So What is a Roleplaying Game? Forked Thread: Clark Peterson on 4E

[xechnao]

I disagree 100%. Your "you should not" scenario is my preferred method of roleplay. And it ain't wrong.

Contrary to popular belief I strongly think it is wrong what you want to say here. Although I believe the error is usually on a level of faith than what happens in practice -that is, I guess you do not get it wrong on your play but in your theory.
For example you say you could roleplay an ant or an ape or even another person. Well this can't be so because you can't actually see the situations like an ant, an ape or another person would. What you can do is extend characteristics you own to more or less situations than the ones you are used to in your real life, this extension fitting with your notion of an ant or ape or another person. For example you are stronger amongst your colleagues half the time. In d&d having str 18 could mean you are the strongest person and lets say by a good degree most of the times. But these characteristics are not ant or ape or robot characteristics. They are your characteristics. The ape or elf or dwarf names are nothing more than a dress you put on yourself actucally. You can roleplay them by applying to them certain habits you understand by and through yourself (these habits are a part of your own behaviour). You cant really pretend to be an ape or think like an ape or roleplay his mentality because you do not know how to -and this is normal. Eventually for the game to be fun as a roleplaying game and especially for a long run you should be able to connect with these habits for a long time. That means they should not be something gross or strange for example.

EDIT: Conclusion: so we can say that what changes are only the situations and nothing else -hence the only one variable.

 

[Halivar]

Although I believe the error is usually on a level of faith than what happens in practice -that is, I guess you do not get it wrong on your play but in your theory.

Huh? If I get it right in my play (i.e. I enjoy the level of immersion I get from "method acting" roleplay), then your theory that that style of roleplay is wrong is, itself, wrong. To argue "it works, but it shouldn't!" is pure sophistry.

 

[GlaziusF]

IMO, the most important qualities one needs to acknowledge he must develop for game design is imagination (from a mechanical point of view) and patience. If one has the needed imagination and knows what he wants to design he can deliver. I hope you lose your bet here.

Well, you're welcome to that opinion, but I don't think it'll serve you very well.

The rules of a game are intended to help humans resolve conflicts. This means they have to:

- address common conflicts, which is why 4E worries more about combat rules than about skill challenges. The specifics of combat, little successes and failures, are more worrying to the average character than the specifics of a skill challenge, so there's room for more narrative abstraction in the latter than the former.

- be understandable by humans, and this is the sticking point. The brain is, practically speaking, a 2-Hz processor with maybe 3 bytes of RAM. We'd all be rather hopeless if not for the crazy mad wonderful information storage and retrieval architecture, but it's important to keep in mind how much people can, er, keep in mind.

 

[xechnao]

Huh? If I get it right in my play (i.e. I enjoy the level of immersion I get from "method acting" roleplay), then your theory that that style of roleplay is wrong is, itself, wrong. To argue "it works, but it shouldn't!" is pure sophistry.

I am saying that what eventually works is not what you want to say it is working in your theory of disagreement. I am able to be positive here because by my definition or theory a human person can only roleplay in one unique way. Since you are a human being and you say you have roleplayed and had fun, I cant but believe that you experienced what I tried to explain above - how roleplaying works. That experience might have been better than what can be achieved but you have had at least an instance of experience.

Pay attention that I also talked about long terms. I could say that 4e fails as a roleplaying game because it is built as a long term roleplaying game -but since this build weights on the prerequisites of learning the system while the game falls short of the desired resistance in time for roleplaying, then it fails as the roleplaying game it is build to be.

 

[xechnao]

Well, you're welcome to that opinion, but I don't think it'll serve you very well.

The rules of a game are intended to help humans resolve conflicts. This means they have to:

- address common conflicts, which is why 4E worries more about combat rules than about skill challenges. The specifics of combat, little successes and failures, are more worrying to the average character than the specifics of a skill challenge, so there's room for more narrative abstraction in the latter than the former.

- be understandable by humans, and this is the sticking point. The brain is, practically speaking, a 2-Hz processor with maybe 3 bytes of RAM. We'd all be rather hopeless if not for the crazy mad wonderful information storage and retrieval architecture, but it's important to keep in mind how much people can, er, keep in mind.

I do not understand how your dismissal above links to what you are saying about the rules of roleplaying games.
What I was trying to say is that more realistic game rules than d&d could be made without being more complex by a game designer that wants to do it and has the bit of imagination and patience needed to develop such a system.
What I take for granted is that we agree on what a more realistic game is -more or less. Of course there could be disagreement here but eventually since we are speaking about realism factual examples could help resolve it -and since we can have plenty of those, I do not want to think about this problem in this discussion really.


EDIT:clarification

 

[timbannock]

4E has numerous problems, but one of them is the fact that the core rules do not provide a mechanical means to make unique characters. Feats have been neutered to the point of redundancy, and the only thing that really matter are your powers. You're back to earlier editions becuase the options available are so few. Despite the pages upon pages that they devoted to each class, there's only a couple different builds available for each class. Nevermind the fact that powers don't function anything like class abilities. All the forced movement, damaging on a miss, and short term conditions just cause the game to devolve into repetative gamist crap.

Your last sentence describes 3E's mind-numbingly large and oft-changing boni and penalties pretty well.

More to the point, the best roleplayer in my 4e group likes 4e the most of all the players. He's good at making an "optimised" character and he's also really good at making those characters very fun and life-like in terms of personality and charm. He's a halfling rogue that uses a shuriken as his weapon of choice, and he's totally awesome at combat, and the player brings him to life like no one else.

So what part of the equation are we getting wrong, according to you? We're playing 4e out of the box, nothing but the PHB, DMG and MM, and no house rules. But his character is different than the others, doesn't exactly follow the recommended builds straight up, and is still both great in combat and fun in roleplay. I don't get it.

 

[Kerym Ammath]

We are all obviously fools for liking 4E. WOTC has spoon fed things to us retarded individuals, and we have no free will. The chain around our necks from 4E no longer bothers us. Yes we are blissfully ignorant, clueless, lacking in intelligence, and prefer to be told what to do. We are perfect puppets.

Or at least that is what someone is trying to say. It's actually amusing coming from the man who is at least partly responsible for bringing us PUN-PUN.

 

[joethelawyer]

my answer is here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...players-not-characters-stats.html#post4498843

 

[Ktulu]

Well, if you were to do that, it would probably end up getting modstomped anyway. Have I insulted you or anyone else here personally? I think the only thing I'm saying is that a game system, in my opinion, sucks. Why all the ire? I don't seem to remember the same rage aimed at Diaglo? It seems to me that all of the defensiveness surrounding 4E might just be because people are afraid that the critics might be right.

Or --dnd here's a thought-- we actually do enjoy it.

You're more than free to not like it and voice your opinion. In fact, that's what challenges growth and change. However, to say that my defending of something I like is simply because I fear it may be true is just plain wrong.

Back on topic-

I have played a great many roleplaying games; from computer to console to tabletop. I've played many editions of D&D, every edition of Star Wars, and a parade of indi games (got a player who just seeks out these weird games). I had even made up my own before I played D&D using Legos and some yahtzee dice (admittedly, I was in the fourth grade, so everyone was beyond conan in terms of power).

In my opinion, there are simply two things that make up a roleplaying game, and they have both been mentioned above:

1.) The ability to create a unique character. By unique, I mean both personality and skills. This can come in the form of creating my own party (ala computer rpgs) or a personal character with goals. Metroid is not an RPG. Monopoly is not. Both for the same reason; the character is provided for me.
2.) Non-Linear story. If I have the option to speak to the bartender when I want, or gather rumors, or go off looking for random encounters, I'm in a roleplaying game. I'm dictating something in the story. My actions create the effect. Super Mario Brothers is not a roleplaying game because I move left and encounter the exact same obstacles every single time I attempt. Monopoly is not a roleplaying game because I can only roll the dice and go to the designated section. This never changes.

Everything else is pure fluff. Combat rules, social encounter rules, magic items, races/classes, space/dragons, craft/profession, it's all added to make your roleplaying game different than the next guys.

Ktulu

 

[Xath]

We are all obviously fools for liking 4E. WOTC has spoon fed things to us retarded individuals, and we have no free will. The chain around our necks from 4E no longer bothers us. Yes we are blissfully ignorant, clueless, lacking in intelligence, and prefer to be told what to do. We are perfect puppets.

Or at least that is what someone is trying to say. It's actually amusing coming from the man who is at least partly responsible for bringing us PUN-PUN.

Here at ENworld, we don't ascribe motives to other posters. We also maintain a level of civility which I invite you to read about in our rules. You will no longer be permitted to post in this thread.

- Xath