D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Oofta]

When it comes to role playing, how often do we really need deep understanding of the individual? If I have Bob the bartender, all I really need to know is that he serves drinks. Meanwhile I also know that based on the direction the PCs happen to take someone will have heard of the new group in town calling themselves the Mouse Murderers. Maybe I even give this generic, not yet assigned, informant some motivations. I don't really care if "Generic Informant #3" has a wife or kids because the vast majority of time it won't matter.

So yes, I just have a slate of templates in mind given the current environment such as what factions are, who might be aligned with whom and why, etc.. Then if a minor NPC suddenly becomes more important I can either improvise something new or pull in potential threads. Perhaps Bob knows about the MM gang and is overly helpful because he or someone he's close to is a mouseketeer. Maybe I don't decide right away because he could potentially be a member of the Red Tooth, but that's still up in the air.

But do I really need to have a deep understanding? Not really. I just need a rough outline that I can fill in as long as I don't contradict anything or if there is a contradiction I can blame it on impartial understandings. I'm not Tolstoy and I'm not going to pretend that most DMs or players need to be.

Now, obviously I'm just talking my own thoughts and practices, different people have different approaches.

 

[pemerton]

The one I have been objecting to the entire time. That you can not conflate character goals and player goals as a single thing.

Did you miss my use of words like "most" and "typical"?

 

[pemerton]

When it comes to role playing, how often do we really need deep understanding of the individual?

<snip>

Now, obviously I'm just talking my own thoughts and practices, different people have different approaches.

I don't think it's about needing to do anything.

But if you don't have much understanding of the individual, that might be relevant to how deep the social conflict is going to be in your game, especially if no other tools are being used to support and to drive it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

For me those formative stages where I am in initial stages of creating/discovering the role or in an RPG doing the initial authorship for a character are much harder and more invigorating, but like difficult stuff. We're talking about a whole person with a life, relationships, goals, etc. Making decisions while in these initial stages if I'm taking the character seriously is really tough stuff because I am still trying to get a sense for who they might be.

I find that sometimes just making a snap decision for the character is what helps me form a clearer idea of them in my mind. Like I may not know who Bob is, but when I decide he snaps at a customer, that moment prompts questions that help me picture him more clearly.

It can be borderline paradoxical, in a way, like the effect makes me think of the cause.

 

[Oofta]

I don't think it's about needing to do anything.

But if you don't have much understanding of the individual, that might be relevant to how deep the social conflict is going to be in your game, especially if no other tools are being used to support and to drive it.

To elaborate a bit - for me I'm not necessarily thinking about individuals most of the time. It's about factions, allegiances and interactions. I take a higher level approach of conflicting interests and goals and then think about how an individual can fit into the bigger picture. Maybe they're a staunch supporter of group A and hate B. Maybe they're a member of A but are being courted by B and so on.

Then I add in the templates, the potential roles I want to introduce to the story. Perhaps add in some randomly generated additional fluff such as quirks and general appearance. A big part of this is because I do a very flexible/improv game in most cases. I have broad outlines of conflicts, opportunities, possible tangents and then the players largely decide where to go.

The result is that most players never realize I'm improvising or reacting to what they do. By prepping pieces, not things that are fully realized I can put it all together as I go. At least I find that it works for me.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I find that sometimes just making a snap decision for the character is what helps me form a clearer idea of them in my mind. Like I may not know who Bob is, but when I decide he snaps at a customer, that moment prompts questions that help me picture him more clearly.

It can be borderline paradoxical, in a way, like the effect makes me think of the cause.

Yes, I do this all the time. Not just for NPCs when I'm DMing, but for my PCs, too.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yes, I do this all the time. Not just for NPCs when I'm DMing, but for my PCs, too.

Sure. When it comes to PCs, it depends on the game we’re playing, and how strong a sense of character you’re expected to have at the start, as well as what the goals of play are and how my decisions in this regard will affect play for the group.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

You know @Umbran something your posts made me think about is that the cause and effect of "what are rules for" is very different for me than you, you mention that a game about something needs rules for that thing, but in my experience its about when the resolution itself is hard to handle without.

E.g. I can freeform roleplay and did long before I found TTRPGs, but fights were always awkward since we kind of had to use etiquette to figure out what moves hit, how two characters powersets interacted, and so forth, making sure your post didn't control the other character's actions (God-Moding, no idea about the source, but it matches how we used to use the term back in the day). To the extent that one board I knew just dispensed with the idea of the character victory, and instead awarded victory based on writing quality.

So to me, rules for fighting and no rules for social interaction don't make the game about fighting and not social interaction, its a natural consequence of it being pretty easy to just have two characters talk, and the other respond, while a fight requires more resolution unless there's perfect agreement on how it should go. You might still spend most of the session happily talking without having to use rules, and then pull out the rules when you need to resolve the once in a blue moon fight, and thats just fine-- no commentary on the kind of fight mechanics a game designed that way would actually want.

 

[Umbran]

You know @Umbran something your posts made me think about is that the cause and effect of "what are rules for" is very different for me than you, you mention that a game about something needs rules for that thing, but in my experience its about when the resolution itself is hard to handle without.

I am not entirely sure these all that separate. As we'll see in a moment...

E.g. I can freeform roleplay and did long before I found TTRPGs, but fights were always awkward since we kind of had to use etiquette to figure out what moves hit, how two characters powersets interacted, and so forth

So, with respect, etiquette is a set of rules. So, you were using rules, just awkward ones. We have to go one level down to see why you need any rules at all.

The broad analogy I'd use is... Cops and Robbers. When kids are all happy, and not terribly invested in any particular outcome, it goes smoothly - fingers get pointed, kids shout "Bang!" and everyone has a good time. So long as nobody cares, we don't need rules.

But eventually, someone actually cares about what the outcome is. Then the arguments start: I shot you! No you didn't! Yes I did! Yeah, well I'm wearing a bullet poof vest, and the bullet bounced off! Oh yeah, well the bullet bounces off the wall and hits you in the eye! Nuh uh, 'cuz I have bulletproof goggles...

Rules exist, in part, to arbitrate and prevent this. We agree upon the mechanism for resolving things, and we have our expectations set, and we eliminate a great many awkward moments. Rules are by no means the only way to do this, but they are a common and handy one.

Thus, when you want a game to be about X, and you tell us it is about X, the people picking it up are likely interested in X. And then, you can expect that folks will eventually care about the outcome of an instance of X. And it will become awkward if you don't have some established way to handle it.

So to me, rules for fighting and no rules for social interaction don't make the game about fighting and not social interaction, its a natural consequence of it being pretty easy to just have two characters talk, and the other respond

When players enter into combat, they have some ideas of what the results might be. They know the rules, can judge risks, chances of success, and so on.

Your system... doesn't have that. The rules are not where the players can see. It is in the opaque system of the GM's judgement. There's no clear way to judge risks, chances of success, or know what the results might be - the player's ability to make informed decisions is extremely limited, unless they've learned how the GM's head works.

Also, if you are writing a system in which these social interactions are supposed to be a significant influence on how the game unfolds... do you want to leave that up to the individual GM? No. You hand the GM a system for those interactions, to help enforce the flavor of experience your game is intended to produce!

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I am not entirely sure these all that separate. As we'll see in a moment...



So, with respect, etiquette is a set of rules. So, you were using rules, just awkward ones. We have to go one level down to see why you need any rules at all.

The broad analogy I'd use is... Cops and Robbers. When kids are all happy, and not terribly invested in any particular outcome, it goes smoothly - fingers get pointed, kids shout "Bang!" and everyone has a good time. So long as nobody cares, we don't need rules.

But eventually, someone actually cares about what the outcome is. Then the arguments start: I shot you! No you didn't! Yes I did! Yeah, well I'm wearing a bullet poof vest, and the bullet bounced off! Oh yeah, well the bullet bounces off the wall and hits you in the eye! Nuh uh, 'cuz I have bulletproof goggles...

Rules exist, in part, to arbitrate and prevent this. We agree upon the mechanism for resolving things, and we have our expectations set, and we eliminate a great many awkward moments. Rules are by no means the only way to do this, but they are a common and handy one.

Thus, when you want a game to be about X, and you tell us it is about X, the people picking it up are likely interested in X. And then, you can expect that folks will eventually care about the outcome of an instance of X. And it will become awkward if you don't have some established way to handle it.



When players enter into combat, they have some ideas of what the results might be. They know the rules, can judge risks, chances of success, and so on.

Your system... doesn't have that. The rules are not where the players can see. It is in the opaque system of the GM's judgement. There's no clear way to judge risks, chances of success, or know what the results might be - the player's ability to make informed decisions is extremely limited, unless they've learned how the GM's head works.

Also, if you are writing a system in which these social interactions are supposed to be a significant influence on how the game unfolds... do you want to leave that up to the individual GM? No. You hand the GM a system for those interactions, to help enforce the flavor of experience your game is intended to produce!

Sorry i should have been clearer, while the etiquette qualifies as rules (I agree with you, and see it as the natural precursor to systematized conflict resolution) the social interactions, the relationships with the characters we spent most of our time on did not have rules (beyond say, forum rules like the ones we have here of course.) So it wouldn't be accurate to say the thing we cared about most was what was recieving the rules, they were largely cultural and some RPs never even needed to pay attention to them.

As for the last paragraph, my thinking is that some things you might want a game to do has to come from the people to be done authentically, and therefore need a light touch from the system, e.g. I have a lot of trouble with games that place mechanics in our character's emotional space because I tend to have a good instinctual grasp on how I want to 'write' my character at any given moment and getting into that spirit. Some people have difficulty with what i find easy, and vice versa but to my mind that makes the role of rules in understanding any given game much more nebulous.