D&D 5E (2014) What is the "role" in roleplaying

[Maxperson]

Every false dichotomy has two sides, yes.

...both of them wrong, obviously.

Just a nitpick, but the two sides of a False Dichotomy aren't necessarily wrong. They just aren't the only two possible answers

 

[Uchawi]

So you have a character, and then two sides of the fence when considering how the player acts and as DM on what you expect. They both view what is written on the piece of paper from their own biases. And therefore, I believe you will never reach a universal answer. You can throw as many mechanics, or lack thereof, at the concept of role playing, but the role is to foster cooperation and story telling.

 

[Maxperson]

So you have a character, and then two sides of the fence when considering how the player acts and as DM on what you expect. They both view what is written on the piece of paper from their own biases. And therefore, I believe you will never reach a universal answer. You can throw as many mechanics, or lack thereof, at the concept of role playing, but the role is to foster cooperation and story telling.

I don't think that it matters whether the DM and player view roleplaying a PC in the exact same way. They will be close enough to at least understand where the other person is coming from. If there is a huge disconnect, they can talk about it afterwards.

 

[Manbearcat]

OK, you're right. From p B13, under the heading Inheritance:

If the DM wishes, a player may name an heir to inherit his or her worldly possessions upon the death of the character. The local authorities will, of course, take 10% in taxes, before giving the inheritance to the heir. This heir must always be a newly rolled-up first level character. This "inheritance" should only occur once per player.​

That last sentence is confusing, to me at least. Does it mean each player may have only one heir for his/her PC at a time? That each heir can inherit from only one player's dead PC? Or (the weirdest reading but the most natural literal take on the words) that there is a lifetime player limit of one inheritance, no matter how many PCs you play and lose?

Consider The Basic Set as a contained unit. So you've got a singular Town, and characters are only leveling up to 3, and you're going to have maybe 7-10ish Scenarios for the players to scout out and pick and choose adventuring sites from in the course of maybe 10-12 sessions of play?

So a single Inheritance per player under that paradigm is pretty much on the mark.

Including Expert and Companion play, we refreshed Inheritance at 4th and 16th. Characters (obviously) get extremely stout at that point.

Here is Moldvay on alignment (p B11):

Players may choose the alignments they feel will best fit their characters. . . . The alignments give guidlines for characters to live by. The characters will try to follow these guidelines, but may not always be successful. If a DM feels that a player is not keeping to a character's chosen alignment, the DM may suggest a change of alignment or give the character a punishment or penalty.​

I think this is pretty similar to how Gygax presents alignment. It is "prescriptive", not merely "descriptive", establishing in-principle constraints on action resolution. Because they are only "in-principle", players can violate those constraints, but adverse consequences might follow.

So choosing alignment is also specifying an aspect of the role the character will fill - hero, roguish scoundrel, or villain. (I have doubts that 9-point alignment is very useful for this, but I don't think Gygax fully thought that through in terms of the changes it would lead to in relation to alignment as an element of the game.)

My take that Alignment in Basic is mostly (but not wholly) a superfluous component of play is underwritten by these lines of evidence (of which I suspect you disagree!):

1) The game is centered around dungeon exploration and treasure hauling. Mechanically, the game is systemitized around this premise. Importantly, this is only accomplished when performed as a cohesive, versatile unit with requisite supplies/retainers, correct marching order, and sensible actions taken during Exploration/Encounter Turns and during (what Torchbearer would call) "the Town Phase."

Most all folks hew to generic Lawful or Neutral play, because legitimate Chaotic behavior (Kender-like as depicted) damages prospects for success in the following ways:

1a) Dysfunctional Exploration synergy (leading to needless resource loss and needlessly assumed risk).
1b) Dysfunctional Encounter synergy (leading to needless resource loss and needlessly assumed risk).
1c) Mistrust and lack of dependability sows player morale issues (which feeds back into a and b).
1d) Poor reputation in town contracts prospects for adventuring sites and...
1e) Negatively impacts Retainer retention.

2) The nature of the party Caller funnels group action declarations towards something coherent or at least works as intermediary when there are disputes (diminishing the frequency and impact of spikey, reckless, weird action declarations)

3) Unlike AD&D and 3.x, nothing mechanically interfaces with Alignment.

3a) There are no Barbarians, Bards, Druids, Monks, Paladins. Clerics are merely forbidden from using edged weapons (no ethos dictates/constraints).
3b) A stray few spells interface only with Evil (none interact with Law, Neutral, Chaos).
3c) Traps are of the martial/mechanical variety. No runes/glyphs of warding against Law, Neutral, Chaos.
3d) Magic items don't interface with Law, Neutral, Chaos.
3e) Monsters (again outside of the unique language - which is certainly relevant in play and why I called it out above) don't interface with Law, Neutral, Chaos.

4) Alignment doesn't interface with the Monster Reactions table.

5) There is no xp feedback...while there is one for Prime Requisite. Contrast with Torchbearer's dynamic feedback with Traits and Nature or Dungeon World's Alignment and Bonds. Modvay Basic could have trivially accomplished making Alignment central (rather than imo mostly superfluous) merely by mapping Alignment's impact to Prime Requisites. Have 3 questions for each Alignment. At the end of each session, the group reflects on the play of each PC to see if they fulfilled one of them in a meaningful way. Yes? 5 % xp bonus!

 

[pemerton]

I believe you will never reach a universal answer.

Of cousre not! That's the point of the thread, to talk about different ways of approaching roleplaying.

 

[pemerton]

Consider The Basic Set as a contained unit. So you've got a singular Town, and characters are only leveling up to 3, and you're going to have maybe 7-10ish Scenarios for the players to scout out and pick and choose adventuring sites from in the course of maybe 10-12 sessions of play?

So a single Inheritance per player under that paradigm is pretty much on the mark.

OK, a fourth interpretation I missed - not a player lifetime limit, but a player campaign limit.

My take that Alignment in Basic is mostly (but not wholly) a superfluous component of play is underwritten by these lines of evidence (of which I suspect you disagree!):

1) The game is centered around dungeon exploration and treasure hauling. Mechanically, the game is systemitized around this premise.

<snip>

Most all folks hew to generic Lawful or Neutral play

<snip>

3) Unlike AD&D and 3.x, nothing mechanically interfaces with Alignment.

3a) There are no Barbarians, Bards, Druids, Monks, Paladins. Clerics are merely forbidden from using edged weapons (no ethos dictates/constraints).
3b) A stray few spells interface only with Evil (none interact with Law, Neutral, Chaos).
3c) Traps are of the martial/mechanical variety. No runes/glyphs of warding against Law, Neutral, Chaos.
3d) Magic items don't interface with Law, Neutral, Chaos.
3e) Monsters (again outside of the unique language - which is certainly relevant in play and why I called it out above) don't interface with Law, Neutral, Chaos.

4) Alignment doesn't interface with the Monster Reactions table.

5) There is no xp feedback

Well, from "mostly superfluous" to "interesting but not the most important thing" is a spectrum, not a quantum leap!

I agree that the basic adventuring paradigm speaks againt being Chaotic. And the alignment section itself pretty much says the same thing. I think "Chaotic" is mostly a device for justifying non-cooperative dungeon denizens who, rather than ganging up to utterly crush the PC incursion, sit around in largely autonomous groups of small to moderate size.

But I think L vs N can interface: with monster/NPC reactions, if the GM wants it to (the rules canvass GM modifiers to reactions, though it's left pretty hand-wavey); and with magical effects also ("tricks" and the like, eg healing fountains or trick doorways/archways, etc).

 

[pemerton]

Gygax meant the same thing by it that everyone else does. "Roleplaying" is used almost-exclusively to refer to the "acting-in-character" sense of "role".

Can you point me to a single passage in his DMG or PHB where Gygax talks about, or provides an example of, roleplaying in this sense?

I don't know of any. I quoted extensively upthread from his discussion of preparing for an adventure, for instance, and the idea that PCs will have distinctive motivations and personalities is completely absent.

The question is whether you would like to make an effort to understand the distinction being made, or whether you're just here to tell us that you don't see it and therefore it doesn't exist.

Feel free to explain it. I gave an example, with reference to the coronoation of the current Queen of Australia, which explained why - in this context - I didn't see any difference.

In particular, if the role of Falstaff the fighter is characterised (as Gygax characterises it, on p 7 of his PHB), in terms of stats, class and alignment, then "assuming" the role of Falstaff means making moves, in the game, in accordance with those stats and that class and alignment.

 

[pemerton]

Here is Prof MAR Barker on roleplaying in Empire of the Petal Throne (at heading 300). I am quoting from the 1987 edition, which I think is simply a reprint of the 1975 edition:

The game requires a group of players . . . and a referee. . . . [The referee] "sets the stage" for his players, describing the scenario to them, locating them on his maps, telling them what they see, whom they encounter, etc, etc. It is then up to the players to use their wits and intelligence to deal with the challenges laid before them.

The players, in turn, must establish a character using the tables set down here, and maintain this character's records, keeping track of his experience points, wealth, possessions, magical acquisitions, etc, etc. The player must furthermore keep the statistics for any non-player characters in his employ. He makes his decisions on the basis of the information supplied by the referee, and it his task to progress his character to ever higher levels and to greater and greater powers.​

No reference to an imagined personality, to making decisions on the basis of that personality, etc. I don't think that was really an overt or acknowledged part of the game in 1975. (Which is not to say that it wasn't happening.)

But Barker's passage would be completely out of place in a 1990s RPG book - the idea that the game is about players meeting challenges by using their wits and intelligence, thereby progressing to ever higher levels and greater and greater powers, and that that's what it means to play a role, had mostly been abandoned.

 

[Maxperson]

Here is Prof MAR Barker on roleplaying in Empire of the Petal Throne (at heading 300). I am quoting from the 1987 edition, which I think is simply a reprint of the 1975 edition:

The game requires a group of players . . . and a referee. . . . [The referee] "sets the stage" for his players, describing the scenario to them, locating them on his maps, telling them what they see, whom they encounter, etc, etc. It is then up to the players to use their wits and intelligence to deal with the challenges laid before them.

The players, in turn, must establish a character using the tables set down here, and maintain this character's records, keeping track of his experience points, wealth, possessions, magical acquisitions, etc, etc. The player must furthermore keep the statistics for any non-player characters in his employ. He makes his decisions on the basis of the information supplied by the referee, and it his task to progress his character to ever higher levels and to greater and greater powers.​

No reference to an imagined personality, to making decisions on the basis of that personality, etc. I don't think that was really an overt or acknowledged part of the game in 1975. (Which is not to say that it wasn't happening.)

But Barker's passage would be completely out of place in a 1990s RPG book - the idea that the game is about players meeting challenges by using their wits and intelligence, thereby progressing to ever higher levels and greater and greater powers, and that that's what it means to play a role, had mostly been abandoned.

Maybe, but he opens up with the referee "sets the stage". You set a stage for actors. That's what the phrase means, so personality(which is a part of acting) is implied.

 

[seebs]

Can you point me to a single passage in his DMG or PHB where Gygax talks about, or provides an example of, roleplaying in this sense?

The passage I quoted doesn't explicitly say "hey, just so someone who comes along 40 years from now doesn't get confused, I want to clarify that I'm talking about the personalities, not just the raw statistics, of these characters".

But think about it: If you're just "fulfilling a function" within your group, you are still interacting as Jim, Bob, and Mary who work at the office together. You're just modern people playing a game. The characters don't actually participate in this, and are not the ones interacting; the players are interacting, the characters are just the pawns.

The point of that paragraph is to capture the essence of the game, which is "the primary level of interaction is in terms of these fictional persons and their stories, not in terms of the numbers used to do the thing."

Feel free to explain it. I gave an example, with reference to the coronoation of the current Queen of Australia, which explained why - in this context - I didn't see any difference.

Okay, I'm not actually understanding your position here.

Are you saying that you can't comprehend anything which could ever exist which would be "portraying a character" rather than "fulfilling a function", or are you saying that you can't see why anyone would think that D&D's "role playing" is closer to the former than to the latter?

Because you're saying you can't see a difference.

Anyway, I have a nice simple example from a recentish game. Epic-level pathfinder. We're fighting epic-level people. One of them has a sword which is probably worth more than everything our party owns put together. And he is a total jerk, and he waits until the last minute, then holds the sword out and offers his surrender to the lawful-good dwarf. The dwarf is really really mad at the guy.

Turn comes up...

Bill: I take my full round of attacks on his sword.

Now, the thing is, Bill's got an adamantine weapon. He will destroy that sword. This will cost us more money than we, as a party, have ever seen all put together. It's worth significantly more than the full-sized magical ship we're capturing. This is an atrociously bad idea in terms of "fulfilling a role within the party". But it is absolutely, unambiguously, in-character and correct for Kal to do that. Bill did it, not because it was a good choice in terms of the party's goals, but because it was what Kal would do.

And in the 40+ years I've been playing D&D, outside of your threads on this forum, I've never actually seen anyone use "role-playing" to refer to anything other than "trying to play the character true to their personality and nature".

There's no statistic for "would rather destroy several million gold of treasure rather than let some jerk have the satisfaction of being smug about this".