Strategy or role-playing game?

[Rev. Jesse]

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.

The role-playing game table is not an apporiate venue for most physical activities. Therefore, said activities can and should be abstracted in said venue. Furthermore, such a system would significantly limit the enjoyment of physically impaired parties and it is much easier to make the game enjoyable for people with obvious phyiscal impairments than it is to make it work for people with limited social skills. This is because the game itself is a social activity and social skills, to some degree, are necessary to participate. I have played D&D with parapalegics, but never anyone w/ Asperger's syndrome, probably because a social game would not be attractive to them.

Does this help answer you question?

-Jesse

 

[Jim Hague]

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.

Paragraphs, man, paragraphs! My eyes, they bleed!

But more seriously, read what I said, instead of just reacting. I don't disagree at all that XP via the CR of something is more than a bit whacked. There's a system in place, but it's difficult to use even for combat. But to say that XP only comes from battle isn't correct. The CR chart is meant to be universal, but IMO fails in the execution.

 

[Jim Hague]

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.

Not at all. For the players that are shy, socially awkward, whatever, the same mechanics exist to execute social activities as physical ones. While interaction can be handled via pure roleplay, that approach can and does penalize newer or more shy players.

And I don't think you've been to a LARP, if you think physicality comes into play there; if anything, it's more deemphasized than at a table, for the safety of participants.

 

[Jim Hague]

The role-playing game table is not an apporiate venue for most physical activities. Therefore, said activities can and should be abstracted in said venue. Furthermore, such a system would significantly limit the enjoyment of physically impaired parties and it is much easier to make the game enjoyable for people with obvious phyiscal impairments than it is to make it work for people with limited social skills. This is because the game itself is a social activity and social skills, to some degree, are necessary to participate. I have played D&D with parapalegics, but never anyone w/ Asperger's syndrome, probably because a social game would not be attractive to them.

Does this help answer you question?

-Jesse

So again, the question stands - would you prevent someone who's parapelegic from playing a marathon runner? Disability is disability, unless you're being discriminatory.

 

[Storm Raven]

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").

You still haven't answered the question. You just said "that's the way it is".

Most players don't have a Charisma of 18 and 10 ranks in Diplomacy. Many characters do. Many players with limited personal social skills play characters with good social skills. According to you, those character's skills don't matter (or matter less), because it is the social interactions of the player that matter.

But, also according to you, the fat, out of shape guy with two left feet can play a ninja if he wants to. The fact that the player is hopeless at things like climbing, sneaking, running, and so on is irrelevant. The ninja character is good at those things, so the player's personal abilities don't matter.

Anyone can talk. Anyone can sing. Not anyone can talk well, or sing well. Anyone can sneak. Not anyone can sneak well. You have not explained why being unable to speak well should impact the actions taken by the character when being unable to sneak well does not.

 

[LostSoul]

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.

The only problem with that is that you've got to find some other kind of reward for the players.

If you get XP for doing things that are not combat related, you go up a level, and get better at... doing things that are combat related.

Of course, this is debatable. You can always put skill points/gps into Diplomacy, Hide, Move Silently, etc. But a lot of the abilities you gain are directly related to combat, and the rules are quite light when considering non-combat activities. (So where DM fiat is light to nearly absent in the combat arena, DM fiat can still reign strong in the social arena. That is, play in D&D is stronger/more supported in combat than in any other area.)

The overall push is towards combat, no matter what the PCs get XPs for.

The great thing about 3e is that it realizes this, and owns it.

 

[Rev. Jesse]

So again, the question stands - would you prevent someone who's parapelegic from playing a marathon runner? Disability is disability, unless you're being discriminatory.

No, because the physical activity is abstracted at the game table. The physical world game world is divorced from that of the real world. I do not feel this should be the case w/ social skills at my game table because a lack of social skills directly affects my enjoyment.

 

[Storm Raven]

The role-playing game table is not an apporiate venue for most physical activities.

It is also not an appropriate venue for seducing people or threatening them. Both of those are social skills. Are they exceptions to your 12 step program of "Social Skills Improvement Through D&D"?

Therefore, said activities can and should be abstracted in said venue. Furthermore, such a system would significantly limit the enjoyment of physically impaired parties and it is much easier to make the game enjoyable for people with obvious phyiscal impairments than it is to make it work for people with limited social skills. This is because the game itself is a social activity and social skills, to some degree, are necessary to participate. I have played D&D with parapalegics, but never anyone w/ Asperger's syndrome, probably because a social game would not be attractive to them.

So, it is okay to discriminate against those with social handicaps? Why does a player's social skill come into play and affect his character when a character's physical skills don't? Plenty of physical activities could easily be done at the gaming table: Search, Open Locks, Spot, Listen, Move Silently, Hide, and so on. None of them are dangerous, nor do they need significant space. Why are they based solely on the attributes of the character, but Diplomacy is based heavily on the attributes of the player?

 

[Voadam]

Not at all. For the players that are shy, socially awkward, whatever, the same mechanics exist to execute social activities as physical ones. While interaction can be handled via pure roleplay, that approach can and does penalize newer or more shy players.

And I don't think you've been to a LARP, if you think physicality comes into play there; if anything, it's more deemphasized than at a table, for the safety of participants.

Well then you think wrongly. NERO, fantasy larping with boffer weapon swords. Magic is handled by flingin packets that either hit or don't. How much damage your sword does and how many hit points you have is mechanical. Hitting to do damage is physical as is parrying or running.

It is possible to do LARPs without physicality such as WW's rock paper scissors adjudications, but that is a choice that can be made in choosing adjudication rules.

Poor swordsmen did not complain in NERO (when I was there) that they could not physically play their expert swordsmen characters as well as they conceived of them. They might do +7 on their damage with each blow instead of a weaker character's +1, but they still had to physically fight where their actual skills and physicality mattered. If you didn't want to actually fight with swords you were better off picking a different concept like a spellcaster or a noncombatant townsperson.

 

[Henry]

Ladies and Gentlemen, we can discuss this without getting snide or calling names. Please tone it down, and consider that the person you're calling simple-minded, pretentious, huffy, etc. is a real person and that if they insulted you you don't need to return insults in kind.

Thank you.