D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[pemerton]

I've tried to adapt it a bit or alter how it works or fits into the game, but no matter what, it ultimately feels very tacked on. It doesn't have any grip to it at all, it seems.

I don't see that there is much point in defining characters by giving them BIFT-type descriptors, and trying to make that matter in mechanical terms, if the overall context of play is going to remain that of standard D&D adventuring.

Think about something as suitable for FRPGing as I want to restore pride to my once-noble family. This reminds us, in various ways or to various degrees, of such mainstream fantasy characters as Aragorn, Boromir, Thorin, Sturm Brightblade, some versions of Robin Hood. Tweak it a bit - change it from restore pride to lift shame - and we can see the affinity with Galadriel, samurai tropes, Hamlet, etc. What I'm trying to convey here is that this is pretty core stuff, and so shouldn't be seen as problematic for a FRPG character.

But how would this come into play in, say, Lost Mines of Phandelver or Out of the Abyss? Or Keep on the Borderland. Or even a "story" module like Dead Gods. Or an event-based one like Speaker in Dreams? In any of these it would just sit there dangling. I mean, maybe the player references their PC's back story from time-to-time; maybe the GM even throws in something like a NPC who knew the PC's mother. That won't change the fact that the game is fundamentally about something else.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't see that there is much point in defining characters by giving them BIFT-type descriptors, and trying to make that matter in mechanical terms, if the overall context of play is going to remain that of standard D&D adventuring.

It may be a lost cause. I think it can be done in either the GM is largely tailoring the adventure to incorporate the PCs' BIFTs (but then I imagine that wouldn't be considered standard D&D) or if the players select from pregenerated BIFTs designed to fit them into the adventure in some way (Pathfinder's adventure paths usually offer such options).

Think about something as suitable for FRPGing as I want to restore pride to my once-noble family. This reminds us, in various ways or to various degrees, of such mainstream fantasy characters as Aragorn, Boromir, Thorin, Sturm Brightblade, some versions of Robin Hood. Tweak it a bit - change it from restore pride to lift shame - and we can see the affinity with Galadriel, samurai tropes, Hamlet, etc. What I'm trying to convey here is that this is pretty core stuff, and so shouldn't be seen as problematic for a FRPG character.

Absolutely. To me, this stuff seems to be fundamental to the kinds of source material D&D draws from.

But how would this come into play in, say, Lost Mines of Phandelver or Out of the Abyss? Or Keep on the Borderland. Or even a "story" module like Dead Gods. Or an event-based one like Speaker in Dreams? In any of these it would just sit there dangling. I mean, maybe the player references their PCs back story from time-to-time; maybe the GM even throws in something like a NPC who knew the PC's mother. That won't change the fact that the game is fundamentally about something else.

Probably either some manner of GM tailoring or PC constraint as I described above. Or just by not playing through pre-written material.

 

[tetrasodium]

It may be a lost cause. I think it can be done in either the GM is largely tailoring the adventure to incorporate the PCs' BIFTs (but then I imagine that wouldn't be considered standard D&D) or if the players select from pregenerated BIFTs designed to fit them into the adventure in some way (Pathfinder's adventure paths usually offer such options).



Absolutely. To me, this stuff seems to be fundamental to the kinds of source material D&D draws from.



Probably either some manner of GM tailoring or PC constraint as I described above. Or just by not playing through pre-written material.

I don't think it could be done without teaching players how to create new ones. I just looked in the fate core rules (free download). The character high concept has a full page dedicated to how to pick & use one. The trouble aspect another page. General character aspects has another page that technically also applies to the first two aspects. Then there is the seven pages for the phase trio where players kinda work together to weave their aspects together into past adventures & past interactions with each other. This is all before the twenty seven pages about aspects themselves.

Correcting the god awful choices of BIFTs is a very nontrivial problem that one would need to tackle first because the example ones are so god awful bad & generally completely pointless. Unfortunately that needs to be corrected before you can even start trying to teach enough of the 40 or so pages to convey their use.

The first thing I'd do to fix it in a way that could be quickly & easily conveyed is:

• Here are 638 primary personality traits & google has many more links with what is likely the same list if you search for 638 personality traits.
• Pick three personality traits that describe your character's personality.
• Add two adjectives that describe the character's physical appearance.
• What does your character want.
• What does your character not want.

Doing that skips over the need to explain aspects & condenses it down to something players can write with a marker in big letters on folded note cards or something so everyone can see. It might not be good, but it at least partially sidesteps the problem of being irrelevant to play that @pemerton noted in #941

 

[pemerton]

It may be a lost cause. I think it can be done in either the GM is largely tailoring the adventure to incorporate the PCs' BIFTs (but then I imagine that wouldn't be considered standard D&D) or if the players select from pregenerated BIFTs designed to fit them into the adventure in some way (Pathfinder's adventure paths usually offer such options).

<snip>

Probably either some manner of GM tailoring or PC constraint as I described above. Or just by not playing through pre-written material.

I'm not familiar with how PF offers up pre-generated BIFTs. I can imagine - by extrapolation from the ways I've seen adventure hooks presented over the years - but would be happy to hear more about it! I'm not per-se hostile to pregens; but given the constraints of the standard D&D-esque adventure I would still begin from a position of doubt about the prospects of successfully creating BIFT-integrated play just by constraining them at the start.

Which goes to tailoring. That does drift some way from standard D&D, but (as per the last sentence of the previous paragraph) I think the issue is more than just tailoring. It's about how content is chosen, how adversity is presented, how the sequence of events is established. This goes to who has what sort of authorial power, and when do they exercise it? (Eg in advance of play?) Some of this is cultural, but it also feeds into actual systems: consider the hostility, for instance, to 4e D&D "wishlists" - but how else is a D&D-ish game going to give us an Excalibur or Anduril-type arc?

And authorial power also feeds into resolution mechanics, and therefore back to some of the recent discussions in this thread! What sort of influence do players exercise via these mechanics? How are outcomes established; and who do they constrain?

Different ways of answering these questions produce different sorts of experience. And I think only some answers will produce a game which is about, eg restoring the pride of my once-noble family.

 

[Hussar]

Well the issue with canned modules is that as written of course they don’t deal with specific characters.

To do so, you need to rewrite the modules somewhat to make them apply to the characters.

 

[pemerton]

Well the issue with canned modules is that as written of course they don’t deal with specific characters.

To do so, you need to rewrite the modules somewhat to make them apply to the characters.

As I've posted just upthread, I've got doubts that this is enough in itself.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm not familiar with how PF offers up pre-generated BIFTs. I can imagine - by extrapolation from the ways I've seen adventure hooks presented over the years - but would be happy to hear more about it! I'm not per-se hostile to pregens; but given the constraints of the standard D&D-esque adventure I would still begin from a position of doubt about the prospects of successfully creating BIFT-integrated play just by constraining them at the start.

Not that I'm advocating for Pathfinder or the Adventure Path model, but I spent enough time running or playing them to have an idea about this. And while they certainly don't do something along the lines you're describing, what they do is take a standard D&D style adventure and then they offer background traits that players can select which will directly connect with some of the elements in play. So it fosters a bit of character based decision making in play, the kind which is typically absent from this kind of play.

It's not very robust, though. Hence my mentioning it along with 5E's BIFTs.

Which goes to tailoring. That does drift some way from standard D&D, but (as per the last sentence of the previous paragraph) I think the issue is more than just tailoring. It's about how content is chosen, how adversity is presented, how the sequence of events is established. This goes to who has what sort of authorial power, and when do they exercise it? (Eg in advance of play?) Some of this is cultural, but it also feeds into actual systems: consider the hostility, for instance, to 4e D&D "wishlists" - but how else is a D&D-ish game going to give us an Excalibur or Anduril-type arc?

Well, I think I meant tailoring those kinds of elements that you italicized. If a GM chooses content in a way that is based on what the players are interested in, or if he outright asks the players what they want, then I think that's a start. The same with establishing adversity and the sequence of events.

But all of this is a departure from standard D&D play and expectations, for sure.

 

[Hussar]

As I've posted just upthread, I've got doubts that this is enough in itself.

Well, obviously some modules might lend themselves towards certain concepts better than others. By the same token, if you want to play "Heroes of the Lance" - as in you are playing epic fantasy, cast of thousands, fate of the world stuff, then the Dragonlance modules can certainly be a good place to start. And, in that vein, everyone kinda has to be on board at the outset. No amount of changing the modules is going to work if the player's concept is, "I want to stay home and tend my farm".

But, at the end of the day, it is certainly possible. If the adventures are tied more closely to the characters themselves, and the characters are created in such a way that they are actually embedded into the campaign (as in they aren't so generic that they can be easily replaced), then it can work.

Granted, a lot of other games go the other direction - start with the characters and then move from there. D&D doesn't lend itself to that sort of play very well though. Far, far too crunchy and virtually no support in the game to do it that way.

 

[Aldarc]

Because my point that you bolded is specific to my approach to defining a character as a person, I don't think it makes sense to apply it to the wider discourse. Everyone is going to have their own opinion on what defines a character as a person.

From my perspective, having the quality of being "a great swordsman" does not require connecting with every attack roll, just as having the quality of being "knowledgeable" doesn't require knowing every obscure fact. The game mechanics are simply used to determine which specific attacks hit and which specific obscure facts are known. By contrast, I see having the quality of being "cool under pressure" as requiring a fundamentally higher level of consistency that reliance on random resolution can't provide.

In other words, I see having the quality of being "cool under pressure" as implying a degree of dependability that is contradicted by the uncertainty involved when relying on a game mechanic for resolution. So if there's sufficient uncertainty that you need a game mechanic to determine whether a character stays cool in a particular situation, then, from my perspective, that character isn't cool under that type of pressure.

I understand the parallel that you see between hitting in combat and staying cool under pressure, and I respect it, even though they don't look parallel to me based on how I approach defining a character as a person. Do you understand the difference I see between hitting in combat and staying cool under pressure, even though they look parallel to you based on how you approach defining a character as a person?

If so, great! We've reached mutual understanding. If not, and you have follow-up questions to try to better understand the difference I see, I'll do my best to explain. If you don't understand the difference I see and don't want to continue discussing it, that's also fine with me, I just ask that you accept that the difference is real to me and informs my preferences with regards to game mechanics.

I get that you are trying to make a distinction between these two things, but I am having difficulty seeing a difference. If a distinction exists, at most it feels like a distinction without a difference for me. The degree of dependability for being "cool under pressure" is, again, a factor of my overall degree of long-term successes with such tests, much the same for me as being a knowledgeable sage, a skilled swordsman, and the like. I don't expect that I will succeed every time, but if it's important enough to my character's character, then should I not be creating that character intentionally so they will have a higher success rate at it in whatever game system we are playing? Earlier I even showed it could be done with Cortex Prime's Tales of Xadia. It's not 100 percent dependable, but it's not so random or unreliable as one might imagine.

One can certainly build your character to more reliably succeed than others, but it's no guarantee nor do I think that it should be guaranteed. Otherwise, it's basically creating a character whose "coolness under pressure" is never actually tested with any real meaningful significance, especially not if I decide my character's success and failure at being "cool under pressure" entirely by personal fiat. And if I have full authority or dependability for deciding when my character is "cool under pressure," then why do I lack such fiat of authorship about other qualities of my character's sense of character, such as their sagacity or athleticism? Is this not also something that I might deem as "dependable" for the sake of my character concept or their sense of self? I don't really see the difference here. It may be that my understanding of a character or even my sense of self is a little more holistic than yours. A character/person is not just the ghost in the shell, but the whole person/character in their entirety.

So is their "cool under pressure" characteristic really all that significant to the fiction if it's not put to the rigors of the test? Not from my own perspective. It's a bit of a Czege Principle violation going on. The player is essentially controlling both the adversity and its resolution for being "cool under pressure." That doesn't feel all that fulfilling or fun to me if being "cool under pressure" is something that I feel is important to the character of Tom the Fighter but it's never actively challenged. The protectionism of the trait, ironically, makes that quality of my character feel insignificant and orthogonal to their character. It's as if Tom the Fighter never got to fight and put their swordsmanship to the test or if I simply declared auto-success for their swordsmanship. It's as if a student walks into the classroom for their exam that their teacher prepared, declares that they passed, and then walks out.

If we were playing D&D, then being "cool under pressure" may require a Wisdom check or Will save, and I may want to build Tom the Fighter to have a higher Wisdom or way to reliably make Will saves. Herein, the issue of magic in this regard feels like a red herring to me. My character of Tom the Fighter exists in a world of magic. Being "cool under pressure" is not simply a mundane matter but also about being "cool under pressure" in a world/genre where magic exists. What being "cool under pressure" means in such a millieu must take magic into account for such a character concept. If Tom the Fighter is only "cool under pressure" when not dealing with magic, but magic involves the primary means by which his coolness under pressure is tested or overcome, then I don't think that I would feel like I am a playing a character who is "cool under pressure" when I am persistently failing to magic. That's why when playing D&D, I would likely want Tom the Fighter to have good and reliable way to make Will saves or Wisdom checks to represent their ability to stay cool under pressure with magic or otherwise when called for by the GM's challenges.

 

[pemerton]

If the adventures are tied more closely to the characters themselves, and the characters are created in such a way that they are actually embedded into the campaign (as in they aren't so generic that they can be easily replaced), then it can work.

Granted, a lot of other games go the other direction - start with the characters and then move from there. D&D doesn't lend itself to that sort of play very well though. Far, far too crunchy and virtually no support in the game to do it that way.

I think 4e pushes in this direction - with player-authored quests, magic-item wishlists, and strongly thematic characters - but it's love of maps for combat resolution is one bar to fully realising it. (My "solution" was to prepare my maps in advance but be ready to drop them into the evolving situation as need and opportunity dictated.)