D&D 5E When making decisions for your character in 5E, which is your top priority? RP or G?

[overgeeked]

It's a question older than the hobby. But it's still interesting.

So where do 5E players and referees of ENWorld stand on this question?

When making decisions for your character(s), and you have to choose one or the other, which priority wins out?

Is roleplaying more important to your decision making than the game mechanics or are the game mechanics more important to your decision making than the roleplaying?

ETA: To expand on this to make it clearer. You're playing 5E and you the player have to make a choice for your character.

Option 1) you act in character as you the player have established them, but you are at a mechanical disadvantage as a result.

Option 2) you ignore the personality of the character as you the player have established them, but gain a mechanical advantage as a result.

 

[Ovi]

I don't see these as being in contention.

 

[Blue]

When running, what is more important, your left leg or your right?

There's a reason both of them are in the name. Both of them are integral to play.

The poll really biases answers because it forces a distinction.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If the roleplaying choices lead to good mechanics, I am pretty happy.

I am unhappy when I want to make a roleplaying choice and it leads to bad mechanics.

 

[Professor Murder]

Best answer i can give is that if a game session ended with no dice ever being rolled, I wouldn't consider it a failure, but if a game session had zero story to it and was just rolling dice I would. It's the only metric I can think of to address such an absolutist question honestly.

 

[Argyle King]

Ideally, both are valid.

The RP part is what sets it apart from a board game or just turning on a video game. That would be my default leaning.

I do enjoy the G part as well, but it comes in as a close second.

However, there are times when something is so obviously better for a character choice that choosing the RP choice over the G choice is difficult to rationalize.

I'm fine with making in-world RP choices to fit a character. I don't like when game mechanics are built in a way that make me feel like there's obviously only one correct choice (because that makes me feel as though it's not a real choice at all and/or as though how I would really like to play isn't seen as equally valid).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

ETA: To expand on this to make it clearer. You're playing 5E and you the player have to make a choice for your character.

Option 1) you act in character as you the player have established them, but you are at a mechanical disadvantage as a result.

Option 2) you ignore the personality of the character as you the player have established them, but gain a mechanical advantage as a result.

It's about the degree of deflection for me.

It doing the right thing mechanically is more like, 30 degrees off from what the character would "normally" do, I'm not going to do the right thing mechanically (presuming 180 is "the opposite of what they would do).

With the people I play with, I'd say vast majority are similar. They have a point where, as smart as something might be mechanically, they won't go that far, because it deviates from their conception of the character.

Particularly interestingly, this INCLUDES the most extreme power-gamer I play with! His characters are sometimes barely plausible, but once he's got this character established, with their personality and how they operate and so on, he doesn't deviate significantly from that. I've literally suggested plans to him, and he's acknowledged that would be the smart thing to do, but his character isn't going to do that, and I have a lot of respect for that. It's not what you might expect, but there you are.

I'm actually struggling to think of anyone I've ever played with who always goes mechanical. I think the last one was like, over 20 years ago.

 

[FireLance]

Of course RP and G will usually work in tandem, so think about the question in this way: when creating a PC or otherwise playing, do you:

1. Consider the mechanics first, then come up with the RP concept; or
2. Come up with the RP concept first, then think about how the mechanics can support it?

Undoubtedly, there's still going to be a lot of depends on the circumstances/campaign/table/how you are feeling on the day, but surely you've noticed what you tend to favor.

For the record, I tend to be mechanics first.

 

[James Gasik]

While I am happy to make sacrifices to power in the name of fun and interesting roleplay, as a player, I hate feeling that I'm struggling or not supporting the group as well as I could be because I made the choice to play a Tabaxi Wizard with a 14 Intelligence (something I actually did in AL, and every time I had a spell whiff, I sighed from deep in my soul).

So I feel you always need to assess the situation and decide what a baseline level of competence is for any group. Other players, I've noticed, have no problems whatsoever optimizing, and leaving your "fun" character feeling like a fifth wheel. When creating a character, deciding not to have a 16 in an important stat is an easy thing to justify "it's only a 5% chance, and bounded accuracy!", you might say.

Then every time that 5% chance comes up in game, confirmation bias alone starts making you regret your character's life choices.

The same thing comes up when I have to choose between an ASI or a Feat- to date, I've taken the ASI more often than not.

Mind you, this was all pre-Tasha's; now that that game has made race choice irrelevant to your ability scores, I'll probably have no problems selecting a wacky race for my next character.

 

[Emirikol]

I hate (hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate) making characters. 40yrs of dnd and I get more tired of it every new edition.
Give me a pregen any day. Its easy to flesh the roleplay. Hopefully this one will die a glorious death so I can tey out a different pregen next!