D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Bill Zebub]

I was specifically referring how such a character feels to me to play, as opposed to any sort of external view of that character.

Experiential vs Performative roleplaying, nicely summarized.

 

[Oofta]

Interesting. Who actually suggested a change to D&D itself, explicitly?

It repeatedly comes up on this forum which is specific to D&D. I don't see a lot of reason for it to be repeatedly raised on this forum unless people think it would benefit the game.

If it's not relevant to D&D, why raise it as a topic? It would be like discussing which off-road vehicles are best on a forum dedicated to sports cars.

I think some of the ideas presented could be fleshed out and rules to implement them in D&D could be useful for some people. I just think it would be best as a separate plus thread or in the DmsGuild.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's very reasonable. As you noted, our stylistic preferences simply happen to diverge. I simply find it fascinating that such preferences can be so diametrically opposed to each other to the extent that a mechanic that one person feels promotes fluid, in-depth, and organic characters another feels results in disjointed, superficial, and artifical characters. Stylistic differences abound when it comes to RPGs, but this one seems to be notably stark.

I've followed this discussion, and one thing missing, to me, is what kinds of mechanics are being discussed, here. If you're talking about mechanics that are like button presses that reach in and rewrite characters, then, yeah, I'm onboard -- those suck. Things like 3e's diplomancer are pretty bad when aimed at NPCs, but if aimed at PCs, they're just horrid. So, if that's what is being meant by "mechanics that change characters," then wholehearted support!

But the range is a tad wider. Going with heavy mechanical systems you could look at the Duel of Wits in Burning Wheel. This is a pretty hefty mechanical setup, with multiple go rounds to resolve a social conflict. The operative point is both sides want something from the other side, and this is staked and known at the start -- if the other side wins they convince/cajole/intimidate/seduce you and get their way and this is binding. But you know this going it, and the argument is always going to be something that is important to your character because of how Burning Wheel works -- the game focuses on the characters and their conflicts. So, in this example, you can lose a DoW and find out that you now have been convinced of the other sides' argument. A great example was in a recently linked podcast (sorry, lost it) where a character went to convince an ex to give up their revolutionary effort. The counter stakes were that the character gets back together with the ex and supports their efforts. This is cool, and entirely reasonable within the fiction and within consideration of how people act, but, more importantly, the player entered into this contest willingly and with known stakes. Would that make a difference?

Another possibility is a game like Blades in the Dark. If you burn all your stress in a score, you're out of the score -- the player gets to narrate how/why they exit the score. But, crucially, this is meant to be a traumatizing event, and so your character picks up a trauma: a negative attribute that is a source of further conflict and problems for that character. For example, my character was in a score to place a bomb and get out, and could have done so, but discovered the presence of an innocent captive in the target location after delivering the bomb. I chose to try to save the innocent by shielding them and setting off the bomb, hoping I could resist the effects (too much mechanics on how this works to go into). I failed and stress out, narrating I was blown out of the building and into a nearby canal. Because of this, my character picked up the trauma of reckless -- which is not the best trait for a smuggler and has, indeed, caused quite a number of problems. But, crucially, I understood that this was a risk prior to taking the action -- I could have chosen to just blow up the place and not save the innocent and my goal would have been accomplished, but I'd have discovered my character is pretty ruthless. I mean, he is, but he also has an apparent soft spot for Skovlan innocents caught up in yet more attempts to restart the rebellion.

When we're talking about mechanics that can alter your character or impose lasting consequences, I think it's a good thing to get a tad more specific, otherwise large misperceptions can accrue and cement. It's fine if none of these are acceptable, but I'd rather investigate and find out.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It repeatedly comes up on this forum which is specific to D&D. I don't see a lot of reason for it to be repeatedly raised on this forum unless people think it would benefit the game.

If it's not relevant to D&D, why raise it as a topic? It would be like discussing which off-road vehicles are best on a forum dedicated to sports cars.

I think some of the ideas presented could be fleshed out and rules to implement them in D&D could be useful for some people. I just think it would be best as a separate plus thread or in the DmsGuild.

 

[loverdrive]

Not only do we not have full control over our emotions, but we are often unaware of our subconscious decision-making, and we invent "rational" explanations for our choices after the fact.

Which is why I keep scratching my head over this "what the character would do" thing. Basically any behavior could qualify, and if we're telling an adventure story often the highly improbable options can be the most interesting ones.

While real people often act in very weird and uncharacteristic ways, that's generally not how Homo Fictus, as that Frey fella calls them, work. I'd post a quote from his book, but I don't have an English copy, so I'm going to paraphrase.

Homo Fictus aren't like Homo Sapiens. Characters should'be like us, beings of flesh and blood. The reader wants something exceptional, something dramatic -- nobody cares about the mundane. The reader wants Homo Fictus to be more beautiful or more ugly, more honorable or more lying, more evil or more good than any real man. Homo Fictus burns hotter, travels farther, falls in love like a princess and f###s like an animal. Even if the character isn't that bright, even if he's supposed to be dull and boring, he'll have a huge headstart over his "real" doppelganger.

Real people are inconsistent, weird and unpredictable: one moment, they're happy and then the next heartbeat they're in the deepest pits of despair. Our mood changes with every breath. Homo Fictus? Homo Fictus can be complex, changing or even mysterious, but they are always clear to the reader. Otherwise, nobody's going to finish your book.

I personally, and I guess a whole lot of people, want my character to be more like a Homo Fictus and less like a Homo Sapiens. I want them consistent, dramatic, changing. I want every their action, every their word reflect something about them and how their adventures have changed them.

Achieving that goal requires thinking about what character would do in more of story terms than, uhm, me terms. When I'm playing LoFP and travelling through Veins of the Earth, though, I don't think about that stuff. I don't care. I know a thing or two about caving? Fine! I guess my character had some kind of applicable experience now too. I end up with a series of fun anecdotes, but I wouldn't read a book about my character and it isn't my goal when playing that game.

So, if you were scratching your head, you can stop now. It's bad for your hair.

 

[Umbran]

It repeatedly comes up on this forum which is specific to D&D. I don't see a lot of reason for it to be repeatedly raised on this forum unless people think it would benefit the game.

Yeah, folks talk about rules variants that might be applied at their tables all the time. How often should people need to demonstrate that there's a "hue and cry" for a rules variant to justify discussing it?

 

[Bill Zebub]

I personally, and I guess a whole lot of people, want my character to be more like a Homo Fictus and less like a Homo Sapiens. I want them consistent, dramatic, changing. I want every their action, every their word reflect something about them and how their adventures have changed them.
Achieving that goal requires thinking about what character would do in more of story terms than, uhm, me terms. When I'm playing LoFP and travelling through Veins of the Earth, though, I don't think about that naughty word. I don't care. I know a thing or two about caving? Fine! I guess my character had some kind of applicable experience now too. I end up with a series of fun anecdotes, but I wouldn't read a book about my character and it isn't my goal when playing that game.

I agree with all of the above. In refuting the idea of an objective answer to "what would the character do" I'm not arguing for incoherence, just pointing out that perfect coherence is boringly...well...one-dimensional.

A lot of the arguments I'm seeing amount to policing of roleplaying, at least as they come across to me, which in turn seems like a trust issue. I think everything you said above is exactly correct, but it also has to be in the hands of the author. If we can't trust the author to try to find a compelling balance between "consistent" and "changing"...if we can't (to put it crudely) trust the player to decide for themselves whether or not their character knows to burn trolls...then maybe we shouldn't be playing with that person.

If we do trust them, if we do trust they are trying to create a character in which they feel immersed, then when they choose an action that surprises us...an action that we ourselves wouldn't have chosen...our reaction shouldn't be "Your character wouldn't do that!" but rather "Oh! That's interesting. There's more to that character than I realized."

 

[Xetheral]

I've followed this discussion, and one thing missing, to me, is what kinds of mechanics are being discussed, here. If you're talking about mechanics that are like button presses that reach in and rewrite characters, then, yeah, I'm onboard -- those suck. Things like 3e's diplomancer are pretty bad when aimed at NPCs, but if aimed at PCs, they're just horrid. So, if that's what is being meant by "mechanics that change characters," then wholehearted support!

But the range is a tad wider. Going with heavy mechanical systems you could look at the Duel of Wits in Burning Wheel. This is a pretty hefty mechanical setup, with multiple go rounds to resolve a social conflict. The operative point is both sides want something from the other side, and this is staked and known at the start -- if the other side wins they convince/cajole/intimidate/seduce you and get their way and this is binding. But you know this going it, and the argument is always going to be something that is important to your character because of how Burning Wheel works -- the game focuses on the characters and their conflicts. So, in this example, you can lose a DoW and find out that you now have been convinced of the other sides' argument. A great example was in a recently linked podcast (sorry, lost it) where a character went to convince an ex to give up their revolutionary effort. The counter stakes were that the character gets back together with the ex and supports their efforts. This is cool, and entirely reasonable within the fiction and within consideration of how people act, but, more importantly, the player entered into this contest willingly and with known stakes. Would that make a difference?

Another possibility is a game like Blades in the Dark. If you burn all your stress in a score, you're out of the score -- the player gets to narrate how/why they exit the score. But, crucially, this is meant to be a traumatizing event, and so your character picks up a trauma: a negative attribute that is a source of further conflict and problems for that character. For example, my character was in a score to place a bomb and get out, and could have done so, but discovered the presence of an innocent captive in the target location after delivering the bomb. I chose to try to save the innocent by shielding them and setting off the bomb, hoping I could resist the effects (too much mechanics on how this works to go into). I failed and stress out, narrating I was blown out of the building and into a nearby canal. Because of this, my character picked up the trauma of reckless -- which is not the best trait for a smuggler and has, indeed, caused quite a number of problems. But, crucially, I understood that this was a risk prior to taking the action -- I could have chosen to just blow up the place and not save the innocent and my goal would have been accomplished, but I'd have discovered my character is pretty ruthless. I mean, he is, but he also has an apparent soft spot for Skovlan innocents caught up in yet more attempts to restart the rebellion.

When we're talking about mechanics that can alter your character or impose lasting consequences, I think it's a good thing to get a tad more specific, otherwise large misperceptions can accrue and cement. It's fine if none of these are acceptable, but I'd rather investigate and find out.

In the post I was originally responding to, @Aldarc said:

When I accept that my character concept may change as a result of the mechanics, my character feels as if they become more fluid, dynamic, fleshed-out, and organic.

This statement reads to me as covering the whole gamut of mechanics that directly change a character concept (as opposed to having the mechanics control what happens, and the player determining the impact on the character). Accordingly, I tried to keep my response at the same level of generality.

If you are asking whether I would consider the two examples you provided to be mechanics that directly impact a character concept, my answer would be yes, I do. In the BW case your character's political allegiances were subject to dictate by the game mechanics. In the BitD case the game mechanics dictated that you acquire a new personality trait. That in both cases you knew the stakes beforehand doesn't influence my categorization of those mechanics as ones that directly change a character concept.

 

[pemerton]

If you remove the board, it is no longer a board game. You can change or remove anything else without affecting the game in that way. So yes, the board is the single most important thing about a board game.

The ICE game Middle Earth: The Wizards doesn't use a board. (It can use a map, but that is optional.) Still, the easiest way to introduce that game to someone who knows a little bit about games would be to say that it is a board game that uses cards.

Likewise for a tile-based game like Mystic Wood or Forbidden Island - there is no board in the strict sense, but they play as board games. Eg Mystic Wood is rather like Talisman except its fun!

 

[pemerton]

It may be weird to you, but it has come up in discussion with fellow gamers. People don't want to be told what their PC think or feel. It's come up on this forum with people that hate being told they wouldn't do something because of their alignment. It's come up in discussions of Critical Role how people don't like how Matt will sometimes tell people what they feel.

Personally? I would not like it. I guess you could do a survey to get a better idea, but I think being totally in control of your PC is fundamental to the game. As far as PCs being emotionless, I'm not sure what to say. Most people show plenty of emotion, nothing needs to be forced upon them. To me it would be weird if the game dictated that my PC was [insert emotion] instead of it being something my PC would feel.

Different strokes and all.

I didn't say my view was typical, or even widely shared. I said that I find - in a game in which characters are supposed to matter - that being able to control my PC's emotions weird. If I'm playing a game in which characters are supposed to matter, then I want to inhabit my character. And part of inhabiting my character is experiencing what they experience. And one thing that a person normally doesn't experience is choosing their emotions.