What ever happened to "role playing?"

[Bendris Noulg]

Open your PHB and read the entry for any race and any class.

Yes, I've seen that. A lot of stereotypes, most of it being re-worded stereotypes from 1E and 2E.

The pages are chock full of role playing info. There is more RP info in the D&D3 PHB than there was in the AD&D PHB. (Not sure about AD&D2; would have to open those books again and check.)

2E was written with the presumption that people were role-playing and that the role-playing hindrances and boons presented were being used as presented. While I agree that this was partially an error (i.e., if the hindrances for your Kit didn't effect game play, your character was viewed as over-powered), I believe that the design of 3E has a very knee-jerk response of removing RP from the equation completely. While the Races and Classes give (stereotype) descriptions of views and outlooks, there's nothing beyond that. Heck, some of these descriptions are actually in contradiction to the rules (example: The description of the Sorcerer in comparison to their Class Skill list), and that's never a good thing.

I started D&D back in 1980, and I didn't learn anything about RP from the core rule books. I learned through play and from Dragon magazine and from various supplemental books. D&D3 at least gives lots of RP advice, hints, direction, and other info right in the core books.

No more than it did in the older editions, and certainly not to the extent of encouraging players to at least think of RP-based considerations as being of equal importance to mechanical considerations within the context of an RPG.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Hi, I'm Dave and I'm a recovering roll-player

<group> Hi, Dave!

For the first 12 or so years of my gaming life, I was a roll-player. I didn't want to admit it and I was sure that I was one of the best gamers on the planet. Why? Because I could quote rules, reference page numbers of the books and come up with creative uses for spells and magic items in order to confound the DM.

I finally admitted to my problem 13 years ago when my ENWorld namesake, Thornir Alekeg, came to be. A new group in college had some very dynamic roleplayers. I was impressed and wanted to be like them, to have the fun they were having playing. These were the cool geeks and I wanted to be just like them. They taught me by example, not through XP coersion or DM reprimands. Thornir Alekeg became one of my most cherished characters. Friends I played with then, that are part of my current group still hold him up as a shining example of roleplaying.

I, to this day, struggle to not fall back into my roll-playing ways. I realize that roll-playing is not wrong or bad..and rolling those dice and scoring a critical is SUCH a THRILL...but I find that after the sessions where I slip back into my old ways, I feel a little...empty. It feels good at the moment, but it doesn't last. My current group has many new players. Most did not roleplay much to start. I, along with two other experienced players, have tried to be an example to show the new players how much fun it can be to really get into a character. I have my days where I slip, but I have seen the growth of the new players, the ways their own characters have developed into something more than numbers on a character sheet and it keeps me going.

The ENWorld forums and story hours have also become part of my support network, helping me to both develop my roleplaying, and to understand and accept the roll-player within me and others.

<voice-over> Tomorrow on Dr. Phil: Continuing our RPG week theme, we'll help some RPGers see that a "munchkin" is a doughnut hole, not a bad gamer.

 

[Umbran]

The rules encouraged game environment considerations. The rules encouraged considering characterisation before mechanical gains. The rules encouraged story-focus and campaign-level development.

Hm. Have you actually read either of the 3.X DMGs? All that stuff is in there.

It could be seen in the racial descriptions. It was seen in the classes. It was especially seen in the kits.

I think that avoiding over-specifying racial characteristics is an aid to real role-play. If you laden a race with "typical" behavior, you replace creative role-play with following a script. "I do X because I'm a dwarf, and dwarves do this sort of thing" instead of "I do X because I'm Sam the Indominable, and it's the sort of thing that I, and unique and intersesting individual, do".

It was not seen in the kits. The kits were horrible. They didn't encourage role-play. They encouraged trading meaningless "role-play restrictions" (that were commonly ignored in play) for in-game power. "Take this kit, be more powerful, and act just as you woudl have anyway". That's not encouraging role-play. Same can be said for Skills and Powers.

I think the kits, specifically, were what lead to the philosophy that when considering game balance, you don't trade rules-power for role-play restriction. And I find that balanced classes do a lot more to encourage role-play than cookie-cutter role-play restrictions seen in kits.

It was part of the campaign setting descriptions of the various lands within those campaigns. It was part of the Planescape Factions. It was everywhere.

I don't use published settings, but as I understand them, those things are in the Forgotten Realms, and in the settings WotC has opened to others, and it's seen in the 3rd party publisher's settings.

It's absent. Period.

Funny, though. Everywhere you say it isn't, I can find examples of it. I encourage you to go back and reread the DMG. It has a lot of stuff that isn't about min-maxing and stats and encounter ratings. There's sections about laws and cultures and styles of play, and a lot of things which are about story, rather than about dice rolls. If the DM is following the DMG's advice,the players would be rather forced to role-play, because they'd be dealign wiht things other than monsters and traps.

 

[Zappo]

I vaguely remember asking this on some other thread, but I was sleepy and can't remember which thread it was. Still, if the recent editions are '2000ed' and '3.11ed for workgroups', what does that say about the previous ones?

Let's talk about the social skill checks. Well, first of all, I wholeheartedly agree with Takyris - if the player can't Bluff, effectively preventing him from playing a character that can Bluff is unfair. Especially if the professional actor/writer sitting on the other side of the table is playing Krusk the 6 CHA half-orc barbarian and he is still allowed to successfully be the face of the party simply because social skill checks aren't used or are given massive modifiers based on "roleplaying".

Did you see the bold quotes in the last word? They are there for a good reason. In my opinion, using your own great social skills when playing Krusk is awful roleplaying. In fact, I think that's possibly another proof that powergaming and rollplaying aren't synonimous and can even be opposite. I would assign some serious XP penalties there (then again, I would never DM like that to begin with).

A good objection I've seen from JRRNeiklot:

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

This is a good question. However, there are people who like playing but can't talk, and wondering why they like the game doesn't change the fact. The fundamental unfairness remains.

So, how do I deal with social checks? Answer: I run them by the book. Except for Diplomacy - not because I dislike the idea of having rules for it, but because I think the current rules don't work too well (they don't take circumstances into account, I fix this by using massive circumstance modifiers). But no, there are no modifiers for "good roleplaying", and if you want you can just say "Diplomacy on the guard, I rolled 21". My reasoning is:

1) I will not bribe my players into roleplaying. We're mature adults, and several of my players are older than me. I'm not going to teach them roleplaying with a carrot/stick system. Heck, I'm not going to teach them anything with any method. The games are for fun, if you learn something that's an added bonus.

2) Good roleplaying is its own reward. Most people on this thread seem to enjoy roleplaying. Do you expect a reward for doing something you enjoy? Neither do I. If I start a conversation with an NPC instead of just saying "I roll Diplomacy", it's because I like it, not because I want a +2. If you need to ask "then why starting the conversation at all?", I suggest you think long and hard about JRRNeiklot's quote above.

I do give XP rewards for Good Roleplaying - but I define Good Roleplaying as the ability to correctly portray your character, not as the ability to give speeches. Steal the spotlight for 15 minutes, and you get a penalty. Play Krusk as Churchill, and you get a penalty. This has nothing to do with speaking, or acting, or whatever; it's about the actions you make. If you have the ultracharismatic bard, I expect your character to be in the front lines of social warfare, even if you as a player couldn't speak in public to save your life. You have Diplomacy and Bluff ranks for that.

Now guess what? It works. People who like speaking with the NPCs do so, and do so very well. More often than not, I eventually have to call for a Diplomacy roll to push the story along and prevent the other PCs from getting bored. People who are in only for the combats can have their fun without being having to do chores. Everyone has fun and does what he wants to do. Newbies take some time to get into this mindset, but it invariably happens. Once the two principles I outlined above are firmly in place, the rest sort of falls into place. I wonder if the carrot/stick system of giving modifiers based on how well you speak does more harm than good in the long run. Seems to me that it encourages people to "roleplay" (quotes again) even when they don't want to, and in this way makes it harder for them to enjoy roleplaying in itself.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Hm. Have you actually read either of the 3.X DMGs? All that stuff is in there.

I think your missing my point.

The encouragement was to see the world as a thriving, living environment in which a multitude of cultures (each different in their views, perceptions, morals, and outlooks) were in relation to each other. All the 3E DMG provides is a set of statistics based on a poorly supported default setting. Hardly the same thing.

I think that avoiding over-specifying racial characteristics is an aid to real role-play. If you laden a race with "typical" behavior, you replace creative role-play with following a script. "I do X because I'm a dwarf, and dwarves do this sort of thing" instead of "I do X because I'm Sam the Indominable, and it's the sort of thing that I, and unique and intersesting individual, do".

This is a limitation of the player, not of the "typical" behavior of a race. I mean, really, compare to dwarves in the 2E PH to the Dwarves in Dragonlance to the Dwarves in Dark Sun. On top, there was almost always the side-note that stated "PCs are always allowed to be exceptions." So, if this was a problem with the people you played with, don't forget where the problem actually lies: With the people, not the rules.

At the vary least, providing ample information on the culture, personalities, and social standards of these races doesn't aid in "real role-play". Why not? Because there's no basis for a PC to be different. A PC breaking from the norms of his culture and a PC that adheres to his cultural norms are both more interesting than a character that comes from a barely detailed race and that might or might not be a unique individual.

It was not seen in the kits. The kits were horrible. They didn't encourage role-play. They encouraged trading meaningless "role-play restrictions" (that were commonly ignored in play) for in-game power. "Take this kit, be more powerful, and act just as you woudl have anyway". That's not encouraging role-play. Same can be said for Skills and Powers.

Abusing the rules is a problem with the player, not with the rules themselves. That 3E caters to this ("lowering the bar" would be the expression) isn't a sign of improvement, it's a sign of catering to those that were incapable or unwilling to follow the rules. So, instead of people not adhering to these qualities being viewed as the poor gamers that they actually are, we now have those that value RP being seen as hard-core freaks that take the game too seriously.

Reversing the table does not change the facts, although bringing in a bunch of new gamers that don't know any better seems to definately change popular perceptions.

I think the kits, specifically, were what lead to the philosophy that when considering game balance, you don't trade rules-power for role-play restriction. And I find that balanced classes do a lot more to encourage role-play than cookie-cutter role-play restrictions seen in kits.

That this philosophy is true in professional game design is a good thing, I agree. That this is also assumed to be true at the gaming table is nothing but propaganda and closed-mindedness, and could have very easily have been avoided by a simple paragraph or two in the DMG (or, preferably, in the PH, where new gamers would likely take it more seriously).

I don't use published settings, but as I understand them, those things are in the Forgotten Realms, and in the settings WotC has opened to others, and it's seen in the 3rd party publisher's settings.

Your understanding is wrong. Sure, they include motivations for certain groups and individuals, but in the presentation of the material, these are reduced to little more than window dressing. Having read the FRCS, I quickly and gladly gave it to a friend (whom, as I understand it, also passed it on to a friend). Give me the Gray Box Set anyday. It at least tried to be a campaign world instead of a stage for munchkinized novel characters.

Funny, though. Everywhere you say it isn't, I can find examples of it. I encourage you to go back and reread the DMG. It has a lot of stuff that isn't about min-maxing and stats and encounter ratings. There's sections about laws and cultures and styles of play, and a lot of things which are about story, rather than about dice rolls. If the DM is following the DMG's advice,the players would be rather forced to role-play, because they'd be dealign wiht things other than monsters and traps.

You need to take a better look: Consider that the chapter on running the game (3 I think) is all about dungeoneering, combat, and abilities. The design principal the game presents is undeniably "From the Dungeon Out" rather than "From the World In". 2E was very much about the campaign, long-running campaigns at that; 3E is exactly what "Taking it back to the dungeon" would seem to imply.

Even the design concept of making the game "completable" in 1 year's time of "average gaming", meaning that 4-6 hours a week for a full year is supposed to produce 20th Level characters, shows more emphasis on confrontation, reward, and advancement than it is on maintaining any degree of a long-term storyline. Case-in-point: The time-frame and advancement rate evidenced in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

These aren't ill-founded opinions or unsupportable facts, here... The material that WotC continues to produce (and thus other publishers feel inclined to follow in-kind) proves it time and time again.

As is, I loaned out my DMG just last night (and this is the third occassion I've had to look in it today after not looking at it in weeks, and if that's not irony, I don't know what is...) and likely won't be seeing it again for a week or two, but I do recall in reading the material that it was very dry, very minimalist, and very uninspiring. I will concede that, for some people, it might be all the inspiration they need, but for others, it may be all that they want. However, it just put me to sleep and inspired me to do little more than ignore it in favor of my own ways of doing things. Does this make me right or wrong? Don't know. But I think the fact that this perception of 3E continues to surface should be an indicator that there is, indeed, more than a kernal of truth to it.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Let's talk about the social skill checks. Well, first of all, I wholeheartedly agree with Takyris - if the player can't Bluff, effectively preventing him from playing a character that can Bluff is unfair.

See, this is an over-exageration of the arguement, though.

In regards to role-play, it would indeed be a mistake to reward for ability. Ability comes with practice and application. What is missing from a lot of people, however, is the attempt to role-play. For instance, I played with a guy that grew up on the west-side of Chicago, and there was absolutely no way to get him to drop his accent or to stop using slang. However, he attempted to express what his character was saying and doing. This is far more preferible to "I bluff the guard" because "I bluff the guard" doesn't give me squat to work with. It's dry. It's mechanical. It's so boaring I can't express how lame it is without the censors masking out half of my words.

I'll take a poor role-player that tries any day of the week over someone that hides behind game mechanics to avoid it.

Especially if the professional actor/writer sitting on the other side of the table is playing Krusk the 6 CHA half-orc barbarian and he is still allowed to successfully be the face of the party simply because social skill checks aren't used or are given massive modifiers based on "roleplaying".

I agree that this is wrong. Any "real role-player" should, I would think (that is to say, if your Charisma is 6, then role-play the 6, otherwise you're just a different breed of munchkin).

A good objection I've seen from JRRNeiklot:This is a good question. However, there are people who like playing but can't talk, and wondering why they like the game doesn't change the fact. The fundamental unfairness remains.

Now, this is a point that comes up again and again, and I'd like to adress it to a degree.

We have Flag Football. Flag Football is for people that want to play Football without getting hurt. However, this doesn't change the fact that "real" Football involves really big men smacking each other around.

We have T-Ball. T-Ball is for people that can't hit or throw. However, this doesn't change the fact that "real" Baseball involves chubby guys taking whacks at a regulation-sized ball that is thrown by the pitcher.

In short, while I'm all for providing a crutch for those that don't or can't otherwise role-play, I see no reason to loose sight of the fact that it is a crutch. And that's the problem I have with many of the counter-arguements in support of these crutches. It presents a lower bar as the norm rather than motivating people to achieve the higher bar, and that's never a good thing. Rather than having everyone "aiming high", we instead have end up with a bunch of people on crutches that think they're good gamers.

2) Good roleplaying is its own reward. Most people on this thread seem to enjoy roleplaying. Do you expect a reward for doing something you enjoy? Neither do I. If I start a conversation with an NPC instead of just saying "I roll Diplomacy", it's because I like it, not because I want a +2. If you need to ask "then why starting the conversation at all?", I suggest you think long and hard about JRRNeiklot's quote above.

Well, I'm not one to give a +2 for "good role-playing", although I'm one to not allow the roll to occur until some extent of role-playing has occured. And I think that's the point here: The purpose of a role-playing game is to role-play. The fact that a person can choose to not role-play at all and (per the rules) get just as far as those that do role-play isn't a matter of rewarding or not rewarding for doing something that is enjoyed; it's a matter of making a role-playing game into something in which role-play is completely irrelevant.

And in my book, that isn't a role-playing game at all.

 

[S'mon]

As is, I loaned out my DMG just last night (and this is the third occassion I've had to look in it today after not looking at it in weeks, and if that's not irony, I don't know what is...) and likely won't be seeing it again for a week or two, but I do recall in reading the material that it was very dry, very minimalist, and very uninspiring.

3e flavour text sucks, yup. OTOH the rules themselves are much clearer and better drafted than 1e, and generally make more sense. I find using my 1e & 3e rulebooks together gives the best of all possible worlds.

I guess I'm on the roleplay side in these roleplay vs rollplay arguments. It does seem like WoTC almost actively discourages roleplay - it's notable that most of the Iconics seem to have CHA as their dump stat!

Re the Krusk CHA 6 example - I wouldn't expect the player to play him as a smooth-talking face-man, but many good roleplayers can make "Krusk Hungry. Give Food NOW!" highly cool & entertaining, probably with the aid of some points in Intimidate. Low CHA characters can be well-played, in-character, and can have the chance to achieve their goals through interaction as well as violence. They may have a harder time of it than would the CHA 18 Bard with 8 ranks in Diplomacy, but that's no reason not to try - and if done well might well have a decent chance of success, even earn some XP for roleplay.

I disagree strongly with the idea that IC roleplaying is its own reward and therefore shouldn't be rewarded in-game(!). As Ron Edwards says, games produce the kind of behaviour they encourage. If you give in-game rewards for killing things, you get lots of killing things. If you reward roleplay, you get lots of roleplaying. Of course it helps if there's a positive feedback loop - XP for killing things makes the PC better at killing things. Unfortunately, XP for roleplay also mainly makes the PC better at killing things. A different reward mechanism, such as the reward of action points or fate points, may be better suited to encouraging roleplaying, and some modern games like Conan d20 tend in this direction.

 

[S'mon]

I'll take a poor role-player that tries any day of the week over someone that hides behind game mechanics to avoid it.

You just made my sig.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

'Tis an honor.

 

[Zappo]

And I think that's the point here: The purpose of a role-playing game is to role-play.

Yes, I think that the rest of your post derives logically from this. However, I disagree on this basic point. The purpose of a role-playing game is to have fun. In my opinion, allowing the players to have fun in many different ways is a good quality for a game.

Having social mechanics means that a player who dislikes immersive roleplaying can still have fun in the same game where a storytelling-oriented player is. That's a notable advantage. I have all sorts of different players with different styles in my group, and everyone enjoys himself (at least, they keep asking me to DM ). It's not unlike juggling, and I like having a system that helps me in that.

Now, I'm not saying that everyone should use Bluff rules and opposed Diplomacy checks - but for me it works beautifully because it makes everyone have fun in their favorite way, and I start from the assumption that a successful game is one where everyone has fun. If you start from the (equally valid) assumption that a successful game is one where everyone does exceptional roleplaying, you will naturally reach different conclusions.

Another can of food for thought: social skills are in fact a subset of real roleplaying. Namely, they come into play when you want something from an NPC, but there are still a large number of social interactions that don't involve that. And a large number of highly-dramatic events that aren't, strictly speaking, social interactions (combat, for example). They are all events that have a huge roleplaying potential, and that aren't covered by the rules at all. You don't have to test for terror upon meeting a monster (and when you do, it's supernatural), for example, but most people would flee from most monsters. You don't have to test for acting irrational for some rounds when the BBEG kills your brother in front of you, either. Have you ever done something stupid, fully conscious of it, simply because it was what the character would have done? Without any sort of rule enforcement or even encouragement? I did, I do (and when I get away with it, it feels great). Roleplaying is in the player, not in the rules.

I disagree strongly with the idea that IC roleplaying is its own reward and therefore shouldn't be rewarded in-game(!). As Ron Edwards says, games produce the kind of behaviour they encourage. If you give in-game rewards for killing things, you get lots of killing things. If you reward roleplay, you get lots of roleplaying.

Uhm... does the (!) mean that the very idea of not needing a reward seems absurd to you? I know that it's a debatable concept, but I wouldn't think that it's completely wacky. It's pretty simple: either you enjoy roleplaying or you don't. If you do, there's no need for reward because you'll do it anyway. If you don't, it's ok for me - you can have fun at my table anyway - but if it wasn't, I would just tell you to roleplay or find a group that suits your style better. I don't want to get people to do stuff they don't want to do, and I don't have the authority to tell you whether you're good or not anyway. I am the DM, not the teacher.

Games produce the kind of behaviour they encourage? Maybe. In the short run. To a point. You see, a reward/punishment system can make you do something, but it can't make you like it. If you overdo it, it might do the opposite, actually. And you will never get great roleplaying from someone who doesn't like doing it. Besides - and this is way more important than games - I think that adults shouldn't need that kind of behavioural tricks.

Me? I roleplay, reward or not. To be entirely honest, I feel a bit stupid in games where I get a Diplomacy bonus for coming up with a cool IC speech. I don't know, it makes me feel like a kid at primary school getting a sweetie for answering the teacher's question or a whack for not listening. Why should the DM have the authority to judge my roleplaying anyway? When I have fun, that's the reward for good roleplaying. When my fellow players shut up and listen to me without even noticing that they are - that's the reward for great roleplaying. But that's just me.