D&D General Has the meaning of "roleplaying" changed since 1e?

[Bill Zebub]

This is a spin-off from another thread (kind of like Laverne and Shirley) and I'm curious if others have opinions about this question.

I've seen (and heard) the argument that "it's called a roleplaying game, therefore it is primarily about roleplaying".

However, I don't think the word "roleplaying" means what it used to mean. When I first started playing (my first games were a mish-mash of 1e and 2e) our characters didn't have personalities. Or, at least, we didn't think of the way we played as being driven by the character's personality. Adam played his rogue Porthos as a jerk, for example, but really I think it was just an excuse for him to be a jerk. Also, he was only a jerk toward the rest of us: we also didn't really interact with NPCs very often, and we certainly didn't explore who our characters were, or show any interest in who the NPCs were. They had information we wanted, or goods to trade, or stuff to steal (Adam...) and that was it. And even that was the exception, not the rule. Mostly we killed monsters and took their stuff. We "played a role" by pretending to be a fighter or a magic-user or a rogue. End of story.

I'm curious what others' experience was.

But I'm also wondering what the folks over at TSR intended. What did they originally mean by "roleplaying," and has that meaning changed?

I just skimmed through the Red Book and could not find a single passage that had a whiff of anything we would consider "roleplaying" today. In fact, I did find this passage on page 3 or so:

Prior to the character selection by players it is necessary to roll three six-sided dice in order to rate each as to various abilities, and thus aid in selecting a role. Categories of ability are: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma. Each player notes his appropriate scores, obtains a similar roll of three dice to determine the number of Gold Pieces (Dice score x 10) he starts with, and then opts for a role. Character Abilities Low score is 3-8; average is 9-12; high is 13-18. The first three categories are the prime requisites for each of the three classes, Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Clerics.

In other words, your "role" was determined by your class. Which is how I remember it.

In the other thread another poster offered this passage from an early edition (that I couldn't find in Moldvay; not sure which edition it was in):

This is a roleplaying game. That means that you will be like an actor, imagining that you are someone else, and pretending to be that character

Although that doesn't really explain very much. That also fits with the "you are a fighter" version of roleplaying. It says nothing about the motivation and goals and backstory and relationships that we think of with modern roleplaying.

AD&D expanded on these ideas a bit, and defines your character as being a combination of your attributes, your backstory, and your alignment. That's beginning to sound more like modern roleplaying, but still pretty flat. Some modules had NPCs to interact with, and even advice to the DM on how to portray that, but other modules were pure hack and slash, and the pregenerated characters had nothing about their personality. But overall the percentage of text that suggested this form of roleplaying was very, very low.

Now of course the books are chock full of roleplaying content. In the PHB we have backgrounds and Traits/Bonds/Flaws/Ideals and many pages of fluff on the various races, etc. etc. etc. The published adventures include as much storytelling, NPC personality profiles, and social interaction content as they do fighting and looting. Clearly the content of the published material has changed.

But has the game? Has 'roleplaying' always meant the same thing, and the published game has just (officially) embraced more and more of it, or has the meaning of the word itself evolved?

Were we playing it wrong?(wrong question)

Thoughts?

 

[Tonguez]

Yeah you can absolutely trace the shift from skirmish level wargaming to early class=role games like D&D right through to the narrativist games (sine the 90’s). Not that some degree of it wasnt attempted in the 80’s but rather the rules focussed on a mechanics rather than narrative. D&D with its fixed classes is also a pretty bad model- which is why other games came out that first tried to expand the concept by adding skills and then things like GURPS which added advantages and quirk mechanics to build characters and then the narrative approach of things like Fudge and Fate etc etc

 

[billd91]

I am not sure about the various Original or Basic sets, but the Foreword of the 1e AD&D Players Handbook says:

Get in the spirit of the game, and use your persona to play with a special personality all its own. Interact with the other players and non-player characters to give the campaign a unique flavor and "life". Above all, let yourself go, and enjoy!

In the Introduction, it says:

As a role player, you become Falstaff the fighter. You know how strong, intelligent, wise, healthy, dexterous and, relatively speaking, how commanding a personality you have. Details as to your appearance your body proportions, and your history can be produced by you or the Dungeon Master. You act out the game as this character, staying within your "god-given abilities", and as molded by your philosophical and moral ethics (called alignment). You interact with your fellow role players, not as Jim and Bob and Mary who work at the office together, but as Folstaff the fighter, angore the cleric, and Filmar, the mistress of magic! The Dungeon Master will act the parts of "everyone else", and will present to you a variety of new characters to talk with, drink with, gamble with, adventure with, and often fight with! Each of you will become an artful thespian as time goes by - and you will acquire gold, magic items, and great renown as you become Falstaff the Invincible!

There's definitely nods to role playing as more currently promoted, but there's not a lot of elaboration as the rest of the rules get into a lot of the nitty gritty of play.

So, were you playing wrong? No.
Were you playing in a way that didn't leverage as much role playing as you could? Yes.
Was that OK? Yes.
Is it OK now? Yes.

 

[Bill Zebub]

So, were you playing wrong? No.
Were you playing in a way that didn't leverage as much role playing as you could? Yes.
Was that OK? Yes.
Is it OK now? Yes.

I'm not looking for absolution as much as wondering how other people were playing back then, and if EGG and company meant the same thing by "roleplaying" as we do today.

 

[GuyBoy]

I am aware that I’m looking at this through a lens of memory and that I was a teenager when I started playing, but my own perception is that we played with a significant amount of roleplay.
Characters were in campaign worlds, either homebrew, Greyhawk or Wilderlands, and had backstories, motivations and interactions with NPCs, both friendly and malign.
To me this was, and has remained, the most important and enjoyable aspect of the game.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not looking for absolution as much as wondering how other people were playing back then, and if EGG and company meant the same thing by "roleplaying" as we do today.

There was likely considerably less demand or expectations for amateur theater hour out of the players or that not adhering to this is somehow badwrongfun roleplaying or "not true roleplaying" that you sometimes hear here.

 

[John R Davis]

From the start players had characters that had quirks and personality, and relationships with other PCs. We used voices, we drew pictures of our PCs, we were saddened when we lost an ally, we were fearful for our own, we were cautious, curious, greedy, boastful etc.

At some point games came out that quantified / mechanised these things.

Its all the right way to play and all were GoodCorrectFun.

 

[Umbran]

But has the game? Has 'roleplaying' always meant the same thing, and the published game has just (officially) embraced more and more of it, or has the meaning of the word itself evolved?

I, for one, am not the same person I was when I was 12, and started playing the game. Whether or not the definition of the word in the game books has changed, I have changed. I have different desires now, and even if the game text were 100% the same, I'd be playing differently today.

 

[Bill Zebub]

From the start players had characters that had quirks and personality, and relationships with other PCs. We used voices, we drew pictures of our PCs, we were saddened when we lost an ally, we were fearful for our own, we were cautious, curious, greedy, boastful etc.

Yes, we did sometimes draw pictures of our PCs, or at least wrote down physical descriptions. (The "Summoner Geeks" parody is spot on in some ways.)

I don't remember being genuinely saddened by the loss of NPCs...more concerned about the potential negative impact on our eventual success...but we might ham it up a bit when yet another hireling or henchman bit the dust. My bard used to play Taps whenever one died.

But other than a few examples like that, of what quirky things my characters would do, I can't really recall any details about their personalities or backstories, of the sort we put energy into today.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not looking for absolution as much as wondering how other people were playing back then, and if EGG and company meant the same thing by "roleplaying" as we do today.

When I started in 1983 with 1e we roleplayed a little bit, but mostly gamed it. Of course we were also in junior high school. By the late 80's and early 90's we were doing more roleplaying, but still not like we do now. 2e raised the bar. 3e raised it more still. And so on. Each edition has focused more and more on the RP aspect of the game.