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

[Bill Zebub]

Personally I would be in awe of a player who metagamed so expertly that even if I made up my own monsters their character would know all about them.

 

[overgeeked]

The entities you are competing against is not the GM, it is the fictional entities and challenges simulated by the GM as obstacles to overcome every time that element of the fiction comes into conflict with your goals (the environment part if player vs environment). This is one of multiple roles the GM plays--

You the player are not competing against anything. Your character is competing against the fictional obstacles in the fictional world. Your goal as the player is to play the game...which you can do even if your character fails at everything they ever try. Your character's goals are to find phictional phat stacks and get to your fictional home safe and fictionally sound.

just like how you aren't competing with the developers of Mario as you try to 'beat the game' the obstacles exist to test your skill, "contending with" would be the better wording.

But not your skill as in you the player. Your character's skills. That's the difference. Video games test your skills as a player. Can you move the controller quick enough, precisely enough, etc. RPGs like D&D generally don't. Because it's not about your skills as a player. It's about your character. The point of role-playing games is to immerse yourself in that fictional character. The point of boardgames and wargames is to win against your competition, your opponent. RPGs are borne out of wargames, obviously, but they're not the same thing.

Moldovay's words similarly seem to be taking place at a greater level of abstraction, speaking to the emergent story produced by the wins and losses-- but the process from which that story emerges certainly features success and failure, people trying hard, and victory and defeat.

Right. Success, failure. Victory, defeat. Within the fiction. Not a player trying to win a game. Because RPGs are not that kind of game. There is no competition. No winning. No losing.

 

[Oofta]

So, you figured out how to role play entirely on your own without any help from anyone and did it so well from day 1 that today you would not be able to see any improvement?

Ok.

I was not so gifted. Having mechanics in the game that promote role play, like, for example, 5e's backgrounds, bonds etc. is a major improvement in how role-play is engaged in D&D. I was not able to make that jump without help. I ran absolutely horrible games back then and I was a bad player. I run okay games now and I'm a much better player now. So many of the things that we just take for granted - having a character background for example, wasn't part of role playing at all back in the day. Apparently some people figured it out on their own, like you, but, us less gifted players never did. It is not a strength of the hobby that such things are left to the player to figure out on their own.

I don't find backgrounds/traits/flaws to be particularly compelling. I'd rather tell the story of my dwarf who grew up in a human city, always an outcast, while his uncle Glimp* struggled to keep food on the table. Or the story of my wizard who's mother tried to sacrifice him in some dark ritual. Those were the stories of two of my first PCs.

Maybe having a background wasn't a thing for you, for at least some of us it was.

*EDIT: not Glimnock. How could I forget the uncle Glimphopolus that took in an orphaned dwarven lad?

 

[overgeeked]

It is not a strength of the hobby that such things are left to the player to figure out on their own.

It doesn't help that every declarative statement about the hobby is met with endless arguments. You can't impart information to people who don't want it.

 

[overgeeked]

We didn't play that way. I know, SHOCKING! Not everyone played the game in the same fashion. I remember getting a mod (Tomb of Horrors maybe?) and thinking ... blech. Not for me.

It's so weird how people who didn't start with the earlier editions somehow think that those of us who did treated the books as holy writ.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, I'm saying that I may decide to use a monster that I've never used before so therefore there is no way a PC could know about that monster.

Never used before doesn't mean doesn't exist in the campaign world. Unless it's never been used in the world before, there's probably tales of it somewhere.

Even if I have used a monster before, yes I ... gasp ... occasionally point out that the PC has likely never heard of the creature. PC knowledge, background and skills matter. I won't let a PC "invent" gunpowder because they're a chemist either. People know about many monsters. They know you need to use fire on trolls, that you need silver to harm lycanthropes. There is no reason for the average adventurer to know the details about an Arcanoloth because even if they have been encountered in-universe they are extremely rare and little studied (DC 25). Knowledge of a troll is automatic, knowledge of a Rot Troll may be moderate DC 15. On the other hand if it's the first time I've used a Venom Troll they will have no clue because I've never used one before. For that matter they would have no clue what a norker was because I've never seen a reason to use them.

PCs can't invent gunpowder in my games because the laws of reality are different -- whatever IRL formulation the player might know doesn't work in the game world due to different physical and metaphysical laws. But, if a player wants their PC to set up a project to invent it, sure, sounds good to me.

Just like if a player wants to think they know things about a monster, that's fine with me. They may not be right.

How common or rare any particular monster is, and the likelihood the PC will have knowledge of the monster is up to the DM and the lore of the world. If they care, of course.

And here's where we digress. I, personally, know many rare pieces of knowledge about my world, IRL. A lot most people don't know. And I learned a lot of it from other people telling me about it. So, yeah, I'm not sure at all that potential rarity makes it so that a PC can't know something. This is more GM reasoning, and still makes metagaming entirely the GM's problem.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It doesn't help that every declarative statement about the hobby is met with endless arguments. You can't impart information to people who don't want it.

I think this neatly summarized the disfunction in this thread. But maybe not in the way you intended.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You the player are not competing against anything. Your character is competing against the fictional obstacles in the fictional world. Your goal as the player is to play the game...which you can do even if your character fails at everything they ever try. Your character's goals are to find phictional phat stacks and get to your fictional home safe and fictionally sound.

But not your skill as in you the player. Your character's skills. That's the difference. Video games test your skills as a player. Can you move the controller quick enough, precisely enough, etc. RPGs like D&D generally don't. Because it's not about your skills as a player. It's about your character. The point of role-playing games is to immerse yourself in that fictional character. The point of boardgames and wargames is to win against your competition, your opponent. RPGs are borne out of wargames, obviously, but they're not the same thing.

Right. Success, failure. Victory, defeat. Within the fiction. Not a player trying to win a game. Because RPGs are not that kind of game. There is no competition. No winning. No losing.

Usually my characters goals are not to find phictional phat stacks. Usually, they're a bit more complicated than that. Sometimes they aren't.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Oddly, you require rolls to determine what a character is permitted to know, while the other approach lets the player establish how the character knows things. But this is the choice of pejorative deployed. Irony!

Funny, but I use both together, and so have most DMs I have played with. PCs have their skills and backgrounds for basic knowledge, and then rolls or DM decision determine if that knowledge is deep or broad enough to know what is occurring in the game.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Wait, what?

AD&D wasn't "DM vs players"?

You have read the 1e DMG right?

Nope. Never played 1st or 2nd edition that way at all, even though we still had our token Rules Lawyer in every group.