D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Umbran]

In the context of most D&D play, the conflation is not wrong: the goal of play is to succeed at "the mission"...

The goal of play may be to succeed at "the mission". The purpose of play, however, is not the same as the goal of play.

If they succeed at the mission, but he players have a miserable time, would you call that a successful RPG session? Probably not. So, the conflation really needs to be questioned.

 

[Oofta]

And therein begins a potentially endless loop where I'm playing a character who is playing me playing a character playing me playing ... [etc.]

There are lines of thought that our reality is really just a simulation (some place the odds at 50-50). So you could be right, we are just PCs in someone's VAD&D (Very Advanced D&D) game. Of course they could also just be simulations. It's just PCs all the way down.

 

[Umbran]

You opened the door.

"You started it," isn't exactly a great argument. I mentioned a thing, as an aside - literally a footnote. That doesn't mean a full sub-discussion is a great idea.

 

[Umbran]

There are lines of thought that our reality is really just a simulation (some place the odds at 50-50). So you could be right, we are just PCs in someone's VAD&D (Very Advanced D&D) game. Of course they could also just be simulations. It's just PCs all the way down.

Meh. Most of us are probably the NPC set dressing.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It's the whole meta-gaming argument again; and I think we already know we're on opposite sides there.

Yes, you are right, so I'll step off that merry-go-round now.

I fully acknowledge there are different types of roleplaying. What drives me crazy is the attitude of some people that their version of it is the highest or best form. Sometimes this is expressed as a claim that other forms are not actually roleplaying. But even when there's grudging acknowledgement that "playing the role of a wizard" (for example) is technically roleplaying, there's still an attempt to create a hierarchy. (E.g., the number of dimensions, or "Roleplaying vs. roleplaying" or whatever.). Why? Why the insistence that some forms are harder/better/more mature/etc.? Why is it so important that one form be acknowledged as superior? Why so much smug?

I shouldn't care what other people think, but I do like engaging in discussion about a hobby I love, and that is less rewarding when a subset of the community insists on looking down its collective nose.

 

[Oofta]

Meh. Most of us are probably the NPC set dressing.

Well obviously you are an NPC in my instance of the game.

 

[Oofta]

Yes, you are right, so I'll step off that merry-go-round now.

I fully acknowledge there are different types of roleplaying. What drives me crazy is the attitude of some people that their version of it is the highest or best form. Sometimes this is expressed as a claim that other forms are not actually roleplaying. But even when there's grudging acknowledgement that "playing the role of a wizard" (for example) is technically roleplaying, there's still an attempt to create a hierarchy. (E.g., the number of dimensions, or "Roleplaying vs. roleplaying" or whatever.). Why? Why the insistence that some forms are harder/better/more mature/etc.? Why is it so important that one form be acknowledged as superior? Why so much smug?

I shouldn't care what other people think, but I do like engaging in discussion about a hobby I love, and that is less rewarding when a subset of the community insists on looking down its collective nose.

There is no one true definition of role playing any more than there is one true way to play the game. The only thing that really matters is if you and your group are enjoying the hobby. I wouldn't consider someone who only thinks of their PC as a token and a set of numbers a role player, but it also doesn't really make a difference.

But yes, I agree with the general idea that there always seems to be this underlying assumption that there is some ideal form of playing the game, no matter how you define it.

 

[Charlaquin]

"You started it," isn't exactly a great argument. I mentioned a thing, as an aside - literally a footnote. That doesn't mean a full sub-discussion is a great idea.

I wasn’t intending to start a whole sub-discussion, just to correct the misinformation you presented in your aside.

 

[pemerton]

The goal of play may be to succeed at "the mission". The purpose of play, however, is not the same as the goal of play.

If they succeed at the mission, but he players have a miserable time, would you call that a successful RPG session? Probably not. So, the conflation really needs to be questioned.

If people are playing a game with the goal of succeeding at the mission, and they have a miserable time playing, then don't they need to revisit their choice of game?

I don't see that RPGs are very different from other games in this respect.

 

[pemerton]

I fully acknowledge there are different types of roleplaying. What drives me crazy is the attitude of some people that their version of it is the highest or best form. Sometimes this is expressed as a claim that other forms are not actually roleplaying. But even when there's grudging acknowledgement that "playing the role of a wizard" (for example) is technically roleplaying, there's still an attempt to create a hierarchy. (E.g., the number of dimensions, or "Roleplaying vs. roleplaying" or whatever.). Why? Why the insistence that some forms are harder/better/more mature/etc.? Why is it so important that one form be acknowledged as superior? Why so much smug?

I shouldn't care what other people think, but I do like engaging in discussion about a hobby I love, and that is less rewarding when a subset of the community insists on looking down its collective nose.

I fully agree with you that playing a wizard in a dungeon is roleplaying.

And from our crossing of paths on some of these recent threads you've probably worked out I'm not a big fan of characterisation-for-the-sake-of-it.

But I don't think these are reasons not to engage in aesthetic judgement. Some movies are undoubtedly movies, yet aren't very good - they don't reveal or even really hint at the full aesthetic possibility of cinema. My own view is that, as soon as one is looking at RPGing through a lens other than that of board/wargaming - eg by starting to think about the quality of the fiction and the stories it generates - then it is reasonable to think about what sorts of approaches are better or worse for realising the aesthetic potential.

That's not to say we have to be all peaks all the time, but I think it's reasonable to note the difference between (say) playing Castle Amber and playing an intense session of Burning Wheel.