Quasqueton said:
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.
Mutually exclusive? No. However, I play D&D because I want to role-play characters in a fantasy setting. Nothing wrong with combat; It's a significant part of the genre, after all. However, I've sat at too many tables to find that 90% of any night's action is
always combat, guarantee included, and role-play is simply used as a vehicle to present the next combat scenario, rather than the game being focusing on character interaction and mystery solving using combat as a vehicle to further the plot. Even D&D's balance (4 equal CR encounters, rest, 4 equal CR encounters, rest, wash, rinse, repeat) shows that 3E is more about combat than role-playing in the general sense. Add to it that combat is now this incredibly intricate machine while role-play is summed up into a handful of skills that permit role-play to be ignored entirely in favor of a few quick rolls.
When you see people making the distinction you are ranting about, that's generally what they mean, using the term "role-play" in place of "character interaction within a non-hostile situation". I can easily describe my game as 50% role-play, 45% problem solving, and 5% bloody violence, which I could otherwise sum-up as being "more about role-play than combat". It certainly doesn't mean that I don't believe RP is possible in combat; Indeed, someone that role-plays their character as a meek, half-scared, uncomfident youngling that suddenly switches into meat-grinder when Initiative is rolled is definately role-playing
part of their character wrong (which part obviously varies from person to person), just as someone with a 9 Charisma and crappy Diplomacy giving a long winded speech thinking they're going to rally the support of the people or some such is
also doing something wrong. (Which, again, are further examples of how the rules and role-playing
are related despite claims to the contrary.) And if I have players that will take a round to extend a few colorful remarks to a villain or his henchmen, I'll gladly turn it right back around (providing those short-lived moments of commentary common to movies and books).
Sure, there are those (few) that sneer down at combat like it has no place in a role-playing game. Of course, there are also those that would sneer down at my game as being a gathering of thespians (or, as this thread seems to be spawning, a "tea party"). But, really, both of these are the rarity; everyone else just prefers combat and "role-play" in different ratios and there is no "official dip stick" with which to express that preference while avoiding misunderstanding.
I guess theoretically you could have a D&D game based on a tea party, but what would you need all those character classes and rules for?
