Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bastoche" data-source="post: 2636526" data-attributes="member: 306">They are running with sandals. That is my point. The can do it and if they're having fun while doing it, all the better. However I try to point out they they most probably would have more fun finding a proper suited game (or lose less time house ruling).Well good! That means all players go the game to have fun by aiming at the same goal. Not everyone has fun aiming for the same goal. Some have fun by bashing monsters, other have fun by playing their character as good as possible according to the imagined universe's inner logic and others have fun by having their characters going through internal hardship/change.You can be roleplaying while not playing "in character" and then I'm not sure if to you "playing in character" means mimicking the character's voice while playing and/or never taking a narrator stance.Example 1: playing "in character" as in actor stance:Player says to GM: "Well, baron! We meet at last! You have made enough people suffer! Prepare to face death".Example 2: playing in narrator stance:Player says to GM: "My character tells your BBEG that he will meet his end by my sword or something along those lines. Roll initiative".In both cases, you are playing a role. The level of "immersion" is different but in both cases it's roleplaying.Roleplaying could also be imagining a story about characters collectively with the players. The "role" of the character doesn't necessarily needs to have an inner logic other than "If my character did X it would make a great story!". For example, many people have asked "Why didn't the giant eagles in LOTR didn't simply fly over mount doom with frodo to drop the ring in and be done with it?". Assuming you were roleplaying that story in a give with an arbitrary ruleset and depending on your playing style, people could answer:A 3E D&D (as I assume it to be) DM could say "Well it wouldn't be a very good challenge and wouldn't be worth any XP. Since it's my campaign and it all revolve around getting the ring in Mordor, I wouldn't allow it!". In such a game, the DM would forbid the action for metagaming reasons (I didn't planned the campaign like that, it's not a good challenge worth XP, etc) and would (or not) find a satisfactory explanation for the players either out or in game. For example he could fudge the diplomacy DC with the eagles in order to have them not accept or he could come to a plausible explanation as to why it couldn't happen.A GRUPS player would argue that it's not logical. The setting would be such that many in-game reasons makes that story making that impossible. Or if the setting is such that it could be possible, it would just happen like that and they'd be done with it! The point for them is no matter the answer to the question, the answer would be completely given by purely in-game considerations. It would emanate from the imagined world's inner logic/reality emulation.A Riddle of steel player will most probably not think of such a solution because it would be motivated by any of his spiritual attirbutes. First he would think it wouldn't make such a good story. Second, he would most probably be struggling with the question "Should I keep the ring to myself to do good (a question Gandalf, Boromir and others asked themselves!!!) or should I accept it's inner evilness and destroy it?" For them keeping it or not is unimportant. What's important is juggling until the very end of the campaign with the possibility of falling over or not. In his case, the "roleplaying" consideration are not about "playing my character (assuming a role) well" but rather "how can I play my character to generate a cool story?".That's the "gaming style" I'm talking about. Monopoly is a role playing game and you're not playing a clearly defined character. You assume the role of "someone" buying lands and building houses and hotels in order to make money."The way they [the players] play their character varies" is not related to what I call "gaming style". Playing them "well" or not, playing them as magic loving or not or as "powergamers" or munchkin is not "playing style". Playing style is "what makes your game fun?". For most D&D players, it's "overcoming challenges while butt-kicking evil". 3E assumes that. And the "fun" part comes from both the playing stategies in order to be efficient in face of the dice gamble. Even though nobody wants to admit it for political correctness reasons, 3E is actually players vs DM (via his monsters and traps and so on). It assumes fairness to make everything fun.For riddle of steel player, "what makes the game fun?" is answering the question "what is worth fighting for?" and it's done via the spiritual attirbutes. It makes the game feel completly different than a GRUPS game or a D&D game.For GRUPS players, "what makes the game fun?" is "how can my made up character can be perfectly played (as an actor) in an as credible fake universe as possible". For them, having a halfing with 3s in every score is not important. What's important is if you have a low int score, your character can't come up with clever ideas. And that what they like."game system" is vague since it includes too many concept. It includes mechanics which in itself does not make the game. It ususally includes the setting, etc. Some "game systems" are better suited to some playing styles than others. That's what I'm repeating over and over again.</blockquote>

Verification