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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wil" data-source="post: 2794189" data-attributes="member: 3502">While I definitely agree that rules for social conflict and character interaction are normally sorely lacking in rpgs, I have to doubt whether or not systems that actively support the act of playing a role are any better at encouraging it than those that imply the players should play roles.  There's too much wiggle room there.And while the execution has been prettied up a bit, it's not like in other rpgs that this doesn't happen all the time.  Hell, in John Wick's now infamous article "Hit 'Em Where It Hurts" (<a href="http://library.gamingoutpost.com/content/index.cfm?action=article&articleid=77&login=" target="_blank">http://library.gamingoutpost.com/content/index.cfm?action=article&articleid=77&login=</a>) he suggests that not only does the player want the disadvantages he or she chooses for their character to be used, but they actually prefer for their character to be screwed over in the process.The thing, is that isn't backing up roleplaying with mechanics - it's backing up what amounts to another set of stats (BITS wind up being quantifiable stats) with mechanics.  I could argue that by providing rules and mechanics for "roleplaying", you succeed in discouraging players (especially rules lawyers and power games) from roleplaying and wind up with characters that are only as complex as the BITS on paper.  Granted, this may be more complex than they might have created otherwise.While I don't necessarily think this is bad, it removes an entire set of possibilities - particularly, factors emerging from a PCs' background during play that neither the player nor the GM were aware of.  There are plenty of people out there who like to explore the background of a PC while they are actually playing that PC and many will argue that doing it up-front takes the fun out of it.The alternative, and this is the best way to go, would have been to design the system in such a way as to allow these decisions to be made in play as well as at the beginning.  If I get hold of it, it may be one of the first things I house rule.On a related note, now you see that just because you include rules for everything in no way guarantees that those rules will survive contact with the intended players unscathed.See above - in many cases, they will not put more meat on the bones, simply because there's no incentive to.</blockquote>

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