D&D General Roleplaying Motives - 200 pages of answers?

[Oofta]

Oh.

Yeah. I have stayed away from that thread on purpose.

Wise move.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Oh.

Yeah. I have stayed away from that thread on purpose.

It was answered in the first two pages.

the other 198+ pages aren't worth anyone's time.

 

[Scott Christian]

One thing I think you could add to the list is mechanics/class features. Some players will draw from those, trying to figure out what sort of person would seek/have those abilities or how having those abilities would change a person. Abiltiy scores kind of touches on this, but it could apply to any game mechanic.

My experience has been that even a single player will rarely focus on the same things - each character has their own concept, which might lean heavily on one or another character trait. Which ones are important to a particular character will vary. But the next character might lean on a completely different set of traits to define them. There really isn't a pattern beyond lack of pattern.

I didn't even think about this, but I was making a druid up in my head last night and doing this exact same thing. Great find. Thank you.

 

[Scott Christian]

Primary motivator is challenging fun! For RP, it is usually a combination of motivations developed from back story and/or from early adventures/relationships with NPCs.

Well said.

 

[Scott Christian]

1. Campaign setting and pitch is usually a primary motivator. What type of game are we playing? What types of genres are we trying to emulate. I didnt notice that option in your list of stuff above. I guess background and backstory would be primary motivators, with race and class perhaps being secondary motivators. Alignment in D&D/PF games is an important element at my table. It helps determine the characters views, goals, and methods.

2. I love the idea of traits, ideals, bonds, flaws but never seen a good way to implement it. I guess how much mechanical impact should these items have? If its significant, it leads to optimization and sort of mutes the whole point. I do like helping players add some flavor this way as not all players are great at bringing a character to life.

3. Equipment, meh. I dislike necessary magic items as used in 3.5/PF1. I had a player once use a large dwarven axe for the best damage. After a couple sessions it was like the character was the axe. I am glad modern design is moving away from item reliance. Let magic items be cool again and this might not be such a problem as its been.

Yeah, I genre is a solid one to use as well. I am actually unsure if I meant that under culture while writing that. It should definitely be in there though.
I have seen flaws, ideals, etc. worked in very successfully. They are subtler though than things like traits. They seem like the behind the scenes motivator more than anything. But, once you realize (especially as a DM) that the player is following those religiously, it makes for great RPing.
And I am with you on PF1 equipment, which seemed to kick in around 5th level. But wanted it in there as there are definitely players that seem to focus on it. (No right or wrong there for me.)