Impact of mechanics on roleplay

[Nifft]

IMHO, role-playing expresses itself in the choices a character makes. If a system of mechanics rewards one choice over others, then at times role-playing will conflict with optimal mechanical play -- and unfortunately, this happens too often. However, it's not a necessary dichotomy, it's just that making a system with many distinct yet (relatively) balanced options is really hard.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Walknot]

Yep, this is one case where you can have your cake and eat it too.

 

[Lizard]

I greatly prefer mechanical support for roleplaying, or more generally, non-combat abilities. To me, any variant on "If you want to be the blacksmith's son, just write it down on the character sheet and get on with the game" is basically dismissing roleplaying as secondary, or utterly irrelevant, to "what matters". It's saying "This is so unimportant that no character resources need to be allocated to it". The "Well, the DM can just give you a bonus if it seems important" argument can lead to "Well, my character was the son of a blacksmith who was apprenticed to a wizard and was then kidnapped by orcs and was taught alchemy by a shaman before escaping to join the thieves guild until he was pressed into the militia where he became a master of arms and was also a quartermaster so he's good at economics and then he was trapped in the wilderness so he learned survival and pathfinding and then he..." I mean, why not? It's not "costing" you anything to have a background which includes any imaginable skill, right?

If something is an important aspect of my character, I want it to have mechanical support. If I'm supposed to be a smooth talker, I want social skills, and if his gift of gab is more important to him than his swordsmanship, I want to the ability to reflect this by choosing improvements to his social skills over his combat ones. I don't want to be stuck arguing with the DM over whether or not my rules-independant background flavor text does or does not matter in a given situation -- I want a skill/feat/power/option/whatever that says if it does, how much it does, and how often it does.

Way back in the dawn of time, when I started playing MMORPGs, I would make up elaborate backstories for my characters. Eventually I stopped, because it sank in that there was no point to it, there was no mechanical support for anything but killing, and that you couldn't have goals for your character in the world because the world could not be meaningfully altered. You couldn't dream of assassinating a king or avenging yourself on the orcs, because there was no way to accomplish any goal not pre-programmed. So I just gave in and played like everyone else, questing for the phat l3wtz. I had, after all, P&P games for REAL roleplaying. If you strip the mechanical support for personality traits, goals, motivations, etc, out of a P&P game, though, you're playing an online game with crappy graphics and a server that needs a constant supply of pizza to keep running.

 

[mmadsen]

How important are the mechanics of the game to your roleplay?

Again and again, we see people assert that they are true roleplayers, and that their roleplaying is unaffected by mere rules, but we know people play differently when the rules are different.

 

[mattdm]

One house rule is that I don't use Class Skill lists; this is specifically to open up the character concepts available to each class (and to avoid the Don Juan-mech pilot problem mentioned above). "Ranger" then becomes a profession available to anyone with the right Skills, while Ranger the class is just a collection of fighting techniques.

One of the reasons I like 4E is because the very loose linkage between fluff and crunch allow the rewrite of fluff to suit the character. [...]

I wish 4E gone even further in this direction and made the distinction explicit — made 90% of what's in the classes into completely functional choices: "tough defender", "ranged striker", etc. — and then made the rest (with a lot more both depth and crunch than currently) be the fantasy classes: ranger, wizard, paladin, and the rest. You'd mix-and-match function and flavor, getting most of your combat mechanical benefits from the former and most of everything else from the latter.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I greatly prefer mechanical support for roleplaying, or more generally, non-combat abilities. To me, any variant on "If you want to be the blacksmith's son, just write it down on the character sheet and get on with the game" is basically dismissing roleplaying as secondary, or utterly irrelevant, to "what matters".

Well, I obviously disagree, let me try to explain my point of view...

The "Well, the DM can just give you a bonus if it seems important" argument can lead to "Well, my character was the son of a blacksmith who was apprenticed to a wizard and was then kidnapped by orcs and was taught alchemy by a shaman before escaping to join the thieves guild until he was pressed into the militia where he became a master of arms and was also a quartermaster so he's good at economics and then he was trapped in the wilderness so he learned survival and pathfinding and then he..." I mean, why not? It's not "costing" you anything to have a background which includes any imaginable skill, right?

This is a common failure for aspiring writers, and its known in the fan-fiction world as the Mary Sue/Marty Stu syndrome.

Just because you are the author (or in a rpg, a co-author) it doesn't mean that the best thing for the story is for your character to do everything right, with no justification. Quite the contrary.

It is one thing to say that you can weave tapestries or repair mundane armor in your spare time and quite another to claim masterpiece-level-status in all trades and secret knowledge of each and every plane of existence.

In short, in my games, you are allowed to shape your character in any way or form that fits the overall story. And by "overall story" I mean the consensus created between everybody at the table.

If something is an important aspect of my character, I want it to have mechanical support. If I'm supposed to be a smooth talker, I want social skills, and if his gift of gab is more important to him than his swordsmanship, I want to the ability to reflect this by choosing improvements to his social skills over his combat ones.

I see nothing in the 4E rules that prevents a character from being a smooth-talking rake, more at home in the political arena of a prince's court than in a grimy dungeon:

Start with a high-cha build (there are several options here, I won't elaborate)

Train Bluff and Diplomacy, and eventually pick skill focus for both.

Choose Cha when its time to improve your ability scores.

If you want, you can also reflavor some (or all) of your attacks to fit your concept.

Finally, choose a gaming group where the adventures will lead more towards investigation, intrigue, and social interaction, than outright combat.

Again, there is enough info in the DMG to run non-combat encounters and I am sure that any DM worth their salt can make enough non-combat challenges to suit any style.

I don't want to be stuck arguing with the DM over whether or not my rules-independant background flavor text does or does not matter in a given situation -- I want a skill/feat/power/option/whatever that says if it does, how much it does, and how often it does.

Again, no need to argue with the DM.

Anything that represents a conflict (be it a crossbow shot or a seduction attempt), must be backed by rules, even if in most cases its only something whipped out of the page 42 table.

Anything that's just flavor doesn't need backing at all.

Way back in the dawn of time, when I started playing MMORPGs, I would make up elaborate backstories for my characters. Eventually I stopped, because it sank in that there was no point to it, there was no mechanical support for anything but killing, and that you couldn't have goals for your character in the world because the world could not be meaningfully altered. You couldn't dream of assassinating a king or avenging yourself on the orcs, because there was no way to accomplish any goal not pre-programmed. So I just gave in and played like everyone else, questing for the phat l3wtz. I had, after all, P&P games for REAL roleplaying. If you strip the mechanical support for personality traits, goals, motivations, etc, out of a P&P game, though, you're playing an online game with crappy graphics and a server that needs a constant supply of pizza to keep running.

There is nothing in any edition of D&D that suggest pre-programmed goals. And although I grant you that some people play a "kick-in the door, kill the monsters, get phat l3wtz" style, it is certainly not my style, anymore than yours.

Best regards,

Amphimir Míriel, bard and minstrel

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Stats should effect the end result of your character interactions, but not how you start them off. We've heard the phrase "Doesn't know his own strength." We've seen guys who are simply incredibly boring to talk to, but they don't realize it. Not everyone is aware of their "stats" in real life, so to say, so why would they know in the game? What we usually do is a brief description before a roll, and a FULL description afterwards. "I hit on the female bartender using bluff" "Ok, roll" (Usually at this point the player desperately tries to convince the DM to add modifiers based on completely random and irrelevant things). When the roll is done, both the player and DM describe what happens. Maybe he succeeded, maybe he didn't. The character doesn't know he has no chance, though, and shouldn't. Of course, the character isn't TOTALLY blind to it - he or she has a general idea of how good or bad they are at something - or more funny, they might be COMPLETELY out of tune with their abilities, such as the wizard with low constitution and fort saves who keeps trying to prove his worth at drinking, only to fall after one mug.

 

[brehobit]

I see nothing in the 4E rules that prevents a character from being a smooth-talking rake, more at home in the political arena of a prince's court than in a grimy dungeon:

My snarky response is "I see nothing in the rules for monopoly that prevents a character from bring a smooth talking rake".

My more serious response is that the rake is something 4e supports fairly well. My dwarf to whom smithing is as important as anything else (and he is a master smith) doesn't have a lot of rules support. I'd say no more than monopoly has for the "boot" being a down-on-it's-luck former shoe of Prince Henry.

I wish they'd have done a bit more with the skill system for what used to be called "non-weapon proficiencies". Crafting, professional skills, etc. do have a role in the game. Mechanical support is important there.

 

[Halivar]

My snarky response is "I see nothing in the rules for monopoly that prevents a character from bring a smooth talking rake".

Well, given that some crazy individuals have figured out a way to roleplay Jenga confused, I suppose the notion is not as absurd as you'd think.

 

[BryonD]

Well, given that some crazy individuals have figured out a way to roleplay Jenga confused, I suppose the notion is not as absurd as you'd think.

IMO Dread is no more roleplaying Jenga than D&D is roleplaying craps.