Quote from: Bren;824903It sounds to me like you enjoy playing a character with below average or below expectation stats for the challenge of trying to succeed despite having lower stats. But in overcoming the challenge you will, to the best of your ability, make optimal decisions for the character, choose optimal tactics, make optimal selections of equipment, and have your character use optimal wording in speeches to influence or persuade others in the game world. Do I understand you correctly?

Sounds like a boardgame rather than role-playing an interesting character.

Quote from: RPGPundit;825231Optimal decisions based on what the CHARACTER would consider optimal, within his roleplaying context.

I'm not sure what you see as the difference between the two. Do you have an example or two? I think that would help, especially an example(s) where a player doing what I said would result in a different action or speech than would you doing what you said.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;825254Sounds like a boardgame rather than role-playing an interesting character.

To me it sounds like a roleplaying game. Because...well because it is a roleplaying game. Specifically it is OD&D as it was played by quite a few people back in the mid 1970s.

Quote from: Bren;825256To me it sounds like a roleplaying game. Because...well because it is a roleplaying game. Specifically it is OD&D as it was played by quite a few people back in the mid 1970s.

Correct. A lot of people play D&D like it is CLUE or Battleship. More adventure gaming than role-play gaming. There is no optimal gaming in role-play if you think about it. How many people do you know that do everything in life optimally?

Quote from: Bren;825256To me it sounds like a roleplaying game. Because...well because it is a roleplaying game. Specifically it is OD&D as it was played by quite a few people back in the mid 1970s.

Just because they played that way doesnt make it automatically right or good. I think it was Geezer who complained that at some point what sounded like nearly all the players were using door spikes as their weapons because they were the cheapest weapon on the list.

Simmilar discussion came up on RPGG about why anyone would use a club when for 1sp more you can use a great club? Why use a sling when you can buy a crossbow? And deriding someone for choosing "sub-optimal" gear because it fit their character or their personal preferences or style.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;825261Correct. A lot of people play D&D like it is CLUE or Battleship. More adventure gaming than role-play gaming. There is no optimal gaming in role-play if you think about it. How many people do you know that do everything in life optimally?

You seem to be arguing that many (probably most) people who played D&D circa 1974-6 were not actually roleplaying. This would require either that OD&D is not actually a roleplaying game (which on the face of it is ludicrous) or that the way that many people played OD&D was and is bad-wrong-fun (which is stupid). I am entirely uninterested in having that sort of conversation about role play vs. roll play today.

Quote from: Omega;825262Just because they played that way doesnt make it automatically right or good.

No it doesn't. Which is why I didn't say that it did.

As regards a "right" way to play, the game rules specifically told one to make the game their own. Outside of some really odd edge cases or bizarre constructions possibly involving real loaded shotguns and working chainsaws, there isn't a right or wrong way to play OD&D.

Similarly "good" is a subjective descriptor, which doesn't and can't universally apply to how anyone plays. Either the way they are playing is enjoyable for the people playing -- in which case that is a good way to play for them -- though possibly there might be a more fun or better way for them to play. Or the way they are playing is unenjoyable -- in which case that is a bad way for them to play and of course there may be a worse way for them to play -- say anything involving juggling live grenades.

QuoteAnd deriding someone for choosing "sub-optimal" gear because it fit their character or their personal preferences or style.

I wasn't deriding anyone for how they play. I was describing a difference I see between playing a character with below expected or below average stats while making sound or optimal tactical choices in a wide range of areas (e.g. combat actions, persuasion, selection of equipment, etc.) and playing a character (with whatever stats) where the player intentionally (for whatever reason) makes less than sound tactical choices in one or more areas.

I did not intend to, and I don't think I did, describe making optimal choices as a better way to play than intentionally making less than optimal choices.

If it matters, personally I prefer playing characters who make choices that are in keeping with their personalities and abilities, which includes me intentionally making suboptimal decisions for the character because that is in character for that PC.

Quote from: Bren;825265You seem to be arguing that many (probably most) people who played D&D circa 1974-6 were not actually roleplaying. This would require either that OD&D is not actually a roleplaying game (which on the face of it is ludicrous) or that the way that many people played OD&D was and is bad-wrong-fun (which is stupid). I am entirely uninterested in having that sort of conversation about role play vs. roll play today.

A lot of how people play D&D today is really just adventure gaming where there is no role-playing really being done. The play style has been passed on by those that adventure gamed in the '70s when role-playing actually was a scarce thing compared to when later generations of RPGs were published.

Quote from: Bren;825256I'm not sure what you see as the difference between the two. Do you have an example or two? I think that would help, especially an example(s) where a player doing what I said would result in a different action or speech than would you doing what you said.

Well, I'd say for example if you got  a guy with ridiculously low Wisdom.  He'd be sub-optimal in that sense.  Now it sounds to me like you were suggesting that you'd go "ok, so he has low wis but I'm going to try to get him through as best as possible making choices I, the player, know to be the safest".

But a Low-Wis character being roleplayed that way would always try to make the best choices, but would have, let's say, very poor impulse control.  My idea of playing a sub-optimal character as optimally as possible would be to play him that way, doing the best he can but actually reflecting the character and his abilities.

Quote from: RPGPundit;825275Well, I'd say for example if you got  a guy with ridiculously low Wisdom.  He'd be sub-optimal in that sense.  Now it sounds to me like you were suggesting that you'd go "ok, so he has low wis but I'm going to try to get him through as best as possible making choices I, the player, know to be the safest".

But a Low-Wis character being roleplayed that way would always try to make the best choices, but would have, let's say, very poor impulse control.  My idea of playing a sub-optimal character as optimally as possible would be to play him that way, doing the best he can but actually reflecting the character and his abilities.

That helps. Thanks for clarifying. Looks like I misunderstood how you played. In part this was based on how I interpreted what you have said in posts where you described you opposition to social mechanics.

I don't actually play in the style I was describing so it would be more correct to say:

QuoteNow it sounds to me like you were suggesting that [strike]you'd[/strike] one would go "ok, so he has low wis but I'm going to try to get him through as best as possible making choices I, the player, know to be the safest".

Again, thanks for clarifying your perspective.for me.

Quote from: RPGPundit;825275Well, I'd say for example if you got  a guy with ridiculously low Wisdom.  He'd be sub-optimal in that sense.  Now it sounds to me like you were suggesting that you'd go "ok, so he has low wis but I'm going to try to get him through as best as possible making choices I, the player, know to be the safest".

But a Low-Wis character being roleplayed that way would always try to make the best choices, but would have, let's say, very poor impulse control.  My idea of playing a sub-optimal character as optimally as possible would be to play him that way, doing the best he can but actually reflecting the character and his abilities.

thats some wisdom right there

Quote from: Bren;825305That helps. Thanks for clarifying. Looks like I misunderstood how you played. In part this was based on how I interpreted what you have said in posts where you described you opposition to social mechanics.

Well, I'm specifically opposed to social mechanics BECAUSE I think it should be roleplayed, not because I think roleplay shouldn't happen!

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;825268A lot of how people play D&D today is really just adventure gaming where there is no role-playing really being done. The play style has been passed on by those that adventure gamed in the '70s when role-playing actually was a scarce thing compared to when later generations of RPGs were published.

What are you basing this observation on and what criteria are you using to verify if Role-Playing has been achieved or not?

It's never been my experience. I've been gaming since AD&D 1e was the current edition, and we've ALWAYS roleplayed. Always.

Quote from: RPGPundit;826246It's never been my experience. I've been gaming since AD&D 1e was the current edition, and we've ALWAYS roleplayed. Always.

Different people are into different kinds of role-playing. More than in the '70s, I think, some folks like to define as not-rp the kinds other than their own preference.

For me, what's most important is acting from a first-person "you are there" perspective. So, in computer games, the Adventure kind is closer to the mark than most CRPGS. I like to deal with affairs in natural language rather than "stats" and menus, not get information to which I would not be privy, and actually make decisions and solve problems when that's what my role is supposed to be doing instead of having a mechanical abstraction do it for me - although there's certainly room for simulating abilities or handicaps that I don't have.

What I call "thespian" types put more emphasis on depicting a fictional character. They tend to call it "not role-playing" to the extent that a figure is a persona for the player. Nowadays, this is often associated with using statistical modeling to cut the player's intelligence, knowledge and skill out of the loop. (It used to be "roles vs. rolls," but they're likely to be joined today.)

At the same time, "acting" in the stage sense is very important to them. They might reserve the term "role-playing" for speech in the character's voice. Actions in for instance exploration and combat are therefore counted as non-rp activity. Taken to an extreme, this tends in my experience to become actually more  of a drama-play thing: theatricality and what each player thinks makes for an entertaining scene really counts for more than acting as if one were in the character's position.

It can get pretty dull for someone more or less reduced to playing audience to what seems trite from that perspective (however thrilling it may be to the players involved in the scene). The "game" aspect can be hard to find. Some groups thrive on it, though.