There's No Wrong Way to Roleplay

[jdrakeh]

zowie.. Well, that guys was clearly not right in the head rather than roleplaying incorrectly.

I choose for C: Completely Nuts and Roleplaying Wrongly

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I put on my robe and wizard hat ...

or furry suit ...

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I can think of a couple of wrong ways to roleplay, although not all are pertinent to the OP

1) Roleplaying in a way that is not fun for yourself

2) Roleplaying in a way that seriously detracts from the fun of the other players. This is not 100% though, if my PC and another are in a contest, I think it's alright to win even if the other player doesn't like it. This is more about egregious behavior.

3) Roleplaying behavior that is against your previous image of a PC just to grab a mechanical benefit.

There have to be others too

 

[Herzog]

I agree with the OP:

There is no 'wrong' way to role-play. Roleplaying is, as the word suggests, playing a role. Since you are the creator of that role (unlike a character in a play, which has been created by the author) you, by definition, decide what that character should and should not do.
If you are not interested in what most of us would call 'role-playing', and simply come to the game to announce your actions in combat, and roll dice, leaving all non-combat interaction to the other players, that still isn't 'wrong'.

Playing a Lawfull Good Paladin (just taking the extreme) and ignoring every aspect of allignment, killing and stealing just as you see fit, still isn't roleplaying 'wrong'.
It is, however, in violation of some game rules. It's up to the DM to enforce the rules in this situation, and change the alignment of the character in question to it's actual alignment.

Playing your character in a way that makes the game less fun for you, and/or others, isn't roleplaying 'wrong' either. It's just not much fun.

I have several years of experience with large LARP events, and if there's one thing that tends to occur more in LARP than any other RPG, it's roleplay. In these years, I have found that there are a lot of different 'styles' of play around, and not all of them are compatible. (think long-term planning and building of background and character vs one-event only killjoys). For some time, I thought of that as 'wrong', until I realised these people where having a very good time. It just wasn't 'my kind of fun'. Since it's not always possible to avoid people on such events, it's something you have to roll with. You don't have to like it, but that still doesn't mean it's 'wrong'.
With tabletop games, whenever you find that one or more people in the group are (role)playing in a way that isn't fun for you, you can either roll with it, ask them to leave, or leave yourself.

As long as you remember, it isn't 'wrong'. It's just not your kind of 'right' ....

 

[Celebrim]

Playing a Lawfull Good Paladin (just taking the extreme) and ignoring every aspect of allignment, killing and stealing just as you see fit, still isn't roleplaying 'wrong'.
It is, however, in violation of some game rules. It's up to the DM to enforce the rules in this situation, and change the alignment of the character in question to it's actual alignment.

This I completely disagree with. There are some things even more important than rules. In an RPG, rules are just devices designed to help smooth the role-play along. When you boil them down, all of them amount to variations on solving a fundamental problem of roleplaying, what do you do when the Cop/Cowboy/Robber/Indian shoots the Robber/Indian/Cop/Cowboy and the responce is, "No, you didn't... you missed."

Failure to abide by the terms of your character, especially when they are explicitly laid out to the degree that they are with the concept of 'Paladin' is a much more fundamental breach of the social contract we call 'a role-playing game' than even breaking the rules. You are no better and perhaps somewhat worse than a cheater, because you don't play the game in order to follow the rules. You don't even need rules to play. You have rules merely so you can play the game easily and hopefully with a minimum of disagreement. But if you aren't contributing to the role-play, you aren't playing the game and you are keeping everyone else from doing so to.

If I want to play a game where playing by the rules is most of what's important to the social contract, I'll play something competitive like chess, SoC, Bloodbowl, canasta, or Carcassonne.

Playing your character in a way that makes the game less fun for you, and/or others, isn't roleplaying 'wrong' either. It's just not much fun.

Strictly speaking, I think you are right. It's quite easy to device a character that is no fun to be around, and to play that character faithfully and hense in a twisted way be roleplaying 'well'. And its even possible that such a presentation might be in an Andy Kaufman sort of way, fun for yourself. But be as that may, its still poor gamesmanship.

I have several years of experience with large LARP events, and if there's one thing that tends to occur more in LARP than any other RPG, it's roleplay.

I don't have a very good opinion of LARPers, but I'll say this for them - they haven't forgot that the whole point is to be playing.

Well, except those that think its an elaborate ploy to get in each others pants. And those that are just crazy, and aren't exactly role-playing any more because they've long since stopped pretending. And...

Well, you get the point.

 

[Mallus]

Well, except those that think its an elaborate ploy to get in each others pants.

You say that as if it's a bad thing. Debates around here would be a lot less heated if there was more in-pants getting going on.

(I kid. Mostly).

 

[werk]

But how you feel the character should be played is paramount, not the current alignment.

This sounds like a cop out to me.

It's an 'I do what I want cuz I'm the player!' argument. I see it as the alignment IS the way the character should be played, rather than the players whim...but the player creates or chooses the character, so it really shouldn't be a problem.

Obviously, you have to stray A LOT in my campaign for it to matter in the long run. But a LG paladin raping babies is right out regardless of the situation or 'it seemed like a good idea at the time.'

The alignment is part of the character, and disregarding alignment because you think that's what the character would do, means that you are probably not ROLE-playing the character.

Acting in defiance to your character's alignment is simply acting chaotically or unpredictably....which is an alignment trait itself.

If your direction says Hamlet exits stage left, and you exit stage right, you are not playing the role of Hamlet correctly.

 

[Mallus]

If your direction says Hamlet exits stage left, and you exit stage right, you are not playing the role of Hamlet correctly.

Except that in this case the player is Shakespeare in the process of writing Hamlet, not the actor.

 

[sniffles]

But how you feel the character should be played is paramount, not the current alignment. In real life people don't question how they generally do things before acting, they act in a manner they wish to. Concepts like honor, duty, loyalty, integrity, etc may make a person do things against their nature, grudgingly. But no one consciously thinks "Well, I consider myself a lawful good person and therefore I should act in this manner". Similarly, no one thinks "Well I'm an engineer, so in this given situation I should act like an engineer." People act the way they've acted their whole lives, and my point is even "lawful" people have bouts of inconsistency.

I understand where you're going with this, I think. But I have two points to make in response:

1) A roleplaying game isn't real life, and the player is not his character. Alignment helps to define a character's personality and should help to determine how you feel the character should be played. It isn't a box they can't step outside of, but it is a constraint of the rules that should be applied consistently if it's being applied at all.

2) In real life people don't question how they generally do things before acting, true. But when they act in the manner they wish to, it's based on their personal code of morals, ethics and values. They may not think about it consciously, but it colors their choices. Most of the time when people are inconsistent in their behavior it's due to extenuating circumstances - illness, fear, tiredness, presence of intoxicant or depressant substances, or extreme duress. People are generally fairly consistent in their behavior when there are no such extenuating circumstances present.

 

[Technik4]

I understand where you're going with this, I think. But I have two points to make in response:

1) A roleplaying game isn't real life, and the player is not his character. Alignment helps to define a character's personality and should help to determine how you feel the character should be played. It isn't a box they can't step outside of, but it is a constraint of the rules that should be applied consistently if it's being applied at all.

Alignment is a poor system, in my eyes, because it is limited. Humanity is very very diverse (especially when compared to most demihuman societies in the game, but thats another topic entirely) and to say that you can put every member into one of 9 broad moral/ethical stances is just silly. If you look too closely at it, it falls apart (of course, this is true of many aspects of the game).

The average person could probably be placed into one alignment or another. But there is the entire question of intent vs. action and people do change over time and act differently (even if they don't perceive that it is happening). Young people are rebellious but grow to be more conservative as they get older. Things like that are difficult for the alignment system to show.

2) In real life people don't question how they generally do things before acting, true. But when they act in the manner they wish to, it's based on their personal code of morals, ethics and values. They may not think about it consciously, but it colors their choices. Most of the time when people are inconsistent in their behavior it's due to extenuating circumstances - illness, fear, tiredness, presence of intoxicant or depressant substances, or extreme duress.

I guess my point is that adventurers are constantly put into extenuating circumstances. It's easy to be LG when your life is boring and you don't interact with many people.

It's an 'I do what I want cuz I'm the player!' argument. I see it as the alignment IS the way the character should be played, rather than the players whim...but the player creates or chooses the character, so it really shouldn't be a problem.

In my opinion alignment should always reflect the characters' actions, not dictate them.