Strategy or role-playing game?

[Storm Raven]

I should further mention that role-playing (in the broad sense, not limited to gaming) has been a significant, positive, force in my life. When I was in high school, I was a member of our Model United Nations team and I adopted the views and thoughts of various nations and presented them publicly. This prepared me for my adult life in no small number of ways which are too numerous to list here. What’s more, role-playing is often used by therapists and corporate trainers as a powerful tool to assist people to work as a team, to broaden their points of view, and to understand others.

In other words, you are good at social skills, and comfortable using them. Good for you!

Now explain why someone who isn't, who wants to pretend to be a character who is, should not be allowed to do so just because of their personal limitations?

I have an immense amount of personal disdain for people who refuse to improve themselves. Given that role-playing has been such a positive influence in my life, I assume that it can be equally helpful in the lives of others. As such, if someone comes to a role-playing game and doesn’t play out the role, I see that as a betrayal of the rest of the table.

That is about the most arrogant statement I have seen today. Do you truly expect people to use their leisure time to "learn from you" and improve themselves? I see your ego puffing here, and it is not pretty.

I do not see shyness as a personal fault or an issue that cannot be overcome. It should be overcome at the role-playing table, away from the public world.

Why is it your job to "improve" them. Why is it your "right" to determine that shyness is a personality flaw that must be corrected?

As for people who are bad at jumping or climbing, of course they can roll out their jumping and climbing rolls.

Why? You've made it your mission to "improve" the skills of the shy and socially awkward. Why should it not also be your mission to improve the physical fitness of the overweight and out of shape?

Why do I like folks to role-play out social interactions?

Because its fun. Even if you totally botch at describing your character’s speech, everyone else can have a laugh at your foibles.

Ah yes, there it is. You like to make fun of the socially awkward. Got it.

 

[Rev. Jesse]

Are these questions rhetorical? Are you actually interested in my response?

 

[Mishihari Lord]

But if they don't meet your definition of what a "good role-player" should be, they need not apply. Nice hypocrisy there.

SR, I took you off my ignore list to see what you had to say on this topic, but you've managed to remind me why you were there in the first place. Fun - debating ideas with people with similar interests. Not fun - being insulted because someone who disagrees with you can't make a good argument to support his opinion. Back on the IL you go.

 

[Storm Raven]

Where I did I say that?

When you (if I remember correctly) argued that social skills should not be used to deal with social "role-playing" situations.

All I ask as DM is that players actually try playing things out vis a vis NPC/social interaction. I take the characters social skills into account, too.

Ah, you cheapen the value of socially skilled characters relative to phsyically skilled characters. If I'm a really good talker, I can play a half-orc grunt with no ranks in any social skills, but sine I can talk well as a player, I can make up for those shortcomings?

How? I think you've got it backwards. By relying solely on skill checks for social interaction, you remove a vital part of the play experience; namely, the pleasure of coming up with a brilliant lie, clever ruse, etc. Make it all about the rolls and the only joy is scoring a natural 20...

Who said solely? Perhaps you need to reread the skills description in the PHB.

Now you're being silly...

Why? if the player's skill with social skills affects how their character does, why don't the player's physical skills affect their character? You have yet to explain this to any degree (for that matter, no one has explained it). Until you deal with this issue, you cannot actually formulate an argument that carries any weight.

Now that's a good question. I don't really have an answer for it, except to say that I think things work best when a DM considers both the players and the characters abilities.

So, when you figure out how much damage Bob the fighter hits for, do you take into account the fact that John, playing Bob, couldn't lift a roll of toilet paper without assistance?

That's not what I'm talking about. What if a tactical/strategic dunce wants to play a cross between Patton and Conan? Why ask them to pick any of their characters combat actions? Why not simply have them roll a skill check at the start of combat to see if they (automatically) do the optimal thing --without additional player input?

Perhaps you need to reread the skills section of the PHB. If a tactical dunce wants to play Patton, then he should put lots of ranks in Knowledge: War and make some rolls to see how well his character evaluated the situation.

 

[Storm Raven]

Are these questions rhetorical? Are you actually interested in my response?

If you could actually answer the questions, sure.

 

[Storm Raven]

Not fun - being insulted because someone who disagrees with you can't make a good argument to support his opinion. Back on the IL you go.

Oh darn. Someone disagreed with you, and presented the reasons why and called you on your hypocrisy. And you couldn't come up with a cogent argument to counter their points. So you got huffy, claimed to take the high ground, and ran away.

 

[Psion]

However, my comment about "rule-playing" (Hey Psion! )

What the ruleset does promote is more along the lines of meta-gaming, of over planning a character to the point that a shift in the campaign can very much make the character you were (over the course of numerous levels) developing almost useless. That to make a useful character, most players (and please note that I find EN Worlders to be the exception to this in general)

Speaking anecdotally here, but I don't. I find that my normal players DON'T twink the rules and I DON'T have to babysit them. In fact, I'd say my players are quite a bit LESS rulesy than me.

OTOH, I think that to find players who are rolled up in the rules as an end not a means are represented here as well, if you go to the right forum.

So, does that mean that you are not playing in any game that is based on the d20/3.x ruleset?

3.x promotes a very specific style of play. By doing that, it actually IS telling you how to play.

You say it does this, but I am not seeing that it does. I've had no problem doing as I've professed: using the rules as a means to facilitate my game.

Some specific examples include things like the alignment restrictions on Paladins and Monks. Those alignment restrictions are "dictating" how to play.

I'm not sure what you are saying here is the right or wrong mode of play. The in game construct is built to approximate those archetypes; those classes were merely assigned alignments that the designer considered to be appropriate to those concepts. If anything, I don't see these conventions enforcing strategic play, because they force you, when playing these character types, to take your character's behavior into account. If you divorce the abilities from the alignment, THEN you are free to metagame the situation and use your class abilities strategically as you please.

The experience system is heavily biased towards killing things and taking their stuff. That is another method of dictating how to play. Yes, I know that is not the only way of gaining xp, but it is the predominant method, and as such it reinforces the implicit style of play that 3.x promotes.

As a counter-example, look at the the experience system for HARP.

The record has a scratch in it, because we just skipped a track... Is this thread about comparing your design decisions with D&D's or about whether the current edition is more a strategic game and less a roleplaying game? (Again, not linked conditions.) Because from where I am standing, the D&D experience system has always been about killing things and taking their stuff. In fact, the 3e experience system is, if anything, LESS about killing things:

1) The default system does not require that you kill the threat, just meet the goal associated with the threat. Please read the minotaur example in the DMG. (Edit: this is the same section Jim referred you to. Great minds... )
2) That is only the default system. In the DMG they break it down for you and say that the real goal of the experience system is to create a certain progression rate, and give you the targeted rates without going through the CR chart, and provide alternate means of providing xp.

Some will, of course, hasten to point out that #2 is not the default. Which I will hasten to point out is beside the point. It's a chicken-egg sort of thing. Lots of D&D games aren't about monster bashing because the XP system makes them kill monsters. Rather, the default system is written the way it is because the default playstyle of D&D features monster bashing.

But, you see, because of #2, it does not force you into this playstyle. You are free to do something else if this is what your campaign is not about.

 

[painandgreed]

No offense, Rasyr, but the DMG provides for exactly this sort of play. In fact, experience is doled out specifically for overcoming and defeating obstances. The specific example cited in the DMG is getting past a guard - you can attack him, Bluff him, sneak past him. Where it breaks down, IME is with the assignation of CR for every single goal. But saying that the provision isn't there is disingenious at best.

Go back and read his earlier paragraph where he mentions that. Still, that is not how the game is played. Experience is given due to CR and CR is only given for combats and traps. There is not chart for what the CR is for getting an ambasador to sign a treaty or finding out who commited a murder through investigation. The only way for a DM to determine XP without going totally ad hoc and making it up as they go, is to relate it to a combat situation. For most DMs, that's too much to determine when it would be appropriate, too uncertain of what is correct, and simply too much work, thus, they never give out XP for anything but combat/traps or avoiding combat/traps. Even then, many DMs will cut your XP (if you can get any) if you avoid a combat instead of engaging in it. Even then, you still get XP for combats that have nothing to do with the overall goals of the players, encouraging senseless combat. If the game really supported XP except for combat, it would give some sort of guidelines for doing so that can easily be used by a DM, or at elast some sort of hard and fast rule that the player can point to and show the DM because what is written right now doesn't cut it. You show them what is written in the DMG and they'll had wave it away or simply tell you that if it's not combat where the enemy is clearly defeated (ie killed), it's not a challenge.

 

[Storm Raven]

Go back and read his earlier paragraph where he mentions that. Still, that is not how the game is played. Experience is given due to CR and CR is only given for combats and traps. There is not chart for what the CR is for getting an ambasador to sign a treaty or finding out who commited a murder through investigation.

Yes there is. What is the CR of the ambassador? What is the CR of the murderer? Should their CR be increased or decreased due to extraneous circumstances? And how would you evaluate giving such experience in previous editions? (Since this thread is about whether 3e/3.5e is more wargamey than 1e or 2e).

In 1e you got experience for killing monsters and taking treasure. No mechanic at all for awarding experience via diplomacy or intrigue. In 2e, you got experience for killing monsters. The rules described ad hoc awards for social interactions. How does 3e/3.5e force you into a strategy/wargaming style of play via its experience mechanics more so than 1e or 2e did?

 

[Voadam]

[/i]

Why? if the player's skill with social skills affects how their character does, why don't the player's physical skills affect their character? You have yet to explain this to any degree (for that matter, no one has explained it). Until you deal with this issue, you cannot actually formulate an argument that carries any weight.

Social interactions can be handled entirely without game mechanics. Any player can talk, make decisions, and socially interact as their character. Social interactions can be handled by game mechanics as well or in combination with player interactions.

Physical abilities of the player have no connection to the character in tabletop RPGS. In a LARP they do and a combination of physicality and game mechanics are used. In a tabletop RPG all physical stuff must be handled by either descriptions ("I pick it up") or game mechanics (I try to pick it up, I have a str 13 and roll a 25").

It seems pretty basic.