Strategy or role-playing game?

[Henry]

Any programmer...will immediately recognize how 'computerized' it feels.

I've read both the active correspondence with the PCGen developers as well as listened to people like Codemonkey and Chris from Twin Rose, and they've remarked more than once how the many little "special cases" in the d20 rules drive them batty. If you're thinking of it as 'computerized because there are definitely progression formulas for BAB, saves, ability bonuses, etc. Then I have to differ, because not only have consistent formulae been around since AD&D 1st edition, but it was easier to integrate them into a computer game, too - compare the rules in "Pool of Radiance" with the near-approximation in "Neverwinter Nights" or "Temple of Elemental Evil." They hit it a lot closer back then than now, and that's even WITH half-orcs, rangers, paladins, illusionists, and assassins missing.

v3 and v3.5 expanded options in a way that broke the shared-reality that millions of gamers had of D&D gameworlds. Dwarven wizards, evil rangers, high-level halflings, and monstrous PCs were all explicitly forbidden in earlier versions.

Monstrous PCs were listed as a possibility in Men, Monsters and Magic (though as Diaglo notes, not detailed). Complete book of Humanoids was a 2nd edition title that dug into this in-depth, ten years prior to 3E. Many other violations occurred in the 2E years, including new races, new classes, and even new systems of magic, and all clamored for by fans.

In a summation, my experiences differed. Every group I had was always tinkering with new rules to get the effect that 3E gives us right now.

 

[Ganders]

I'm forced to agree with you Psion. When you actually get to the details it's not long before you start getting to the fuzzy parts. Rules arguments, gaps in the rules, all the stuff that tabletop players argue about. I'm sure the folks working on 'D&D Online' right now have plenty of stories along those lines. Plus the fact that 3.0 has been out for 5 years and we still don't see computer games that fully implement all the rules. But... I've seen lots of folks remark on it. It's been said enough times that it's hard to ignore. Perhaps more interesting would be to figure out why people *don't* get that impression from the AD&D books. There must be a reason.

 

[Rev. Jesse]

(Mainly directed at 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.

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.

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. The table is a safe area, away from the worries of our modern world. If someone can't leave their troubles at the door, then they bring those worries in, and I don't necessarily want that. If the player refuses to role-play, then it is a personal affront to me and to my fellow players. So, yes, I would work to exclude someone who failed to role-play at my table. There are lots of other RPG groups and table-top games out there that focus less on role-playing than mine do.

Folks who aren’t good at fast-talking or bluffing or whatever are still welcome to play, but they really should at least try to play out and describe what they are doing. A little practice here and there goes a long way to improving the player’s skills. Often, I have found that newbies adopt quite readily to playing out their roles and speaking their bluffs.

As for people who are bad at jumping or climbing, of course they can roll out their jumping and climbing rolls. 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. And then, when you nail your PC’s oratory, well, that’s even better.

I submit to you, Storm Raven, that the course of this discussion maybe beyond the original scope of this thread. If you wish to continue this conversation regarding my role-playing skills, it maybe better suited to another thread or via email.

Ciao-

-Jesse

 

[vulcan_idic]

Computers.

Seriously. Computers are to blame for the "more wargame-y" feel of modern gaming systems. In particular, computer games.

Take Pool of Radiance (the old gold-box). Where previously you might have had a GM describe a horde of orcs attacking you, you now saw every one and could place that Fireball to cover as many as possible. A bit to the right, and a bit down... yeah, covered one more Orc.

Suddenly *exactly* where things were became more important. You could do battlefield tactics based on occupied squares.

Then Baldur's Gate made the genre more popular, then NWN came along, not to mention the non-D&D games. But all of the computer games have an emphasis on battlefield layout. No more days of Adventure and Zork.

... and so that's how we think today.

I have to disagree with you. Since birth I've been this way. I'm a closet tactician. The D&D characters I play tend to be tacticians to let that little part of myself out. The reason I love to be a D&D player is so I can be the Man in Black (Princess Bride) - a consummate tactician taking stock of assets, comparing to a given challenge and coming up with the best plan he can to achieve the objective in the way most advantageous to his team...

Westley: Who are you? Are we enemies? Why am I on this wall? Where is Buttercup?
Inigo Montoya: Let me 'splain.
[pause]
Inigo Montoya: No, there is too much. Let me sum up. Buttercup is marry' Humperdinck in a little less than half an hour. So all we have to do is get in, break up the wedding, steal the princess, make our escape... after I kill Count Rugen.
Westley: That doesn't leave much time for dilly-dallying.
Fezzik: You just wiggled your finger. That's wonderful.
Westley: I've always been a quick healer. What are our liabilities?
Inigo Montoya: There is but one working castle gate, and... and it is guarded by 60 men.
Westley: And our assets?
Inigo Montoya: Your brains, Fezzik's strength, my steel.
Westley: That's it? Impossible. If I had a month to plan, maybe I could come up with something. But this...
Fezzik: You just shook your head -- that doesn't make you happy?
Westley: My brains, his steel, and your strength against sixty men, and you think a little head jiggle is supposed to make me happy? I mean, if we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.
Inigo Montoya: Where we did we put that wheelbarrow the albino had?
Fezzik: Over the albino, I think.
Westley: Well, why didn't you list that among our assets in the first place? What I wouldn't give for a holocaust cloak...
Inigo Montoya: There we cannot help you.
Fezzik: Will this do?
Inigo Montoya: Where did you get that?
Fezzik: At Miracle Max's. It fit so nice, he said I could keep it.
Westley: All right, all right. Come on, help me up. Now, I'll need a sword eventually.
Inigo Montoya: Why? You can't even lift one.
Westley: True, but that's hardly common knowledge, is it?

Wesley thought that way (he wasn't working inside a rules system mind you), I think that way, trying to get the greatest effect for the least effort - call it lazy munchkining, but if I can have a robot mower mow my lawn instead of me, I will. Makes more time for gaming. I don't think it indicates a "problem" with a game system, or even necessarily that it's not roleplaying, for characters to think this way. It's not inherent in the system, it's inherent in human nature. If a wizard can only memorize so many spells a day you'd better believe he wants to get as much out of each one as he can so he can keep the others for another time.

One of my first posts was a thread I started about the nature of so called powergaming and the human psyche and I still find the thoughts expressed there by all parties applicable. Whether it be "powergaming" or "wargameyness" or whatever else you might call a player taking full advantage of his resources - I don't see this as a problem, I see it as a natural and logical reaction for a character with the given abilities. After all, you'd better believe whatever villain you're up against won't be wasting his resources - why kill you with a fireball if he can kill you just as dead with a magic missile?

Mark Twain: "I never write metropolis for seven cents when I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman when I can get the same money for cop."

Mark Twain: "Anybody can have ideas -- the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph."

As wise writers strive to be accurate and precise while yet being brief so to, wise characters strive to achieve the objective while squandering as few resources as possible - it well behooves them to do so. And that one extra orc you get in your fireball this round is one that won't be slitting your throat the next. And while the player may take a while to see the best spot on the board I find it hard to believe that someone who uses such spells day in and day out won't have a much clearer idea of the boundaries, benefits, and liabilities of each tool at his disposal and will have reduced the casting of such to the barest instinct doing in a heartbeat the same thing that the player controlling him takes long minutes to figure out due to his relatively lesser experience with the tool in question.

 

[punkorange]

I agree with what many others have said, the amount of roleplaying is dependent upon the group, not the system. You could take a system that is highly based on telling a story like say, white-wolfs storyteller system and a group of non-roleplayers could turn it into a strategy game, just like a group of role players could turn something like mordheim into an RPG.

 

[Rasyr]

This, to me, is the absolute gold of the system. They provide the rules, so we can all agree on the basic nuts and bolts, or whatever subset or superset of those might be appropriate for any given game table. We then dress those bare mechanical bones in the flesh of our preferred world - whether a published setting or something we create ourselves. Our minds give life to mechanics and words leap off a page, add an 'L' to themselves and become worlds. The amount of "roleplaying" varies from table to table - I've had great fun with hack n' slash, and an equal joy from in depth character building. As long as we all have fun, and have a common idea of how much roleplay or rollplay is desired, then whatever the groups decision is works.

This section of your response seems to be at odds with what I had been trying to say. First off, I agree with you that have a set of consistent rules, that everybody understands, is a good thing as that provides the framework.

However, my comment about "rule-playing" (Hey Psion! ) was not about what you mention above. What I was trying to get across was that the 3.x rules not promote role-playing (but they don't not promote them either). 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) will spend more time pouring over the rules trying to find the best twink or tweak or Prc or Feat or whatever, to make their characters the best possible.

In other words, the gamers (again, EN Worlders seem to be the execption) spend more time worrying about the rules and how they aply to their character (or how their character can use them to their best advantage) than to role-playing the character itself.

I'm glad I'm not playing in a system that dictates *how* I play, but just provides me with the tools so I *can* play.

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

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. In HARP, you gain xp for accomplishing goals, and it is possible for just about anything to be a goal. Get the ambassador to sign the treaty - goal. Go kill those orcs - goal. Rescue the princess who got lost in the woods - goal. By being goal based, and allowing the GM (and sometimes even the players) to determine what constitutes a goal, it doesn't promote a specific style, thus it is not "dictating" to to you, telling you how to play the game.

 

[Jim Hague]

As a counter-example, look at the the experience system for HARP. In HARP, you gain xp for accomplishing goals, and it is possible for just about anything to be a goal. Get the ambassador to sign the treaty - goal. Go kill those orcs - goal. Rescue the princess who got lost in the woods - goal. By being goal based, and allowing the GM (and sometimes even the players) to determine what constitutes a goal, it doesn't promote a specific style, thus it is not "dictating" to to you, telling you how to play the game.

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.

 

[Storm Raven]

Your assertion that I'm a stuck-up "cool kid" is offensive. I'm pretty open to forming friendships with anyone, and as a result I have and have had friends ranging from homeless people to CEOs.

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

 

[Voadam]

Agreed. There's as much role-playing in the game as your particular group wants and supports.

So much of the rules is devoted to combat and battle strategy, and representing it sort of accurately on the table top, because that's just the of thing you can't "act out" in character around the table (or living room, or kitchen, or where ever your group plays).

The rules for Diplomacy, Bluff, and Sense Motive (and maybe relevent charm spells) are about all you need to run a full night of role-playing your characters in the royal court. Those rules don't take up a whole lot of page count.

I don't need those rules to run a full night of roleplaying in a court.

 

[Mallus]

So, your idea is that only the personally glib and socially skilled should play characters who have social graces?

Where I did I say that?

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.

That seems so limiting.

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...

Do you require players to actually tie people up, climb walls, pick locks and jump over large distances?

Now you're being silly...

Or do you make exceptions for physical capabilities and not mental ones? If so, why have mental stats at all? If they make no in-game difference...

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.

Well, I use the skills Knowledge: War and Profession: Soldier in my games. Characters with ranks in Knowledge:..snip

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?

It all comes done to how you define 'play'. I want PC's to act out certain social scenes, I want them devise clever plans for overcoming obstacles, in other words, I want them to do something more than design killer PC builds and roll dice...

If they don't want to do that, we might as well just play Yahtzee. Or better still, put the dice away and hit the nearest pub...