Help me encourage my "slayers" to roleplay

[Ydars]

Umbran is the voice of reason; as ever! I love the way that some people have semantic arguments and then try and declare that their definition of a word or idea is an absolute.

To answer the OP: you can be subtle as well. If the PCs don't want to talk, show them how they are losing out.

Invent anther party and use them to illustrate the advantages of talking. For example, create an NPC who wants to interact with the party. Most likely they will not respond, so later in the campaign, let them discover that they missed out on some excellent opportunities as a result and that the other party are now ahead in the game. Maybe there is a patron noble who will use the other party for tasks but not the PCs because they have a reputation as brash and boorish.

 

[howandwhy99]

And yet, you used it as a reference yourself.

This is obviously my mistake. Here is the roleplaying entry in the World Book Encyclopedia from my living room:

Role playing is a method of teaching and learning. A real-life problem, such as a disagreement between people, is described. Members of a group act out roles. Each tries different ways of behaving in the situation. Other members of the group observe the effects of the behavior. Then the group discusses what happend and often suggests other ways of handling the problem.
Role playing, sometimes called sociodrama, was perfected in the 1930's and has been used in schools, industry, social work, and adult education. Doctors use a form of role playing called psychodrama, to treat mentally ill patients. Role playing helps people understand the feelings of others. It also allows people to test new solutions to problems.
See also Mental Illness (Psychotherapy).

A great many words in the English language have multiple definitions. Simple assertion will not prove that Roleplaying has only one. Maybe, at one time, it had only one - but language changes with time and use. You have no "proof" that it has not done so, while I have evidence (that Wikipedia page) that there's use beyond yours.

Erroneous Wikipedia entries does not mean those entries' assertions are now true. There is a reason the site isn't a credible reference source in schools and universities.

Somehow, I don't think it likely that a bunch of guys expanding wargames into a new realm were particularly worried about sticking to the psych definition.

Actually, Gary Gygax and others in TSR argued hard in the early 70's against fellow wargamers who claimed D&D was no longer a wargame as well as the role playing community who claimed D&D was theatre and not role playing at all. That D&D was bumped out of the wargaming community and included in the role playing community may have something to do with what was said at that time. To the best of my knowledge, the wargaming community generally held the DM's position was too influential on the outcome of the game for D&D to be a wargame (as the box originally advertised). However, D&D was and is still a simulation about war, so I think it still holds some credible overlap there. The role playing community (quite a bit larger then than now) argued that D&D was about playing fictional roles, which amounted to training for nothing. Or at least thereabouts to the best of my knowledge. I'd love to find the original discussions as I know at least Gary went and changed the title of Character to Persona in both his subsequent gaming systems. He and others for generations held role playing as something other than theater and on that point at least they were correct.

The entire English language is pure comedy, and that's a great thing. If you wish to deny some of its richness, that's your own concern. It is, however, unenforceable.

Ignorance of a term's actual meaning doesn't not make faulty beliefs true. Role playing is no less now what is was 20, 40, or 60 years ago. But claiming that a term can be so broad as to encompass both changing one's behavior around others and pretending to be another person is serving no one IMO. The second definition is commensurate with theatre acting in every way. Actors don't refer to themselves as role players because most actually know what they are talking about. Pretending to be someone else is acting. Playing a role is role playing. Is there some crossover? Sure, but the recent fad of claiming they are the same thing is just general ignorance, not "richness" of language.

Here's a question: Do computer role players get to still lay claim to being "true" role players? The current fad in tabletop RPG theory is to remove all ties to computer role playing and it's massive lot of role players because the games have be redefined out of the hobby either by, again, ignorance or intellectual dishonesty to redefine role playing into theatre and storytelling. In truth, every CRPGers has an honest claim to role playing, while folks who act in plays do not (improvisatonal plays or otherwise). Theatre games have never been considered role playing until recently and any good theatre professor would tell you they are not the same. When actors role play the role they play is: actor. They are training during rehearsal to be better in the social role of actor, not role playing the character they will portray on stage. The phrase "role playing a character" makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Mallus]

Ignorance of a term's actual meaning doesn't not make faulty beliefs true. Role playing is no less now what is was 20, 40, or 60 years ago.

Your canny refusal to acknowledge that a word's meaning can change over time --and when used in different contexts-- is telling. You are a prescriptivist!

 

[howandwhy99]

Your canny refusal to acknowledge that a word's meaning can change over time --and when used in different contexts-- is telling. You are a prescriptivist!

When folks claim someone is not role playing, when they clearly are, simply because that person is not pretending to be someone else, then the speaker denies the factual definition of role playing. As you claim, anyone can use speech in any manner they wish. And if enough persons use it in a similar way speech can change. But the current change is a matter of pseudo-intellectual theorizing doing just what you claim I am doing, using prescriptivism. But in their case it is to define role playing as theatre - something it has never been. Role playing uses the theatre model to talk about real life. It's the opposite of putting on a play. Not to mention most current "theories" about "what is role playing?" seek to deny the most successful form of role playing game on the market to date: the computer RPG. It's a branch of the same self-serving campaign made 15 years ago that claimed D&D was not a role playing game at all because it did not having acting rules.

 

[Rechan]

Ladies, could you two get a room, or take the catfight outside? Kinda derailing the thread.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

When folks claim someone is not role playing, when they clearly are, simply because that person is not pretending to be someone else, then the speaker denies the factual definition of role playing.

Who cares? Some people (myself included) play roleplaying games as a form of sit-down improv theatre, and it doesn't much matter whether that's called "roleplaying," "acting," or "polyhydrogenated soybean oil." How does this semantic argument help anyone to enjoy the game more?

 

[howandwhy99]

Who cares? Some people (myself included) play roleplaying games as a form of sit-down improv theatre, and it doesn't much matter whether that's called "roleplaying," "acting," or "polyhydrogenated soybean oil." How does this semantic argument help anyone to enjoy the game more?

To stay on topic, clearly many of the OP's Players have no desire to play a theatre game. Though you may wish to pretend to be another person, playing a role playing game does not mean his players are playing "wrong" because they prefer to role play without acting so. Having expectations of their behavior that the game and the activity clearly do not is likely to lead to misunderstanding and disruption in the group. Accepting that the players are actually role playing and are choosing for themselves what they wish to do could help the OP enjoy his game more.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

To stay on topic, clearly many of the OP's Players have no desire to play a theatre game. Though you may wish to pretend to be another person, playing a role playing game does not mean his players are playing "wrong" because they prefer to role play without acting so. Having expectations of their behavior that the game and the activity clearly do not is likely to lead to misunderstanding and disruption in the group. Accepting that the players are actually role playing and are choosing for themselves what they wish to do could help the OP enjoy his game more.

I think doctorhook should encourage his/her players to try it, because they might find out that they like it once they do. I got into the hobby as a miniature-pushing wargamer, but once I made the connection with the improv theatre I had done in high school, I found out that I really liked character-based improvisational play. His/her players might, too! Who knows?

It's not very helpful to tell people that what they're interested in is not what the game intends. So what? Gary Gygax isn't sitting at the table with me; my friends are, and I only care about their definition of roleplaying. The interesting thing about roleplaying games is that they can be played in millions of different ways, all of them equally legitimate, as long as everyone is having fun.