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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8498035" data-attributes="member: 16814">I'm a bit confused by this, because I cannot tell if this is an argument for how things should be inside 5e only, and not as a general case, or if it's being made as a general case.  Either way I have some quibbles.If inside 5e only, then the only argument that needs to be made is that 5e has stated where certain authorities and constraints exist for play.  This includes that what a character thinks and tries to do is up to the player alone, outside of any specific mechanic that removes this authority (and there are a few, not all magical).  This is simply a matter of agency and authority in the game -- absent this carve out, and with the vast authority and agency granted the GM, there's not much of a role for a player that could qualify as a game.  You're just there to enjoy the GM's fiat otherwise.  So, yeah, your playing piece has to be under your control (except, of course, when it isn't) or what's the point?  That this control is extended to thoughts and feels and what you try to do is just the nature of this game, not anything more.  Arguments that try to create some distinction between external and internal pressures (like someone trying to convince, seduce, or scare you isn't as external as a wall) are odd rationalizations of something that need no rationalization unless there's an attempt to establish this as some kind of general case argument for how "roleplaying" works.  Roleplaying means a lot of things, and 5e's construct for it is definitely sufficient, but it's not necessary.  If this is that general case argument, then we're at a weird place where games that work extremely well with factors that can constrain what your character thinks, feels, or tries to do are suddenly being put in a "not roleplaying" position.  That's just silly.  Compels in FATE may not be to a person's liking, but dealing with them are definitely roleplaying.  Facing down stakes in a Burning Wheel game that, if you lose, you have to acknowledge something you might not want your character to do, like being convinced to join a mutiny or rebellion or to forsake a lover or cause, suddenly becomes "not roleplaying."  I don't countenance this argument at all -- if it's being made it's profoundly silly.  There are plenty of good ways to constrain how a player has to interact with their character that add to the experience, and let the player really explore a mindset that isn't theirs, and that do a better job of mimicking how cognition works in the real than the strangely stoic and implacable D&D characters who's personalities, wants, desires, and urges are always 100% in control.5e's approach is, to me, perfectly fine and cromulent for the game that 5e tries to be.  5e doesn't go for finding out who your character actually is when put under pressure in that way, it's more interested in if your feats of derring-do measure up than if your strength of character measures up.  This is great, I certainly enjoy it for what it does and think that this kind of protection for player agency is good (and that 5e in general does an occasionally poor job of protecting it whilst simultaneously praising it).  But the idea that this is some gold standard or expectation of what roleplaying in general should be?  Hah.  No.</blockquote>

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