D&D 5E What is the "role" in roleplaying

[pemerton]

What I was under the impression we were distinguishing between was that category (which is the same basic thing for me) and the sort of role that was formalized in 4e, like Striker or Defender.

In the OP, I talked about role defined by functions, capacities, responsibilities, etc.

As I said, Gygax saw class as central to this, though alignment also mattered. In 4e, the capacities and the corresponding responsibilities arise from the whole suite of PC build components, of which class combat role is only one element and potentially quite minor. (Depending on the particular PC.)

In post 35, prompted by [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION], I extended the idea to more "indie" RPGs:

In BW and MHRP, I think the mechanics are intended to make personality/colour part of the character's function. (Hence mechanics like Beliefs, Distinctions, etc.) So performing the character's function will inevitably bring the character's personality to the fore, and perhaps lead to it changing (eg in my MHRP game, Nightcrawler ended up forsaking his Catholicism under Wolverine's more cynical influence, taking Mental trauma in the process). The colour of the characters is not mere colour; and it is not a factor primarily just in free roleplaying or in choosing what action to declare. It matters to resolution.

I think MHRP is "light" in this respect - like 5e rather than Gygaxian AD&D - the player is expected to notice and enjoy the colour of the character feeding into, as well as emerging out of, play, but there is no real pressure to do anything about it.

BW is more hardcore, the "indie" equivalent of Gyagxian skilled play: not only is personality/colour a key element of function, but the player is expected to work it hard, and there is definitely such a thing as doing it better or worse. Hence why I think BW can be quite a challenging game for players (far more demanding than 4e D&D or MHRP).​

I've emphasised "it matters to resolution", because I think that is key to function vs (mere) characterisation.

To self-quote for a third time in one post, from the other "wargaming vs roleplaying" thread that is currently active,

if your claim about your character is that s/he is brave, then show me that in mechanical terms. Show me how s/he is resistant to fear. Show me how her morale is unbreakable. If you show me your low-hp thief who has no serious WIS/will save/defence and will fall unconscious at the first turn of the wheel on the rack, I can see how your character might be reckless or foolhardy, but I'm not seeing anything that shows me s/he is brave.​

I guess I don't see a major distinction between what you're talking about and what I would call acting. If I'm putting myself in my character's shoes and doing what he would doing, then I'm acting in character

The difference I'm seeing is what it means to put yourself in the character's shoes. To me, that means first and foremost engaging with the character from the mechanical point of view - which, in 4e extends to character Quests (goals), in BW includes character Beliefs, Relationships, etc, in MHRP includes character Distinctions (traits) and Milestones (goals/traits).

These tell you what your functions, capacities and responsibilities are, as far as playing the game is concerned.

This is very different from the 2nd ed AD&D PHB, in my view (and experiences of playing AD&D in the 2nd ed era), which presents the cultivation of a unique personality that will be entertaining at the table as an end in itself. In the approach I prefer, that personality will be a byproduct of playing the character.

 

[pemerton]

Re-reading Christopher Kubasik's "interactive toolkit" essay, I found the following (in Part 2) which seemed relevant to this thread (the author uses "Story Entertainment" to describe his preferred approach to RPGing):

The basic plot form of a story is this: A central character wants something, goes after it despite opposition, and arrives at a win, lose or draw. All roleplaying games involve this basic plot in one form or another.

Dungeon & Dragons fulfilled this requirement brilliantly and simply. Characters wanted experience points and wanted to gain levels. Any other want they might have had - social, political or personal - was subsumed within the acquisition of levels. Did you want social recognition? A greater understanding of the ways of magic? Influence over people as a religious leader? Pretty much anything your character might have wanted was acquired by gaining levels.

Dungeon modules worked for this very reason. A D&D character who wanted to become a lord didn't go off and court a princess. He became a lord by wandering around dungeons, killing monsters and overcoming traps. The game offered no rules for courting a princess, but did provide rules for becoming a lord at 10th level, after looting enough arbitrarily placed holes in the ground.

Modules disintegrated the moment a player got the bright idea of having his character become a lord by courting a princess. Suddenly the world opened up. Instead of getting what they wanted by pursuing a single activity - namely, overcoming traps and monsters characters now wanted to interact with people, gaining what they wanted through individual action and detailed plots. . . .

In most roleplaying stories, the plot is indifferent to the characters. You can drop any character in, and it works fine. This phenomenon goes back to roleplaying's heritage in wargaming. It didn't matter why armies fought. All that mattered were choices during battle and the battle's outcome. The same can be said for a dungeon crawl or mercenary adventure story.

But as you build more sophisticated characters, characters with more detailed dreams, desires and quirks, stories much change correspondingly. If not, they remain clunky, leaving players and GMs with a vague dissatisfaction: "How come we did all that work on our characters if it didn't matter?" . . .

In a Story Entertainment, no one knows how the thing's going to end or even what the story is. The plot is unknown. What is known are the characters' goals, the fact that the [referee] is going to provide opportunities for those wants to be met, and the fact that the [referee] is going to impose obstacles for the characters. It's also known that at some time those goals are going to be pursued to a win, loss or draw in terms of their fufillment.​

To me, the 2nd ed AD&D approach seems intended to make it palatable to the players that "the plot is indifferent to the characters". Whatever the plot, the players can manifest their PCs' unique and entertaining personalities.

Whereas the functional approach - once PC function is taken to be not just a fairly generic function for (say) dealing with dungeons, or being part of a mercenary strike team (the sorts of functions that Traveller PCs often have), but to include PC goals and motivation - requires that the game proceed in something like the fashion that Kubasik describes. It must provide scope for the players to engage their PCs' functions/capabilities/responsibilities, which means opportunities to realise those goals but also obstacles in the way. This makes it impossible to have adventures whose contents, unfolding, etc is indifferent to the PCs.