Watchmen have brought *real* role-playing to D&D

[Henry]

(method) Acting vs Roleplay...

Doesnt really matter to me, in the end, as long as they're having fun!!

That's where I come down on the issue, myself, being a fan of Robin Laws for the past six years or so. There's a lot of reasons we each sit at that game table and bust out the dice instead of turn on the game console/PC. And there's a lot of folks who enjoy the goblin-bashing with a side helping of socializing; I also believe the different types of players can get along at the table a lot better than some folks would believe. But it's about managing time and making sure everybody gets a bit of what they want, and their moment to shine at why they're there.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Hahahahahaha.

It's a difference in playstyle, not an evolution of the game, and it happened before Watchmen and independent of it.

My own style treads heavily into character development/narrative gameplay, but that doesn't mean that my players don't care about how many goblins they thwack.

I can respect those who want to thwack goblins basically exclusively, and I encourage them. I find it more fun to play videogames for that, but whatever makes you happy, kiddo.

It's rather off to indicate that somehow being more character oriented is an inherently better style of game. It's not. It's not more evolved or more complex or more "real" or more interesting or necessarily more fun. It might work well for your group, but it might not work well for your friend's group. There is no One True Way. Even in 4e.

 

[Woas]

Having not seen the recent movie or read the book or whatever it is based on, I don't really understand where the Watchmanerizing term has come from. What's so special about this literature that inspired people not to play cheese-characters?
Hasn't it always been that way? Despite people pointing back and jumping up and down and saying, "See! Look! The game came from some war game setup! It's about fighting!" Hasn't the first chapter about characters always advised to create a character in your head who is interesting with quirks and subtleties, then apply the game rules?

 

[Vegepygmy]

What I am saying is that doing so is not the core of what "role-playing" means. You don't *need* to create a unique personality for your character in order to be role-playing. It's an add-on, an ornament to the basic structure, for greater enjoyment.

Okay. I see what you're saying as true to the same degree that it's true I don't need anything more than bread to have "lunch." I don't need lettuce, tomato, turkey, cheese, or condiments in order to satisfy my hunger. They're add-ons for greater enjoyment.

Of course, not many people would advocate eating bread alone for lunch when you can have a sandwich with all the fixings...so I'm not sure what is accomplished by pointing out that bread alone is sufficient to avoid starvation.

 

[Nightson]

Having not seen the recent movie or read the book or whatever it is based on, I don't really understand where the Watchmanerizing term has come from. What's so special about this literature that inspired people not to play cheese-characters?

It's the best comic book ever written.

Normally a statement like that would be setting expectations too high, but probably not in this case.

 

[Henry]

It's the best comic book ever written.

Normally a statement like that would be setting expectations too high, but probably not in this case.

From what I can see, it's the comic that heralded the era of "Iron Age" Superheroes -- books that explored more introspective themes of what it meant to actually possess the powers that golden age and silver age heroes always had, and the moral and ethical issues that went with them. "Iron Age was popular in the 90's, but Watchmen was the first that did the kinds of things that later Iron Age heroes did.

Maybe you could say, before there was a Dark Knight Batman, there was a Rorshach. I dunno, I didn't follow the time line that closely.

 

[JimLotFP]

Okay. I see what you're saying as true to the same degree that it's true I don't need anything more than bread to have "lunch." I don't need lettuce, tomato, turkey, cheese, or condiments in order to satisfy my hunger. They're add-ons for greater enjoyment.

Of course, not many people would advocate eating bread alone for lunch when you can have a sandwich with all the fixings...so I'm not sure what is accomplished by pointing out that bread alone is sufficient to avoid starvation.

mmm... food analogies.

It's like pizza. You can customize it as you like, a nice deep dish, or stuffed crust, with the works or maybe just veggies or a selection of meats, but a plain cheese pizza is still a pizza.

 

[Orius]

And then we come full circle with certain segments of the "old school" crowd claiming that such things are not "real" roleplaying.

LotFP: RPG: Role-Playing is not...

Because now that the Watchmen have a big movie out, they're popular and can't be cool, and old is cool again.

So let's beat our chests, let out a manly primal scream, and go SPEAR SOME ORCS!

Or whatever, I never gave a damn about that whole "real-roleplaying" argument anyway.

 

[roguerouge]

(method) Acting vs Roleplay...

Doesnt really matter to me, in the end, as long as they're having fun!!

Method acting VS Improv.

In my experience, method acting makes the games too personal.

I prefer Meisner technique, personally.

Meh. Give me Artaud's theater of cruelty.

 

[Thanee]

It's a difference in playstyle, not an evolution of the game, and it happened before Watchmen and independent of it.

Yep, I was also wondering, what exactly Watchmen has to do with this (apart from some vague similarities when comparing rpg playstyles with comic book styles).

Bye
Thanee