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RPG Evolution: Playing Your PC Poorly
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8586495" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>This is the problem with all arguments of this form. This, right here, is the key fallacious idea.</p><p></p><p>Weakness is not a <em>virtue</em> in roleplaying. That is, it is neither a characteristic to which one should aspire (the common use of the term "virtue"), nor is it a context-specific midpoint chosen between two extremes (the rigorous definition, from Aristotelian and modern virtue ethics).</p><p></p><p>Instead, the actual "virtue" here is groundedness, which IS a characteristic to which one should aspire (as appropriately grounded characters are easier to relate to and have better ability to communicate ideas and experiences to anyone observing), and IS a context-specific midpoint chosen between two extremes (the deficient vice of <em>ridiculousness</em>, where one cannot take the character seriously at all, and the excessive vice of <em>dullness</em>, where the commitment to relatability has removed everything fantastical or unreal about the character). A good character finds and chooses an appropriate midpoint between being ridiculous and being dull: fantastical enough to be interesting and exciting, but relatable enough to feel plausible and natural.</p><p></p><p>Further, this oft-repeated line of "heroism was not built into the character" is just a load of pretentious, traditionalist bull hockey. It conflates heroism with <em>competence</em>. Yes, as the game has evolved, characters have become more competent. This has nothing to do with making characters any more or less <em>heroic</em>. Instead, it is the frank admission that, for players of all ages, most fans don't actually enjoy the process of losing two dozen characters before finally getting one worth investing in. Because that's a very tedious, time-consuming process that doesn't really give much reward, other than MAYBE building up a library of experiential knowledge...IF the DM is consistent enough with rulings and doesn't interfere too much with the connection between your choices and the results that occur. (Unfortunately, far too many DMs fudge dice and alter monster statistics on the fly, eroding the player's ability to actually learn from their choices.)</p><p></p><p>One of the ways to skip this frustrating, not particularly popular process is to just play a character that is assumed to have already survived their earliest adventures. That doesn't make them instant larger than life heroes. It just makes them competent, a little experienced. But even old-school games recognize that this process is a problem element that pushes people away from the game, they just prefer to find a different solution. In a very real sense, they take the idea of "reroll ad infinitum until you get what you wanted to begin with" and run with it, turning it into an actually pretty clever design: the "character funnel," pioneered by <em>Dungeon Crawl Classics</em>, as I understand it. </p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Aside: what a character funnel is, for those curious."]For anyone unfamiliar (though I suspect most users in this forum will be familiar), the character funnel is an introduction to the campaign where the player plays a LARGE number of characters all at once, half a dozen at least and potentially many more. The "funnel" adventure is some kind of harrowing meatgrinder specifically designed to kill off most characters who attempt it. As a result, any characters who DO survive have "earned their stripes," proverbially speaking; they started off as incredibly green and minimally competent rubes, and have actually managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Of course, their survival in the funnel is almost entirely down to random chance, but if you run enough characters through the funnel, <em>eventually</em> at least one of them will make it.[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>But, as noted in this very article, the development of "point buy" systems was an admission that people WERE gaming the old system--that people wanted competent characters and would abuse a mechanic designed to keep (most) characters within some reasonable range of balanced until they inevitably got competence. The character funnel is a way to embrace the desire for character competence without totally abandoning the OSR love of minimal control and having to start from damn near rock bottom. It was a designer recognizing that the game as it existed didn't conform to what players wanted, and instead of becoming petulant or insulting, actually looking for a solution that accepts the criticism but rejects the idea that the old way must be completely replaced. And while I don't personally care for that sort of thing (I find it extremely difficult to care at all about a game that tells me not to invest into a character because it will almost certainly be taken away from me very soon, with little ability on my part to control or prevent that from happening), I can recognize good design when I see it, and the funnel is very good design for someone who wants to uphold the tone and experience of old-school D&D while accepting modern audience criticism.</p><p></p><p>So...yeah. Don't conflate competence and heroism; it is a quirk of old-school D&D that "earned" competence was a prerequisite for heroism, not an equivalence. And don't treat character weakness as a virtue when it isn't; recognize that a character displaying weakness is <em>one potential aspect</em> of an actual virtue, groundedness.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8586495, member: 6790260"] This is the problem with all arguments of this form. This, right here, is the key fallacious idea. Weakness is not a [I]virtue[/I] in roleplaying. That is, it is neither a characteristic to which one should aspire (the common use of the term "virtue"), nor is it a context-specific midpoint chosen between two extremes (the rigorous definition, from Aristotelian and modern virtue ethics). Instead, the actual "virtue" here is groundedness, which IS a characteristic to which one should aspire (as appropriately grounded characters are easier to relate to and have better ability to communicate ideas and experiences to anyone observing), and IS a context-specific midpoint chosen between two extremes (the deficient vice of [I]ridiculousness[/I], where one cannot take the character seriously at all, and the excessive vice of [I]dullness[/I], where the commitment to relatability has removed everything fantastical or unreal about the character). A good character finds and chooses an appropriate midpoint between being ridiculous and being dull: fantastical enough to be interesting and exciting, but relatable enough to feel plausible and natural. Further, this oft-repeated line of "heroism was not built into the character" is just a load of pretentious, traditionalist bull hockey. It conflates heroism with [I]competence[/I]. Yes, as the game has evolved, characters have become more competent. This has nothing to do with making characters any more or less [I]heroic[/I]. Instead, it is the frank admission that, for players of all ages, most fans don't actually enjoy the process of losing two dozen characters before finally getting one worth investing in. Because that's a very tedious, time-consuming process that doesn't really give much reward, other than MAYBE building up a library of experiential knowledge...IF the DM is consistent enough with rulings and doesn't interfere too much with the connection between your choices and the results that occur. (Unfortunately, far too many DMs fudge dice and alter monster statistics on the fly, eroding the player's ability to actually learn from their choices.) One of the ways to skip this frustrating, not particularly popular process is to just play a character that is assumed to have already survived their earliest adventures. That doesn't make them instant larger than life heroes. It just makes them competent, a little experienced. But even old-school games recognize that this process is a problem element that pushes people away from the game, they just prefer to find a different solution. In a very real sense, they take the idea of "reroll ad infinitum until you get what you wanted to begin with" and run with it, turning it into an actually pretty clever design: the "character funnel," pioneered by [I]Dungeon Crawl Classics[/I], as I understand it. [SPOILER="Aside: what a character funnel is, for those curious."]For anyone unfamiliar (though I suspect most users in this forum will be familiar), the character funnel is an introduction to the campaign where the player plays a LARGE number of characters all at once, half a dozen at least and potentially many more. The "funnel" adventure is some kind of harrowing meatgrinder specifically designed to kill off most characters who attempt it. As a result, any characters who DO survive have "earned their stripes," proverbially speaking; they started off as incredibly green and minimally competent rubes, and have actually managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Of course, their survival in the funnel is almost entirely down to random chance, but if you run enough characters through the funnel, [I]eventually[/I] at least one of them will make it.[/SPOILER] But, as noted in this very article, the development of "point buy" systems was an admission that people WERE gaming the old system--that people wanted competent characters and would abuse a mechanic designed to keep (most) characters within some reasonable range of balanced until they inevitably got competence. The character funnel is a way to embrace the desire for character competence without totally abandoning the OSR love of minimal control and having to start from damn near rock bottom. It was a designer recognizing that the game as it existed didn't conform to what players wanted, and instead of becoming petulant or insulting, actually looking for a solution that accepts the criticism but rejects the idea that the old way must be completely replaced. And while I don't personally care for that sort of thing (I find it extremely difficult to care at all about a game that tells me not to invest into a character because it will almost certainly be taken away from me very soon, with little ability on my part to control or prevent that from happening), I can recognize good design when I see it, and the funnel is very good design for someone who wants to uphold the tone and experience of old-school D&D while accepting modern audience criticism. So...yeah. Don't conflate competence and heroism; it is a quirk of old-school D&D that "earned" competence was a prerequisite for heroism, not an equivalence. And don't treat character weakness as a virtue when it isn't; recognize that a character displaying weakness is [I]one potential aspect[/I] of an actual virtue, groundedness. [/QUOTE]
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