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

[tetrasodium]

Well, collapsible equipment (whether metal or wood) would likely require a greater level of "tech" (metal working, precision tools, etc.) than is present in the D&D world.

But then again, maybe not? The actual level of "tech" in the D&D world seems to vary from bronze-age to early Industrial Revolution depending on what you looking at.

"http://Japanese carpentry was developed more than a millennium ago and uses distinctive woodworking joints. It involves building wooden furniture without the use of nails, screws, glue or electric tools"

Spoiler: Here are a bunch of examples

It's pretty hardcore 3d puzzleish so I recommend seeing more examples doing a google image search for japanese wood joinery
the cultural stasis of world like FR make such developments likely but FR is not the only setting. Eberron, spelljammer, & sigil/planescape almost certainly have had a wide range of collapsible equipment for so long that it's not even unusual in certain product areas to find collapsible versions where it makes sense. Darksun is another one that almost certainly had it just as common but now just has some of it to be recovered so it could be found even if nobody still knows how to make it.

While eberron is early industrial revolution yes, it's not our industrial revolution so some areas (ie metallurgy) they are going to be quite a bit behind while others are going to be above the curve we set (sometimes dramatically so). The enlarge reduce is only a second level spell & does quite a bit more than would be needed for shrinking a nonliving inanimate object so the enchantment needed to shrink things like a pair of skis/snowshoes/fishing pole/bedroll/etc could easily be first level or even cantrip level enchantment on the item. That folding boat might be rare in forgotten realms sure but the first three of those four settings might have an availability on par with our heavy duty inflatable rafts today because it's a simple enough enchantment to build in.

 

[overgeeked]

If such things matter, or are important as archaeology, the question was answered by Mentzer in the 1983 Basic Red Box. Page 52 for those reading at home.

To quote a few relevant bits:

“Players are not characters!

It is important to remember that the player and the character are two different persons. The more the two are kept apart, the better your games can be...

There are many ways that this can affect the game, especially when a player knows something that the character doesn't...

When the players remember the difference between themselves and their characters, everyone can have more fun in Role Playing. If a character has low Intelligence and Wisdom scores, for example, and then does something stupid, the player can honestly say "I was playing my character," and others should remember not to get mad at the player. Their characters may indeed get mad at the stupid character, but it is very important to remember that the player is a different person.

This should not be used as an excuse for bad or selfish play. The DM should watch all the role playing closely to help everyone have the most fun. Since the object of the game is to have fun by playing roles, stupid or weak characters can be as much fun as smart, powerful ones — if the roles are played well.

The Dungeon Master may say, at any time in the game, "You don't know that!" or "You wouldn't think of that." Good players will learn to avoid this type of problem by keeping the character knowledge and player knowledge separate.”

It’s always interesting, to me, to look back at the early days and see what they said. If more people would read the old stuff, or the new writers would include this kind of language, we maybe could avoid some of the sillier long-standing arguments. But then what would we do instead of arguing endlessly...maybe play more games.

 

[tetrasodium]

If such things matter, or are important as archaeology, the question was answered by Mentzer in the 1983 Basic Red Box. Page 52 for those reading at home.

To quote a few relevant bits:

“Players are not characters!

It is important to remember that the player and the character are two different persons. The more the two are kept apart, the better your games can be...

There are many ways that this can affect the game, especially when a player knows something that the character doesn't...

When the players remember the difference between themselves and their characters, everyone can have more fun in Role Playing. If a character has low Intelligence and Wisdom scores, for example, and then does something stupid, the player can honestly say "I was playing my character," and others should remember not to get mad at the player. Their characters may indeed get mad at the stupid character, but it is very important to remember that the player is a different person.

This should not be used as an excuse for bad or selfish play. The DM should watch all the role playing closely to help everyone have the most fun. Since the object of the game is to have fun by playing roles, stupid or weak characters can be as much fun as smart, powerful ones — if the roles are played well.

The Dungeon Master may say, at any time in the game, "You don't know that!" or "You wouldn't think of that." Good players will learn to avoid this type of problem by keeping the character knowledge and player knowledge separate.”

It’s always interesting, to me, to look back at the early days and see what they said. If more people would read the old stuff, or the new writers would include this kind of language, we maybe could avoid some of the sillier long-standing arguments. But then what would we do instead of arguing endlessly...maybe play more games.

2e DMG had a great section on the importance of player rewards like treasure & magic items thst went into how you could use other rewards such as xyz but doing so was a difficult feat to accomplish well in fulfilling ways as the gm. It's not really reflected in the 5e DMG and hard to give weight that the 5e team remains reading that

 

[loverdrive]

Well, collapsible equipment (whether metal or wood) would likely require a greater level of "tech" (metal working, precision tools, etc.) than is present in the D&D world.

Meanwhile, in D&D world: your potion of vitality will be delivered at the nearest teleportation circle within a week. Subscribe to Nyanzon Prime to get your goods delivered at your door step within 24 hours!

 

[reelo]

Meanwhile, in D&D world: your potion of vitality will be delivered at the nearest teleportation circle within a week. Subscribe to Nyanzon Prime to get your goods delivered at your door step within 24 hours!

What "D&D world" ? Maybe in yours, not in mine.

 

[Minigiant]

With the caviat that there still be a Magic stat, I agree.

3 Magic stats. One magic stat associated to each of the physical one.

I always said that if I made an OSR. I'd make a "Skilled Play" one with Magic Strength, Magic Dexterity, and Magic Toughness. All Mental aspects would be roleplayed. Maybe allowing players to take roleplaying tags.

 

[Jack Daniel]

3 Magic stats. One magic stat associated to each of the physical one.

I always said that if I made an OSR. I'd make a "Skilled Play" one with Magic Strength, Magic Dexterity, and Magic Toughness. All Mental aspects would be roleplayed. Maybe allowing players to take roleplaying tags.

Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Mana, Glamour, and Piety.

 

[Zsong]

Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Mana, Glamour, and Piety.

How about replace strength, dexterity and constitution with mental state to like toughness, guile, and will

You don’t have to be buff like a body builder, maybe they do the extra damage because they are tough as nails like Clint Eastwood and just have that extra edge to do damage.

maybe they are not an Olympic athlete, and they have that guile to know where not to be when an attack starts coming their way.

maybe they don’t have a superior immune system for extra hp, just the will to live and keep fighting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Could you give me some examples? What I posted is the broadest definition I can think of that's not so broad as to be meaningless.

To be precise: "But roleplaying is, at its core, the interaction between the player and the DM. The player inhabiting a character in a fantasy world the DM describes to the player."

Here fantasy only means make-believe, not fantasy in the sense of the fiction genre labeled "fantasy" for marketing purposes.

OK, I guess there is RP that doesn't involve a 'player and DM' interaction. Beyond that I don't think that one single participant must be describing the world to the other. There are a lot of configurations of who can say what and I think the people practicing those different techniques are still RPing.

I don't think your definition is BAD, as far as it goes. It just strikes me more as a description of the classic D&D paradigm, not 'role play in general' or 'role playing games in general'. That's all.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is an interesting point. You decide your abilities or you roll them and they can shape how you approach the character you created.

What I want to make clear that in my approach to the game, this is a voluntary course of action taken by the player, if it improves their enjoyment.

What I mean is that if a player rolled or chose a 3 Int for their character, that player has the choice to voluntarily role-play that character as dumb and do dumb things in character. It can be fun to be comic relief or instigate trouble or whatever (assuming it doesn't mess with the group).

But some elements of the game are not intended to challenge the character (like puzzles) or many activities are a joint group discussion (like figuring out how to ambush some guards or sneak into a castle). In these cases, that player may want to and enjoy taking a part in solving those puzzles or discussing options. I would not use that 3 Int to discourage or prevent that player from that enjoyment.

I am sure as heck not going to tell a person sitting at my table to shut-up because a piece of paper has a number 3 on it.

I certainly hear you, but IMHO this sounds more like "play in a skilled fashion" where your PC is just basically a 'pog' that you move around to indicate where you are and to interact with some rules now and then, but the numbers on the sheet really don't match up with your RP. I guess the question is, if you are playing a PC with a low INT and you play cleverly and come up with a lot of smart solutions to puzzles that less intelligent people would not, and your ability score bonuses (or whatever for the given edition) indicate low chances of success at things that require "intellect" then it seems like your character concept is not very coherent! So this type of play does run into some problems when it comes to RP (and this is probably what the OP was thinking when he started this thread).