The pleasure in RPGs - alternatives to overcoming challenges

[Pbartender]

If you go back to the thread that spawned the quote that pemerton used, you will see that the context is "IF you do this THEN you will not have that problem".

My "IF you do this" isn't the only way to solve that problem, but it is an effective way.

Which was my intention, as well, but I wasn't paying enough attention, apparently, and phrased it poorly.

Oh, well.

 

[Raven Crowking]

No worries!

 

[Umbran]

Consider me properly chastised for generalizing my personal experience with many DMs (including myself).

O, I didn't mean that personally - just a comment on discussions in general that I thought might be relevant, especially in the context of the 'restricting re-rolls thread running in parallel to this.

 

[Balesir]

I've had plenty of sessions where players spend a lot of time not overcoming challenges, or to be truly technical, overcoming very mild or self-imposed challenges -- a character working up the nerve to express how he feels to another character, or wheedling the bartender into spreading some gossip that is more entertaining than useful, or just getting into a colorful argument with a crotchety old man for the sake of having fun and entertaining the fellow players.

[Extra, good explanation snipped for brevity]

I recognise this sort of play as something I have both seen and done. My sense, from my experience, is that it's not really "challenge-based" play, nor associated with it (although it might be, for some people). I associate it more with "exploration-based" play - the players are exploring their own character, and/or the other (NPC?) characters in the world around them. The "challenge", such as it is, exists for the character, rather than for the player.

Mostly I think that if the player is 'stepping up' to any challenge, it might be described as "the challenge to get recognition/applause/kudos from the other players at the table". I think this is a pretty common aim accross all varieties of roleplaying, not to mention beyond roleplaying entirely - it merely says that roleplaying is a social activity, which is pretty obvious. The only connection that this has with "challenge-based" play, et al, is in what the kudos is most predominantly being awarded for. If it's for good tactics or good die rolls, the chances are there's some challenge-based play going on. If it's for interesting character development, for coming up with something that just "fits the world to a T" or for drawing attention to some interesting element or feature of the game world not explored before, I would suspect that exploratory-based play was afoot. Not really hard-and-fast rules, but sort of guides as to what is expected/desired at this table.

 

[pemerton]

Balesir, good post.