The Art Of Role Playing

[Elliot Kane]

There seems to be a lot of confusion over exactly what a 'Role Playing Game' is, and the more so as the name has been hijacked by computer game designers to mean many things, few of which have anything to do with proper RPGs at all.

As someone who first started playing Dungeons & Dragons in 1979, and who has both played in and GMed many RPGs down the years, I feel I am somewhat qualified to explain exactly what true role playing is, and is not.

The first thing any of you will notice on picking up a pen & paper RPG game manual is that it looks like there is a ton of number crunching and a lot of stats and abilities that make up your character. If you were to put the manual down again without ever playing the game, you might even believe that that was ALL it was - and so miss the point entire.

Role playing is not about statistics, or abilities. It never has been. Those are a framework for the game, not the game itself.

I think the best description I have ever seen of what an RPG game is runs roughly: "Have you ever read a book, or seen a film, and thought - 'the hero is an idiot! If that were me, I would do the whole thing very differently.' With an RPG, you are the character in the story, and you can do it your way."

In other words, the essence of an RPG is that you are playing a role. Freeform acting. You are trying to create a consistent personality for your character, and play him according to the ethics or morals you set for him.

Like in a story, you interact with other characters, and your relationship with them develops according to your actions.

Statistics and abilities are needed for game mechanics - to give order to the proceedings. They are not the story. In other words, they are incidental. Their inclusion is not what makes something an RPG or not.

Characterisation is everything. A game that allows you to develop a personality for your character is an RPG. A game that predetermines your characters personality is not. A game with nothing even remotely involving personality is not worth mentioning in the same breath.

***

I suppose I could have put this in the computer forum, but it's about RPGs, which happen far more often with groups of people around a table and no computer anywhere in sight. So it's here, instead

[sps1000]

You clarified that, there's another branch of this wide-world of RPGs.

[janggut]

as i've said in the Larian forum, even as kids we often play role-playing games without even realising. in my case, it was police & thieves, going-for-trips (playing roles of drivers, pilots, navigators, conductors, passengers etc), re-enacting favourite shows with neighbourhood kids etc.... .

it is true, stats & ability development are incidental, not fundamental.

[Glance A'Lot]

To do, or not to do: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.

If such question arises in your game - you're role playing

[Tsel]

Well, a lot of confusion stems from…


Roll playing Game
vs
Role Playing Game


A lot of people, not all, but many even when they see the word Role they visualize Roll; when leading the other two words ‘Playing Game’.
And since D&D uses lots of dice and number crunching, many think Role playing is really Roll playing.

I, myself, I’m a gamer not a role player.
I’ve played a lot of PnP D&D.
There are a few people out there, whom I’d consider whack-o’s.
They take the game waaaaaaaaaaaay to far into the role playing relm.

Tsel

[Alrik]

What's "roll" in this meaning ?

[Tsel]

Roll - Example: The cars tires roll on the street.

Roll - Example: To roll the dice.

D&D uses a lot of dice in its play, so a lot of people assume 'Roll Play' like the roll of dice.

Tsel

[Alrik]

Okay, I know that dice are used.

Now I understand what you mean.

[SilvaShado]

Good clarification Elliot. I know the group I used to play with in high school was more interested in how powered they could get their characters rather than developing the character's personality. I usually had difficulty playing because I focused more on character than stats.

Tsel - I never thought of it in those terms, but there really is a division between players as to whether they focus on Roll or Role playing. I'll have to tell my friends about that and see how they respond.

I actually have trouble getting into some computer RPGs because there isn't a lot of character development. There's much more of a focus on stats and skills and how well you can kill things. And when there are highly development characters and relationships, I have to accept whatever has been created. Sometimes that's fine and quite a lot of fun. But I prefer pen & paper when possible because of it's freedom to create on my own terms.

[Elliot Kane]

Silva...

I think the problem with the vast majority of CRPG game designers is that they have never actually played a pen & paper RPG in their lives, so they look at the game manuals, filled with stats and number crunching, and they think that's the game.

It's just a shame no-one's pointed out to most of them how wrong they are, and that proper role playing is a whole lot more fun

[Elliot Kane]

Tsel...

The confusion between roll & role playing is half the problem, I agree, yeah.

***

Glance & Jang - yes

[SilvaShado]

Elliot - even if they have played Pen & Paper RPGs, they probably had similar experiences that I did - where everyone was more concerned with stats and being powerful.

*shrug* eh, whatever. There's a lot of people that like those kinds of games. I'll play what I play and so will others.

[Elliot Kane]

There are beginners like that, Silva, sure. Sooner or later they learn to role play, though

[Glance A'Lot]

Especially if you have a good game master able to construct plots where the solution does not relate to 'great' stats., but wit.

[Dark Phoenix Rising]

Some people that are roll players would argue that the amount of intellegence that you can bring to the game is determined by your stats. And equally so is the forcefulness of your character

[Elliot Kane]

I agree with Glance

[Tsel]

dragonlord said:

Some people that are roll players would argue that the amount of intellegence that you can bring to the game is determined by your stats. And equally so is the forcefulness of your character

I agree with both you and Glance DL.

Quoting your comment specific I miss DM's like my old DM from the early 80's who always combined a lot of Adventure, Wit, Humor, and extreme attention to detail in Balance. He didn't always follow the rules, but they were always the guide. Stats were all part of the game, but he constructed the adventure where brute force wouldn't always serve you well and we did die at times in his adventures and those characters were nevermore we never resurrected them due to lack of gold or whatever.

Once, back when the module ‘Ravenloft’ first came out 5 of us went in and only I made it out…with my tail tucked between my legs and running for my life of course.
We were wasted real fast in that castle.
I was playing a mage and my wand of wonder shrunk me down to a pixie in size.
Lucky for me I was quick enough to think about flying away on the back of my pseudo-dragon…and yes, I legitly rolled and got a pseudo-dragon as a familiar. I retired that mage after that at a lowly 5th level. He lived happily ever after living with the fairies.

Tsel

[Elliot Kane]

Ah, Ravenloft What a great module that was... And yeah - incredibly hard

[SilvaShado]

On the subject of rules, some previous DMs were sticklers for the rules and it often took the fun out of the game. When I or Will DM, we're much more lax, sometimes going with what feels right rather than looking up what it should be.

Especially when it comes to experience and leveling up. I don't do the math to see if my players killed enough to go up a level. I go by how well they roleplayed. Will and his friends always surprise me in the choices they make, so I learned long ago to roll with it, and reward them for their inventiveness.

And I try not to kill my players, but I don't hesitate to let them get seriosuly hurt if that's the choice they made. I don't use a DM screen to prevent them from seeing the rolls. So good or bad, for me or them, they know what's happening.

Like the other day, they found a room with mold-covered skeletons. The skeletons were clutching shining weapons. Now they had no previous knowledge of molds, so when they tried to lasso the weapon to pull it out of the skeleton, they activated the mold spores. One of them took massive constitution damage. If he hadn't retreated, he could have died from just one more round of the spores. Thankfully, they figured that burning took care of most plants and lit the whole room on fire, then retrieved the swords.

Out of curiosity, has anyone played with D&D 3.5 rules? All my books are 3.0 and we don't play that much to warrant getting new books. But I'm curious as to what the differences are.

[Konrad Flameheart]

Yes Silva, I've played both D&D3 & 3.5 ed. there are a quite a lot of what i would consider small differences between the two. they have changed few of the magic rules both for spells and magic items, including the Damage Reduction rules. some core rues have be changed slightly, some Feats descriptions have been altered and some skills work differently now. Psionics got a slight rewite also.

Without getting out my old 3rd ed books and going through them i can't be 100% on all the changes, however the 3.5 ed is, in my opion, a better and for the most part more balanced game.