what makes a system encourage roleplaying not "rollplaying"

[jollyninja]

is it the crappy combat mechanics, or the poorly written rules text? seriously if you need the system to "encourage" you to do anything you need to find a new hobby. i play DnD exclusively though i have tried other systems (gurps, shadowrun, paladium, and countless others) and quite frankly the only thing any of them have had that encouraged you to not engage in combat is poor rules for doing so. there is nothing in DnD that deters one from roleplaying. it is players and dm's who decide to roleplay or not no matter the system. dnd provides rules for the only part of the game where they are needed: the fighting. if you need rules to roleplay, that is a problem that has little to do with DnD.

honestly, i just want someone to tell me what makes another system better for roleplaying. any system. any reason, and do not tell me how DND discourages it, i have heard your arguments and discounted them in countless other threads. you have nothing to say on that matter that has not been said a hundred times i assure you.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I agree on this. Any system can be used for "storytelling" or hacking & slashing. It's how you play. You can have a high adventure & combat game and still roleplay your PC's.

 

[Ilen]

What makes a system encourage role play over roll-play? It's simple, to eliminate roll-player you simply need to play a system with not rolls... only system that comes to mind is Fantasia (Darksword), and even that has a system to determine success or failure.

Though I agree you can role-play with any system, it’s mainly a function of the campaign in place that determines such things.

 

[Zappo]

What makes a system encourage roleplaying? Its reputation.

I know many people who consider a mortal sin to create a Vampire character with less than two pages of background but who, when asked to create a D&D character, will just immediately run the WotC Character Generator. All of that before the game mechanics get involved.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I always liked the Paranoia method: if you didn't roleplay, your character got hit by a truckbot.

 

[nazgul]

Say whatever you want, but the fact is that D&D is focused on fighting. The designers themselves are upfront about it.

If D&D was about cooking contests, there would be tons of rules about the subject of cooking. There would be tons of spells and skills and feats that deal with culinary matters. But that's not what this game is about.

The "back to the dungeon" philosphy isn't about baking pies, it's about finding orcs and stealing theirs.

 

[Zappo]

Say whatever you want, but the fact is that D&D is focused on fighting. The designers themselves are upfront about it.

Correct. But that doesn't conflict with roleplaying in any way.

 

[Pielorinho]

I'll give you an example of a system that encourages roleplaying. It may not be your cup of tea (I know it's not mine), but it's definitely a roleplaying-heavy game.

In White Wolf's game "Wraith", you have a stat called "Angst."

Quit laughing. I'm serious.

Anyway, your character also has a shadow side, reflecting your fears, insecurities, etc. etc. You pretty much design your shadow, based on some guidelines.

Here's one ofthe roleplaying parts: another player takes on the part of your shadow, according to the rules, and whispers things to you in the shadow's voice. If you're trying to lead a group of wraiths in a daring raid, your shadowplayer might stand behind you and say, "Who do you think you are? Look at them -- they're laughing at you, you fool! Sit down before you humiliate yourself any more. Look, you're a good follower, but don't let them notice you. Don't you know what they do to leaders? They tear them down!" and so on.

That's part of the game mechanic.

When your angst score gets too high, you undergo a reversal, in which you start playing your shadow yourself: your shadow takes control of your PC. And when your angst score gets too too high, you have to put on black clothes and too much mascara and dance like you're swimming through olive oil.

No, that's not right. When your score gets really high, you undergo a reckoning, in which the GM runs you through a scene that exemplifies one of the reasons you became a wraith. If you were murdered by your ex-boyfriend, you might find yourself in the room just before he comes in -- and then he bursts into the room, obviously drunk, and you play through the scene again. If you play through it in a way that the GM believes confronts and works through the trauma, then your angst score goes down permanently. If you play through it poorly, then I think your permanent angst score goes up. And if you really screw up the scene, you irrevocably die.

*************

Long example -- and I'm working from memory, so some of the details may be wrong. My basic point, though, is that the game's mechanics strongly encourage a very specific type of roleplaying. All of the Storyteller system games do this to some degree or another.

D20 doesn't have any such mechanisms. I love D20, and I think that I can pull off good roleplaying scenes through the game; it's just that the game's mechanics don't really help me do this.

Daniel

 

[Garmorn]

The best rule systems for role playing are the ones that let the system slip in to the background for the group playing them. It can be cause of ease of play, lack of tables, or something else, but the all have the following traits:

Once learned the basics of the system is learned the rule books are not need expect for an occasional refernce to little used rules.

They don't requre a lot of time nor steps to resolve the most common actions for the genere being played.

They have some method of determining the relative strenghts of each character v.s. character or NPC'S.


edited spell error that changed meaning of sentence.

 

[bwgwl]

If D&D was about cooking contests, there would be tons of rules about the subject of cooking. There would be tons of spells and skills and feats that deal with culinary matters. But that's not what this game is about.

The "back to the dungeon" philosphy isn't about baking pies, it's about finding orcs and stealing theirs.

and yet, the White Wolf games such as Mage and Vampire also have more pages of rules dedicated to adjudicating combat than social interaction, but those games don't get labeled as "hack & slash" or "roll-playing" games.

<shrug> combat is complicated. it requires a lot of rules. this doesn't say anything about the merits of the game itself or how it is played.