What ever happened to Role Playing?

[Wippit Guud]

Man, I get sick of everyone crying Troll! Trolls are so overused now, it just takes the fun out of them. What about using an athach instead? I haven't seen one published encounter using our 3-armed giant-like friend.

Down with trolls. Up with athaches!

 

[Harlock]

I think troll should be called here. I mean, score it out. He made two posts, but it's up to three pages. It's not the best score I've seen, but it's decent. Does that make me insecure? Not at all. In fact, I enjoy trolls. I think most people on messageboards do, frankly. It gives them something to do.

Another thing: Why does everyone insist their brand of roleplaying or rollplaying or powergaming or outright Munchkinism is the best form of the game? Because they derive maximum enjoyment out of it that way. It doesn't make them wrong, or better or worse or even WhiteWolfers, d20 fanboys or Harniacs, it simply makes them right for themselves and hopefully their group. What's the fuss? Anyone remember the old line from the D&D books that said, and I am paraphrasing here, you don't win at D&D? Arguments on messageboards are sort of the same...

 

[Rel]

Since "scientific research" about the prevalence of roleplaying is profoundly lacking, any response refuting or supporting the OP is necessarily going to be anecdotal. So I'll share my most recent anecdote.

Saturday was the second NC Game Day that I've helped to organize. I ran two games and was able to at least momentarily observe 4-5 more. In every single case, I saw folks doing a superb job of roleplaying.

Keep in mind that, in most cases, these people had just received these characters that day and that most of the folks they were playing with they had never met before (which I've noticed can make many people a bit more reserved in their roleplaying). Given those facts, I think it is reasonable to surmise that when playing characters that they've developed themselves, from the ground up, in a regular group of friends, that most of these people are what I would term "excellent roleplayers".

As far as my regular gaming group goes, we prefer to encourage roleplaying and have devised an alternate XP system that awards those who roleplay to at least some extent. One of the cornerstones of that system is that the player, not the GM, defines his character's personality and goals. Then, so long as those player-defined traits are displayed and goals pursued, the player is rewarded. I've shared this system with quite a few people and for some it has worked and for others it hasn't. I'd expect nothing less from the diverse group of people in this hobby.

 

[BSF]

Rel,
Any chance I could get you to share it with me? I would really like to see it.

 

[Rel]

Rel,
Any chance I could get you to share it with me? I would really like to see it.

I just e-mailed it to you. If you've got questions, we've got answers.

 

[Arken]

I think troll should be called here. I mean, score it out. He made two posts, but it's up to three pages. It's not the best score I've seen, but it's decent. Does that make me insecure? Not at all. In fact, I enjoy trolls. I think most people on messageboards do, frankly. It gives them something to do.

Another thing: Why does everyone insist their brand of roleplaying or rollplaying or powergaming or outright Munchkinism is the best form of the game? Because they derive maximum enjoyment out of it that way. It doesn't make them wrong, or better or worse or even WhiteWolfers, d20 fanboys or Harniacs, it simply makes them right for themselves and hopefully their group. What's the fuss? Anyone remember the old line from the D&D books that said, and I am paraphrasing here, you don't win at D&D? Arguments on messageboards are sort of the same...

I completely agree, arguing that people aren't roleplaying well enough is based on a completely flawed paradigm. People can do what they want when they're doing it as entertainment or for fun. Firstly because one simply cannot know why poeple are playing the game, if someone does a large amount of amateur dramatics then perhaps they play roleplaying games as they might play chess (purely mechanics) because they like the way the rules work. You cannot say that they are having a deficient experience. Why worry that other people don't live up to your standards? If they live up to their own surely it's alright.

You could get so much more out of D&D, you and your friends, were you to treat it as a roleplaying game, and not just as Munchkin with fiddly bits.

Similarly the entire line of worrying that people are not deriving the 'true' worth out of the game, that they would 'get much so much more' out of it is running in the same paradigm as what is ultimately intellectual snobbery. One might just as easily tell people to read Faust and Paradise Lost instead of playing a campaign story arch about devils and demons and angels. Or drop the campaign based on courtly intrigue and instead so freeform amateur dramatics based on The Tale of Genji or The Three musketeers. After all if they were to do so they would get so much more of worth, of cultural significance, that is considered to carry cultural worth.
Stating that one form of roleplaying is worse than another is like someone saying that DnD is 'low' culture and people would be better off spending their time on something else. Such an argument argument that is patently ridiculous to people that want to play the game, they play the game because they want to play it. Similarly they play the game in a particular way because that is the way they want to play it.

 

[WizarDru]

Anyone remember the old line from the D&D books that said, and I am paraphrasing here, you don't win at D&D? Arguments on messageboards are sort of the same...

There you go again, man, tilting at those windmills.

 

[buzzard]

Maybe it's me, but does it appear that the "Role Players" [otherwise known as the holy self annointed] have a problem with projecting their own faults on others?

Mythusmage has spent a great deal of effort slamming people for calling someone a troll. You know if the troll call were fractionally as offensive as the tripe you've posted, you wouldn't have pegged the hypocrite-o-meter.

Then we have Rounser saying all the roll-players are reacting because of a sensitive spot has been hit. To listen to the hysterics from some about the preponderance of mechanics, based on minimal actual evidence, I can't say reality supports the contention.

Simply enough MrGone (the name suggests an idylic outcome), people are going to play the way they like. I myself enjoy playing some games heavy on roleplay, and some heavy on hack and slash. People have difference preferences at different times. Proffering the position that it's all going to heck because people dare to play in a way you don't favor is going to get you called a troll. of course spicing it up with the obligatory version war only enhanced the warts and green skin.

I actually know quite a few people who just like roll playing. I play with them. I also play with people to whom the role is everything. I enjoy both sorts' company. What I don't enjoy is the sort that postures about their inherent superiority.

Initially I was going to claim that the "role players" were worse about this, but I then realized that Living Greyhawk gives a good counter example of where the roll players have taken over. This has happened to such an extent that if you don't have an ability for character optimization, you will be slaughtered. After hearing some nimrods from my region claiming that LG should be about "bringing your A game", I can't call either group blameless.

 

[jasper]

...
To put it another way, leave the fluff out and you might as well be playing a war game.

How to correct the problem:

1. Remember that it's a roleplaying game, and that you can engage in social activities during the course of a session.

2. Include guidelines for awarding XP for activities other than killing. ...

3. Obvious roleplaying advice. Stuff like, "The elves from this land are nowhere near as 'stuck-up' as those from others. Not that they're exactly friendly, but they are more apt to treat non-elves as small children rather than disgusting animals."

4. Remember that 'game' is only a part of an RPG. Along with elements of game there are elements of story, theater, and real life. By emphasizing 'game' over the other three you are missing a lot.

...

Jasper notes this could have been said about any edition of D&d and a few other games.
Stats are easy to number crunch. The chocolat/vanilla icecream flavor issues are the hard to define because each has his own favorite. And each are right. Except those strawberry folks they wimps

 

[jasamcarl]

Every time I've debated the issue, it's been about adventures in particular, which I think should be emphasised above macro-level setting material and what I consider semi-redundant splat, and which you're now calling crunch?

Okay, there's two false dichotomies for you - in what sense are adventures anything but flavour under the hard-nosed view of crunch? There's no mechanics - it's all encounter locations, plot and NPCs. Second false dichotomy - what you want me to be arguing and what I actually argue are different things, jasamcarl - simply because I don't support your view that crunch is the only way doesn't mean that I'm taking the polar opposite view - I'm pro-adventures, not pro-fluff, unless you define it as such...which you don't?

Ok, you know all those gridded maps that are packaged with Combat Encounter levels, pre-rolled hit die, treasure values etc which are commonly referred to as adventures. Yes, there are rules for getting through those. Not all 'adventures' are railroad fluff fests...sorry if you missed the overwhelming number of modules available.