Solving the "Just Roleplay it..." problem...

[JohnSnow]

Okay, I don't know if this is too "out there," but I was having a conversation with one of my RPG-nerd buddies after sword class last night, and we started talking about how different games handle different things. As we started talking about creating systems to handle the different types of encounters - combat, exploration, and social; we started noodling over the difficulty in balancing "roleplaying" with making character building "fair."

While it is possible, if not always easy, for a smart, wise, or high charisma player to roleplay as a character less accomplished than themselves, the reverse is much more difficult.

As such, I got to wondering if the ideal RPG should handle personality traits differently from physical ones. By which I mean that, for example, you choose (or roll) your character's physical and magical aptitudes, but that personality traits are handled using a different mechanical system. I'm not exactly sure how it would work, but as a first cut, I'm thinking of something like Savage Worlds' Hindrance/Edge system, where you pick, say "Uncouth" as a hindrance, or "Well-read" as an edge, and the system gives you a minor mechanical benefit/penalty on relevant checks, but you also get in game tokens of some kind (that you can use to influence events, say) in exchange for roleplaying your character's personality well. That way, there's both a mechanical link, and a tangible game benefit for behaving as your character would.

Hopefully, that at least makes a little sense. I was just thinking that if part of the problem we keep running up against is in separating the player's personality traits from the character's, why not just lean into the idea that it's different, and create a different system?

Handled well, I feel like this could improve both social and exploration encounters. Thoughts?

 

[payn]

Many RPGs do this. Its fine if you want those handrails to roleplaying. My issue with them is characters tend to become one/two note caricatures with a repetitive playloop. I like a more freeform and organic playstyle, but can certainly understand the play to type mindset.

I do like general skillsets to fill narrative space. It tends to allow a more variable play experience to get away from the specific personality mechanics mentioned above. YMMV

 

[JohnSnow]

Many RPGs do this. Its fine if you want those handrails to roleplaying. My issue with them is characters tend to become one/two note caricatures with a repetitive playloop. I like a more freeform and organic playstyle, but can certainly understand the play to type mindset.

I do like general skillsets to fill narrative space. It tends to allow a more variable play experience to get away from the specific personality mechanics mentioned above. YMMV

See, and I'm just noting that in most "freeform and organic" systems, the result is that the character's mental stats don't actually matter because all the logic, exploration, decision-making, and social attributes are being roleplayed, which means they're coming from the player anyway.

That's fine if that's how people want to play, but if that's the case, we should just admit it, rather than pretending that we're "roleplaying." The short version is that people can't "just roleplay" a character with a mental or emotional intelligence that's higher than their own. And we've all had that player who dumps Charisma and then "roleplays" a moving speech to the King. And then the player gets pissed when you make them roll to succeed because their character has a 6 Charisma.

If we use them differently in game, we should probably treat them differently in the game rules. That's my point.

 

[Campbell]

Many RPGs do this. Its fine if you want those handrails to roleplaying. My issue with them is characters tend to become one/two note caricatures with a repetitive playloop. I like a more freeform and organic playstyle, but can certainly understand the play to type mindset.

I do like general skillsets to fill narrative space. It tends to allow a more variable play experience to get away from the specific personality mechanics mentioned above. YMMV

Would you care to restate this in a way that is not wildly insulting (by insinuating games that model psychosocial elements are basically crutches) and/or provides actual reasoning behind the claims it makes?

There's plenty to be said for approaching social scenes as a parlor LARP, but parlor LARPs are no more natural or organic than other means / methods of resolving them.

 

[JohnSnow]

There's plenty to be said for approaching social scenes as a parlor LARP, but parlor LARPs are no more natural or organic than other means / methods of resolving them.

Exactly.

And my initial point was both that the "parlor LARP" approach creates a special handling method for mental attributes, and that it might not be possible to draw a hard distinction between player and character without implementing some form of guidelines (with a mechanical carrot and stick approach) to help people stay "in-character" as far as their mental attributes go.

I'm not suggesting a solid fix, just noodling around the idea that it might be logical for us to treat mental/emotional attributes differently than we do the physical aspects of the game.

 

[payn]

See, and I'm just noting that in most "freeform and organic" systems, the result is that the character's mental stats don't actually matter because all the logic, exploration, decision-making, and social attributes are being roleplayed, which means they're coming from the player anyway.

That's fine if that's how people want to play, but if that's the case, we should just admit it, rather than pretending that we're "roleplaying." The short version is that people can't "just roleplay" a character with a mental or emotional intelligence that's higher than their own. And we've all had that player who dumps Charisma and then "roleplays" a moving speech to the King. And then the player gets pissed when you make them roll to succeed because their character has a 6 Charisma.

If we use them differently in game, we should probably treat them differently in the game rules. That's my point.

The "we" does not include me. I understand these types of conflicts, but I have found mechanical answers often just exasperate the issue. I also find the "people can't "just roleplay" a character with a mental or emotional intelligence that's higher than their own." to be completely untrue. Nobody makes a person bench-press a truck to prove they can play a high strength character. I think the general mechanics as they are work just fine.

 

[JohnSnow]

Just to clarify, did you mean "Exasperate" (Irritates and frustrate the people involved) or "Exacerbate" (i.e. make the problem worse)?

An "old-school" player who cleverly searches a room based on their own high intelligence score is not properly roleplaying their cleric with an 8 INT. A personable and charismatic player with an 8 CHA fighter who gives a moving speech to a crowd is not properly roleplaying their character.

If you've actually never run this problem at your table, I would rank your experience as one in a million. If you have, but don't see it as a problem, that's different, because you're already treating them differently. I'm just suggesting that it might make sense to just use a different approach to represent that.

 

[Blue]

Before getting into the details, I want to say that making character building & advancement "fair" may be a fool's errand. I can play Marvel Heroic Roleplay doing a buddy drinking night with Thor and Hawkeye and their misadventures and have a great time, as either of them. But not a soul will tell you they are balanced against each other.

What we're really looking for is equal spotlight time. And a lot of that can be controlled by the GM. Yes, there are mechanical ways to help, but they at best will only be part of the situation, so strong GM direction is needed no matter what.

You even get interesting cases like Fate where your aspects being compelled - used in a way that causes trouble, but also grants you meta currency to be cooler later - is spotlight time for the character. Masks: A New Generation has similar themes, where one of the playbooks, the Nova, has the primary issue is that they are too powerful, and can't always control it or prevent collateral damage.

It's only in games like D&D where failure is so often a punitive case rather than just another fork of the story and part of the expected up- and down-beats you'd see in novels, movies, and the like where trying to balance characters against each other mechanically (in addition to the GM making sure to spotlight each character) should take on any design weight.

You know, that got longer than expected, let me leave this as it's own post and I'll talk about details in a separate one.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Okay, I don't know if this is too "out there," but I was having a conversation with one of my RPG-nerd buddies after sword class last night, and we started talking about how different games handle different things. As we started talking about creating systems to handle the different types of encounters - combat, exploration, and social; we started noodling over the difficulty in balancing "roleplaying" with making character building "fair."

While it is possible, if not always easy, for a smart, wise, or high charisma player to roleplay as a character less accomplished than themselves, the reverse is much more difficult.

As such, I got to wondering if the ideal RPG should handle personality traits differently from physical ones. By which I mean that, for example, you choose (or roll) your character's physical and magical aptitudes, but that personality traits are handled using a different mechanical system. I'm not exactly sure how it would work, but as a first cut, I'm thinking of something like Savage Worlds' Hindrance/Edge system, where you pick, say "Uncouth" as a hindrance, or "Well-read" as an edge, and the system gives you a minor mechanical benefit/penalty on relevant checks, but you also get in game tokens of some kind (that you can use to influence events, say) in exchange for roleplaying your character's personality well. That way, there's both a mechanical link, and a tangible game benefit for behaving as your character would.

Hopefully, that at least makes a little sense. I was just thinking that if part of the problem we keep running up against is in separating the player's personality traits from the character's, why not just lean into the idea that it's different, and create a different system?

Handled well, I feel like this could improve both social and exploration encounters. Thoughts?

Interesting, oft debated but there's always something to say. There are a lot of approaches, in Dungeon World you just say what you want to do and do it. There are a number of moves defined and the GM might decide you triggered one, requiring a check. Generally speaking you don't have to literally act out your PC's actions, but describe them. If no move is indicated the GM will describe what happens, maybe even tell you to describe it. Moves can succeed, fail, or most often, give you some/all of what you want at a price. RP matters, as it's what determines which moves come into play but you don't have to play-act.

DW also specifies a pretty specific set of GM techniques and the game's core agenda. PCs have bonds, an alignment, and class plus any backstory which can be drawn on or tested. You get XP for resolving bonds, etc.

 

[Blue]

Every game has that the player behind it makes a huge change in effectiveness. D&D combat is no different that D&D roleplay in this aspect. A player making good tactical decisions, analyzing the foe and the environment, and acting as a team player will be enormously more effective than one who just seeks to do damage to the closest opponent. And that's before the player input to the character build, where combat-related is like 80% of the mechanics of the character sheet.

Now, that doesn't mean I don't have suggestions. And they are around that characters can do things the players can't. It makes no sense that a character that can, for instance, fly even though the player cannot, can't give an inspiring speech where the player cannot. So a character needs to be effective at everything their character sheet says they are effective in, even if the player is not. A player who knows nothing about woodland survival, and in fact makes poor decisions like suggesting a camping spot where it will likely get flooded on a rainy night, needs to have their result elevated to the character's skills, which would avoid this. You wouldn't penalize the wizard because the player narrated some really bad faux Latin when casting, this is more of the same. The character is the foundation of competence.

But playing well should have a positive effect. Be it strong tactics, an intelligent search plan, or framing something to be persuasion vs. deception when the character is better at one than the other. And there's an interesting place for your traits - should a silver tongued player be able to deceive someone when the character has no skill, or perhaps a negative. It may be that having a trait like Uncouth would not just have a mechanical effect on the role when it would come into play, but also limit the best effect so that a player can't exceed it through their own skill.

I don't know if there's an answer for that which will satisfy all players.