D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[pemerton]

Then what occurred to me is that a lot of participants in this conversation (and others) just seem to take the whole thing a lot more seriously than I do. Which may explain some of the difference in viewpoint. Thinking back to other hobbies I've been involved in, there's always a small contingent of adherents who take the hobby very, very seriously, and get wrapped up in minor philosophical differences and points of ethics. (I've been in that group on occasion.)

Meanwhile, the vast majority of hobbyists just...have fun.

The flip side to this is to characterise that vast majority as playing shallow games.

Either characterisation seems a little invidious to me.

 

[Hussar]

Now, I can certainly agree with what you are saying above.


Contradicting what you say above, though, is your past statements in this very thread, including:

"Insight - tells you that you believe what you are being told."
and
"Any knowledge skill tells you EXACTLY what your character thinks."

How do you reconcile your (seemingly) new stance with these prescriptive statements of how someone must play what their character thinks?

Because there's no contradiction? Or, I'm sorry, but, I'm not seeing one. I roll a Knowledge check of some sort, the mechanics tell me that I know X. That information is going to be used in how I resolve Y. How is that not telling me exactly what I think? Insight tells you that your character believes what he or she is being told (or, conversely disbelieves). Again, how is that not being told what you think?

But, in any case, since we actually agree, then let's move on from there. Since you now agree that, for example, Flaws are a mental mechanic, do you still have issues with mental mechanics?

 

[tetrasodium]

I found this comment (at the end of a much longer post) interesting, and maybe telling.

My first reaction was that I don't really experience table drama around "that's what my character would do", so "offloading and diffusing" it to dice is a solution to a problem I don't have. And that, in turn, feels analogous to how some of these conversations about player knowledge and metagaming go: some of the approaches to "solving" metagaming don't feel useful to me, because I don't see metagaming as a problem in the first place.

Then what occurred to me is that a lot of participants in this conversation (and others) just seem to take the whole thing a lot more seriously than I do. Which may explain some of the difference in viewpoint. Thinking back to other hobbies I've been involved in, there's always a small contingent of adherents who take the hobby very, very seriously, and get wrapped up in minor philosophical differences and points of ethics. (I've been in that group on occasion.)

Meanwhile, the vast majority of hobbyists just...have fun.

And I think that's the group I'm in when it comes to gaming. I just like to have fun. All this stuff about which method of roleplaying is the highest art form, and which methods are major breaches of etiquette, just doesn't get me very excited. I don't like being told that my approach is a low-brow form of roleplaying, but...really...maybe it is. It just sounds like so much work (and, to me, a lot less fun) to try to follow all those rules, and I guess I just don't really appreciate the goal one is striving for by doing so.

If this were a Tolkien forum, I'd be the guy staring blankly at the Tolkien scholars debating whether "Noldor" or "Caliquendi" is the proper term (or whatever it is they argue about) while I'm thinking, "Yeah but Legolas kicked @$$ in the movies."

So, yeah, anyway...I'm bowing out again. Y'all have at it.

I think it's not so much "more serious" as many of those people (myself included) have seen some of the social & role play/character defining mechanics work to positively improve gameplay in other systems. As a result of that experience the half built incomplete baby steps 5e included with things like bomds/ideals/flaws become more jarring & obvious.

For example I as a gm can let a player benefit from their background bifs & so on similar to fate style aspects when it seems thematically appropriate as I'm sure many do at their tables... but if I as a gm feel like the player is playing against those things there is basically nothing I can do to nudge them in appropriate directions like fate style aspects would allow. Being able to do that in fate allows characters to really shine and feel like an individual who is deeply connected to the world as opposed to feeling like a murder hobo who happens to have nepotism strings they can sometimes pull without cost.

 

[Hussar]

If you see a canine you may or may not know what specific species. Dog? Wolf? Coyote or fox? If it's a dog, what breed?

Unless it's been previously established your knowledge of dogs is pretty random. You be may have had a husky as a kid so you know a lot about them, but you wouldn't know a Scottish Terrier from a Jack Russell. You may even know that huskies are some of the most primitive dog breeds and lack the muscles to raise their eyebrows like most dogs.

But do you like dogs? All dogs, just certain types or are you more of a cat person?

Knowing the type of dog may influence your opinion but your emotional response has to do with basic personality traits. How do you react to the dog? Fear? Even if it seems friendly? Call it over to scratch it's head or back away carefully?

One is just information you may or may not know. The other is how you respond or feel.

But I've answered this multiple times. I'm not going to answer again.

How do you know if your character likes dogs?

That's the gist of the issue right there. How do you know that? Was it established during character generation? Did you just decide that your character likes dogs? Now, if your character has a flaw along the lines of "doesn't like dogs", aren't the mechanics now telling you the emotional state of your character?

Now, "I don't like dogs" doesn't force you to do anything. But, by and large, that information will be incorporated into play. And it will be rewarded through inspiration.

Again, for the umpteenth time, mental mechanics do not force you to do anything by and large. They aren't mind control. They simply inform you how the character works, same as any other mechanic.

 

[pemerton]

how a character feels or reacts to outside stimuli defines who that character is as a (fictional) person. By contrast, whether or not a character has been in a situation where they learned a particular factoid about the campaign setting (and/or whether or not they remember that factoid) does not define who that character is as a (fictional) person.

So a mechanic that tells you how your character feels or reacts I see as redefining a character in a way that a mechanic that tells you if your character knows a particular bit of lore does not.

I'll put to one side possible counter-examples to your account of what defines a character (eg perhaps a character is defined as always knowing every last scrap of trivia).

As was posted way upthread, one function of a game system like Burning Wheel (or even Prince Valiant, though it's less intense) is to put pressure on who the character is, including in the sense you've defined that.

I quoted the relevant text from the Burning Wheel rulebook; here it is again (p 9 of Gold; Revised is the same):

In the game, players take on the roles of characters inspired by history and works of fantasy fiction. These characters are a list of abilities rated with numbers and a list of player-determined priorities [ie Relationships, Beliefs, Instincts, some traits, etc]. The synergy of inspiration, imagination, numbers and priorities is the most fundamental element of Burning Wheel. Expressing these numbers and priorities within situations presented by the game master (GM) is what the game is all about. . . .

There are consequences to your choices in this game. They range from the very black and white, "If I engage in this duel, my character might die," to the more complex, "If my character undertakes this task, he'll be changed, and I don't know exactly how." Recognizing that the system enforces these choices will help you navigate play. I always encourage players to think before they test their characters. Are you prepared to accept the consequences of your actions?

The in-game consequences of the players' decisions are described in this rulebook. The moral ramifications are left to you.​

I think it's obvious that this is presenting an approach to RPGing, to the place of the character in the fiction, and to the player's relationship to their PC, which is pretty different from default D&D. I posted this example/illustration not far upthread:

Upthread I've posted (inter alia) an account of my PC's prayer to restore vigour to his mother. The immediate trigger for this, in play, was that the GM was about to start a Duel of Wits in which Xanthippe (Thurgon's mother) was going to implore Thurgon (my PC) not to leave her alone again. The prayer had weight in itself, because (mechanically) is was slightly more likely to fail than to succeed and (in the fiction) having it go unheard in such a moment of crisis would have been devastating for Thurgon (and there are mechanical ways, too, to follow through on that). But it also had weight because of what would happen if it failed - I (as Thurgon) would be drawn into an argument about my past and future behaviour (I was not going to walk out on my mother, when this was the first time I'd seen here in five years!) and there was no guarantee I would win it! (Thurgon is not terrible at social actions but not great at them either. And Aramina probably would have helped Thurgon, but only by saying cruel things to Xanthippe, which would have been hard too!)

D&D characters are not expected to change. (I quoted some AD&D text upthread which emphasises the importance of not changing, especially in relation to alignment.)

In other RPGs this is not necessarily the case: characters are expected to change, or to be revealed, in ways that outstrip any single participant's authorial control. (Much as, in D&D, combat is normally expected to unfold in ways that outstrip any single participant's authorial control - hence controversies around "fudging".)

In aesthetic terms, this can be looked at both "internally" and "externally". Internally, it may help produce the type of emotionally laden play that @Campbell and I have tried to articulate upthread. Externally, it may produce a shared fiction that has a higher degree of drama and thematic content, compared to an adventure story in which the interest and excitement flows primarily from the thrilling action rather than the inner struggles of the protagonists.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So I have a question for the thread. Do you guys all use the Flaws that are part of the character details? Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws- as written, if the player uses these details in portraying their character, they get Inspiration, which can be used to make any roll with Advantage.

So my question is…what do you expect a player to do with a Flaw?

Do you expect it to be meaningful to play? Is it just window dressing? If they say that they’re filled with rage, does that mean they just yell at the innkeeper? Or does it cause complications for them and their friends?

If you feel something like a Flaw should matter…and I feel like nearly everyone who’s posted in this thread has talked in some way about the importance of portraying one’s character…then how do your games handle Flaws?

Do you ignore all the Traits and Bonds and Flaws in favor of just standard character portrayal without any carrots?

Do you reward someone who adds a bit of their Flaw as flavor when they portray their character, even if it ultimately has no real impact on the given scene?

Do you only reward Inspiration when the Flaw is portrayed in some meaningful way? Where the scene in question is largely about the Flaw? Or that the Flaw somehow complicates things for the PC and/or party?

Do you do something else?

I’m curious how different groups handle this.

 

[pemerton]

I’m curious how different groups handle this.

Are replies that talk about non-D&D systems relevant to your inquiry here?

 

[Maxperson]

Can you elaborate? I’m not following this; are you speaking as a DM or player? It also seems to be about what you know; what about the character?

When do you deploy dice?

I missed this in the flurry of notifications today!

As a player if the DM tells me that my PC doesn't know something, I accept that and simply move on with whatever I'm doing, but without acting on that knowledge. That means that I have to put myself into my PCs shoes and figure out how he would act under those circumstances. It's not perfect, but it's pretty doable. If I'm told that he does know that information, it makes my decision easier as I don't have to try and figure out what the PC would do without it before making my decision.

If the outcome is in doubt there is generally a roll involving the appropriate ability and skill. Success or failure leads to one of the above.

 

[Maxperson]

So I have a question for the thread. Do you guys all use the Flaws that are part of the character details? Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws- as written, if the player uses these details in portraying their character, they get Inspiration, which can be used to make any roll with Advantage.

No. We do use the traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, but I have a house rule for the reward. When someone in my game rolls a 1, that's fate. I have a fate deck of a few hundred MTG cards that fit the theme of D&D and can impact the game, and when a 1 is rolled they draw a card from that deck. I then interpret the card for the circumstances and the best use that I see for it will happen, whether that beneficial for the PC(fate smiles) or detrimental(fate is against them). A Shatter card could potentially break the PCs sword or the enemy's shield. If the card does not make sense, I swap it for one of the 4 behind my screen that I draw at the beginning of the night. I can use the 4 behind the screen if a very appropriate moment comes up, and again it can be for them or against them.

Back on topic. Instead of inspiration rewarding the player with yawn inspiring advantage, they get to draw and keep a card with them. They can then use that card like I do, but it will be beneficial to them. So back again to the Shatter card, if that was the card the player had and they found themselves trying to break a stone door in a hurry, he could play that card and a major flaw deep in the stone would cause the door to shatter much more quickly and easily than it otherwise would.

I used to do normal inspiration, but I decided to switch it up for the new campaign to see how it would work out.

 

[Aldarc]

I found this comment (at the end of a much longer post) interesting, and maybe telling.

My first reaction was that I don't really experience table drama around "that's what my character would do", so "offloading and diffusing" it to dice is a solution to a problem I don't have. And that, in turn, feels analogous to how some of these conversations about player knowledge and metagaming go: some of the approaches to "solving" metagaming don't feel useful to me, because I don't see metagaming as a problem in the first place.

Then what occurred to me is that a lot of participants in this conversation (and others) just seem to take the whole thing a lot more seriously than I do. Which may explain some of the difference in viewpoint. Thinking back to other hobbies I've been involved in, there's always a small contingent of adherents who take the hobby very, very seriously, and get wrapped up in minor philosophical differences and points of ethics. (I've been in that group on occasion.)

Meanwhile, the vast majority of hobbyists just...have fun.

And I think that's the group I'm in when it comes to gaming. I just like to have fun. All this stuff about which method of roleplaying is the highest art form, and which methods are major breaches of etiquette, just doesn't get me very excited. I don't like being told that my approach is a low-brow form of roleplaying, but...really...maybe it is. It just sounds like so much work (and, to me, a lot less fun) to try to follow all those rules, and I guess I just don't really appreciate the goal one is striving for by doing so.

If this were a Tolkien forum, I'd be the guy staring blankly at the Tolkien scholars debating whether "Noldor" or "Caliquendi" is the proper term (or whatever it is they argue about) while I'm thinking, "Yeah but Legolas kicked @$$ in the movies."

So, yeah, anyway...I'm bowing out again. Y'all have at it.

I'm not comfortable with the insinuation of your characterization here. I think it does a huge disservice to everyone involved.

I don't think that how I play at the table or the reasons why are fundamentally all that different from yours. I play for fun. I definitely don't view one bit of roleplaying as a higher art form than other.

My ability to articulate my stance on metagaming, for example, is less a factor of whether I take something seriously or not, but, rather, a by-product from having to defend my gaming preferences for 19 years on ENWorld and elsewhere from people who accused me and games I like with meta-game mechanics as "badwrongfun" or "not actually roleplaying." Not to mention having the audacity of liking 4e D&D during the Edition Wars on the internet.

As you say, the vast majority of hobbyists just... have fun. The vast majority of hobbyists don't care one iota whether or not a game has social/mental mechanics. A tiny sliver of people who have an opinion on that being bad fun for them are in this thread. Everyone else is having fun with the mechanics when they pop up.

But just because I play for fun does not mean that I have not participated in tables where a person's roleplay was up for debate as disruptive or that I am somhow blissfully ignorant of "that's what my character would do" excuse for disruptive behavior. Even when I play for fun or my friends it doesn't mean that I don't feel pressure when it comes to playing my character with integrity.

Put succinctly, in my opinion, how a character feels or reacts to outside stimuli defines who that character is as a (fictional) person. By contrast, whether or not a character has been in a situation where they learned a particular factoid about the campaign setting (and/or whether or not they remember that factoid) does not define who that character is as a (fictional) person.

I'm not sure if I really see this distinction as being one with much difference. Using myself as an example, my knowledge feels as much a part of me and who I am as a person as my emotions and temperament. Plus whether or not I remember an important factoid in a moment is as much the same to me as whether I am cool in the moment or if my temper flares, even if I am an overall cool, evenly-tempered person. Me being able to remember a fact or not may also say something about my temperament or emotions in a given moment: e.g., "I'm so mad that it's hard to think."