This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

What are the core activities in D&D and other fantasy roleplaying?

Started by Steven Mitchell, June 28, 2020, 10:44:17 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Mishihari

A couple of comments:

Social interaction is definitely a core activity, but I specifically excluded it from the rules for my current game.  I prefer such things to be done free-form and I've never found a set of rules that provided a better experience than this.

Similarly, problem solving is core, but I consider that a player rather than a character activity.  Anything involving decision-making should not be resolved with a die roll.

Magic is problematic to classify.  On the one hand, it makes sense to call it core.  On the other hand, any time you are using magic, you are trying to do something that can be better described as part of another core activity, like combat, travel, social, etc.  I would tend not to include it in a list of core activities for this reason.

My list would probably be combat, social, stealth, chase, travel, athletics (climb, jump, swim, etc), investigative, exploration (in the strict sense of "go someplace and see what's there"), and environmental survival,  And as I mentioned, not all of those actually need rules.