nijineko
Explorer
the only differences between what you remember and what you are doing now, are you, and your players. the dice haven't really changed... they are just hints. the rules are the same as they have always been - guidelines. it is simply a matter of education. players have to be educated, dms, reminded.
to take your example... so they roll their diplomacy check, you go right ahead and tell them exactly what you said you did. and when they said i rolled diplomacy, not appraise, you say, your roll netted you all that information which you can now use to stick it to them in your haggling; if you had rolled appraise, i would have said something like, 'this sword is not well made, it has been harshly used, and not taken proper care of after use, you would rate this as a mediocre piece at best, and would further downgrade it due to the care it hasn't received.' furthermore, if you had not rolled such a good diplomacy check, you would have thought it to be a decent sword just needing some care to put it back aright.
players will echo back the dm play style in many cases, but only if they feel comfortable with it, realize that that is actually how the dm plays, and that they can take equal advantage of that play style as they can with a numerical crunching of optimized choices. for many players, it is simply learning a new set of rules, which is made all the harder for some as there are not many places where the rules of creativity are written down, let alone practiced.
it has been my observation that players want to "win". this does not necessarily mean "beat the game" or even "beat the adventure", though that certainly exists... but it means that they want to feel success more than failure. it is a game, and usually played for enjoyment and relaxation of an unusually intensive mental bent. nothing seems to frustrate the players more than when they run afoul of my conscious and unconscious unwritten rules. they can look up all the other rules in books, but the way i play my npcs, what successfully threatens them, what bribes them, what they will answer, what they can't... no books cover that, and my players get driven nuts on occasion trying to piece some stuff together. not fun for them.
i have a hard core min-maxer who is a master of number crunching. his fun is in being the best at whatever narrow set of optimized abilities he's picked this time around. he has stated, repeatedly, that he is playing a character who is good at stuff he is not, (like talking, conversation, diplomacy... basically all the things that most people point to when they invoke the "but we need to roleplay to have better, more immersive fun" clause...) and he flatly refuses to do any sort of conversational interaction with an NPC. instead he says, i'm doing this, and going after this result... *roll* do i get it? that's it. and in his view, he is not good at the "conversational" aspect, but his character is which is why he picked a high score in that ability. so, he doesn't have to act it out, or try to even figure out what to say, because in real life, he isn't good at it. his character is, so just roll and tell me the results.
anyhow. i took a low key tactic with him. at first i let it slide, or i would fill in some description. then i started asking him for a bit of clarification so that i understood what he was really after so i could figure out how the npc would react. i would even suggest a few possible interpretations of his statement to show how i was "confusing" it. since he is a movie buff, i occasionally suggest he give me an appropriate quote from a movie to help me understand what his character is doing/saying.
nowadays, i have caught him taking unoptimized actions, even in combat, because, "that is what his character would do in that situation". ie: roleplaying. in other words, he was very anti-rp and pro-roll play at first. and with careful small steps at a time, he is even engaging in conversation with npcs now. usually of the sort, 'give me what i want or you'll regret it' try two or three times, maybe intimidate, and if the npc is obstinate, combat ensues.
but still, he is now actually roleplaying on his own initiative!
anyway. while i can see your point that any rules heavy system will tend to push people towards rollplaying at first, at least until they get the hang of it, i still think it is really in the hands of the people, not the system.
anyhow, thanks for putting up with my ramblings. ^^
to take your example... so they roll their diplomacy check, you go right ahead and tell them exactly what you said you did. and when they said i rolled diplomacy, not appraise, you say, your roll netted you all that information which you can now use to stick it to them in your haggling; if you had rolled appraise, i would have said something like, 'this sword is not well made, it has been harshly used, and not taken proper care of after use, you would rate this as a mediocre piece at best, and would further downgrade it due to the care it hasn't received.' furthermore, if you had not rolled such a good diplomacy check, you would have thought it to be a decent sword just needing some care to put it back aright.
players will echo back the dm play style in many cases, but only if they feel comfortable with it, realize that that is actually how the dm plays, and that they can take equal advantage of that play style as they can with a numerical crunching of optimized choices. for many players, it is simply learning a new set of rules, which is made all the harder for some as there are not many places where the rules of creativity are written down, let alone practiced.
it has been my observation that players want to "win". this does not necessarily mean "beat the game" or even "beat the adventure", though that certainly exists... but it means that they want to feel success more than failure. it is a game, and usually played for enjoyment and relaxation of an unusually intensive mental bent. nothing seems to frustrate the players more than when they run afoul of my conscious and unconscious unwritten rules. they can look up all the other rules in books, but the way i play my npcs, what successfully threatens them, what bribes them, what they will answer, what they can't... no books cover that, and my players get driven nuts on occasion trying to piece some stuff together. not fun for them.
i have a hard core min-maxer who is a master of number crunching. his fun is in being the best at whatever narrow set of optimized abilities he's picked this time around. he has stated, repeatedly, that he is playing a character who is good at stuff he is not, (like talking, conversation, diplomacy... basically all the things that most people point to when they invoke the "but we need to roleplay to have better, more immersive fun" clause...) and he flatly refuses to do any sort of conversational interaction with an NPC. instead he says, i'm doing this, and going after this result... *roll* do i get it? that's it. and in his view, he is not good at the "conversational" aspect, but his character is which is why he picked a high score in that ability. so, he doesn't have to act it out, or try to even figure out what to say, because in real life, he isn't good at it. his character is, so just roll and tell me the results.
anyhow. i took a low key tactic with him. at first i let it slide, or i would fill in some description. then i started asking him for a bit of clarification so that i understood what he was really after so i could figure out how the npc would react. i would even suggest a few possible interpretations of his statement to show how i was "confusing" it. since he is a movie buff, i occasionally suggest he give me an appropriate quote from a movie to help me understand what his character is doing/saying.
nowadays, i have caught him taking unoptimized actions, even in combat, because, "that is what his character would do in that situation". ie: roleplaying. in other words, he was very anti-rp and pro-roll play at first. and with careful small steps at a time, he is even engaging in conversation with npcs now. usually of the sort, 'give me what i want or you'll regret it' try two or three times, maybe intimidate, and if the npc is obstinate, combat ensues.
but still, he is now actually roleplaying on his own initiative!
anyway. while i can see your point that any rules heavy system will tend to push people towards rollplaying at first, at least until they get the hang of it, i still think it is really in the hands of the people, not the system.
anyhow, thanks for putting up with my ramblings. ^^
