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

[Tony Vargas]

How do you think of roleplaying? As function? Or as depiction of a character's personality. Post. Or fill in the poll.

I'm surprised anyone went for the first one, at all.

I think it's a false dichotomy: you can't have a character without both function and personality. You can emphasize one and neglect the other, but you'd be falling short, and you can't ever really entirely eliminate either. The personality might end up being a bland reflection of yourself, or a blatant pragmatist, but it's still a personality, for instance. Even if the game provides no abilities whatsoever, you still probably /do/ something, so there's a defacto function, however poor the foundation for it.


One thing I like about the '3 pillars' concept is that it clearly illustrates that roleplaying is /not/ just talking in character, not just amateur theatrics, but permeates the game. Interaction is no different from combat or exploration, in that you are Roleplaying in all three pillars.

Can't vote -- no answer for "both".

Click 'view results' and vote for whichever one is behind.

What is the "playing" in roleplaying?

I think a broad hint as to what we mean by 'playing' can be to remember what the G in RPG stands for.

It's not Role-Acting or Role-Simulation.

 

[Lanliss]

Why isn't there a "a bit of both" option? To me, the "Role" is a personality, slightly informed by the stats. Or sometimes a bunch of stats, informed by the personality I have made in advance.

 

[Corwin]

I think a broad hint as to what we mean by 'playing' can be to remember what the G in RPG stands for.

Grognard?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think it's a false dichotomy: you can't have a character without both function and personality. You can emphasize one and neglect the other, but you'd be falling short, and you can't ever really entirely eliminate either. The personality might end up being a bland reflection of yourself, or a blatant pragmatist, but it's still a personality, for instance. Even if the game provides no abilities whatsoever, you still probably /do/ something, so there's a defacto function, however poor the foundation for it.

I love this analysis, and subscribe to this newsletter.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

My gut reaction was that this was an absurd question whose answer was wonderfully self-evident. Since there are actually some votes that go the other way, I had to ponder it.

This. But with less pondering on my part. The "role" in roleplaying is absolutely about playing a part (or personality to use the terminology from the poll) in an unscripted cooperative story.

 

[pemerton]

Can't vote -- no answer for "both".

Like [MENTION=16212]wedgeski[/MENTION] did upthread, pretend you have a gun to your head! (And the poll does ask how you primarily think of roleplaying. So you vote doesn't have to be the only way you think of roleplaying.)

 

[pemerton]

I'm surprised anyone went for the first one, at all.

Well, I did!

I think it's a false dichotomy: you can't have a character without both function and personality. You can emphasize one and neglect the other, but you'd be falling short, and you can't ever really entirely eliminate either.

If I play my PC mostly around functions or capabilities (eg using spells if an MU, seeking to engage in melee combat if a fighter, etc) then a personality is likely to emerge - but the emergence of the personality is a byproduct of playing my role, not constitutive of doing so.

I think this is how the game was originally played. Personally, I think an approach of this sort still has advantages. It tends to reduce the incidence of "mere colour" in play (something I'm not a big fan of - if it's worth mentioning at all, then it should be mattering to resolution!), and it also reduces dissonance between mechanics and fiction (eg the character whose personality doesn't seem to match his/her stats).

I selected "personality" as an answer to the poll because it is that factor of personality which is present, in varying degree, that makes a game a role-playing game rather than a cooperative board game (i.e. that's the difference between Dungeons & Dragons, and Descent: Journeys in the Dark).

That's not the only difference.

The other difference, and I think the most important difference in the early days of RPGing, is that in a RPG the fiction matters to resolution. In a boardgame, for instance, no matter how much the picture shows a wooden door, I can't declare that I set fire to it if that is not a defined move for the game. But in D&D I can.

It is also the presence of personality that allowed in the "old days" for two characters of identical class role to be distinctly different characters, at least to the degree that Nick's fighter and Greg's fighter didn't feel like interchangeable parts or duplicates while playing the game.

They also often differed in weapon selection, perhaps armour worn, and in any given encounter may have been allocated different tasks (eg holding the line vs defending the rear).

How does one resolve the question in a less structured narrativist game? Say a game like Monsterhearts, where the objective of the game is the creation of a personality that can drive dramatic tension?

I don't know Monsterhearts except by reputation. But I've been running quite a bit of Burning Wheel and also some Marvel Heroic RP lately, and so I did think about them in the context of the pell/thread.

Permit me a slightly roundabout way into the issue (!): upthread I noted that the 5e Basic PDF seems to frame the playing of the game in "functional" rather than "personality" terms, but that - unlike Gygax's PHB - it doesn't seem to emphasise "skilled" play very much. Rather than doing well by invoking and performing one's function, the idea simply seems to be to have fun doing so.

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 don't know how Monsterhearts fits into that picture, but I hope the picture makes some sort of sense.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, I did!

You've set yourself up to be in a minority, then. ;P

If I play my PC mostly around functions or capabilities (eg using spells if an MU, seeking to engage in melee combat if a fighter, etc) then a personality is likely to emerge - but the emergence of the personality is a byproduct of playing my role, not constitutive of doing so.

A byproduct? Perhaps. It could also be the point of the exercise. Conversely, you could conceive of a personality to justify the mix of functional capabilities you want for your 'build.'

Whichever you think you're doing, 'primarily' the other necessarily comes into it. Highlights the absurdity of the idea that an RPG can somehow encourage or discourage RP, or that you can't both optimize and RP.

I think this is how the game was originally played.

Sure, wargaming roots and all. But playing the personality, too, was inevitable.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

That's not the only difference.

The other difference, and I think the most important difference in the early days of RPGing, is that in a RPG the fiction matters to resolution. In a boardgame, for instance, no matter how much the picture shows a wooden door, I can't declare that I set fire to it if that is not a defined move for the game. But in D&D I can.

I'm not seeing a difference. Perhaps it is your example occluding the point you were trying to make, because the reason a player can burn a door in D&D is because the game has rules to handle that "move" - so that is not different from a board game that includes rules for burning wooden doors. Or, for some version of D&D, you are relying on the play group creating rules to add to the game to allow that "move", which is not exclusive to RPGs - someone playing a board game can add on rules as they like, and it wouldn't inherently become some other sort of game for their doing so.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's one thing to have a house rule that drawing from Chance is optional, or that taxes are accumulated as free-parking cash. But, how far would you get in Monopoly with: "who else is staying at the hotel? Anyone rich? I steal their jewels!"