D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[pemerton]

Sorry but this holier than thou attitude is really tiresome.

I don't need to drive every vehicle in existence to know I don't want to buy a pickup. I don't need to play every game to have a preference.

But wouldn't you need to have some familiarity with how other systems do things before you post this:

How does romance , likes, dislikes, PC interactions in general get boiled down to rules and charts if people are trying to make their PC come to life by doing what their PC would do?

Anyway, I can do combat by "following the logic of the story". That's how I played soldiers with my school friends when I was a kid. At the table rather than in the school yard, I could describe my blow and the GM decide whether or not what I've described seems like it would hurt my foe.

But there are reasons for using dice-based approaches to combat resolution: it creates uncertainty, stakes, constraint, etc. The exact same reasons can apply to other fields of heroic endeavour. Sometimes I might learn that my PC has died although I didn't want or expect him to. Likewise, sometimes I might learn that my PC has had an emotional response that I didn't want or expect him to.

 

[pemerton]

That it doesn't distinguish from other gameplay does not make it less true. And when you try to move up alevel to talk abotu tasks to try to accomplish the pursuit of enjoyment, you find that there are no universal ones - including "completing the adventure". The reason why you need to talk about it at this level is that this is the least common divisor that you must always make sure is satisfied. When you get at removes from it, you are moving towards personal preference.

To use a light hearted (and hopefully not emotionally invested) example, there is no correct answer to "do we disallow Monty Python references during a session." For some tables it may break immersion, or it may slow play, or do lots of things that are detrimental in-game. But at other tables the socialization is a primary enjoyment factor and they fly fast and furious.

I need to get to this level to show that "completing the adventure" or "play my character as they would" are a remove. Many tables have preferences that include one or both of those, but trying to say that any in-world goal for the characters is also the goal for all players isn't true.

Here you are talking about a specific table. A table can be aligned and have (mostly) the same goals. A player base is too wide and can not.

The fact that there are different approaches to RPGing has been known at least since the late 70s (because I have White Dwarf articles from that time discussing the different approaches). I think you'll be hard-pressed to find a poster on these boards who more consistently acknowledges that fact than me.

That doesn't mean that we can't talk meaningfully about those various approaches - something that was indeed happening in those White Dwarf articles and can still happen today.

We don't have to stop our discussion of what we find valuable in RPGing with it's fun. No other field of criticism does that, and there are differences of approach, preference, school etc in those fields too.

 

[pemerton]

Because RPGs aren't chess. They're fundamentally a different kind of game. There's very few ways to play them wrong and a whole lot of ways to play them right.

As others have said, there is no one true way to play the game.

This isn't really news.

The point is, that we can describe typical approaches to various RPGs, especially widely-played ones like D&D. The most typical approach to playing D&D involves the PCs undertaking some sort of "mission", either player-directed exploration of some place authored by the GM (quintessentially a dungeon) or the players working through some sort of scenario - a sequence of encounters, often with some overarching mystery to solve or situation to resolve - that has been authored by the GM.

My basis for making the claim in the previous paragraph is that nearly every post in the How Was Your Latest Session thread describes something like what I've described; that nearly every module ever published by TSR or WotC is designed for something like it; that the submission to Iron DM nearly all look like it; that there are endless posts on these boards about how to design scenarios ("missions") so as to ensure proper encounter rates in the context of 5e play; that concepts like "adventure hook" and "side quest" are ubiquitous parts of the lexicon (contrast technical terms associated with different approaches to play, like "kicker", that have to be defined every time they're used in a thread); etc, etc.

Playing in a typical fashion is neither good nor bad, neither true nor false. But it's a thing that plenty of people do. And my assertion is that there is a tension between playing that fashion, and aspiring to rich, complex, "three dimensional" portrayal of PCs - for the reasons that Christopher Kubasik set out in the early 90s. Reasons which aren't mysterious: if an expectation for play is that a player will (via their PC) take part in "the mission", a lot of questions about what the character wants and needs and will or won't put up with has already been answered.

 

[pemerton]

"Portrayal of character" is key to playing a ROLE playing game. WIthout portrayal of character, you're no longer playing an RPG. But, that's my personal bias there.

This claim is not tenable. I can play through Keep on the Borderlands, consistently with all the rules in OD&D, Moldvay Basic, or AD&D (ie any classic version of the game), and never have to portray my character beyond making decisions that respect the fiction of where my PC is and what they can do (some of that second bit is also defined by mechanics rather than just fiction). That's clearly playing a RPG, and indeed is clearly playing a role - this character here in this dungeon - yet does not involve any depiction of a character. Indeed, depictions of character might be a frustrating distraction from what we're trying to do - as @Manbearcat has already posted upthread.

 

[pemerton]

I think too much fuss gets made over the roleplaying word and its dictionary definition. We should look at the scope of the entire hobby and let that define what roleplaying means in the context of the hobby. The word used to describe it is mostly just an accident of a history. You needed something to describe what was a natural outgrowth of the historical war gaming hobby. Roleplaying was used, but it's not particularly meaningful characterization of what separates this hobby from say board games or improv acting.

Basically the unifying thing that separates roleplaying games from other sorts of games is that fictional positioning matters - that our ability to reason about the fictional scenario and setting has an impact on play. That's not the case for something like Resistance or Secret Hitler where you do take on roles, but fictional reasoning does not affect the play of the game in the same way it does in pawn stance D&D.

All I would add to this is that, in RPGing, the default participant (ie player, not GM) role also involves engaging the fiction via the declared actions of a particular person located in the salient fictional situation. An "avatar", if you like.

It's that combination of fiction matters and I'm here in the fiction that make a game a RPG. Of course there are departures from the paradigm - a very common one is playing more than one character; another fairly common one is inviting the non-GM participants to help create elements of the fiction (especially backstory and framing). But the paradigm remains core.

 

[pemerton]

Because not everyone wants to try to make their PC come to life or makes decisions for their PC based on what their PC would do. Some people play D&D like it’s a boardgame. For some of them, rules for this kind of thing are necessary.

I don't think rpgs that have rules for various kinds of non-combat activities, especially social interaction, feel more like a boardgame when I play them; if anything, they are more explicitly "fiction-first." At the same time, I can see the value of more free-form roleplaying, and in many ways that's my preference.

I find comments like this from @overgeeked very hard to take seriously. If I was reading post after post of actual play reports from overgeeked, or anyone else, illustrating the deep complexity of the interpersonal relationships that emerge and develop and (sometimes) end (either well or badly) in their games, it might be different. But where are those posts?

Here's an actual play example from Prince Valiant - it illustrates various sorts of social conflict and a use of the Incite Lust special effect:

My group's last session of Prince Valiant ended with the PCs, leading their religous order (the Knights of St Sigobert) and a peasant army, having conquered a Duke's castle in or about Bordeaux.

Today's session saw quite a bit of action. At the start of the session two of the PCs - the minstrel Twillany and Sir Morgath - took control of the peasant army as it looted the castle and broke into the keep, stopping them from killing the Lady Alia in revenge for the way they and their families had been treated by her father, the (now dead) Duke. The Lady tried to assert her pre-eminence in the situation - she was wearing the ducal coronet - but Twillany prevailed (in an extended contest of Courtesie vs Courtesie) and she retired to her room to wait for judgement as to her fate upon the morrow.

The other two PCs, Sir Gerran and Sir Justin - respectively father and son and Marshall and Master of the order of St Sigobert - followed up on the clue that had been overheard in the previous session, referring to "special duties" to be undertaken by a kitchen hand. While searching the dungeons - finding no nobles being held for ransom but various waifs to be sold into slavery - Justin (via a successful Presence check) noticed the kitchen hand down a side passage. Despite their armour penalites Gerran and Justin succeeded in contested Brawn + Agility checks to catch up with the kitchen hand as he went through a secret passage. He was quickly cowed (Presence check), and led the two knights down a 500 yard long tunnel which ended with a ladder leading up to an old hunting lodge in a woods on the slope below the castle.

In the lodge they found a teenage boy bricked up inside the chimney, who - it turned out - was the dead Duke's son Bryce, imprisoned by his sister Alia. They returned to the castle to acquire tools, and then broke down the wall trapping the boy. They provided him with some food and water, soothed some of his hurt (successful Healing check), and brought him back to the castle, making sure his sister didn't see him.

The players were conscious that Alia had been able to send a signal to a rider, and hence that a relieving force might arrive soon. Inquiries revealed that it was at least two days walk to the edge of the duchy - this didn't give them a lot of confidence as to their time available. And the peasants' looting of victuals from the castle didn't them a lot of confidence as to their ability to withstand a siege. But a speech from the Marshall of the order roused the morale of the men.

The next morning, Sir Justin convened an assembly in the great hall. At that assembly, Lady Alia was confronted with the presence of her brother. At first she disputed his identity, and then she denied his fitness to rule, but the PCs insisted and Sir Justin, in the name of St Sigobert, placed the ducal coronet upon his head. The players had determined that the best way to stop Alia being an enduring enemy was to have her join them in the order, and Duke Bryce had been persuaded to accept this course of action. Now Duke Bryce made the declaration that - while he forgave her in his heart - she had to do appropriate penance, and that this could be done by joining the crusading order. I rolled the dice for him, and his roll was very successful. So she acquiesced, and was led by Sir Justin in reciting the oath of St Sigobert.

Next, warning came that a military force was approaching in the distance. The drawbridge was raised and the gates closed. But Sir Morgath, looking out from the battlements, could see that in front of the soldiers were two women riding hurriedly on ponies. (In the tram on the way to the session I had decided to use the second of the Woman in Distress episodes found in the main rulebook.) There was debate - should the drawbridge be lowered? - but Sir Morgath was against it, as too risky. The women arrived at the edge of the moat across from the drawbridge and called out for help to Sir Gerran, who as Marshall of the order was in command of the gates. Lady Lorette of Lothian explained that she was fleeing from her fiance, Sir Blackpool the Count of Toulouse, to whom she had been betrothed by her father and who had treated her cruelly. Would they not lower the drawbridge?

Although Prince Valiant is not technically a pulp it is from the same period - the 30s and 40s - and there is a degree of pulp-era stereotyping in Greg Stafford's presentation of women in his scenarios. In this case, Lady Lorette has Presence 4 and Glamourie 5. So as she pleaded to Gerran I rolled her 9 dice vs Gerran's Presence of 3. I allowed Gerran's player two bonus dice (the maximum morale bonus allowed for in the system) as a resolute Marshall defending his castle, so he had 5 dice in total. And rolled better than me! And so he didn't relent.

Meanwhile Sir Morgath had lowered a rope down the wall of the castle. He called out to the Lady and she leapt into the moat and swam to him, where he took hold of her and carried her up the wall. But the handmaiden accompanying her did not have the strength or courage to jump into the moat. So Morgath slid back down the rope and swang across the moat to rescue her. (At the start of the session I had handed out some fame (the "XP" of the system) that had been earned in the previous session. This had qualified Morgath for a new skill rank, which he had spent on Agility: his player felt he was repeatedly suffering for a lack of physical ability at key moments. It now served him well, as he got 3 successes on his 4 dice.)

In the scenario as written by Stafford, the Lady has the Incite Lust special effect which she will use against the strongest and most famous male adventurer, provided he is not married. Anticipating possible complications, Morgath - when asked by the Lady who her rescuer was - announced himself as Sir Morgath, husband of Lady Elizabeth of York. But being an unfair GM while also trying to run with the fiction, it seemed only to make sense that Morgath should fall for the Lady as he carried her in his arms into the castle. The player cursed me appropriately, but also had seen it coming. He took the Lady into the keep to ensure her safety.

Meanwhile the Count - Sir Blackpool - and his men had arrived and approached under a white flag of truce. The players had deciced that they would have Lady Alia explain that there was a new duke, Duke Bryce her brother, and that hence there was no need for relief after all. Suitable Presence rolls persuaded her to do as instructed. The Count was satisfied with this, but had one other request - his fiance had been taken into the castle, and he wanted her returned. Sir Justin tried to direct Sir Blackpool to leave in the name of the Duke, but he retorted that he had not yet sworn fealty to the new duke, and would not do so until his fiance was returned.

At this point the player of Morgath was laughing, and thinking that the Lady Alia must be feeling the same way. And as the other PCs decided they would fetch the lady from the keep, Sir Morgath decided that safety required sneaking out with her through the secret tunnel - which they did, and then - with a successful Stealth roll despite the 1-die penalty for having a non-stealthy companion - he led them without being noticed to the lighthouse on the coast which he knew to be abandoned, the PCs having beaten up its thug occupants a couple of sessions ago. So when Gerran and Justin searched the keep for the lady they couldn't find her, and hence reported to Sir Blackpool that "Upon my honour, your fiance is not in this castle!"

Sir Blackpool then demanded satisfaction, in the form of three lances. Sir Gerran accepated the challenge, and the drawbridge was lowered again. Sir Justin and the Duke came out with him. The opposing dice pools were 11 for the Count and 14 for the Marshall, and there were no unexpected results - by the third lance Blackpool had been reduced to 6 dice. But then - treacherously (and in accordance with the scenario description) he gave a signal to his men. In the context it mad the most sense for this to be a volley of arrows (rather than the charging forth of the scenario). Sir Gerran's armour protected him (I rolled poorly); but the Duke was struck!

In Mark Rein*Hagen's scenario description the young Bryce is given the "sacrifice self" special ability, to sacrifice himself to save another from harm. Rein*Hagen suggests that this might happen during the commotion around who is to succeed to the position of duke, but as that unfolded at our table it made no sense for their to be violence, and hence no need for the boyto sacrifice himself. And so I had assumed the ability would go unused. But now the moment presented itself, and he stepped in front of Sir Justin to take an arrow. Sir Justin's player was shocked; and Sir Justin picked him up and carried him into the castle. I invoked the "severely injured" rules (in the system, it is always the GM's call how severe an injury - represented by Brawn depletion - is within the fiction) - thus a Healing check would be needed to save the boy's life. And while normally 1 success would be enough, it had already been established that Duke Bryce was frail and weak, and so I set the difficulty at 2. Sir Justin has Healing 2, and so would have only a 1 in 4 chance of success. So his player asked if he could use the Dagger of St Sigobert - who was, after all, a healer - to help, and I suggested that if it was used to help cut out the arrow he could roll 3 dice (50% chance of success). But the roll was still a failure, and so the Duke passed away in his arms.

Meanwhile Sir Gerran rode down the retreating Sir Blackpool, reducing him to 4 dice. But then Sir Blackpool won an opposed Riding check and so was able to retreat behind the cover of his men. Sir Gerran would not relent, and Sir Justin ordered the men of the castle and the order to ride out to join Sir Gerran and avenge the Duke. And so another mass combat took place, this time with Sir Justin in command. I decided that it would be a single "round" of mass combat.

Sir Justin won the opposed command checks, reducing the Count to 1 die, and so I narrated his men as fleeing. Sir Justin lost a point of Brawnd and of Presence in his personal checks - meaning some exertion and some shaking of his morale. But Sir Gerran succeeded on both his personal checks, while on both checks - made against Sir Gerran's totals - Sir Blackpool was reduced to 1 die in Brawn and in Presence - so he was retreating with his men, failing badly. I let Sir Gerran's player decide what happened to him, and he declared him dead.

From their vantage point in the lighthouse Morgath and Lady Lorette could see the army of Toulouse retreating, and so they returned to the castle and re-entered through the secret tunnel. Lady Alia was the first to find them upon their return, and she spoke with Sir Morgath to discus the next steps - having already decided that he was more sensible than the Sigobertians.

They decided that they should present Lady Lorette as the (now widowed) Countess of Toulouse, which she was happy to go along with; and that she should come under the protection of the (newly ascended) Duchess of Bordeaux. Lady Lorette suggested that Sir Morgath should send for a regent from York, so that she could travel with him on his adventures; while Alia took the view that she should stay in the castle to manage it and rule the ducal lands. This suggestion was presented to Sir Gerran and Sir Justin, who agreed subject to two conditions: that the castle should fly the standard of St Sigobert as well as that of the duchy; and that Lady Alia should marry Sir Gerran to cement the alliance of the Duchy and the order. (It had already been established that the order did not require chastity of its members - Sir Justin is married to Violette of Warwick.)

So the session ended with the wedding being agreed to and preparations having to be made. With discussions of how much crusade might be financed by mortgaging a duchy and a county. And with Sir Morgath's player lamenting that they could have had the company of a battle-maiden and now have an ingenue (or seductress?) instead. He did have the sense, in character, to make sure that the messengers sent to York to discuss the matter of the regency should also bring him back a token of his wife Elizabeth, which he hopes will help him remain faithful despite his feelings of attraction to Lady Lorette.

Here's an actual play example from my LotR game using a fantasy hack of Cortex+ Heroic, illustrating the use of a Scene Distinction to model uncertainty and debate:

In the session that we played I ran an action scene in which one of the Scene Distinctions was Uncertain Of What to do Next, and as the scene unfolded the player of the ranger declared actions that succeeded in eliminating that Distinction, meaning that he was then able to dictate to the table what the next step was. That was a nice alternative to (say) a BW Duel of Wits - the uncertainy being more about the situation than a disagreement between two characters - and I felt it emulated some of those parts of LotR where Aragorn in particular can see the range of options but is unsure what is the right choice of next action.

Here's an account of some social and emotional ups-and-downs in Burning Wheel, including my PC not having the stomach to commit cold-blooded murder:

My group had a session scheduled for today, but due to various vicissitudes only two of us could make it. The other attendee suggested we start a BW game with the two of us making PCs and "round robinning" the GMing.

He burned up a Weather Witch (City Born, Arcane Devotee, Rogue Wizard, Weather Witch). I decided to make a Dark Elf (with his agreement, as per the rules) - Born Etharch, Spouse, Griever, Deceiver. To earn the Grief to make the move to Griever (3 minimum) I had no lamentations, was Born Etharch, and had a history that included tragedy - my spouse died.

I've attached my full PC sheet: some highlights are my gear (the tattered clothes I've worn for the past 39 years, since my spouse died; my black-metal long knife Heart-seeker); my hateful relationship with my father-in-law, the elven ambassador in a human port city whom I blame for my spouse's death; and what I hope will prove to be a suitably embittered suite of Beliefs and Instincts, except for my tendency to quietly sing the elven lays when my mind wanders. I also started barefoot, but didn't end the session that way!

We agreed that Aedhros had travelled on the same ship as Alicia had been working on as a weathermage. Like Aedhros, she started with zero resources and no shoes, and with only rags as clothes.

<snip>

We (the players) agreed the next scene was looking for a room for the two of us in a dodgy inn. (The standard resource obstacle for one person is Ob 1; we agreed that this would do for both of us at such a dodgy establishment.) Alicia offered to also work in the kitchens to help with board - and given her instinct, Don't ask, Persuade, where Persuade refers to the BW equivalent of D&D's Suggestion spell, this meant using her magic to get agreement. Alicia's player wanted to take time to prepare her spell, and as the GM for that purpose I thought that needed an Inconspicuous check. Unfortunately this failed, and so the innkeeper looked at her when she started muttering strange words, and so she just cast the spell. It succeeded (I set the innkeeper's Will, and hence the obstacle, at 3) and so he accepted her offer to work in the kitchen. The Tax for casting left her at Forte 1.

We agreed this gave me a bonus die for my Resources check, so I rolled two dice against Ob 1. This was a fail. We reviewed the Resources rules and had a bit of discussion and my co-GM decided that we didn't get a room and my cash die was gone (apparently the master's purse wasn't as full as we'd hoped). The innkeeper still insisted that Alicia work in the kitchen, though!

Taking back the GM's hat, I first adjudicated things for Alicia. I wanted an Ob Forte test to handle the heat and work in the kitchen; this succeeded (with Forte 1 the player was rolling 1 die; I think he must have rolled a 6 and then spent a Fate point to open-end this and get a second success). Then Aedhros re-entered the scene: with a successful Stealthy check I entered the kitchen unnoticed, and found Alicia. I proposed that we relieve the innkeeper of his cash-box (repay hurt for hurt) and Alicia agreed. Then we would take on the master of the ship. Alicia used her Weathersense to determine if a mist would be rolling in; her check succeeded, and so her prediction of mist was correct! (We'd agreed that a failed check mean clear skies and a bright moon.) She also rested (for about 6 hours) to regain one point of Tax, taking her Forte up to 2.

With the morning mist rolling in, it was time to clean out the innkeeper's cash box. We agreed that the day's takings would be 2D of cash. With successful checks, Alicia cast Cat's Eye so she could see in the dark; I succeeded at a straightforward Scavenging check so that Aedhros could find a burning brand (he can see in dim light or by starlight, but not in dark when the starts are obscured by mist). Alicia went first, in the dark but able to see, but failed an untrained Stealthy check despite a penalty to the innkeeper's Perception check for being asleep. So as she opened the door to the room where was sleeping on his feather-and-wool-stuffed mattress, he woke and stood up, moving his strongbox behind him. Alicia, being determined - as per one of her Beliefs - to meet any wrong to her with double in return, decided to tackle him physically. Of course she is trained in Martial Arts, as that's a favourite of her player! I proposed and he agreed that we resolve this via Bloody Versus (ie simple opposed checks) rather than fully scripting in Fight! I set the innkeeper's Brawling at 3, but he had significant penalties due to darkness, and so Alica - with 4 dice + 1 bonus die for superior Reflexes - won the fight easily. The injury inflicted was only superficial, but (as per the rules for Bloody Versus) Alicia had the innkeeper at her mercy - as we narrated it, thrown to the ground and held in a lock.

Aedhros entered the room at this point, with Heart-seeker drawn and ready for it to live up to its name. But Alicia thought that killing the innkeeper was a bit much. So first, she used her advantageous position to render the innkeeper unconscious (no check required, given the outcome of the Bloody Versus). Then her player, wearing the GM hat, insisted that I make a Steel check to commit cold-blooded murder. This failed, and so I hesitated for 4 actions. Handily, that is the casting time for Persuasion, and so Alicia "told" Aedhros not to kill the innkeeper. The casting check succeeded, but the Tax check was one success against an obstacle of 4. With only 1 Forte left, that was 3 Tax which would be 2 overtax, or an 8-point wound, which would be Traumatic for Alicia. But! - the Tax check also was the final check needed for her Forte 3 to step up to Forte 4 (wizard's get lots of juicy Forte checks because of all their Tax - in this case from the three spells cast), which made the overtax only 1, or a 4-point wound which was merely Superficial. Still, she collapsed unconscious.

Aedhros opened the strongbox and took the cash. We agreed that no check was required; and given his Belief that he can tolerate Alicia's company only because she's broken and poor, and given that it aggravates his Spite to suffer her incompetence in fainting, he kept all the money for himself. He then carried out the unconscious Alicia (again, no check required). He also took the innkeeper's boots, being sick of going about barefoot. But he will continue to wear his tattered clothes.

And here's an account of Burning Wheel play in which my PC first had an uhappy encounter with his brother, and then succeeded in prayer and thereby transformed his relationship with his mother and his sidekick:

My PC is Thurgon, a warrior cleric type (heavy armour, Faithful to the Lord of Battle, Last Knight of the Iron Tower, etc). His companion is Aramina, a sorcerer. His ancestral estate, which he has not visited for 5 years, is Auxol.

<snip>

Friedrich took them as far as the next tributary's inflow - at that point the river turns north-east, and the two character's wanted to continue more-or-less due east on the other side of both streams. This was heading into the neighbourhood of Auxol, and so Thurgon kept his eye out for friends and family. The Circles check (base 3 dice +1 for an Affiliation with the nobility and another +1 for an Affiliation with his family) succeeded again, and the two characters came upon Thurgon's older brother Rufus driving a horse and cart. (Thurgon has a Rationship with his mother Xanthippe but no other family members; hence the Circles check to meet his brother.)

There was a reunion between Rufus and Thurgon. But (as described by the GM) it was clear to Thurgon that Rufus was not who he had been, but seemed cowed - as Rufus explained when Thurgon asked after Auxol, he (Rufus) was on his way to collect wine for the master. Rufus mentioned that Thurgon's younger son had married not long ago - a bit of lore (like Rufus hmself) taken from the background I'd prepared for Thurgon as part of PC gen - and had headed south in search of glory (that was something new the GM introduced). I mentioned that Aramina was not meeting Rufus's gaze, and the GM picked up on this - Rufus asked Thurgon who this woman was who wouldn't look at him from beneath the hood of her cloak - was she a witch? Thurgon answered that she travelled with him and mended his armour. Then I switched to Aramina, and she looked Rufus directly in the eye and told him what she thought of him - "Thurgon has trained and is now seeking glory on his errantry, and his younger brother has gone too to seek glory, but your, Rufus . . ." I told the GM that I wanted to check Ugly Truth for Aramina, to cause a Steel check on Rufus's part. The GM decided that Rufus has Will 3, and then we quickly calculated his Steel which also came out at 3. My Ugly Truth check was a success, and the Steel check failed. Rufus looked at Aramina, shamed but unable to respond. Switching back to Thurgon, I tried to break Rufus out of it with a Command check: he should pull himself together and join in restoring Auxol to its former glory. But the check failed, and Rufus, broken, explained that he had to go and get the wine. Switching back to Aramina, I had a last go - she tried for untrained Command, saying that if he wasn't going to join with Thurgon he might at least give us some coin so that we might spend the night at an inn rather than camping. This was Will 5, with an advantage die for having cowed him the first time, against a double obstacle penalty for untrained (ie 6) +1 penalty because Rufus was very set in his way. It failed. and so Rufus rode on and now has animosity towards Aramina. As the GM said, she better not have her back to him while he has a knife ready to hand.

The characters continued on, and soon arrived at Auxol,. The GM narrated the estate still being worked, but looking somewhat run-down compared to Thrugon's memories of it. An old, bowed woman greeted us - Xanthippe, looking much more than her 61 years. She welcomed Thurgon back, but chided him for having been away. And asked him not to leave again. The GM was getting ready to force a Duel of Wits on the point - ie that Thurgon should not leave again - when I tried a different approach. I'd already made a point of Thurgon having his arms on clear display as he rode through the countryside and the estate; now he raised his mace and shield to the heavens, and called on the Lord of Battle to bring strength back to his mother so that Auxol might be restored to its former greatness. This was a prayer for a Minor Miracle, obstacle 5. Thurgon has Faith 5 and I burned his last point of Persona to take it to 6 dice (the significance of this being that, without 1 Persona, you can't stop the effect of a mortal wound should one be suffered). With 6s being open-ended (ie auto-rolls), the expected success rate is 3/5, so that's 3.6 successes there. And I had a Fate point to reroll one failure, for an overall expected 4-ish successes. Against an obstacle of 5.

As it turned out, I finished up with 7 successes. So a beam of light shot down from the sky, and Xanthippe straightened up and greeted Thurgon again, but this time with vigour and readiness to restore Auxol. The GM accepted my proposition that this played out Thurgon's Belief that Harm and infamy will befall Auxol no more! (earning a Persona point). His new Belief is Xanthippe and I will liberate Auxol. He picked up a second Persona point for Embodiment ("Your roleplay (a performance or a decision) captures the mood of the table and drives the story onward").

Turning back to Aramina, I decided that this made an impact on her too: up until now she had been cynical and slightly bitter, but now she was genuinely inspired and determined: instead of never meeting the gaze of a stranger, her Instinct is to look strangers in the eyes and Assess. And rather than I don't need Thurgon's pity, her Belief is Thurgon and I will liberate Auxol. This earned a Persona point for Mouldbreaker ("If a situation brings your Beliefs, Instincts and Traits into conflict with a decision your PC must make, you play out your inner turmoil as you dramatically play against a Belief in a believable and engaging manner").

<snip>

This was the first time I've played (as opposed to GM) since the last session of this campaign. It was definitely fun.

I think the effect of using the dice for resolution in these various contexts of emotional and social conflict, rather than just asking the GM to say "yes" or "no", speaks for itself. And I don't think the play much resembles a boardgame.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

1e and early 2e, to some extent, had this vibe - or at least the clear potential for it - largely because those systems were so modular in design and thus easier to kitbash into what you wanted for your table. Since then, the game's been somewhat over-designed and some of those needs are by default prioritized over others.

While I'd quibble about some of what you think each system would be best used for, I completely agree with the two-system principle and have been a proponent of the idea since 3e came out.

The one thing I'd really want is that the two systems be compatible enough that one could mix and match different elements if one wanted.

Understandable, on the first bit. That second bit would be...extraordinarily difficult to design. It's hard enough to design just two systems that are reasonably similar enough that you can translate a character between them without much issue. What you're asking for is...an awful lot more than that.

To give it a highly simplified analogy: Imagine you have a sequence of, say, circuit components, not individual elements like "a resistor" but relatively involved ones. You have to have something in each of N sockets (let's go with 5 sockets). Each socket can have one of X options (let's go with 2, an "A circuit" version and a "B circuit" version). This is exactly equivalent to a five-digit binary number, where 0=A and 1=B (or vice-versa), e.g. AAAAA = 00000, ABAAB = 01001, etc. That means you have 2^5 = 32 different circuit combinations. You have to construct each of A1, B1, A2, B2, etc. so that, no matter which of those 32 combinations you use, nothing burns out or damages anything else.

If designing one balanced system is several years of labor (as demonstrated by the D&D Next playtest), how does designing 32 systems simultaneously sound?

How about Low-Mech[anics] and High-Mech[anics]?

I mean, I was hoping for something you could put on a box label. Those sound like the marketing department has been taken over by engineering students.

 

[akr71]

The subtext certainly feels like it's there. (Appropriate, given how much he goes on about subtext.) He's trying hard to be inoffensive, but his criteria for deep characters—for "elevated" roleplaying that approaches "art"—is moments that feel real (in part because of the distance between player motivation and character motivation) and therefore have meaning.

I personally get more of that in spades from subjecting zero-dimensional characters to Gygaxian, challenge-based play. Which is not to be dismissed as "just" hack'n'slash, loot & leveling, or what Matt at one point calls "zombiecide."

If you watch his live play, Matt Colville's players are definitely roleplaying and definitely not Roleplayers.

 

[clearstream]

According to Colville, roleplaying is "making decisions about your character in a game with a persistent world where your character improves based on the decisions you made." So this is more a definition of a category of games. D&D and Skyrim etc. And Roleplaying is: "the act of making decisions about what a character would do when that character would do something different than what you would do." I know what you would do, but what would your character do? He is quick to point out that players making decisions for their characters with no consideration of what the character would do is still roleplaying, it's simply a less complex style of roleplaying. Not wrong or bad, just simpler.

For me there is another mode - where your decisions are what you would do given you lived in the game world with all the abilities of your character. Such decisions are very distinct from what you would do in our real world. It's no simpler than basing your decisions on an idea that your character is good, evil, angry or whatever, because you have to take the world sincerely and consider - if this happened, if I was there, if I was capable of this, what might I do? These can be challenging questions to rise to. One reason I value this mode is that it can lead you to immerse yourself in the world, and also through your RP to better instantiate that world in the minds of your fellow players.

A reason I say it is no simpler is that I experience say love in this world and so to guess how I might act out of love in the game world seems relatively straightforward. What seems more complex (or at least as complex) is guessing how I might act given I serve an actual fiend? What does that do to any love I might feel?

The obvious question is if there are dichotomous? Where they are, then acting as someone else, and acting as somewhere else, have the same complexity. What would perhaps be most complex is doing both at the same time, and that is something that flows out of immersion in the game world. What happens is who you are - the you in that world - changes. There is a subtle assumption in this debate - that people may fall on one or other side of - about free will and the forming of behaviour. If one believes that what we do is in large part shaped by our context, then one perhaps shouldn't think in terms of putting a character one has in mind into the game world. Perforce, that character must emerge from the game world.

 

[Hussar]

This claim is not tenable. I can play through Keep on the Borderlands, consistently with all the rules in OD&D, Moldvay Basic, or AD&D (ie any classic version of the game), and never have to portray my character beyond making decisions that respect the fiction of where my PC is and what they can do (some of that second bit is also defined by mechanics rather than just fiction). That's clearly playing a RPG, and indeed is clearly playing a role - this character here in this dungeon - yet does not involve any depiction of a character. Indeed, depictions of character might be a frustrating distraction from what we're trying to do - as @Manbearcat has already posted upthread.

I strongly disagree.

What you are describing is no different than playing a board game, other than the board is an agreed upon construct of the collective group's imagination. In fact, you can actually directly plot every single element to a physical board and it would not change a single thing. In other words, you have played a game, certainly. But, without any actual attempt to decide your actions based on the persona of the created character, rather than pure pawn play, there is no role being played.

I know people REALLY want to insist that just because there are D&D books sitting on the table, we're role playing, but, frankly it's not true. As I said before, you can certainly inject role play into a board game. I'm sure most of us have done that. Well, the reverse is also 100% true. You can play D&D and, really, any RPG without any actual R. Congratulations, you've drifted a role playing game into a game. There's nothing wrong with playing that way, and, I think a lot of tables play that way, certainly in the early days of gaming anyway.

But, without the assumption of some sort of persona by the players, even if it's not backed up by mechanics, and purely free form, without that assumption of a persona, there is no role playing going on. You're playing a game. No different than being a full back on a soccer field. Yes, within the game, you have a role - full back - and that role has certain rules around it, but, there's no persona assumption going on there. No one is going to seriously claim soccer is an RPG. So, without the assumption of a persona, there is no role play.