D&D General The adventure game vs the role-playing game

[doctorbadwolf]

Definitely varies based on the pool of players. My experience in my area is a near total lack of any dichotomy, but I know people in other areas who experience something like what you describe.

 

[DemoMonkey]

It's not a value judgement to say some things are roleplaying, and some aren't, anymore than it is a value judgement to say some things are pears and some aren't.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, sit around the campfire and interact with each other. Fine. But what I'm saying is it's good to know when that's run its course and move on, perhaps by having fire-breathing owlbears riding flumph swarms attack the camp.

This is a game of bold adventurers confronting deadly perils in worlds of swords and sorcery. It says so right on the tin. If stakes like that stress people out, maybe there are other games more to their liking.

Yeah. I was thinking about this topic last night and it occurred to me that it's much like Disneyland. I'm sure that there are some people who go to Disneyland and only go to the shops and food vendors, and some who go to Disneyland and only go on rides and see shows, but virtually everyone who goes does some degree both.

D&D is the same way. I'm sure that there are some people/groups who only sit around doing social encounters and that sort of RP, and some who only play to fight things, find treasure and go up levels, but by and large people who play D&D do some degree of both. I've certainly never been in a D&D game where it was only social, and I haven't been in a fight and loot game since I was in my teens and early 20's(80's and early 90's) when we were hack n' slash murder hobos.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If your definition is that, when playing an RPG, you are by definition roleplaying, then that is not a constructive way to approach the discussion.

If everything is roleplaying, then nothing is not roleplaying.

I would submit that describing your characters actions in purely mechanical terms is not roleplaying.

"I move 15 feet towards the goblin and then make an attack roll. I get a 17, which hits it's AC of 14 that you declared last round. It takes 6 damage."

That's NOT roleplaying, by any definition that is useful to this conversation. Descriptive, accurate, a perfectly fine way of playing the game, yes. Not roleplaying.

Even the “I” in those statements is roleplaying, though. It’s not deep, but it is playing a character and thinking from their perspective. Many of us just aren’t taken out of immersion by using mechanics as shorthand for what happens in the fiction.

 

[iserith]

It's not a value judgement to say some things are roleplaying, and some aren't, anymore than it is a value judgement to say some things are pears and some aren't.

One need only look at just about any RPG forum to show that this isn't true in practice. Plenty of judgment going on for years and years in this area. Even calling it "adventure games" vs. "'roleplaying' games" needlessly puts people into camps as if somehow the people who like to delve dungeons aren't roleplaying when they clearly are.

What we could say instead is that everyone's roleplaying, but some people prefer much of the game focused on bold adventurers confronting deadly perils whereas other people prefer more of the game focused on lower-stakes situations with a lot of intraparty interaction (for example). This seems a more useful way of thinking about it in my view. Then we could talk about how to create games that cater to either group or, as in my preference, to create games that cater to both.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

The combo of imagining an imaginary character performing imaginary acts in an imaginary setting with imaginary results is called Fantasy, When we add outside rules and in some cases their attendant mechanics we are inferring that this Fantasy, unlike childhood play, has a criteria for guidance based upon possibility and probability. This combination is, IMO, errantly referred to as a RPG. How WotC describes it is based upon what it has become to be known as, but if we break down each and every word associated with its typification and in isolation study these as to how they relate to the type, such as a FRPG, such a study, as I have done, would result in a disparate comparison. This is not new, in fact. Arneson never typed it as an RPG; neither did Gygax and the LGTSA, including myself. We referred to it as FRP as early as 1973. It was around 1975 that some removed source started referring to it as an RPG. Why is this important? Because it proves many things least of which is the fact we are still arguing over its typification as a applied design years later. This "game," IMO, apparently rises to the level of what those engaging it see, want, extoll and promote, and therein lies all the sameness and all the differences.

 

[Greg Benage]

Having said that some of the more popular online games like critical role play d&d in a more roleplay heavy style than almost any table I’ve been at so the level based system certainly doesn’t prevent heavy roleplay.

I haven't watched (close to) all of it, but what strikes me about CR is that they're better at the talky stuff, but in terms of time spent at the table (or on camera), they're doing plenty of the adventure stuff. Their characters have personalities, goals, background experiences, etc., but again, it's all pretty traditional RPG character stuff. If there are episodes where they just sit around talking in character, I haven't seen them.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"What we could say instead is that everyone's roleplaying, but some people prefer much of the game focused on bold adventurers confronting deadly perils whereas other people prefer more of the game focused on lower-stakes situations with a lot of intraparty interaction (for example). This seems a more useful way of thinking about it in my view. Then we could talk about how to create games that cater to either group or, as in my preference, to create games that cater to both."

Huh. So why don't we call the first group "Adventure focused" and the second group "Roleplay focused" and get back to the discussion?

... which brings us back to doe doe doe doe ...

 

[iserith]

"What we could say instead is that everyone's roleplaying, but some people prefer much of the game focused on bold adventurers confronting deadly perils whereas other people prefer more of the game focused on lower-stakes situations with a lot of intraparty interaction (for example). This seems a more useful way of thinking about it in my view. Then we could talk about how to create games that cater to either group or, as in my preference, to create games that cater to both."

Huh. So why don't we call the first group "Adventure focused" and the second group "Roleplay focused" and get back to the discussion?

... which brings us back to doe doe doe doe ...

Because the first group is also roleplaying. It's more about what content they prefer to engage with and how they communicate their roleplaying rather than whether one is roleplaying more than another. That distinction allows for solutions to come forward more easily in my view.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not a value judgement to say some things are roleplaying, and some aren't, anymore than it is a value judgement to say some things are pears and some aren't.

Pears you can identify through genetics and other objective means. Roleplaying is not so clear cut. Taken literally, all it takes for roleplaying is playing a role, which happen even in the most hack n' slash style D&D games. When you start to pick and choose which kinds of playing a role are roleplaying, you are making a value judgment. You are saying that the kinds of playing a role that you like have value, but the other kinds don't.