Roleplaying? Yeah right!

[Hypersmurf]

Anytime I want them to parlay rather than outright kill an NPC I make (and clearly show) the NPC as someone they don't want to mess with. I had one old wizard who had several wands dangling from his robes.

"Ooo-ooh... wands!"
"Yeah - make sure he doesn't get a chance to use them. Those charges are our loot!"

-Hyp.

 

[Hairfoot]

basically saying "I'm not wasting time with talking...I attack him".

I hate that. In every group there's a player who wants to be ponied through the story until he can use his "build" in combat, and responds to non-combat challenges by attacking. Then they usually justify it by saying "but my PC's a barbarian/impetuous/proud!"

Mind you, I'm not into theatric roleplaying, either. I cringe at tables where players are saying "thee" and "thou" and talking in elvish. I think roleplaying is served if a player says "no, my PC wouldn't accept that for reason X, I tell him I'll only pay five gold".

 

[Hairfoot]

I have one player, who, while a powergamer in the sense that his character is created to dish out maximum damage, invested skill points in six different languages so he can chat up most monsters. Another player is a fighter with only Intimidate as a social option, and a third that can be easily de-railed into combat at a moment's notice.

I think that's largely a side-effect of the skill system. There's another thread active at the moment in which many ENworlders are saying they wouldn't have a bar of D&D without a skills system, but when you give fighters 2 points per level and no incentive to have an INT bonus, you end up with tanks with no social skills whose players aren't living up to the character if they do the diplomacy through their own faculties.

 

[Aus_Snow]

(. . .) [W]hen you give fighters 2 points per level and no incentive to have an INT bonus, you end up with tanks with no social skills whose players aren't living up to the character if they do the diplomacy through their own faculties.

Not necessarily.

Sure, I agree that it's obviously weighted (heavily) that way: the Fighter fights, and. . . um. . . yeah. But, if you really wanted to, you couild be *okay* with social skills, using your Fighter bonus feats for uh, fighting feats, and take feats like Skill Focus (Diplomacy) and Negotiator with level and (if applicable) racial feats. Also, cross-class skill rank purchasing, while expensive, is always possible. :\

But it's true, the incentive isn't really there.

 

[pawsplay]

My personal advice is to expel the offending player(s), and run the game you like. You'll be amazed at who you can get to play in your game (such as girls!) once the powergamers are no longer ruining the experience at the table by refusing to roleplay.

Alert! Alert! Sexism alert!

I think many of us have met more than a few powergaming "girls."

 

[Festivus]

I hate that. In every group there's a player who wants to be ponied through the story until he can use his "build" in combat, and responds to non-combat challenges by attacking. Then they usually justify it by saying "but my PC's a barbarian/impetuous/proud!"

Mind you, I'm not into theatric roleplaying, either. I cringe at tables where players are saying "thee" and "thou" and talking in elvish. I think roleplaying is served if a player says "no, my PC wouldn't accept that for reason X, I tell him I'll only pay five gold".

I don't like that either. I built a character after I realized who woefully broken my wizard build was, the DM was nice and let me build a new wizard to bring into the story. I built him, perhaps a little too good, but he was soulless. I didn't take the time to flesh out the character personality as well as I had liked. The broken character was really interesting, but way behind the power curve for what was being thrown at the group.

So I did an excercise, something to breathe life into the character. I read a couple old articles (well, re-read them), "I'm okay, you're one dimensional" was one article from an old Dragon magazine, and the other was a 101 questions to ask your character I got from some listserv a long time ago but I kept. After running through those, I ended up with a great character who is very interesting (at least to me) at the gaming table. A scoundrel, a gambler who is extremely confident of himself. I think I can take the blame for derailing the evenings entertainment at least two of the last three sessions and having one session erupt into a barfight, and the other with me walking away with an ultraloth's hard earned platinum... I am certain I am making enemies I'd rather not have!

So... perhaps assign your players homework. Ask them a couple questions after each session about their character. It will get them thinking more about the personalities and might foster some more roleplaying at the table.

 

[Hairfoot]

I think many of us have met more than a few powergaming "girls."

The way you put "girls" in inverted commas conjures for me an image of drag queens in stillettos screaming about swift actions and miming to "Dancing Queen" every time the party bard strikes up.

 

[Freak of Nurture]

Sounds like my last campaign a couple years ago. We played nearly every week for a couple years and I tried many times to get them be creative beyond combat. They had no interest in my campaign world full of plots and NPCs with secrets and agendas. They just waited around for the next adventure hook to show up, and had no lives or friends in the world. They literally just sat in their rooms between adventures. Finally I got fed up with it and said, "A week passes, do you guys do anything?" The reply was "Nope". "OK, another week passes; do you do anything?". "Nope". "A month passes. Do you do anything?" "Nope" again. This went on a few more times and I was ready to start jumping to years when a newer player decided to start making potions or something. Not long after that I had to end the campaign and told them they would probably have more fun playing EQ or something (the only MMORPG I had experience with). A year or so later I heard they were all playing WOW together...

Some people just don't get it and think that just playing the game for combat is roleplaying. I am firmly in the "No gaming is better than bad gaming" camp these days and might never get a chance to actually play a good game again since I don't play the latest edition.

 

[Hairfoot]

Ithe other was a 101 questions to ask your character I got from some listserv a long time ago but I kept.

That sounds like a great tool. Do you know where I can find it?

I took a break from D&D for about six years, and came back with the release of 3.0. I was immediately swept up in the technical challenge of feats, skills, and equipment, but after a couple of campaigns I realised I wasn't enjoying the characters because I was creating stories and personalities to justify the mechanics I'd chosen.

Since then I've done it old-school: working out a ooncept I like, then creating mechanics to fit it. I generally create sub-optimal characters which are a hoot to play.

 

[hong]

I hate powergamers.

Let me rephrase that.

I hate carrot cake. I hate Euro disco. I hate liver. But I can understand that other people like these things, and their opinions are just as valid as mine.

I simply don't tolerate powergamers, on the other hand. I would rather not play at all than have to play with them. I won't subject my players, who love to spend entire sessions just interacting with NPCs and each other in-character, to the juvenile power fantasies and non-existent social skills of the average powergamer.

I sympathize with any DM who find himself stuck with powergamers in his group. My personal advice is to expel the offending player(s), and run the game you like. You'll be amazed at who you can get to play in your game (such as girls!) once the powergamers are no longer ruining the experience at the table by refusing to roleplay. If the powergamers just want to pretend to have kewl powers so they can simply kill things, they should be directed to World of Warcraft. There they won't have to worry about icky, adult things like characterization and story.

Some kinds of "Fun" really are Bad and Wrong.

I see we're not just dealing with a hobbyist gamer here.