D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[pemerton]

In terms of specific examples from the thread, @Ovinomancer provided two. One was from BW where where their character's political affiliation (specifically, whether the character attacked the rebels or joined them) was based on the outcome of a roll.

Ovinomancer gave an example from Burning Wheel where the outcome is based on a Duel of Wits. That is not a roll. It's a whole resolution framework, which first involves posting stakes on each side, and then a series of declarations and resolutions of actions, and can produce any of a range of results including various sorts of compromise.

I've posted multiple actual play examples, lengthy ones, from various systems: BW, Prince Valiant, Cortex+ Heroic being used to play MERP/LotR. I've posted them twice for good measure! I've also provided links to 4e D&D actual play reports, and have given summaries of some emotion/social-related stuff from Rolemaster play.

If someone described the D&D combat system in such a fashion as to give the impression that they think a character turning their back on an Orc and leafing through their shopping list can kill the Orc, do you think that would be a fair and reasonable characterisation? Or would it suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of both (i) the process of D&D play, and (ii) the sort of fiction that typically emerges out of D&D play?

@Oofta's characterisations of social mechanics are of the same quality and accuracy as my characterisation of D&D combat in the previous paragraph.

 

[pemerton]

No, I'm really not.

Every single person who has said that you need to actually play a persona to role play (paraphrasing here) is saying EXACTLY the same thing.

This is a bit of a sidepoint, so I don't want to push it too far. And I have other reasons too for engaging with some posters and not others.

But I think the other posters tended to phrase it in aspirational/aesthetic terms (eg what's the point . . .) rather than categorical terms like you did (assuming I've read your posts properly).

 

[Hussar]

So everyone who has ever claimed this is just lying?

Because the option is that the author is not making decisions consciously. So not lying, just expressing a process we don't fully understand. Like, I don't know, not being in control of emotional responses.

Not lying. Just not examining the facts.

You flat out stated that you NEVER use mental mechanics and then gave examples where you did by using random chance to make the decision for you.

So, it's all about understanding the process of decision making. If you aren't in control of emotional responses, then how can you claim that it is perfectly reasonable for your character to be 100% in control of his emotional responses. Only, he isn't, since you use game mechanics to determine his responses. Which makes claims that you never use mechanics to determine emotional and mental states kinda hard to parse.

 

[Hussar]

If I retain 100% control over my character, I cannot learn anything about it, I can only learn what I think about my character. My character can never surprise me, I can only surprise myself.

This is so true, it needs to be repeated. Excellent point.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Because, as I just quoted @Oofta above, the line is not clear. @Oofta repeatedly absolutely stated that he refused to use any sort of mental mechanics. That any sort of mental mechanics were 100% not appreciated. He then goes on to state that sometimes, if he is unsure of how his character will react, he will use mental mechanics.

That's my point all the way along. People make these absolute claims and then, once you start to actually scratch the surface, suddenly those claims aren't actually backed up by the facts.

Those are two different things.

I stated there is a clear demarcation between mechanics that affect the character physically, and mechanics that determine the character's internal mental state. In the sense that you can (I think*) describe any mechanic, and we would probably all agree on which side of the line it lay.

A poster declaring that this line was a hard, uncrossable line, and then contradicting themselves and saying that sometimes they cross it, doesn't invalidate the existence of that line.

*Actually, if we can come up with an edge case that is hard to define, exploring that case might reveal things about how we see the game differently. So if you think of something I'd love to hear it.

 

[Hussar]

This is a bit of a sidepoint, so I don't want to push it too far. And I have other reasons too for engaging with some posters and not others.

But I think the other posters tended to phrase it in aspirational/aesthetic terms (eg what's the point . . .) rather than categorical terms like you did (assuming I've read your posts properly).

Fair enough. LIke I said, it was my personal opinion and not meant as a statement of fact. I do consider a lot of earlier D&D to be barely a role playing game. The role playing game that many of us engage in evolved despite the game not because of it. Heck, the rise of Vampire owes a considerable amount to the reaction against the way D&D was being played. But, you're right, this is getting off track. Please, let's return to the notion of how people never use mental mechanics except when they do.

I mean, so far, we have @Oofta contradicting himself. @Maxperson upthread mentioned using mental mechanics to determine NPC actions, and, presumably, would have no problems doing the same as a player. Wonder who else has done as @Oofta has and let an ad hoc mechanic (If I roll this I do X, if I roll that, I do Y) determine the mental state of the character.

I think it really is a good area to explore, because the root argument against mental mechanics is that people don't want mechanics telling them how their character feels. But, when the rubber meets the road, it's apparently fine to do it in small doses.

If it's acceptable to do in small doses, then the problem isn't with the mechanics, but, with how and when those mechanics are applied. Considering the rather broad range of ignorance of other games and how such mechanics actually look like in play, it's a fairly challenging conversation to have.

 

[Hussar]

Those are two different things.

I stated there is a clear demarcation between mechanics that affect the character physically, and mechanics that determine the character's internal mental state. In the sense that you can (I think*) describe any mechanic, and we would probably all agree on which side of the line it lay.

A poster declaring that this line was a hard, uncrossable line, and then contradicting themselves and saying that sometimes they cross it, doesn't invalidate the existence of that line.

*Actually, if we can come up with an edge case that is hard to define, exploring that case might reveal things about how we see the game differently. So if you think of something I'd love to hear it.

Hang on though. It's been repeatedly stated by numerous people that mental mechanics have no place in RPG's. That anything that you can just "play out" doesn't need mechanics. I have zero points of disagreement that we could use separate types of mechanics for physical and mental resolution. That's fine. At least you don't appear to be telling us that we must never add such things to D&D.

I don't like such mechanics is a VERY different argument than,

if a character's emotional state is such that he both wants to assassinate someone and is in a positon to do so the game should not IMO attempt to interrupt that by arbitrarily challenging the character's emotional state. Ditto if the character falls in love with someone or feels any other strong emotion; that's the player's choice to make* and the game should not be able to arbitrarily interfere.

or

Desdichado[/USER]]THERE IS another and superior way to handle it, so I have little interest in a mechanical solution to something that doesn't need a mechanical solution.

Using statements like "should not" is a pretty different argument than just, "I don't like these kinds of mechanics".

 

[pemerton]

Using statements like "should not" is a pretty different argument than just, "I don't like these kinds of mechanics".

QFT.

 

[Xetheral]

Ovinomancer gave an example from Burning Wheel where the outcome is based on a Duel of Wits. That is not a roll. It's a whole resolution framework, which first involves posting stakes on each side, and then a series of declarations and resolutions of actions, and can produce any of a range of results including various sorts of compromise.

I've posted multiple actual play examples, lengthy ones, from various systems: BW, Prince Valiant, Cortex+ Heroic being used to play MERP/LotR. I've posted them twice for good measure! I've also provided links to 4e D&D actual play reports, and have given summaries of some emotion/social-related stuff from Rolemaster play.

If someone described the D&D combat system in such a fashion as to give the impression that they think a character turning their back on an Orc and leafing through their shopping list can kill the Orc, do you think that would be a fair and reasonable characterisation? Or would it suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of both (i) the process of D&D play, and (ii) the sort of fiction that typically emerges out of D&D play?

@Oofta's characterisations of social mechanics are of the same quality and accuracy as my characterisation of D&D combat in the previous paragraph.

I apologize for being imprecise. I should have said that in the BW example the character's political affiliation was determined by a game mechanic, rather than by a roll.

I am aware of the play examples you posted, but to my understanding they were offered in the context of a different (contemporaneous) branch of the discussion. So as to not repurpose your examples in a way you might object to, I elected to only cite @Ovinomancer's examples that I was sure were on-point. As @Campbell appeared to be questioning if there were any references to "mood tables" in the thread, referencing a small number of pertinent examples of the sorts of mechanics @Oofta was referring to seemed sufficient. I apologize if by not mentioning your examples I came across as not valuing your contribution to the thread.

 

[pemerton]

But for a lot of us, a randomly decided reaction of what my character would think or do is not "discovering" anything other then potentially a new entry on a list.

I don't know any RPG that uses this sort of mechanic.

Going back to Mr B, my current vengeance paladin PC, part of his background before the campaign is that he lost is (pregnant) wife and young daughter. He feels guilt because he was not there to protect them, anger because while the people that killed them were hunted down and killed - by someone else. He never had a chance to personally extract vengeance.

So let's say at some point he finds someone that has his daughter's necklace. The only way the NPC could have gotten it would have been to take it - this was someone responsible for his families death. But ... as far as Mr B can tell, the NPC has turned over a new leaf. He doesn't know who Mr B is, but truly seems remorseful and is trying to atone for past sins.

How does this get resolved? By the roll of a dice that references some chart?

There are so many ways to think about this that no single post or thread can cover them all.

Suppose you (as Mr B) decide to kill this person. Can you screw up the courage to do so? Burning Wheel, Pendragon, and Wuthering Heights all have different ways of posing this question with an associated mechanical process.

@loverdrive, upthread, posted a custom PbtA move that could do the same thing (I'm paraphrasing from memory, but it went along the lines of roll + cool: 10+, you follow through with it, you cold-hearted bastard; 7 to 9, you can follow through but you feel it - if you go ahead with the killing, take 1 trauma; 6 or less, you hesitate, unable to follow through, and the MC describes what happens next - you probably won't like it!).

A different approach would be one in which the action declaration as such always goes through, but the rules impose some sort of cost or consequence - a point of trauma or inhumanity or similar, or a forced roll on the Depression crit table, or something like that.

Another approach - I'm thinking initially of Pendragon and Burning Wheel, but also the classic D&D alignment graph - allows one or more other participants to make a decision, in response to your actions, about the traits that describe your character. Those traits could feed into anything from behavioural mechanics (eg Pendragon) to bases for earning "fate points" (Burning Wheel; 5e D&D) to how other entities in the game respond to you (one aspect of classic D&D alignment).

That's just for starters.