New Legends & Lore: Player vs. Character

[Ariosto]

A MATTER OF TIME

Interest in process tends to go along with importance placed on consequences. However, there is a basic division among players in how inherently interesting they find different activities.

This is less of a problem the more variety there is in an hour of play. If combat, exploration, problem solving and conversation with NPCs are all included in fairly even proportion, then someone who finds one of those dull must deal with it for only a short time.

WotC-D&D gives players more factors to consider and decisions to make in combat resolution. A trade-off is that a fight can easily take a whole hour, and there may be several minutes between a player's turns.

For some people, a faster-moving abstraction like Original or Basic D&D may deliver more enjoyable pacing.

Skill challenges in 4E do not in my experience speed up non-combat activities. However, they do change the nature of the activity in basically the reverse of what 3E did to "roll to hit, roll for damage" combat.

 

[Ariosto]

THE PLAYER'S EXPERIENCE

Someone who greatly enjoys the experience of actually discovering things for himself might not be satisfied by making a dice roll to be told that "his character" knows something or has figured out a solution to a problem.

It may be even more disappointing if he has thought of something only to be deprived of the fruits of his intelligence for want of a stat on the character sheet.

I think it largely pointless to try to impose "keeping in character" by mathematical modeling. People whose enjoyment comes from such consistency will do it voluntarily. Those who don't care about it so much may resent having it forced on them.

 

[Ariosto]

WHERE THE "REAL GAME" IS

Different players find different decisions important. Having the opportunity to make them is key to an engaging game.

I have found a fairly strong correspondence between liking to have a lot of stats on a character sheet -- and a lot of control over what those are -- and liking to have an extensive "back story" for a character before it enters play.

At the opposite extreme are people whose interest is only in the events of played-out adventures. What a character "is" in game-mechanical terms matters little next to what they have done with it. The power of a treasure or experience level is less important than its significance as a token of what they have accomplished, a reminder of the adventures by which it was acquired.

Chivalry & Sorcery has a different approach from GURPS or WotC-D&D, games like old D&D yet another. Games that emphasize "system mastery" and "builds" appeal strongly to one demographic, those with quick random generation of characters and less detail to another.

When there's a well developed sub-game of investing limited resources in skills, feats, powers and equipment outside of "actually playing", those choices demand to have effects in action that give a satisfying payoff for the investment of time and thought.

Basically, that sub-game really is a key part of "actually playing" the game!

When those things instead are results of a combination of random factors and in-play action, players' relationship with them tends to be more casual. There's a different sense of "where the real game is".

For example, I never encountered in old Chaosium RuneQuest the kind of game-balance concerns that get so heated when it comes to modern rules sets more in the mold of The Fantasy Trip or Champions.

 

[Ariosto]

Aside from that, input from a player should have an impact on the play of the game. The players after all are the ones actually playing and getting the entertainment out of the game.

A character is nothing more than a fictional construct and some stats on a sheet of paper. If a character becomes anything more than that it is the player that you have to thank.

Characters feel no sense of achievement, do not experience excitement during tense action or appreciate thier contributions during a successful adventure. Players do.

Most importantly, characters do not have a good time playing. People do.

That's pretty much the bottom line! Some players will find more of their good time coming from manipulating the "mechanics", while others will quickly find that a distraction from what really interests them.