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<blockquote data-quote="Pseudopsyche" data-source="post: 3861301" data-attributes="member: 54600">I would define role playing as pretending to be a different person than you are.&nbsp; In the context of D&amp;D, role playing means choosing your actions by imagining what your character would do in the situation that the DM describes and that the other players shape.By this definition, the behavior of the powergamer in the OP's game--attacking first and asking questions never--isn't intrinsically bad role-playing.&nbsp; He could just be role playing a self-important, bloodthirsty bully.&nbsp; Or he could care less about role playing and just want to skip ahead to rolling dice.I do find that many players place &quot;role playing&quot; on the opposite end of a spectrum with &quot;combat&quot;.&nbsp; I suspect that this division arises from the published rules' focus on combat encounters.&nbsp; Endless books describe how to arbitrate the uncertain outcomes of physical conflict, but few rules govern social encounters (sometimes even called &quot;role-playing encounters&quot;).&nbsp; You could argue that many books contain plenty of fluff, but in practice this material describes the setting of the game, in lieu of giving more concrete advice to players about how to play the &quot;role-playing&quot; aspect of the game.So another way to address the question of &quot;what is role playing&quot; is by examining where role play fits into &quot;role-playing games&quot; such as D&amp;D.&nbsp; One answer is that role-playing is what fills in the gaps in the rules that define combat encounters.&nbsp; The answer I would give is that role-playing is the point of the game, and the combat rules simply add drama to the otherwise forgone conclusion (&quot;I slay the ogre.&quot;) and to provide a concrete common ground among players (&quot;Okay, we're all level X and can easily handle encounters of level X.&quot;).Needless to say, the game is most fun for all involved when the players (including the DM) are on the same page.&nbsp; To what degree is the point of the game the combat encounters or the collaborative storytelling (or both)?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pseudopsyche, post: 3861301, member: 54600"] I would define role playing as pretending to be a different person than you are. In the context of D&D, role playing means choosing your actions by imagining what your character would do in the situation that the DM describes and that the other players shape. By this definition, the behavior of the powergamer in the OP's game--attacking first and asking questions never--isn't intrinsically bad role-playing. He could just be role playing a self-important, bloodthirsty bully. Or he could care less about role playing and just want to skip ahead to rolling dice. I do find that many players place "role playing" on the opposite end of a spectrum with "combat". I suspect that this division arises from the published rules' focus on combat encounters. Endless books describe how to arbitrate the uncertain outcomes of physical conflict, but few rules govern social encounters (sometimes even called "role-playing encounters"). You could argue that many books contain plenty of fluff, but in practice this material describes the setting of the game, in lieu of giving more concrete advice to players about how to play the "role-playing" aspect of the game. So another way to address the question of "what is role playing" is by examining where role play fits into "role-playing games" such as D&D. One answer is that role-playing is what fills in the gaps in the rules that define combat encounters. The answer I would give is that role-playing is the point of the game, and the combat rules simply add drama to the otherwise forgone conclusion ("I slay the ogre.") and to provide a concrete common ground among players ("Okay, we're all level X and can easily handle encounters of level X."). Needless to say, the game is most fun for all involved when the players (including the DM) are on the same page. To what degree is the point of the game the combat encounters or the collaborative storytelling (or both)? [/QUOTE]

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