Hope?

[RFisher]

The end result of resolving everything mechanically by examining the character's abilities is removing the player from the game to the point that a computer script might as well be playing the character for you.

Two things I want to avoid doing in role-playing games:

• Taking the GM out of the equation
• Taking the player out of the equation

There's a riddle in H1.

Also, there's a secret room that you can find only by piecing together a few clues (or seriously dumb luck/thoroughness).

No skill checks, just good, old fashioned brain processing power.

No! Must avoid hope during the hype period! Must...be...cynical! Don't let that crafty Mearls draw you in!

 

[Reynard]

There's a riddle in H1.

Also, there's a secret room that you can find only by piecing together a few clues (or seriously dumb luck/thoroughness).

No skill checks, just good, old fashioned brain processing power.

+1 to Mearls and 4E. Hope is not lost -- yet.

 

[ptolemy18]

To press the matter, I think it's impossible for a modern gamer to really "roleplay" an Int 6 Barbarian from a fantasy world. Utterly different mindsets.

In fact, I don't really see how "roleplaying" is possible at all, if by roleplaying you mean somehow psychologically "inhabiting" the character in a consistent way. It's bound to be inconsistent. It has to be.

Well, sure, it's not possible to "really" put yourself in the mindset of an INT 6 Barbarian. It's not possible for the DM to put himself/herself in the mindset of a Green Dragon or a Lich or a Hobgoblin either. Or for a fantasy writer to do it either, so obviously all fantasy movies, novels and stories must be unnecessary and pointless.

The point is to attempt it, because it's a ROLE-playing game. It's fun to solve a challenging puzzle, and it's fun to get in tactical fights, but I basically play RPGs to lose myself in the experience of character acting (with dice and craziness added). If that character is an INT 4 moron, then I can have fun playing an INT 4 moron. If that character is a WIS 4 fool, I can play a WIS 4 fool. Alternately, I can give it my best shot at playing someone with an 18 WIS or 18 INT, although this may be a little harder. I don't play RPGs to win or lose (well, of course I *do* want to win, but... ); I play them to experience far-out stuff and to do interesting things with my characters in a group of people.

(Oh yeah, and gain XP and magic items.)

 

[LostSoul]

It's a game, and there will always be metagame thinking. So why not embrace it and have fun with it?

Yeah!

The end result of resolving everything mechanically by examining the character's abilities is removing the player from the game to the point that a computer script might as well be playing the character for you.

No!

In the game I'm running now, any time there's a conflict we resolve it mechanically. But a computer couldn't do it.

You still have to choose what you want to resolve, and when you want to resolve it.

 

[Cadfan]

Wait. If by "challenges the player" you mean "has puzzles that have to be resolved with the player's mental acuity instead of their character's statistics," then how would it even be possible to work that into the rules of the game? You could work it into the design of a module, but how would you work it into the actual edition?

The very nature of puzzles that rely on player intelligence is that they step outside the rules of the game system for a moment. This makes them very hard to integrate into the game system.

The only place where I think that "challenges the player" type puzzles could be built into the game system directly would be to delete the Diplomacy skill and other social skill, and tell players to just speak extemporaneously.

Am I missing something?

 

[WayneLigon]

That seems like an odd place to draw the line, since the player is also doing the roleplaying and running the tacticals and deciding on how to best use their long term resources. Why is the player figuring out a riddle or a puzzle suddenly not role-playing?

Usually because the puzzle or riddle is so bad, or because it is in fact challenging me-the-player instead of me-the-character; riddles that spin on modern concepts (such as the solution to the word puzzle being 'Woolworths') don't work all that well because I-the-character am not looking for a solution in that vein.

A good example of a puzzle was in the last Dungeon issue; the clue at the end of the theatening note appears to be gibberish, when in reality it's a series of musical notes. That's something that anyone is capable of 'getting', save of course for the Int 6 Barbarian. (I'll also make an aside that such a character is not really a playable character unless you're playing in an intentionally humorous game; it's not useful to use such a thing for comparisons).

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I am all for riddles of the type that are

"Hey, there is motif of Blue, Red and Green in that order so maybe we need to put the colors in that order"

or

"There was poem about guardians back there and now we are facing a bunch of statues..."

types (okay, maybe more complex than that). Anyway... puzzels where everything you need to know is in the module itself are fine.

The problems comes in when "players" need to know that Green can be called Emerald or Jade or that Cyan can be a name for a type of Blue. The player may not know that but an 18 INT character likely would. Or my character that is a cleric of god X with a +20 modifier would likley know of a major event that happened in the setting but as a player I didn't read that book so I'm unaware of this "common knowledge".

It's the old "we don't make the player pick up a boulder to see if the character can" conundrum. I don't mind puzzles; in fact I like puzzles. But they can bring a session to a screeching halt when they require knowledge that I as a player do not have but my character withan INT score that says "super-genious" definately would.

At the very least I hope printed puzzles have side bars that say something along the lines of "If the players are stuck have the characters make an INT check. Point out the clues listed below according to the results."

This will take care of multiple issues that may or may not have occured:
The DM missed or misread the text box ina previous room. (DM's fault)
The puzzle requires 'common knowledge' that the players aren't aware of or have forgotten. (Writer's fault - I fully believe that there should be no assumptions of common knowledge)
The puzzle guru of the group is sick/distracted/just not with it that day. (Player's fault)
The group just isn't good at puzzles...

 

[Reynard]

Wait. If by "challenges the player" you mean "has puzzles that have to be resolved with the player's mental acuity instead of their character's statistics," then how would it even be possible to work that into the rules of the game? You could work it into the design of a module, but how would you work it into the actual edition?

The very nature of puzzles that rely on player intelligence is that they step outside the rules of the game system for a moment. This makes them very hard to integrate into the game system.

The only place where I think that "challenges the player" type puzzles could be built into the game system directly would be to delete the Diplomacy skill and other social skill, and tell players to just speak extemporaneously.

Am I missing something?

There doesn't have to be rules for it, there has to be a design philosophy that promotes it. Such things appearing early and often in published scenarios, for example, establish a playstyle and tone.

Also: "social skills" don't belong in the game, AFAIAC. You can have mechanics for leadership and morale and such, but if a player can't squeak out a decent argument, he shouldn't be playing a diplomatic PC.

 

[Umbran]

In fact, I don't really see how "roleplaying" is possible at all, if by roleplaying you mean somehow psychologically "inhabiting" the character in a consistent way. It's bound to be inconsistent. It has to be.

So? The goal of bowling is to get a strike on each and every throw. This is not a realistically attainable goal for most players.

The inability to be 100% perfect is not a reasonable barrier to having fun trying.

 

[Korgoth]

So? The goal of bowling is to get a strike on each and every throw. This is not a realistically attainable goal for most players.

The inability to be 100% perfect is not a reasonable barrier to having fun trying.

I'm not sure we're discussing the same thing. When I play a character, I do ham it up a bit, and have the character say and do some things which are "thematically appropriate". Just for the sake of goofing around.

But I can never "think like" my character. First of all, this is because the way my character would think is not "guy thinking like another guy would think", but "guy thinking like he himself would think". But no one can do he-himself thinking unless he is indeed thinking for himself. Role playing will always be like-another thinking. So there's that absolute barrier.

Secondly, even ignoring for a moment the absolute identity barrier, the way of thinking of someone of another culture, world and/or species could never be perfectly replicated... reason itself may be the same, but the entire contextual content of the thought-process would be missing. So, to continue with the terminology above, not only will the "character thinking" necessarily be like-another thinking rather than he-himself thinking, even the like-another thinking will be extremely removed from the putative context that it is meant to replicate.

Even if someone were to somehow approach adequacy in like-another thinking (I take it perfection is simply out of the question, and adequacy probably is as well), like-another thinking can never become he-himself thinking. I will never "be" Gunnar the Skandic, I will never really think as a Skandic would think (rather than as a modern pretending to be a Skandic would think), and most of all I'll never be Gunnar-himself thinking but only ever like-Gunnar thinking (because I'm not him; he doesn't exist and I'm just a guy trying to simulate how he would think).

In view of that, I don't see why it should be counted as "bad role playing" to think in a metagame way. Why not have Gunnar the Skandic figure out how the steam riddle works? Why not have him be able to be clever no matter his intelligence, or draw on real-world principles of engineering (as monitored by the DM, of course)? It's a game, and I'm the one playing, not Gunnar the Skandic.