Strategy or role-playing game?

[Rasyr]

Is there something about 3e that diminishes the importance of role-playing? I would concede that in the core PHb and DMG that there is less advice about role-playing than there should be and that D&D is now more of a team based effort than before, but I don’t think that the current set of rules discourages role-playing any more or less than the old rules.

In my, oh so, humble opinion, I would have to say that 3e does not explicitly diminish the importance of roleplaying. The operative word there is "explicitly".

What 3e does do, is to place more importance on rule-playing as opposed to role-playing or even roll-playing. As mentioned by others, it stresses the rules involved more than the actual playing part.

WotC alone has published 2,000+ Feats, 160+ Prestige Classes, and 100+ classes (check their online indices). In short, they are stressing that the rules are more important than the actual game an individual plays. That focus has the vast majority of players looking more at how the different rules (and classes, PrCs, etc.) interact than anything else.

Just my opinion...

 

[Rev. Jesse]

I think it's the players that have changed over time.

OK, you're going to need to back that one up. Are you saying that mature, experienced role-players have decided to role-play less? That seems pretty ridiculous. If you said that new players, coming into the hobby, are role-playing less than ones more familar with the game, then I could buy it.

 

[Wombat]

Does 3.X promote more strategy (read: small unit tactics) gaming than previous editions of D&D? I would be very hard pressed to answer this. I played OD&D as a way to get away from miniatures battles, but never really made the leap to AD&D -- I first switched to RuneQuest and then later a host of other games. As such D&D was "that game that still had character classes, alignments, and hit points" for most of my gaming life.

Now 3.X D&D does currently emphasize tactics much more heavily than most other rpgs than I have in the intervening period. Ars Magica, Over The Edge, TORG, Pendragon and other games that I have been involved with over the years do have combat, do have large combat sections in their rulebooks, etc., but somehow the rulebooks place less emphasis on the tactical approach to gaming. The combat section in D&D is not only very large itself (as it is in most rpgs), but most of the magic in the game relates directly to combat, as do the magic items and feats. There is a strong emphasis in the books on using miniatures to keep track of combat. And of course with the official minis line out there many people now identify D&D with tactical gaming, much closer in mentality to a small-unit wargame. In fact I know of several people who have picked up D&D strictly as a small-unit tactics wargame, rather than as a rpg per se. Then again I have a skewwed access to such people, as my brother is deeply involved in the miniatures gaming market.

So I won't say that D&D 3.X is more tactics-oriented than earlier editions; I will say that the rules as written are more tactically skewwed than most other rpgs I have played.

 

[diaglo]

Are you saying that mature, experienced role-players have decided to role-play less?

yes, i think i already said that too.

your mileage may vary. but of the 7 groups of newer edition games i've been in... (39 different players, 6 different DMs) that has been my experience. the old and new players roleplay less.

 

[LostSoul]

Are you saying that mature, experienced role-players have decided to role-play less? That seems pretty ridiculous. If you said that new players, coming into the hobby, are role-playing less than ones more familar with the game, then I could buy it.

Are you saying that mature, experienced role-play is only playing in the actor stance (or immersion, or whatever you want to call it)?

I could be reading into your statement.

 

[LostSoul]

What 3e does do, is to place more importance on rule-playing as opposed to role-playing or even roll-playing. As mentioned by others, it stresses the rules involved more than the actual playing part.

I think that's a feature of 3e, and not a flaw. (Not that you were saying it was a flaw.)

 

[Rasyr]

I think that's a feature of 3e, and not a flaw. (Not that you were saying it was a flaw.)

Whether or not it is a feature or a flaw is up to the individual. I was only stating that it (rule-playing) seemed to be the focus of the curent ruleset.

 

[LostSoul]

Whether or not it is a feature or a flaw is up to the individual. I was only stating that it (rule-playing) seemed to be the focus of the curent ruleset.

We agree. Although I'd probably call it "crunch-focused" instead of rule-playing. Stupid semantics.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Now, I personally think it's a lot of fun to make my Bluff/Diplomacy/Whatever roll, see how well or poorly my character did, and then role-play that result.

Yuck. That's the approach I like the least. Far worse than "skip the talking and just roll." If I'm going to do something in-game, I want the results to matter. If the outcome has already been decided, why waste my time on a nonproductive activity?

What I don't care for at all, though, is having a DM claim the right to decide whether my character succeeds or fails based on that DM's evaluation of my "performance" as a player...which sounds to me like what you're proposing. I say good riddance to that school of gaming thought!

Well if you don't want to roleplay or you don't want your roleplaying to have any impact on the game, then your approach will work. Although if this is the case you'd probably be better off playing Squad Leader or some other wargame. The DM's there to adjudicate with common sense areas where the rules don't give reasonable results, and the one-roll social interaction rule is rarely sophisticated enough to give reasonable results in even a moderately complex situation.

My other major complaint with the social rules is that they're generally not applied to PC's. If the NPC's can be persuaded by a roll, regardless of what the DM thinks they would do, the same should apply to the PCs. If you try this though, you'll hear all kinds of whining about "my PC wouldn't do that" and "you're interfering with my character." I don't see "player's fiat" as being any more or less legitimate then "DM's fiat" What's good for the goose is good for the gander and all that.

More to the point of thread, I think Mr. Gibbons' opinions show that some players at least are taking a "strategy"/wargame approach to D&D. I almost never ran into this with playing previous editions. Since I've been on these boards since before 3E came out and I've been seeing an increasing number of opinions along these lines it seems to me that 3E/3.5E is influencing players towards "strategy" play.

 

[Rev. Jesse]

I think you are looking at my statement in the wrong manner, Lost Soul. Li Shenron said:

think it's the players that have changed over time.

My post was a response that statement. I find it some what weird to think that people involved in the hobby for several years suddenly decided to role-play less, given that the hobby itself is role-playing. I can accept that it is possible that there is less role-playing these days, but I think it must have been caused by "something" rather than just saying "the players... have changed." Is 3e attracting a different sort of player than older editions? I think that if the players are changing, or if current players are changing the way they play, then there must be some sort of catalyst for this change in the rules themselves. What is it?

Wombat said:

Now 3.X D&D does currently emphasize tactics much more heavily than most other rpgs than I have in the intervening period. Ars Magica, Over The Edge, TORG, Pendragon and other games....

Do you think that these games are inherently less focused on combat than 3e because they are setting based? Perhaps because they have alternate forms of conflict built in whereas 3e basically only has monsters to fight and any other conflict is incumbent upon the DM to develop?

-Jesse