What ever happened to Role Playing?

[Umbran]

Re: Re: What ever happened to Role Playing?

As an ancillary, I wonder how much, if at all, the growth of LARPs has drawn the seriously character-driven roleplayers away from traditional tabletop RPGs.

Probably very little. Generally speaking, it's not a binary switch - it's not as if a player chooses only one or the other, and not both. I know a whole mess of LARP players, and pretty much all of them also play tabletop games.

 

[Kichwas]

Um, Arcana Unearthed isn't about toys at all.

It puts a ridiculous amount of options in the hands of the GM and players.

Those two statements are directly opposed to each other.

 

[WizWrm]

If you read them the way they weren't intended to be read, yes, they are.

What I meant was: pretty much everything, from class abilities to racial backgrounds, was designed with the idea in mind that players would actually be playing in this setting, and GMs would actually be running it, so a lot of power (and thus, options) is placed in their hands to move stuff around to make it fit for their campaign. For example, the greenbond ability (in the preview) "Percipience." To quote:

Percipience (Su): Starting at sixth level, greenbonds can see and hear nature spirits otherwise imperceptible to mortals (unless a spirit wishes to show itself). The character finds this ability disconcerting at first, because it makes him realize how pervasive spirits are. They are everywhere, all the time - although only rarely do they pay attention to the actions of mortals. Greenbonds sometimes become alerted to danger when the nature spirits of an area are upset or absent.

You'll notice that this ability gives you absolutely zero mechanics-related benefit. In fact, nothing mechanics-related at all. All it does is give a tool to the GM, an option for a GM to use to make his campaign a little more interesting.

But this isn't an Arcana Unearthed thread.

 

[Sirius_Black]

It seems all that is ever discussed on these boards is mechanics... skills, feats, abilities, etc. All computer geek type qualities of D&D.

That's not true!!!!

We, every single one of us, take the time to bash Dragon Magazine on a consistent basis.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

With all due respect to the original poster, if one is not seeing discussions about roleplaying on these boards, one is not looking, or only started looking a short while ago. As has been mentioned, there have been endless discussions about alignment, about character concepts, about getting into character, what level of immersion one likes, etc. etc. etc.

All that said, when I started playing, "roleplaying" was something almost never discussed - I started playing 1979, so the notion that the hobby went from being not far removed from a miniatures game, to immersive roleplaying perhaps reaching its apogee in LARP, to swinging back towards a war game, is amusing to me. It strikes me that focusing on the mechanics of the game is, indeed, returning to the old way.

1e and 2e didn't bring us roleplaying. To that I can attest, as I have years of first-hand knowledge of both games. Find for me any substantial sections in the 1e and 2e core books that focus on roleplaying; it isn't really there. We filled in the blanks on our own. Sure, the nigh-infinite line of 2e "complete handbooks" did give substantive attention to roleplaying but those books came long, long after the RPG industry was well established.

D&D has never been as focused on the roleplaying aspect of the hobby as some games are. As a matter of fact, many of the games that arose that focused on roleplaying came about as a reaction to D&D.

As an aside, if one wants to have a discussion about roleplaying (or anything, actually) on these boards, one can simply post a thread and say so. However, starting off by saying that nobody ever discusss these things, and implying that somehow everyone else is at fault for it, immediately puts people on the defensive. Better to just say: "anyone have any cool character concepts they'd like to discuss?" or some such. And I've seen plenty of threads like that; I've actually hung around these boards for a while.

 

[Harlock]

As someone pointed out, messageboards are generally to share and debate etc. I'm sure, in your 20+ years of roleplaying (hey, I've been gaming that long as well) you've heard countless stories about Karzak the Half-Orc's daring raid on an evil castle. If you're like me, you hear some nimrod start the story and try to bolt. I love to roleplay. I don't like to be regaled by Tim the Unclean, Overweight, Goateed Gamer with Glasses about his awesome character Sylena the Seductress because frankly, he's a boor. I've heard ALL of the Monty Python jokes you know a hundred times already. Mechanics are something you can argue all day. As are some of the more frequent topics I see on this board about roleplaying.

And don't get me wrong, Tim and me are a lot alike, save I bathe and shave, I'm still a fat geek. I still like to talk about my cool characters, and do, but more foten than not I try to be respectful of others and not bore them with what, I know, has been done before. This troll has been done before as well. Trolls always respond with "Why what do you mean by that?" How do I know? Takes one to know one.

EDIT: One more thing, if you think 1ed and 2ed were not steeped in mechanics, I beg to differ. D&D grew out of Wargaming. ALL mechanics. Read some stuff by Gygax. Learn from it. He says and constantly points out that part of the fun for his group was trying to out think and loophole around rules and mechanics. Read his articles in Dragon for instance. A lot of people derive their enjoyment from the game that way. You're not better than they are. You just game differently and their way is simply different, not better or worse than yours. It may be worse for you and your group of course, but there's seldom anything in this world that is Universal. As Stan says... 'Nuff said.

 

[Coredump]

While the math-geek in me really applauds the mathematical consistency 3 and 3.5 have; it sometimes feels lesslike a role playing game, and more like an expanded Magic tournement.

Now, I may just be showing my age; but when people are doing mathematical breakdowns, showing that certain combinations are doing .56 points per hit more damage than other combinations, the game seems to lose something.

OTOH, in 1e, it was *obvious* that the longsword was the only 'intelligent' choice.

harumph

.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

We must remember that 1st and 2nd editions brought us "role playing" and as much as I positively adore 3rd edition and 3.5 it seems it appeals to a large group or "computer gamer" types who just build their characters for "optimization" (or power gaming). No souls just numbers.

We need to bring back the soulful characters and stop just looking at D&D as if it were a spread sheet.!

You know, displaying nostalgia like this is one of the first signs that you are getting old...

 

[ichabod]

Yes... a subject that must be written about. I come to a few different boards like these for quite sometime and just read things and never post but I feel I would like to now.

Yeah, right. If that was true you would have noticed the marked drama freak bias to this board and you wouldn't have bothered posting.

Bad troll. Go back to usenet.

 

[mythusmage]

Such sensitivity I see in this thread. "We must be roleplayers, we play a roleplaying game!"

Right, and baseball was invented by Romulans.

Cries of "Troll!" Cries of "Of course there are guidelines to rollplaying in the rules!" On the last I do agree, and hidden so dang well it takes a comprehensive reading of the books to find them. Who actually reads everything in a rules manual anyway? After the lessons imparted by computer game manuals, I doubt if many actually take the time to actually read anything beyond the bare minimum needed to get a game going.

Take a look at the number of posts on these boards regarding crunch versus fluff. T'is a rare person who prefers the fluff over the crunch. Forgetting in their eagerness to kill people and take their stuff , that the 'fluff' is just as necessary for a full RPG expenience as the 'crunch' is.

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. Negotiating, information gathering, running away, or surrendering for example. "Joe, for recognizing those guys could bet the crap out of you and booking like a terrified rabbit, 100 XP."

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.

Those are my thoughts on this subject. If you want to call be a troll all you'll be doing is showing the rest of the ENWorld community how small and shallow you are.