Why would you want to play *that*??

[fusangite]

Let me tell you about a great mini-campaign I played in. It was a Planescape campaign in which we were only allowed to build weird creatures from outside the PHB races. We were all motivated to make the best possibly use of the level adjustment for different creatures in the process of creating the characters, something our GM actively encouraged. We were all given seven levels to work with.

Teflon Billy made a half-dragon named Meraxes. I played a Kuo Toa priest whose name I forget. Anyway, we were all natives of Sigil, soldiers of fortune, hired by a Demi-Lich to find an important artifact for him. We had a blast. Some of us just concentrated on using our cool powers. Some of us loved taking a shot at actually role-playing our various weird characters. I quite enjoyed playing someone who thought solely with their reptilian brain. The point is that some of us enjoyed it from the RP perspective. Some from the ass-kicking perspective. But most of us enjoyed it from both perspectives. The great thing about D&D is that the game can be fun both ways and is best-enjoyed in both modes.

The best part of the campaign is where we arrive in a city through a dimensional gateway and paladiins rise out to dispatch us and it occurs to us that we're that diverse group of evil monsters who show up outside of some town in a way that strains suspension of disbelief. Had the campaign continued longer, the DM was planning to have us show up in a dungeon and kill off a party of adventurers.

I'm not saying everybody does this but some of us spend enough time trying to figure out how the monsters we're fighting are thinking that a lot of the work done on imagining playing such characters is already underway. For other people, like the girl who played the morokanth character in a Runequest campaign I was in, people have little trouble playing monsters and getting into it because they fundamentally believe that all intelligent creatures are fundamentally alike in their values, assumptions and social structures -- Star Trek watchers who assume that ear shape, religious rituals and intrinsic bellicosity are all that can be different.

EDIT: Andor, your post rocks!

 

[Greylock]

My last hundred or so chars were Humans, Elves, and Half-Elves. Rangers, Rogues, Paladins, etc. The last "straight" char, a Human Fighter, was rolled up for a one-shot. Ended up playing him for almost two years. And in the end, he bored the ever-living crud outta me.

Current char is a very foppish absentminded Elven Cleric with a Major Celestial Bloodline. I've enjoyed every single second of role-playing him. The group has had several changes pf players and mindsets, but I kept playing him. He is/was a ball to play.

Next char is going to be a Aasimar Sorceror with Draconic feats from RotD. I am fairly frothing at the lips, so pumped I am to play him.

And I don't give a ratsazz about the stats. Cut all his in half if it matters so much. I can't wait to run with this guy.

hth

 

[der_kluge]

Another "Bad Fun" post.

It boggles my mind that a group of people playing a game viewed by the general public as at best a pursuit of unwashed geeks clustered under a 40 watt bulb in a basement, and at worst as a cover for satanists seeking to lure little Jimmy into killing the neigbors cat, nonetheless feel the need to point fingers at other members of their hobby and sneer proclaiming "They do it wrong! All true gamers know that my way is best. I fear and revile what I do not understand, and I do not understand You!"

Bravo Sir, Bravo.

Yes, Bravo indeed. Shouldn't people who view a character as nothing more than statistics, attributes, and scores go play a war game? D&D is a role-playing game. It's based around story, plot motives, and -roles-.

It's not "bad wrong" to play D&D from purely mechanical standpoint. But it's sort of like buying a Civic as a racing car. Yes, I can race in a Civic, but aren't I going to be much more effective at racing if I do it, in say a Lotus? D&D isn't a wargame. It's a role-playing game.

 

[der_kluge]

Let me tell you about a great mini-campaign I played in. It was a Planescape campaign...

Well, Planescape doesn't really count. There, it makes *sense* to be a weird character. I'm talking about the games in which bringing in some templated, whatever -doesn't- make any sense.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Here's the thing, though.

Outside of D&D, in the wider reaches of the role-playing hobby, it's not particularly unusual to find people playing in games that don't even have human protagonists.

People play members of alien species in science fiction games all the time. The World of Darkness games, both old and new, all dealt almost exclusively with people transformed into something very seriously inhuman to one degree or another. Games like In Nomine or Nobilis see you playing cosmic entities of various stripes.

Outside of D&D, it's not that damn unusual to play a "weird" character. Yet games like Vampire, Werewolf, In Nomine and Nobilis have their fair share of people in it for the roleplaying experience. Also their fair share of people in it for the "amoral superbeings with fangs" experience, sure, but my point is this:

There are people who play for the experience of portraying someone extremely unlike them and people who play for the headpunch and the kicksplode. There are people who play for reasons unrelated to these two, as well.

Assuming that someone wanting to play a character not in the "human + Tolkien races" paradigm is unusual or not motivated by roleplaying concerns is actually bizarre in the wider context of roleplaying.

I mean, Hell . . . it's not like humans who spend their entire lives fighting monsters for treasure and glory are actually that close to the humans playing the game. I reckon a thri-kreen living that life is only a little further away from real-world experience.

 

[Elephant]

1. Aw, is it time for THIS thread again, already?

2. D&D grew out of wargaming. Expectations of amateur acting piled on top are just that, piled on top. Personally, I think too many people get too elitist and snobby about "role" vs. "roll" playing.

(I'm not trying to comment on anyone in this thread specifically; it's more of a general vibe I've gotten in the past)

 

[Crothian]

Well, Planescape doesn't really count. There, it makes *sense* to be a weird character. I'm talking about the games in which bringing in some templated, whatever -doesn't- make any sense.

Isn't that like stacking the deck though? But restricting the discussion to only campaign worlds were the wierd doesn't make sense makes the discussion rather moot. It also changes it to playing something that does not fit the campaign world.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Well, Planescape doesn't really count. There, it makes *sense* to be a weird character. I'm talking about the games in which bringing in some templated, whatever -doesn't- make any sense.

Well, for me, after playing D&D since '77, I've played many many many of the base classes and base races, and like something a little different, and little oddball. I want to examine the personality conflict of a teifling paladin always walking on the edge of correct morality. I want to examine a half Gold Dragon half celestial Cleric/Paladin, who, becuase of bloodline, up until the start of game has never had a crisis of faith or concience, move into the real world and see shades of grey. I want to see what the world looks like fromt the point of view of a Illumian who is only a few hundred years removed from the creation of her gods and race.

 

[fusangite]

Yes, Bravo indeed. Shouldn't people who view a character as nothing more than statistics, attributes, and scores go play a war game?

The thing is that unlike most RPGs, D&D is suited to be played exclusively as a war game if the player so desires. In many ways, it is already an RPG-war game hybrid. Since the advent of 3E and the requirement that combat be mapped-out on a grid, D&D has essentially become an alternating series of strategic wargames (combat) and role-playing (the rest of the game), each comprising about 50% of the playing time. In addition, there are all the computer-based D&D adaptations that don't involve role-playing but nevertheless have a plot connecting a series of combat scenes. It is certainly possible to play D&D as a war game simply by under-utilizing certain sections of the rules without any modification to the game as a whole.

Sometimes I do advise people not to use D&D to achieve certain objectives like unmediated player control over storyline, representation of low-magic worlds or historical role playing because there exist D&D rules that directly impair doing such things. But in my view, D&D rules do not present any real difficulties in representing a series of barely-connected combats interspersed with short railroading set-pieces like a videogame... or, the original game. Look at the first modules published for the game. How much role-playing do you imagine was involved in running B1 -- you know, the 1979 module with random assignments of monsters to rooms and not the slightest hint of a plot or anybody's motivation to doing what they're doing -- Search for the Unknown?

Think back to when you were 10 playing this game. Wouldn't it have been fun to play a half-dragon, half-earth elemental nixie? Just making such a character would have been fun, even if I'd tired of it quickly. But then, there would be so many options so the next character I'd make, the Spinnagon Assassin Plane Shifter. Like it or not, we play a kids' game. We shouldn't begrudge people for playing the game like kids. To a greater or lesser extent, we all do that -- it's just a question of what aspect of being a kid we emphasize. Is it the chance to play pretend so well that it feels real? Sounds like that's what it is for you. Or is it the chance to imagine yourself as a magical creature with amazing lethal powers? Why should this way of acting like a kid be viewed as superior to your way?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Given the commonality of such things as half-dragon paragon dwarven clerics of whatever, fiendish tiefling rogue/rangers, stonechildren scouts or reticulated yellow-bellied water diggers, I have to ask WHY?

Incorrect premise leads to incorrect conclusions.