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

[Maxperson]

So the point of the game is to never learn how to play it? Even after 40 years?

You don't need to know about trolls to learn how to play the game.

 

[overgeeked]

Not possible, not practical, and not even desirable in my view.

I don't know what to tell you. I've been doing it nearly 40 years now.

If inexperienced characters encounter trolls, and their first instinct is to break out flaming oil and acid, good on 'em—if they just so happen to have happened to encounter Andersonean trolls. Less so if they've encountered Tolkienian trolls. Tough luck indeed if these trolls are the fire-loving sort from Muspelheim.

All's fair, provided the DM has honestly thought up and placed the twist or challenge ahead of time and isn't just pulling it out of his arse on the fly to thwart the players' decisions in the moment.

Well, of course. Poke at the metagamers. Absolutely. But that's not the point. The point is they shouldn't be metagaming like that in the first place...which is why you'd set up a situation like that (switch the troll vulnerability). To punish the players for metagaming and keep things interesting.

 

[overgeeked]

You don't need to know about trolls to learn how to play the game.

Right? Such a weird argument to make.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I don't know what to tell you. I've been doing it nearly 40 years now.

Well, of course. Poke at the metagamers. Absolutely. But that's not the point. The point is they shouldn't be metagaming like that in the first place...which is why you'd set up a situation like that (switch the troll vulnerability). To punish the players for metagaming and keep things interesting.

But why shouldn't they be metagaming using player knowledge? If I imagine my character as being somebody who knows about trolls, then I am 100% in character to use fire on them, right?

Also, the reason to switch things up isn't to "punish" anybody. It's to let them enjoy the blissful ignorance they had when they first started playing D&D. If you know the DM changes stuff, then you genuinely don't know if you should use fire on trolls. You don't have to play-act. It's way more fun to actually be as ignorant as your character supposedly is.

 

[Maxperson]

But why shouldn't they be metagaming using player knowledge?

It's all about your preferred roleplay style. Mine, I prefer the players to play as if they were their characters, not the other way around.

If I imagine my character as being somebody who knows about trolls, then I am 100% in character to use fire on them, right?

So if I were in your game and the party came across a murder, you'd give me the information if imagined my PC as someone who knows that info? If the answer to that is no, then it's not how the player imagines his character that matters.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

My 2 coppers...

Earlier "roleplaying" was more like:
"If you were Falstaff the Fighter, with these stats and abilities, what would you do?"

Current "roleplaying" is more like:
"Falstaff the Fighter has these stats and abilities, what would he do?"

No point explaining much more. That's pretty much all there is to it. "You" in the game versus "him" in the game. It's the difference between a player being presented with a set of 3 doors, each with a number on the front... "3", "7", and "9". Only one is correct, the other two kill instantly. Pick one. ... Older would expect the Player to think about it and make a decision. Newer would expect the Player to think about it from his PC's "background, skills and personality"...and probably make some kind of Int Save or Skill Check if the Player figured it out, "to see if Falstaff figured it out with his 6 Intelligence".

PS: EDIT: Both "styles" are Roleplaying...just different 'types'. It's the difference between the Player using his/her 'brains/knowledge' to overcome problems or make decisions versus the Player using his/her 'imagination/acting' to overcome problems or make decisions. In theater-like terms: "director" versus "improve" I guess?

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Maxperson]

No point explaining much more. That's pretty much all there is to it. "You" in the game versus "him" in the game. It's the difference between a player being presented with a set of 3 doors, each with a number on the front... "3", "7", and "9". Only one is correct, the other two kill instantly. Pick one. ... Older would expect the Player to think about it and make a decision. Newer would expect the Player to think about it from his PC's "background, skills and personality"...and probably make some kind of Int Save or Skill Check if the Player figured it out, "to see if Falstaff figured it out with his 6 Intelligence".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

The answer is clearly both 7 and 9. 7 because it's the one number not divisible by 3, and 9 for being the one non-prime number.

What do I win?

 

[pming]

The answer is clearly both 7 and 9. 7 because it's the one number not divisible by 3, and 9 for being the one non-prime number.

What do I win?

You die for choosing wrong.

There was actually Invisible Script written on all three doors that said "TRAP!". Like the movie War Games... the only winning move was not to play.

But here's a half-eaten blueberry muffin for effort.

1e is a very harsh mistress!


^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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:


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):

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?

Speaking as someone who started playing in 1981, no, what people mean by role playing hasn't changed. If you want some more evidential proof, read some magazine articles from the time. I suggest White Dwarf. It was something that not everyone, or every group, did though, and that remains the case. You can play D&D with or without roleplaying and either way is fine.

What a lot of people are unaware of is just how differently different groups play D&D. What has changed is the advent of streaming games creating a baseline shared experience. However, since streaming is dominated by under-employed actors, those games are more into role play than the majority of home games.

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

My own early experience matches what you describe. The 'role' was pretty much purely the class and whatever other attribute the system used (1st and 2nd edition DSA - The Dark Eye - for me). The advent of 'personalities' for me really only began with 3e D&D, though I can't rightly tell if that was an evolution of the game system, me growing up (just me - my first 3e groups were played with people roughly half my age when I was in my early 30s) or a mix of both...