Quote from: Old GeezerWe never included "role playing mechanics" because it never for the life of us occured to us that they might be needed, or even desired.

I find this comment particularly interesting, because I'm currently writing up my critique of Mongoose's new Traveller playtest document.  One of my more pointed commentaries is that their Event and Mishap tables -- outgrowths of the short-lived and misguided T4 from a decade ago -- are a wrong-headed attempt to do the roleplaying for the players.  The tables are ostensibly there to add variety and life during character generation by providing randomised events, but they're unnecessary.  In fact, they're redundant to the skill tables.  Worst of all, they actually detract from players' creativity.  The tables from the simple, original game were plenty inspirational in helping to differentiate characters.

!i!

Quote from: flyingmicePeople are either good roleplayers or they aren't. Some are awesome from the get go, and others take some time to develop, but the desire to be good roleplayers is in them from the start.

It's worth keeing our eyes open with the new players, since it can be hard to tell the difference between "can't roleplay well" and "...yet." As you say, that desire has to be there. It's possible for a group to kill that desire, or at least knock it out for a year or two. A lot of groups don't nurture people new to the group, it's just, "here's our group, fit in or fuck off."

That's another reason I try to run the short, closed-ended campaigns with the rotating membership - to keep us conscious that we're all new - at least to each-other - and keep us nice.

Quote from: flyingmiceIt doesn't matter a whit whether there are mechanics to "support" AKA "force" roleplaying, as as good roleplayers do so for personal reasons. All you will do is piss off the non-good roleplayers, who will be forced to deal with something they have no talent for.

I'm happy to piss them off a little bit, though. It helps me identify the players who need some nurturing, and the players who I won't invite for the next campaign.

As I said, I do think that there's a place for some roleplaying mechanics; but these won't make or let the non-roleplayers roleplay, it'll just help those who already can. Game mechanics are like accelerators on car - there's no point knowing where the accelerator is unless you already know how to drive, and want to.

Quote from: flyingmiceYou may have good Players who are not good Roleplayers, vice versa, people who are good at both, and those who are good at neither, who should be pushed out of the lifeboat at first opportunity.

Yet another reason for the short, closed-ended campaigns with rotating membership. "Look, we're pushing you out of the lifeboat, but there's another one over there, just swim for a little bit." What I find a good part of the time is that those people don't bother swimming to the other lifeboat. They either just let themselves sink into the sea of non-gamers, or they paddle around ours hoping to get back in some time. As I see it, that just means they're not that keen anyway. If you really want to be in the boat, you'll swim off and find your own.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkBasic D&D is such a simple system, the mechanics just don't support anything other than the absolute basics.  And yet, I can pick up the notes for a one-shot Fate adventure I ran a years ago and immediately recall the personalities I'd devised for pretty much all the NPCs.

You see, thats it basically.
The notes tell you, what their personalities are like, but they don't miraculously give you the ability to roleplay the personalities of these NPCs, they just help you remember them.
If you, like, wrote down a few key elements of your D&D characters personality you would have the same effect.

Its really that simple.

Yeah, I suppose I should have known that this was the wrong crowd for this type of question.  I mean games with several chapters devoted to combat are perfectly acceptable, but a few rules to help support good roleplaying?  Heaven forbid.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: Tyberious FunkYeah, I suppose I should have known that this was the wrong crowd for this type of question.  I mean games with several chapters devoted to combat are perfectly acceptable, but a few rules to help support good roleplaying?  Heaven forbid.  :rolleyes:

Yawn.  

If you're going to go all crybaby and complain because you didn't get the response you wanted, and start flinging about blanket statements and false dichotomies, could you at least throw out some NEW ones?

Quote from: J ArcaneYawn.  

If you're going to go all crybaby and complain because you didn't get the response you wanted, and start flinging about blanket statements and false dichotomies, could you at least throw out some NEW ones?

Huh?  Where's the false dichotomy?

Quote from: Tyberious FunkHuh?  Where's the false dichotomy?

Where in any of this thread did anyone state anything remotely resembling the conclusion you chose to jump to?

Quote from: Tyberious FunkYeah, I suppose I should have known that this was the wrong crowd for this type of question.  I mean games with several chapters devoted to combat are perfectly acceptable, but a few rules to help support good roleplaying?  Heaven forbid.  :rolleyes:

I didn't say that.

I said that rules for roleplaying would encourage but not enable already good roleplayers to roleplay more, but would have little or no effect on already poor roleplayers.

Likewise, rules for combat will encourage but not enable already good tacticians, but will have little or no effect on already poor tacticians.

Rules for roleplaying will not make the dull drongo into a lively creative person anymore than rules for tactics will make the "er... I shoot him!" guy into a Napoleon. They will, however, encourage the people who are already good roleplayers or tacticians.

It's the same as how rules for football can be designed to show the fitness and agility of fit and agile players - but no rules can make them fit and agile. They have to develop their abilities themselves. And in a casual hobby, very few people will make the effort, so we're left with their inborn talent. Hell, I know a gamer who has a whole group waiting for him to run a game, and he doesn't have any other gaming going on, but he still can't get his shit together to run the game. With that kind of laziness around, do you really expect that untalented gamers will make the effort to develop their roleplaying abilities? I don't. I expect only the already okay or good ones to make the effort to get better - the useless ones will stay useless.

Quote from: Kyle AaronIt's the same as how rules for football can be designed to show the fitness and agility of fit and agile players - but no rules can make them fit and agile. They have to develop their abilities themselves. And in a casual hobby, very few people will make the effort, so we're left with their inborn talent.

Sweet Singing Conan, I think that might be the most insightful thing I've read in years.

Kyle has emboldened me to say something that's been bubbling around in my mind for about six months.

Every "Types of Gamers" thingummy I've seen references the "Casual Gamer".  Sometimes, like Robin Laws, they'll actually say "Leave them alone".  More likely you get an Uncle Figgy who wants to turn Casual Gamers into "Mad Gamers".

Well, you know what?

After 35 years of roleplaying, I have reached the conclusion that the VAST majority of gamers are, in fact, "Casual Gamers".

And that they don't really give a ripping rat's ass about changing.  They don't WANT to be anything other than casual gamers.

Of course the vast majority of gamers are casual, just as the vast majority of people who have ever kicked a ball around are not "real" footballers - I thought everyone knew that, except for the Forger evangelists. Just because I lift weights does not make me a bodybuilder. Just because I play a little one-on-one shooting baskets with my buddy does not make me a basketballer. Just because I try to write a nice love letter to my woman does not make me a poet.

In any sport, there's a sort of pyramid of participation, with the "kick a ball around" people down at the bottom in their millions, and the "plays for a Serie A team" people at the top in their few hundreds. We could scale it out as something like below - the percentages are just illustrative.

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Idiots like us blathering about gaming online and writing the occasional indie game are obviously "dedicated amateurs", but most of our game groups are at best "casual amateurs". And there really aren't any professional gamers out there - and no, the game designers don't count as professional gamers, anymore than the factory worker who makes the footballs counts as a professional footballer - making the materials for the thing and playing the thing are different; obviously there's overlap, since an interest in the thing may draw you into a job making materials for it - but Gygax, Jackson, Wieck and so on aren't paid to game, they're paid to write games - so they're not "professional" gamers.

Anyway I thought this was obvious. The 90% of people who've ever tried rpgs and didn't go back, and the 4% hangers-on, they're just not interested in becoming better roleplayers, anymore than if I go and play one-on-one shooting hoops with my buddy we're interested in becoming better basketballers. We just want to compete a bit and work a sweat up.

That's why I say that game mechanics to encourage roleplaying will only help those already interested in being encouraged - the geeks, the dedicated amateurs. Unless you deliberately gather these people at a game table, if you just take whichever gamers come to you randomly, then you'll have a majority of hangers-on, casual gamers, and roleplaying mechanics will fall flat.

Again, this is not to decry roleplaying mechanics - as a dedicated amateur, I think they're fun. And it's not to single them out. For example, because I had in my group a number of hangers-on, casual gamers, I set aside GURPS - its strength is its detail and options, but because the players were largely casual, all that detail and those options weren't being used. I kept having to handwave things. If I'm going to blur over most of the rules anyway, why have them? Choose something simpler. That applied to all the rules, but especially the combat rules - most of the players weren't interested in all those tactical options. So why did I need them? I didn't, and now run something else. Thus, despite what Tyberious Funk says, I'm not defending lengthy combat rules and attack roleplaying game mechanics rules. I'm just saying, have stuff people will use. And what they'll use depends on them, rather than on the mechanics themselves. So roleplaying game mechanics are good for players who are roleplaying a lot and well anyway, not so good for those who aren't - just as detailed combat rules are not good for the tactically incompetent or indifferent.

I can think of a gamer I know who is a special case, in that he's on the cusp between being a casual amateur and a dedicated one. His casualness is shown by his neglecting the chance of running or playing in a game, despite being asked and invited to do both; his dedication is shown by his reading lots of game books and discussing them. In fact I would speculate that a lot of internet discussion - and argument - about rpgs is driven by this kind of "cusp" gamer, the one who is basically casual but thinks, "if only X changed, then I'd be dedicated." It's the casual gamer who feels a yearning to be dedicated.

Perhaps roleplaying mechanics (or detailed combat, or whatever) could help that "cusp" gamer by giving them the motivation to get their shit together and run or play in a game? I don't know. I'm sceptical.

As a dedicated gamer, I'd love to run a really in-depth and thespy game, or one with lots of details and challenging tactical combat - but the dedicated players just aren't out there, really. And I might even have lost a bit of that drive, myself. The other night I had some quite intense roleplaying with another player, and I was a bit taken aback, it was quite overwhelming. I think I'm like a footballer who's lost a lot of their fitness and agility from lack of practice. Is it permanent? I don't know, I hope not.

Quote from: Old GeezerAfter 35 years of roleplaying, I have reached the conclusion that the VAST majority of gamers are, in fact, "Casual Gamers".

Not to be rude, but seriously, you're just realizing that now? With whom have you been playing for 35 years?

It's why some of us take exception when folks talk about D&D, its affects and what should be done with it.

Seanchai

Quote from: Tyberious FunkYeah, I suppose I should have known that this was the wrong crowd for this type of question.  I mean games with several chapters devoted to combat are perfectly acceptable, but a few rules to help support good roleplaying?  Heaven forbid.  :rolleyes:

I don't think this is the wrong crowd - I just don't think roleplaying rules do anything useful.

Yes, I think combat and skills need to be delineated. Whether or not roleplaying is successful and apt is subjective. Was my portrayal of a bard convincing? Was Susan's tearful speech good enough to convince the king? Shrug. With combat, skills, etc., I think it's much, much easier to reach objective conclusions and consensus.

Also, I think the fallout from the application of combat, skills, etc., tend to have a greater effect on the player characters than roleplaying. Note: I said tend. Comat, for example, tends to have more lasting and drastic effects than a failed speech to the king.

That aside, I've never seen a mechanic that engendered roleplaying. I've seen mechanics that were supposed to do so, but they've only ended up creating a focus on mechanics.

Let's take oWoD's Nature and Demeanor for example. As descriptors, they work great. In encouraging folks to roleplay their characters, however...They're mechanics. They provide mechanical awards. That alone gets people thinking about mechanics, not roleplaying or immersion. Or what's worse, they get people thinking about how they can alter their roleplaying or in-game circumstances to get the mechanical reward.

If a roleplaying mechanic produced purely roleplaying awards, I'd feel differently. But I don't know how that would work and haven't seen it myself.

Seanchai

Quote from: SeanchaiIt's why some of us take exception when folks talk about D&D, its affects and what should be done with it.

Which makes you more than a casual gamer.  

A casual gamer doesn't care if people bitch about D&D. In fact, he isn't even aware that there are people who care enough to bitch about D&D - and if he is aware of those people, he doesn't want to associate with them.:haw:

Quote from: JohnnyWannabeWhich makes you more than a casual gamer.

Okay. Shrug.

Quote from: JohnnyWannabeA casual gamer doesn't care if people bitch about D&D. In fact, he isn't even aware that there are people who care enough to bitch about D&D - and if he is aware of those people, he doesn't want to associate with them.:haw:

If we meant "uninformed gamer" when we said "casual gamer," I think we'd just say "uninformed gamer."

Seanchai

Quote from: SeanchaiNot to be rude, but seriously, you're just realizing that now? With whom have you been playing for 35 years?

1971-1974  The blokes what wrote the game
1975-1987  Univ of MN gaming club, every week almost without fail.  30 to 40 people.
1987-1999  Pretty much nothing
2000-2007  Star Wars d20 with a new crowd.

So I've pretty much been in the 'serious amateur' crowd all along.

Also, as Kyle hinted at, there's a LOT of rhetoric online about needing to 'convert' the casual gamer.

As a matter of fact, when I've suggested a pyramid such as Kyle's and suggested that the absolute casual dabbler and the near-pro fanatic amateur might not have fun in the same game, I got called nasty names.