What ever happened to "role playing?"

[JRRNeiklot]

If you, as a person, can't come up with something to say to a guard to convince him to let you in the gates, your pc doesn't deserve to get inside, either. Let someone else bull the guard while you stand around and nod in agreement. I don't look good in a tutu, so I ain't gonna take ballerina lessons. I don't let lucky rolls get pcs anywhere. Roleplay it or move on.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I don't look good in a tutu, so I ain't gonna take ballerina lessons.

Thank you. I can now sign off for the night having had a good laugh.

 

[MerricB]

If you, as a person, can't come up with something to say to a guard to convince him to let you in the gates, your pc doesn't deserve to get inside, either. Roleplay it or move on.

Do you also require your players to fight for real instead of just rolling against orcs?

Cheers!

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Do you also require your players to fight for real instead of just rolling against orcs?

Cheers!

I would if I could!

But seriously, D&D is a social experience. If someone doesn't like expressing themselves, why play? You might say there are other parts of the game that don't involve opening your mouth much - combat, puzzle solving, etc. Fine. I have known guys whom enjoy the combat, and dungeon crawling, but sit around twiddling there thumbs in a role playing encounter. . Just as I've seen folks who are there for the role playing only, idly roll the 20 sider, yawn, and go back to their magazine. That's why I try to keep an even mix of combat and social encounters in the game - to satisfy both types, and those that like both. Am I penalizing those that don't do well, in social situations? Maybe, but no one has complained yet, and our game is much more interesting for it.

"I bluff the guard" is not role playing. It might work on Nintendo, but not in my game.

 

[takyris]

JRR, several guys in my current group started out as CRPG folks who hadn't done much live roleplaying. The "I bluff the guard" system, with clean rules and definite results and a clear reward for putting ranks into social skills or abilities, was much better for them. They're roleplaying more effectively now in addition to using their dice rolls, but if they hadn't had those clean rules to begin with, they would have been a bit frustrated after coming to the game from computer RPGs.

And they are, now, some of my better players. So I'm very glad that D&D made an effort to make a system that was comfortable for them to use as a catalyst for eventual immersive roleplaying.

This might be a "drama geek roleplayer" versus "math geek roleplayer" Mars/Venus thing. Not sure. As a writer-geek roleplayer, I think you're all just complaining uselessly, because I'm the DM and I'm going to shoehorn you into my plots no matter what you try to do. Er, I mean, yes, both viewpoints are equally valid. (cough, saunter, saunter, bluff check)

Interesting conversation. I'm really glad it stayed polite.

 

[MerricB]

I would if I could!

But seriously, D&D is a social experience. If someone doesn't like expressing themselves, why play?

"I bluff the guard" is not role playing. It might work on Nintendo, but not in my game.

It's Role Assumption, one of the key parts of a RPG.

Role Assumption is when you direct the actions of your character as that character would. Thus, the rogue chooses to Bluff the guard, the wizard chooses to cast charm person, and the barbarian clunks the guard over the head.

Role-Playing is Role Assumption + Acting. I find it a superior form of play, but not strictly necessary. It's something you get more experience with and get better with the more you play. Hopefully.

Do you bother haggling with every merchant over the cost of a sword? Probably not. The rules are there to allow you to skip over those "boring" sections and head to the real action... but people differ as to what is boring.

The drawback with just rolling dice is obvious: you lose a lot of social interaction that can be really entertaining. However, if you never roll dice for diplomacy, then you get the "Charisma 3" syndrome. "It doesn't matter what my Charisma is, because the DM doesn't use it - it's based on my real personality." Oh dear.

The fighter is not penalised because the player can't pick up a sword, why is the bard penalised because the player stutters?

Personally, I prefer to combine both rules and real role-playing. The rules give me the starting point for the interaction, and guidelines at what to do at critical moments so as to divorce myself from the trap of preferential treatment to a particular player.

Cheers!

 

[S'mon]

I don't share that view. That is, the game now allows gamers that prefer that methodology to play the game easily enough; Beyond that, it's a matter of indicating what standard of role-play that a specific group desires and will use.

I think that's fair enough. OTOH because the game now does facilitate roll-play/no-role-play approach "I Bluff the guard" it does make it easy for the game to go away from the in-character roleplaying that I, personally, find the most enjoyable aspect of the game, even above combat. It happened to my own game for a while - I kinda knew something was wrong, but it took a long time and talking with Stalkingblue (player & also a GM) to work out what had gone wrong and what I needed to change, including dropping a long-term player who was clearly not only incapable of IC roleplaying, but also made it embarrassing for anyone else to do so in his presence. If it were not that 3e so facilitated 'rollplay', this situation might never have developed.

 

[S'mon]

Consider the other side of the coin. Consider that you like to role play out a situation, you have a decent relevant social skill, and all it boils down to is a dice roll. How does the encourage creative play? How does that encourage the players to think as their characters? How is a die roll more fun?

And on that note. I've gamed with martial artists, fencers, boxers and wrestlers. You had better bet that if someone knows this stuff, they make a far more effective fighter, no matter the rules sets. They usually think of creative things to do that are still outside the rules. As a GM you can harsh on them, or you can be thrilled that you've fostered cretivity, interest, and fun in the game.

Exactly, Milotha - by and large actors play great Bards, martial artists play great monks, many soldiers play great Fighters and Rangers, academics make good Wizards, and so on. Mind you I'm an academic and I usually like to play Fighters these days (bit of escapism); but it's clear to me that certain character types suit certain players and make the game more fun for _everyone_, for the GM & for other players. Which is my criteria. If a player makes the game less fun for me or for the other players I don't want them at my table.

 

[S'mon]

There has to be a middle ground. So, players - please role play your characters, and GMs encourage creativity and reward it with a lowered DC or graduated levels of success for the social skills.

Yup, that's what I do.

 

[Hemlock Stones]

Rolls Vs. Roles

GREETINGS!

I have to sympathise with you. Most of the people I game with are DM's. We trade off every 5-7 games. Some will run longer than others. Some of them have elaborate story arcs/plots. Some are essentially running one time adventures. All of us avoid the games of rolls and prefer the ones involving roles.

In defense of the DM, its far easier to focus the party on a combat encounter than to get them focused on moving from one point of a story arc to the next. Players prefer to role play their characters. This means anything from inciting half the town to chase the party for offending the mayor's drunken son at the local tavern to getting thrown in jail for breaking into the shop of a used magic item dealer and getting caught.

Another culprit to think about is the time and effort it takes to put together a good balanced game. The few times we have attempted to do pre-gen book adventures went over miserable. We created our own gaming world called Seventh Realm. (Seven DM's in the gaming group lord over the world.) That took a great deal of time and effort. But it is well worth it because of the wealth of opportunities to do things that don't conflict with the various interpretations of Faerun. You have 2d Edition, 3d Edition, 3.5 Edition. Original D&D, Extra Crunchy D&D and all the blasted Forgotten Realms novelists changing significant elements and happenings of Faerun at the whim of an editor. Don't get me started about the WOTC business decision to bring in the Legend of the Five Rings environment instead of developing for 3.0 a fan favorite, Kara-Tur.

Lots of players means lots of players not being able to participate when a one on one social encounter occurs. How about a party of ten where six different groups form and do different things?

The game I participate in right now has the DM with three story angles for three different party memebers that relate to the major plot line. One other player that games with us has so annoyed the DM that the player will see nothing specific focused towards the character they play in this game. (This player changes characters every other week, he's on number four right now)

You can argue that once the main plot is in place, that the rest is window dressing. But its all the kewl crunchy plot enhancements that make the games enjoyable. Sure everybody wants to chop down the iron golem guarding the stolen princess, but sometimes that's just not possible without a few people getting taken down hard.

Thanks for letting me vent.