Roleplaying - snappy patter or storytelling?

[Kahuna Burger]

A chain of events has led to me thinking lately about what different people might mean by "roleplaying" when they talk about how important it is to their game. To some people (including myself) it means having a character who is interacting with the world, making decisions that will effect his or her next challenges, being part of an interactive story with the DM. To others, it seems to mean snappy patter in between the fight scenes, dramatic interactions with the other characters (but only when it won't effect the course of the module), and generally improvising your lines while you play out the script that the DM has set in stone on where your campaign is going.

Ah, I'll throw in a poll too, they're fun.

Kahuna Burger

 

[EricNoah]

Option B is fairly close for my current group that I DM. We all metagame pretty heavily -- we're still on 3E campaign #1 and the stated goal at the beginning was to test drive the rules, make sure we discuss as we go along, etc. so we learn them better. Yet there is a big story going on that drives the campaign, and they seem genuinely interested in figuring out what is going on. (Hey, me too -- I'm basically figuring it out as I go along.)

 

[BiggusGeekus]

IMHO.

1) Characters must make decisions that affect the game world. Otherwise they will feel like their deeds accomplished nothing.

2) Characters must be allowed the opportunity to form relationships with NPCS. Otherwise the game devolves into squad-level wargaming (which is fine and fun, but isn't really roleplay).

2a) "I want to kill the Big Bad Guy with an axe, burn the corpse, and jump on the ashes", counts as a relationship with an NPC.

3) Characters must be able to make decisions that affect their own immediate future. Otherwise they will feel like they are being railroaded.

This, to me, is roleplay. Yes, fine dialogue is excellent. But not everyone can do that level of dialogue. A shy and introverted player should be able to say, "I rolled a 19, my swashbuckler tells a brilliant lie to the guards involving a merchant prince and a cantelope", without having to act it out, if for no other reason than the player isn't able to do so.

This is a big game with many parts, one of those parts is vicarious repartee.

 

[Olive]

i voted 1, although it hasn't always been like that...

but the party, all of whom are clever people, keep comign up with ideas that their poor dm who is but one person, doesn't plan for...

so i have to make changes. therefore, the party's actions affect the world around them...

 

[baradtgnome]

Somewhere in between 1 & 2

Well I don't have time to homebrew a world that could survive a full blown I'll go where ever the characters want to. That would be great but the rest of my life is calling.

So what really happens is I try to maintain the illusion that they can do whatever they want while leading them (through greed, lust, desire for greater good, fear, hate, you pick) to the adventure. They do have an impact on the world and they could choose to let the village burn, but they usually do not.

There is a sort of, nod, nod, wink, "we had better go where the DM is leading or there won't be an adventure tonight" quiet metagaming. This does not seem to hurt the enjoyment.

 

[Black Omega]

Generally B, but a little of A as well. Half the group in my Rokugan game are samurai, so they generally go where they are told. But there is still room for decisions that have an impact on the world.

 

[WizarDru]

I voted A, but only because there were too few choices to really make a difference. The poll also assumes that I play all games the same, which I don't.

For my main game, which we refer to as the Alpha, and which is chronicled in my Story Hour, It's about the characters and their goals, and the over-arcing story. So to is a game I play in, Avonshar (which also has it's own Story Hour, and run by the diabolical Argent). Our Beta game, however, currently going through the Temple of Elemental Evil, is all about killing Orcs. Cuz sometimes, Orcs Just Need Killin.

For me, Role-playing is about having fun...and the level of immersion and story are dictated by what the group enjoys.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I voted A, but only because there were too few choices to really make a difference. The poll also assumes that I play all games the same, which I don't.

hrm, no idea what you mean by the first part but as to the second, no it doesn't. The question is about how you define roleplaying, not how you always roleplay. Do you think of your alpha games as being more "roleplaying intensive" than the killin orcs campaign? If so, what are you talking about by saying roleplaying? If not... I guess that would be answer 4.

Kahuna Burger

 

[hong]

Roleplaying is like a box of chocolates.


Hong "it melts in your hand" Ooi

 

[Wormwood]

After nearly a decade of the navigating the labyrinthine plots of Amber, exploring the psychological horrors of the Camarilla, and playing the glass bead game with the Oracles at Horizon, it felt good to just kick in some doors and roll some damage.

Still does.