Would you allow this?

[Maxperson]

I'm not saying that he's role-playing incorrectly, when he's role-playing. I'm saying that, to refer to both the role-playing and the other thing as role-playing is to confuse the term.

Okay, great, but who here said that they were both roleplaying? Not me. I've been telling you that they were different for quite some time now.

He's doing two distinct things: role-playing, and something else. He's making decisions as his character would make them (which is role-playing), and he's inventing details about the setting beyond the purview of what his character can actually control (which is a different activity, that is not role-playing).

The distinction is important to maintain, since the whole reason I would disallow the scenario in question is because of the something else. I run games where players only role-play, and never do that other thing. Without having sufficient language to distinguish between the two, there is no way to get my point across.

Agreed, but in this thread this is a problem of your own devising. I don't recall anyone but you and perhaps @jaelis confusing the two, and I think you confused him with your responses to me.

 

[Les Moore]

That is an oddly pseudo-biological response to a magical issue. You do realize if the wings were "real" that couldn't support flight, so having them always or suddenly would make no difference.

All the more reason for the members to work together, in order to survive a TPK level threat. Taking the initiative as narrator is a
little unusual, especially for a sudden and unusual development, but IMO, whenever the party shows cohesion and teamwork, they
should be given a +bonus, in essence "the conjoined magic of life forces unified".

 

[RogueHalfling]

All the more reason for the members to work together, in order to survive a TPK level threat. Taking the initiative as narrator is a
little unusual, especially for a sudden and unusual development, but IMO, whenever the party shows cohesion and teamwork, they
should be given a +bonus, in essence "the conjoined magic of life forces unified".

i'm sorry, but this response as almost nothing to do with mine.

 

[Les Moore]

We're looking at it differently.

 

[FrogReaver]

Roleplaying is about playing a role. Anything that isn't about playing a role is decidedly not roleplaying. Can we at least agree that it isn't roleplaying when a player says their character magically regrows their wings when the character in question has no ability that would allow this?

So then no matter how much Roleplaying the said character has done before, during or after this declaration of wing regrowth, we now have the right to say the specific player both roleplayed and did not roleplay. That's not a contradiction because the roleplaying and not roleplaying occurred at 2 different times but it should help illustrate why some find such a method of play to be against roleplaying.

 

[Les Moore]

I would be a little more concerned with the player seizing the narrative. The DM's role is to state the narrative. When the player narrates the story, he
takes the initiative from the DM.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Roleplaying is about playing a role. Anything that isn't about playing a role is decidedly not roleplaying. Can we at least agree that it isn't roleplaying when a player says their character magically regrows their wings when the character in question has no ability that would allow this?

So then no matter how much Roleplaying the said character has done before, during or after this declaration of wing regrowth, we now have the right to say the specific player both roleplayed and did not roleplay. That's not a contradiction because the roleplaying and not roleplaying occurred at 2 different times but it should help illustrate why some find such a method of play to be against roleplaying.

I'll agree it's not roleplaying, it's narration. But neither is it roleplaying to write a backstory. If you write, "When my father never returned from the war..." etc. you are NOT describing your character or what your character does, but you are adding depth to your character by providing supporting narrative elements. That is, you are doing the exact same thing as the wings, it's just past tense and happens before the game actually starts.

It still a valid component of a roleplaying game.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'll agree it's not roleplaying, it's narration. But neither is it roleplaying to write a backstory. If you write, "When my father never returned from the war..." etc. you are NOT describing your character or what your character does, but you are adding depth to your character by providing supporting narrative elements. That is, you are doing the exact same thing as the wings, it's just past tense and happens before the game actually starts.

It still a valid component of a roleplaying game.

There has always been a bit of preparation required before one can actually roleplay a character. In our Hobby such preparation involves inventing the character we are going to roleplay. Inventing a character requires some backstory. Both the backstory and the character must meet DM approval to even be in the campaign to begin with. All of this is a requirement before we can even begin to consider actually roleplaying a character.

In other words, it's entirely different. Character creation and backstory creation are necessary components for roleplaying. You can't roleplay without them. However, you can roleplay without taking narrative control in the middle of a gaming session where you probably should be roleplaying instead of not-roleplaying (unless your group finds a nice mixture of narrative control (*not-roleplaying) and roleplaying to be more fun.)

 

[Guest 6801328]

There has always been a bit of preparation required before one can actually roleplay a character. In our Hobby such preparation involves inventing the character we are going to roleplay. Inventing a character requires some backstory. Both the backstory and the character must meet DM approval to even be in the campaign to begin with. All of this is a requirement before we can even begin to consider actually roleplaying a character.

In other words, it's entirely different. Character creation and backstory creation are necessary components for roleplaying. You can't roleplay without them. However, you can roleplay without taking narrative control in the middle of a gaming session where you probably should be roleplaying instead of not-roleplaying (unless your group finds a nice mixture of narrative control (*not-roleplaying) and roleplaying to be more fun.)

1) Many DMs (most, in my experience) don't really exert control over backgrounds. At most they give it a quick glance to make sure nothing is going to cause problems.

2) You don't have to write the background beforehand. You can invent it as you go along, as you "discover" things about your character. The people I play with do this all the time. You suddenly come up with a new background detail that adds depth to the present. Some of my most memorable (to me?) characters have been the result of sitting down at a table, saying "what do we need?", rolling something up as the game gets going, then figuring out the backstory and personality as we play. How is that different than the wings story?

You may be describing the way YOU play, but that doesn't make it the way "our Hobby" works.

 

[FrogReaver]

1) Many DMs (most, in my experience) don't really exert control over backgrounds. At most they give it a quick glance to make sure nothing is going to cause problems.

1) The fact that they give it a quick glance is evidence they are exterting control over backgrounds

2) You don't have to write the background beforehand. You can invent it as you go along, as you "discover" things about your character. The people I play with do this all the time. You suddenly come up with a new background detail that adds depth to the present. Some of my most memorable (to me?) characters have been the result of sitting down at a table, saying "what do we need?", rolling something up as the game gets going, then figuring out the backstory and personality as we play. How is that different than the wings story?

You may be describing the way YOU play, but that doesn't make it the way "our Hobby" works.

2) There's a bunch of separate but semi-related points here. I'm going to try address the most important one. Can one roleplay a character that's simply a race and a class with no other information.

Let's try this with an example: Let's take Gnarl the Human Fighter. Gnarl is asked to dance by a human woman. With no other details other than you being a human Fighter you are left more or less randomly picking an answer. A more expansive background and personality opens up the possibility that you can actually pick the course of action that makes the most sense for the character instead of just picking a random course of action.

I suppose both can be defined as roleplaying in the sense that you have a character and are having him do things and react to situations. I also suppose it's impossible to entirely get away from reacting to situations that your character could literally act either 50/50 way on. But while such situations are impossible to avoid, it's not those situations that really highlight what roleplaying is. Roleplaying is best highlighted by a "fleshed out character" where a player can leverage certain background truths and personality traits and determine a course of action for said character.

So I guess the best way to say it is that there is a gap between what actually can be fit into the definition of roleplaying (such as having a character make choices) and what we are actually striving for with roleplaying (having a character make choices by leveraging their background and personality).