What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[Fenris-77]

Just skimmed through it. The two new class choices are juicy.

The Blight and Defile spells just scream Darksun.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yes, at this point, your opinion is well documented. I’m just pointing to games that still have potentially deep roleplaying despite lacking such stats or, if they’re present, not relying on them to define the character.

I mention this because you’ve implied… or seemed to imply… that not roleplaying such traits is shallow or in some other way deficient. And that’s simply not the case.

Agreed. As I said upthread, your attributes can be a rich source of material for roleplaying, but they are not necessary.

 

[Fenris-77]

Agreed. As I said upthread, your attributes can be a rich source of material for roleplaying, but they are not necessary.

I think the more complicated a character is, mechanically, the smaller a set of those things a player is likely to hang their roelplaying hat on (regularly).

 

[GrimCo]

I generally equate trad with "D&Dish" at this point in time. If it was the '80s or '90s, sure, different story, but I don't see a lot of discussion as to how roleplay low Wits in Vampire nowadays.

Thanks for bringing up Vampire. I was just about to bring up WoD myself.

I like WW nWoD. There, all attributes are 5 point spread (6+ is possible for some supernaturals). All stats start at 1 dot. 1 Poor, 2 Average, 3 Good, 4 Exceptional, 5 Outstanding. With starting points, it's deliberate choice to start with 1 dot only. And even then, you mostly roll atribute+skill number of dices, so you can have Intelligence 1 and Occult 3 and be better at Occult stuff than someone with Int 4 and Occult 0. Catch is, system rewards untalented but skilled over talented but unskilled, since you take penalty for untrained skills. You can play your int 1 as someone who isn't fastest learner, but it's persistent enough to become very good at something. Like my IRL dear friend, who isn't really smart, has always struggled with abstract theory classes, but was very good at practical stuff and was stubborn as a mule, so she brute forced trough uni (she has bachelors in mechanical engineering). In WoD, she would be Int 1, Wis 2, Technology 4, Science 2.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I generally equate trad with "D&Dish" at this point in time. If it was the '80s or '90s, sure, different story, but I don't see a lot of discussion as to how roleplay low Wits in Vampire nowadays.

Eh, there's still plenty of trad-style games out there. I'd argue other than the focus on bennies, Savage Worlds is, and its not exactly a game lacking in footprint.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Really? I don’t think I’ve encountered it anywhere but in D&D spheres, and that’s in 40-odd years of playing mainly trad role playing games.

Yeah, I've seen it on a number of different game systems over the years, and some of those are still viable. I mean, you'll see it more often about D&D because, well, there's a lot of discussion of D&D where a lot of others are only going to be frequent in selective places.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So...what does that mean, in practice? How does an elf act that is different from, say, humans?

Which raises another question: are humans excused from having to "roleplay like their chosen race"? If so, why? If not, what is that roleplaying like?

Well, elves have differing physical characteristics, most notably lifespan, so I expect those differences will manifest. And as for humans, I see them as the baseline other heritages differ from, so roleplaying in regards to being human would be in comparison to nonhuman heritages.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the more complicated a character is, mechanically, the smaller a set of those things a player is likely to hang their roelplaying hat on (regularly).

Well, you can always argue some things are less core to a character than others. If you've got a wide range of skills, some of them are just things you happen to know how to do, but some are probably a big part of what you're about. With attributes, my suspicion is the more middle-of-the-road they are, the less important they're likely to be to your character (as to how they present themselves and make decisions).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Agreed. As I said upthread, your attributes can be a rich source of material for roleplaying, but they are not necessary.

Not necessary for roleplay in general, but if the game has them I believe they should be part of the roleplay of your PC.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Thanks for bringing up Vampire. I was just about to bring up WoD myself.

I like WW nWoD. There, all attributes are 5 point spread (6+ is possible for some supernaturals). All stats start at 1 dot. 1 Poor, 2 Average, 3 Good, 4 Exceptional, 5 Outstanding. With starting points, it's deliberate choice to start with 1 dot only. And even then, you mostly roll atribute+skill number of dices, so you can have Intelligence 1 and Occult 3 and be better at Occult stuff than someone with Int 4 and Occult 0. Catch is, system rewards untalented but skilled over talented but unskilled, since you take penalty for untrained skills. You can play your int 1 as someone who isn't fastest learner, but it's persistent enough to become very good at something. Like my IRL dear friend, who isn't really smart, has always struggled with abstract theory classes, but was very good at practical stuff and was stubborn as a mule, so she brute forced trough uni (she has bachelors in mechanical engineering). In WoD, she would be Int 1, Wis 2, Technology 4, Science 2.

There's a lot of games that weigh in training and experience over basic aptitude; Runequest and its kin come to mind here. My own feeling is how much aptitude affects skill is--complicated. My observation is it tends to matter a lot when you're first picking up skill or field of knowledge, and then again when you're approaching the top of your field, but is often not as visible in the middle range.

(This is, of course, not counting the sorts of aptitudes toward certain kinds of things that are sort of orthogonal to what most games would call attributes. Relatively few game systems get into that sort of weeds though).