessed with combat and wargaming stuff -- it's the only stuff for which rules help. The improvisational role-playing is just acting, essentially. I've played in campaigns in which there was only one combat in a day's worth of playing, and never once did I think to myself, "man, the designers should have just provided detailed rules for all this free form conversation stuff" -- the free form conversation stuff was the whole point of the game.

A particular gaming group might use more wargaming than one prefers, or vice versa, but the best aspect (IMO) of RPGs is that they are what you make of them.

I'm Cleo!

 

[pogre]

If in that combat anyone yells "blood and souls for my lord Hong!" after making a kill, I will buy them a beer. Swear to god.

I'm callin' Durbin!

 

[Ranger REG]

Ranger REG hit the nail on the head. Of course the rulebooks are obsessed with combat and wargaming stuff -- it's the only stuff for which rules help.

It has to help. You ever tried to play Cops 'n Robber and determine who eat the bullets and should go down? It always ended up in shouting arguments that leads to playground fights.

The improvisational role-playing is just acting, essentially. I've played in campaigns in which there was only one combat in a day's worth of playing, and never once did I think to myself, "man, the designers should have just provided detailed rules for all this free form conversation stuff" -- the free form conversation stuff was the whole point of the game.

I guess they want more out of RPG to encourage role-playing from timid players. Such encouragement however could lead to an equivalent of an over-the-top English-dubbed telenovelas.



Maybe the "wargaming" aspect of RPG is nothing more than a "physical role-playing" exercise ... without actually doing the physical activities.

 

[Terwox]

Inhibit just means slow down... so sure... I think roleplaying is inhibited when you're trying to figure out whether or not you're about to provoke an attack of opportunity with what you're doing in a grapple. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen -- it just means it happens less... hence it's inhibited.

Not like rules light fixes this -- creating rulings on the fly inhibits roleplaying plenty too! In my experience people have been a little more creative in True20 than in D20, but that could be due to a whole lot of things.

 

[buzz]

I've played in campaigns in which there was only one combat in a day's worth of playing, and never once did I think to myself, "man, the designers should have just provided detailed rules for all this free form conversation stuff" -- the free form conversation stuff was the whole point of the game.

FYI, there are a bunch of RPGs that do provide detailed rules for "free form conversation stuff".