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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest 6801328" data-source="post: 6846477">Great post, pemerton.It seems there is a particular (and even peculiar) version of roleplaying out there, one in which the players around the table attempt to "act like their character" as consistently as possible, and the game for those players consists of trying to not break character.  To me it sounds uninteresting, and an arbitrary game goal.  Sort of like saying, "Ok, the goal is to say everything in pig-latin. If you forget to use pig-latin, or use it improperly, we'll all give you the stink eye for breaking immersion."I can see how this approach would also give rise to the strictest anti-metagaming interpretation: "If your character doesn't know that trolls regenerate, and you use fire, you're clearly not acting in-character."  Yup, given the previous definition of "roleplaying" I agree that's a consistent interpretation.(As an aside, I have observed that adherents of this playstyle often claim to have been playing with the same group of people for a long time, rather than at different tables with different people. I don't know which is cause and which is effect, but if true it's an interesting correlation.)The part I find rather astonishing is the insistence that this *is* roleplaying, and everything else isn't.  I'll agree that it is a *kind* of roleplaying, but certainly not the only one, and one that honestly takes mere discipline more than actual narrative skill.For one thing, in my experience most gamers are...let's face it...pretty bad actors.  So forcibly staying "in-character" on even the most mundane details is both time consuming and often quite painful to witness.  I'd *much* rather have players wait until they have opportunities to play their character in a meaningful, illustrative way, rather than trying to narrate and act every sword swing and "hail, fellow".It reminds me of how really good dialog writers (e.g. Cormac McCarthy, Elmore Leonard) can be very sparse with description, and they don't embellish actions with adverbs, preferring to use dialog.  They don't describe *everything*, just the bits that convey the most information.  A woman will have nothing described but her scarf, and yet somehow you have the whole picture.  Most times when a character does something it's simply done with a naked, simple verb, sans embellishment, but by then you already have a good sense of the character so you imagine the details yourself.  I think "good" roleplaying is the same way: you're mostly out-of-character, but you know when to describe the bits that give the best impression of your character to the rest of the table.Because that's what I value in roleplaying: not your ability to stay in-character, which again feels like a contrived exercise, but your ability to contribute to a good story.So do I care if the player of an INT 5 character solves a puzzle?  Do I want the INT 5 character to sit quietly at the table and not participate in solving riddles?  Not in the least.  If that player can solve (or not solve) the puzzle in a way that reinforces and expands on the colorful, unique character he/she has built, then that's awesome.  But the absence of that is not a negative. I don't expect players to make great narrative contributions every time they speak.</blockquote>

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