D&D General Skilled Play, or Role Play: How Do You Approach Playing D&D?

[Quartz]

A topic that recently came up in conversation is the change, over time, in the manner and expectations of playing style when it comes to Dungeons & Dragons

The correct way to play is for everyone to enjoy it. Everything else is secondary.

 

[Umbran]

Well, no, actually you don’t, because the game doesn’t say Intelligence has anything to do with your character’s ability to come up with good ideas or plans. What the game says Intelligence does is:

Intelligence​

Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason.

So... you figure coming up with good plans doesn't require "the ability to reason" then? Logic and deduction are not part of strategy and tactics?

I know a guy who earns his scratch making up wargames for training military personnel. I'm pretty darned sure he'd disagree with you.

 

[Oofta]

Is this going to devolve into the 3 intelligence genius argument again?

 

[TheSword]

It’s a false dichotomy. It isn’t a continuum between Role-play and Skilled Play.

There are two different spectrums. One for Skilled Play vs Unskilled Play and one for In-depth Daniel Day Lewis style character acting vs a functional descriptive style.

It is more than possible for excellent roleplayers to be extremely skilled at the game.

It’s also possible for unskilled players who don’t know a halberd from a half-helm to be undertaking basic roleplaying the second they write a name and a brief description of height, weight, race and class on a character sheet and start determining that characters actions.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It’s weird, I‘m not sure I agree that having DCs for puzzles helps roleplaying. Quite the opposite, I think. They prevent roleplaying.

Well, let me elaborate on what exactly I meant in this statement:
In some ways, this is also reflected in the design of adventures; traps and puzzles that are solved by DCs are definitely more conducive to RP, while traps and puzzles that are solved by the player's knowledge tend to be more conducive to the SP scenario.

In a certain way, skilled play is the player as player, while role play is the player as player character. SP is more about the game qua game, while RP is more about playing D&D to inhabit a role (the real you and the game persona are different).

In that manner, adventures that test the player as player involve more skilled play, while adventures that allow you to use you character's abilities to overcome puzzles are more conducive to RP.

That doesn't mean that having DCs (for example) means roleplaying! Just that (for example) a puzzle or trap that tests the player tends to be on the spectrum of skilled play scenarios, while puzzles of traps that test the PC tend to allow for more RP scenarios.*

Then again, maybe that is incorrect. But that is the thought process behind that statement. I would link that to the difference between older modules (that emphasized skilled play, as I have defined) that newer APs (that do not put as much emphasis on skilled play, as I have defined), but given the interesting directions people have taken this topic, I'm more interested in seeing what other people have to say!


*In the context of D&D. Other systems that aren't as crunch heavy do just fine without this.

 

[tetrasodium]

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The key difference I think is in stat generation.

In the old days, you rolled stats. So you could end up with a PC who by the stats did not match the character you wanted to roleplay. So mental and physical actions were less entwined with ability scores. Your Int 7 Cha 8 fighter could still be the one to think up a bartering tactic and to convince the noble to fund your expedition. Because stats didn't matter, a group could choose to lean heavily on their own knowledge or the characters' and have it work.

In the later years, players have more control of their stats. Arrays where added. Point buy was added. Rolls aren't in order. So there was less reason to ignore the sheets and just talk in order to get things done. If you wanted to be so suave that you didn't need that drip to get in the noble's conversation, you get made your character that way. Then you beat him up with your Charisma score.

A lot of people dont know or wont remember that the attributes themselves were less important. At least as far back as ad&d 2e you didn't really start getting a penalty/bonus till like six or fifteen with some starts not getting a +/-1 till you go even further.

People didn't mind roll in order so much back then because it didn't really matter too much

 

[Umbran]

So those are some tentative thoughts; I was wondering what other people might think? How do you play now? What do you prefer? Do you think it makes a difference, or is this an arbitrary distinction without a difference?

I'm going to zoom out a bit...

Broadly, being skilled is being able to do a thing quickly, well, and with relatively low effort. But, skills are not entirely transferable. Being a skilled carpenter does not make you a skilled cellist. So, "skilled play" as Gygax wrote about it, is really "skilled Gygaxian play" - approaching the game as Gygax seems to have preferred, and using a particular set of skills and knowledge his games engendered and required.

What counts as "skilled play" though, is going to change from game to game. If you bring skilled Gygaxian play to my Fate-based pulp-action game, you are not going to succeed often, and are apt to have a pretty unfulfilling rpg experience.

More broadly, then, skilled play is knowing and using the rules and genre of the particular game, and being able to lean into them to enhance play for yourself and the table. "Skilled play" is defined relative to the rule set, genre, and goals of play.

In Gygaxian 1e, skilled play is constant explicit pixel-bitching searches and prodding each square of a corridor with a 10' pole to set off traps before you get there. In 5e, the skilled play is setting up your character with a 23 passive investigation skill so that they're bloody Sherlock Holmes.

So, returning to the OP then, we reveal that while the dichotomy between skilled Gygaxian play and role play may make some sense, skilled play in general is only opposite skilled play in some games/genres, but not in all.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Which leads into my '3rd type of play', that is narrative gaming. It can include cooperative effort by the GM and player to create a narrative, or it could be implemented in a few different ways. They all have in common that the 'answer is not fixed' and you generate it during play. This is, however, never exactly like skilled play, since there isn't a particular solution, or a particular layout of maze to navigate, etc. This kind of game simply continues to focus on whatever the conflict is that is arising in play, and developing a narrative by repeatedly focusing on and putting whatever the character's interests/traits/whatever are in a crucible. PbtA games work this way.

Yes, and, when done right, narrative play and skilled play in D&D 5e need not look so different in practice at the table in many circumstances. Only the DM is aware of the exact answer to a puzzle or if the answer is not fixed or if there is a fixed range of answers. I believe it should not be obvious to the players at the table that it is one way or another. It's really always the illusion of a single fixed answer or small possible number of alternative ways around the puzzle. I guess what I'm saying is that, to me, the '3rd type of play' you describe is more like a tool in the DM's toolbelt rather than a way to run an entire campaign. Otherwise, if most anything can succeed at all times, challenges such as puzzles become, well, unchallenging - in D&D anyway.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Because to me, I'd prefer PCs doing what their stats lean them too and not their PC's personalities and having their sheets heavily lean on their decision making and success rate.

It's your character in my world, not you. And the medium between us and the world is da stats.
You can make your character you if you want. However if you dump INT because your barbarian doesn't need it to fight, well Ragnar will be a big old idiot with a major case of the poopy brains.

...

I tend to run ability scores based on what the game says they mean and run them hard.

The implication is that - in response to a player's action declaration that is seemingly at odds with a PC's ability score(s) - the phrase "your character wouldn't do/say/think that" is a DM tool at your table. Is that accurate?

 

[Minigiant]

The implication is that - in response to a player's action declaration that is seemingly at odds with a PC's ability score(s) - the phrase "your character wouldn't do/say/think that" is a DM tool at your table. Is that accurate?

More like "Roll to see if your character is smart enough to say that"