Role playing is not the opposite of combat

[Quasqueton]

I've seen a few posts lately that mention a perceived seperation between role playing and combat. These posts have prompted me to rant on my oldest and deepest pet peeve: role playing and combat are not mutually exclusive.

Players can role play their characters in combat with goblins, just as easily as they can role play characters talking to the king. A barbarian who does nothing but look for the next fight is just as legitimate a character to role play as the bard trying to entertain the tavern patrons. The bard can sing and taunt and crack wise in a swirling combat just as easily as he can sing and joke in the tavern.

Rolling initiative does not mean the role playing part of the game ends. Forgetting to role play during combat is a failing of the player, not an issue of the game.

Quasqueton

 

[Rashak Mani]

I kind of agree... but its more of a "technical" difficulty.

- Talking is mostly restricted to short bursts as a free action
- Combat needs to flow well... RPing slows down combat too much ?
- Besides battle cries and "non regular" combat decisions what would you call RPing during combat ?

That is why I suppose most mentally separate combat from roleplaying.

 

[Umbran]

Combat may not be the opposite of Role-play, but combat frequently gets in the way of role-play, for two reasons:

1) In combat, as a practical matter one spends a goodly amount of time dealing with details of the combat rules. One can role-play in combat, but one also has to spend time figuring out exactly who gets hit by the fireball, who makes their Reflex saves, who takes how much damage, who has a feat that helps out, and so on. So, by it's very nature a combat scene will generally hold much less role-play than a non-combat scene.

2) Tactical considerations often take precedence over characterization in the player's mind. For a goodly number of players, doing well in the combat is more important than staying true to form, and combat is the place you'll most often see the intrusion of meta-game knowledge. All of which lessens the amount of good role-play you're getting out of the scene.

 

[Gnimish88]

Actually, you really should roleplay your character during combat as least as far as how they approach it. I personally have a bad habit of playing my characters a bit more combat savey then they should necessarily be. Probably my upbringing as a table top wargamer. However, my main point is that if you always use the most advantagous combat tactics, regardless of class, level and background, then you are indeed NOT roleplaying in combat and are possibly guilty of metagaming. If, however, you play a fighter/high level character/character with martial background differently then you play your characters who have who would have less reason to be tactically savy, then you ARE roleplaying in combat.

 

[Rel]

I agree completely with Quasqueton (btw, we missed having you at Game Day and I hope you can make the next one). I had a great example of this in our last session:

The party wizard has become somewhat obsessed with killing a certain elusive villainess in my campaign. During a battle with a group of ogre-fighters and their barbarian leader, I assumed that the wizard would blast them with lightning, making the total combat somewhat easier. Instead, he lurked around the whole time looking for a chance to spot the Invisible villainess. This made the encounter much more challenging for the party but I thought it was cool that he was placing his character's personal hatred ahead of tactical considerations.

 

[Faraer]

I strongly agree, you don't stop playing your character when doing things other than talking. It's a point I never got round to bringing up. (It doesn't help that we have this amazingly prissy word 'combat' as RPG jargon for fighting, which carries various needless connotations.)

Action scenes (and special/visual effects) in movies is a parallel case.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I've seen a few posts lately that mention a perceived seperation between role playing and combat. These posts have prompted me to rant on my oldest and deepest pet peeve: role playing and combat are not mutually exclusive.

Players can role play their characters in combat with goblins, just as easily as they can role play characters talking to the king. A barbarian who does nothing but look for the next fight is just as legitimate a character to role play as the bard trying to entertain the tavern patrons. The bard can sing and taunt and crack wise in a swirling combat just as easily as he can sing and joke in the tavern.

Rolling initiative does not mean the role playing part of the game ends. Forgetting to role play during combat is a failing of the player, not an issue of the game.

Quasqueton

I agree - roleplaying a character doesn't stop when combat begins.

But consider this common situation: the characters are presented with an encounter. The GM has established several ways for the encounter to be resolved, only one of which requires combat. How many times does a party chooses combat without ever considering a non-combat option?

This, I think, is what many people (myself included) mean when they speak of the two being mutually exclusive. "Roleplaying" an encounter usually implies at least an attempt to resolve it without combat.

 

[Quickbeam]

role playing and combat are not mutually exclusive.

Quasqueton

Well said, accurate, and a fine point, all in one simple sentence.

 

[DWARF]

That's true. But often players use combat as a substitute for roleplay.

"Forget the talking and just kill him."

Personally, I feel it stems (at least with my group) from the MMORPG's where "bad guys" just spawn and are designed to be killed. There's no history, no consequences of killing someone. They tend to see NPC's as little nuggets that give them loot, information or Xp. If they can't roleplay some information out of them, then just enter combat and get the Xp and loot. A very "video game" mindset when it comes to RPG's.

 

[Talon5]

GMing styles vary the type of Roll Playing being done.

My wife pretty much starts her campaign with a fight, there is one in the middle and at the end. Its kinda cool for that. RP is done more during then between, not a lot of thought is given to the villians or the goons, its just go in and kill everything. The RPing is driven by the players more then the GM.

About fifty percent of my goons have purpose and arn't there just to be slaughtered, they are part of a larger picture, helping the larger story line and such, while the others are just randomized encounter type fights. The players seem to do a bit more roll playing in that enviroment.

Bob (our other GM) has more roll playing in his campaigns then I do I think (thou he's a better roll player then the rest of us), and less combat. Our characters are pretty well defined and thus its pretty clear that we roll play through out- I think anyways.

The whole thing about RPing is that- if the GM wants more RPing then they should strive for it. If the Players want more RPing then they should seek it out, and use it to their advantage.