what makes a system encourage roleplaying not "rollplaying"

[Pielorinho]

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.

I'm not sure I agree with this. White Wolf's combat is relatively simple compared with D&D's combat. In some ways, this is good: it's very easy to learn the basic rolls. In some ways, it's bad: it's difficult to remember to do interesting maneuvers in combat, because the interesting maneuvers don't have rules associated with them, and your GM is likely to resolve cool maneuvers just like she'd resolve a straight-up "I hit him again!" maneuver.

(Werewolf, being the hackenslashingest of the storyteller games, added in some combat maneuvers; however, we never used them, because they felt tacked-on and stupidly implemented).

OTOH, White Wolf spends a whole lot of time talking about character templates, essences, shadows, archetypes, and so forth; joining one social group or another is an integral part of character creation; the core rules describe how the different social groups see one another.

Part of what makes D&D good is that it's fairly easy to adapt the rules to different atmospheres; White Wolf is stuck mostly in one particular atmosphere. However, WW does their one atmosphere really well, and I do think it's harder to play a hackenslash game of Wraith than a hackenslash game of D&D.

Daniel

 

[Psion]

Aigh! He said "roll-playing"

HEAD EXPLODES

Sorry about that. I feel better now.

Anyway, back to the question at hand: what makes a system encourage roleplaying?

Answer:
1) Players
2) GM.

There you go. Glad to be of service.

 

[Sodalis]

errr- yup...

alls yous gots tah do isss to tell your guys to RP more- and then reward those that do.

Once you get a guy that is ten lvls higher than the rest- they should get the idear..

 

[tabrumj]

While I agree with everyone else that it is more the job of the players and GM to encourage Roleplaying, there are two things within the system that can encourage it.

1. Make combat deadly. In a system where combat can easily kill a PC and there is no way to come back from the dead, Players tend to think twice before entering a serious combat. One of the best examples I can think of this is Legend of the 5 Rings. I have seen PC's killed in one blow in this game.

2. Allow ways for character abilities to grow other than combat. When all of the cool stuff for your character is Combat related it is very easy to just fall into the pattern of killing everything that moves. D&D 2E fell into this pattern. All aspects of character advancement really centered around killing things.

Jeff Tabrum

 

[Frosty]

In D&D your personality is basically one of nine types, where at least four are banned. That doesn't encourage role-playing in my book. If I had a little rubber ducky for every law-versus-freedom-argument I've heard whilst playing D&D I'd have at least two. Maybe 15. Well, more like 300 rubber duckies.

 

[Frosty]

This begs the question; how many rubber duckies would you have?

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Anyone ever play Wasted West?

What encourages role playing in that system is their XP system.

At the beginning of a session, the GM makes the players draw poker chips (called fate chips), each worth so many points. During play, the players can use their fate chips to avoid injuries or do incredible tasks. However, these chips are also the source of a character's advancement, so using up all of your chips will keep the character alive, but will progress slowly (if at all!).

At the end of the session, the GM will award chips for role-playing the character (notably his weaknesses, chosen during character creation).

The entire system rewards role playing, *not* combat. Defeating the most powerful villain does not net the character much XP if the player did not role-play him according to his own character sheet.

 

[jollyninja]

perhaps it's my group, but i get more xp in nearly every session for my roleplaying then i do for fighting. it's not that we do not fight. but all you have to do to make dnd less combat oriented is not fight so much and award xp for roleplaying. it takes a little work to figure out the EL of a situation that does not involve fighting but it can be done, fitting social interaction into the xp system of dnd. if only some d20 publisher would put out a book detailing how to do it. of course it would be loaded with new feats and PrC's based on social interaction................ and nobody would buy it.

 

[Bonedagger]

No rollplaying? That's easy. Just remove the dices

Serious. If you start roleplaying your NPC's then your players will follow.

 

[rounser]

IMO, there's three things to consider when it comes to systems and roleplaying:

A) Rules which avoid getting in the way of roleplaying.
B) Rules which reinforce and encourage a certain style of roleplaying.
C) Setting material implicit in the rules which inspires roleplaying.

3E D&D is big on A (unless you're trying to avoid an archetype), and, I think, quite good on B and C with it's clearly defined archetypes and their corresponding patterns of play. For an example of emphasising B to an even greater extent in a D&D framework, Hackmaster does a fine job with rules like those for the character's quirks and flaws, and for the honor system - these rules actively encourage roleplaying in a certain way.

Amber, from what I gather, is great on A. WW games tend to emphasise B and C a bit more even than 3E D&D. Call of Cthulhu is definitive on B with it's Sanity system.

In some ways, I think D&D could benefit from a bit more of B, given the threads on lack of heroics on these boards. If you want the game to be played in a certain kind of way, it helps if the rules actively encourage that.