Who has the highest? role play vs roll play

[Frenth Alunril]

Tonight I asked my players to stop using numbers, proficiencies and features to define their characters. Instead, I made some examples of which of us would actually do the best at a skill vs which of us needs to do it at the moment.

I'm trying to encourage them to play as their characters, i.e. Robin of Locksley, friend of the people! Not Level 2 ranger, dex 16, proficiency in stealth.

I think they are getting it.

What do you do to reward role play over roll play?

[VincentTakeda]

No matter what game system or campaign I run my players have developed a bad habit of either building their characters to be tied strongly to a setting element or to a mission...

Sort of an ok, we'll be playing such and such next... what kinda character are you going for?
Well. where are we going to be?
What will the campaign be about?

I got tired of characters that are square pegs built to fit square holes and want my guys to just make characters that arent tailor made for making regional/racial or mission specific meta choices in their builds. They are currently building their characters in what I call the 'matrix boot sector'... the white room. No information on what kind of world they will go to or what kind of campaign its going to be. Design the character you'd be happy to play no matter where it goes or what the task is.

It's proving to be more challenging than I expected. I've gotten confusion, speechlessness, awe, pushback, attempts to worm information out of me... its been quite a task.

[Lemmy]

What do you do to reward role play over roll play?

First... There is nothing wrong with "rollplay". IME, that's a condescending term used to condemn people who like focusing on combat, numbers and/or rules. Some players are simply incapable/unwilling to role-play much and/or simply do not enjoy doing it. There's nothing wrong with that. I've had more than one of such players in my games... And for as long as they were not harming anyone's fun, I had no problem with it.

That said... My way of encouraging roleplay is simply giving small bonuses to skill checks and stuff for a good roleplay. i do not punish players for simply saying "I roll Diplomacy", but I do give them a bonus if they role-play their character's words. I also have NPCs talk and act in a way that prompts the PCs to react to it in different ways. I do not stop roleplaying just because combat started and I base NPCs' thoughts and actions on what said character would do in that situation, instead of what is the "optimal" thing to do.

It doesn't really take much effort, actually... Seeing the GM and other players role-playing encourages more timid players to try and do the same, even if just a little.

It's proving to be more challenging than I expected. I've gotten confusion, speechlessness, awe, pushback, attempts to worm information out of me... its been quite a task.

I don't blame them.

Role-play is great and all.. But designing a character and then finding out they are ill-suited to survive in the world they are placed is frustrating and annoying... It's similarly annoying to grab cool abilities and then never see them put to use because the world/campaign doesn't give them enough a reason to be used. Your player who created a Ranger with Undead as Favored Enemy would be rightfully upset and frustrated once he found out undead are extremely rare (or even nonexistent) in the campaign's setting and the story takes place mostly in an urban environment where half his abilities are useless 90% of the time.

Additionally, it doesn't make any sense, IMO (unless the characters were suddenly transported to a plane they know nothing about... But that's a plot that gets really old really fast). The characters were born and raised in said world... Their choices of career/training would obviously be molded by the world around them, but they aren't. How the hell does a a player choose his character's career/training path if he doesn't even know what the hell exists around his character? If his character lives in a coastal region, he should probably know something about swimming and/or fishing... If the character lives in a deep jungle, he should know a thing or two about tracking and hunting... And so on... But what can the player do when eh doesn't know anything about the world? He can't make any setting-related choice, so he is encouraged to become a generic jack-of-all trades with the same skills as all his friends...

I'd very likely refuse to play in a game whose GM refuses to tell me anything about the setting/campaign.

[oxybe]

Roleplaying within a campaign is generally an investment you, the player, are making.

You're likely talking to NPCs, making contacts & discovering how the world works and reacts to different things

This means NPCs you've interacted with positively in the past are more likely to do you favours should the need arise (and the negative interactions will get your requests thrown back in your face), you're likely to get more information if you ask specific questions then if you just wait for a generic exposition dump, etc...

Give them opportunities, but don't force it.

Roleplaying, in and of itself, however, should also be it's own reward and forcing others into doing this activity (that not everyone is comfortable doing) may be more detrimental then you'd think.

You know the old saying: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him pretend he's an elven princess.

[VincentTakeda]

I'm a simulationist sandboxer, so my gm style is to make the campaign and the setting to fit the players, but we've managed to get into a habit of choosing the op or the setting first, so they're always making something that 'works' but it's never really functionally a character they'd choose to play except for the fact that it 'works'.

So what you have is folks building characters to fit in a setting, and when something changes about the setting they get peeved, and others building to perform a function with expectations of the scope of its success, and when it doesnt play out in the way they imagined it, they also get pissed. All while playing ostensibly the most suited builds the setting or op could possibly call for.

As if they dont want anything to go wrong or be challenging.

While at the same time none of their characters ever seems to 100% fit what I believe the players would choose to play if they weren't simply trying to 'form the proper crew for the task'

So this time around, I want the crew first. Task and setting will be built around that, so that maybe they can play some characters they might actually enjoy for a change, in missions and settings that vary widely. Once you have a bank robber campaign, and you build a bunch of bank robbers, and you rob the bank... What's next. Campaigns over. Another bank robbery perhaps?

As a gamer for 30 years I dont ever remeber before building my character asking the gm 'whats the world going to be like... whats the mission going to be'... The mission always changed and the characters could last for decades doing tons of different things. Now every character is only good at doing one thing and after that thing is over... Character's pretty useless at doing anything else, so it's pick a new task, build a new team... There's no continuity of character so the players aren't really invested in making one guy to be someone they're heavily invested in.

I'm more of a character driven guy, and the last character I built is the kinda guy I wish I could play for a decade... I'd happily take him into any system, into any world and any job. I'd like to get these guys to build characters, not tools. I'd take him to warhammer, rifts, the 1980's the 900's. Superheros. Volcanic planets. Aqua adventures... Bank robberies, stopping the planet from being destroyed by an asteroid... He wouldnt be the 'best tool' for each of those jobs. But I'd enjoy him even then.

Star lord and Han solo were not 'cool' because they were smugglers. They were smugglers, but the game they were in had barely anything to do with smuggling. They were cool because they were able to use their skillset to handle whatever wierd plot life threw at them. I'd like the characters in my games to be more like that. Han solo could easily 'deal' with a zombie apocalypse, ideal for it or not. And personally I'd wanna play that game.

Not a single one of the avengers build themselves to take on building sized worms from outer space. It just happened to be the thing they had to deal with. Captain america might have been a wuss when it came to fighting giant space worms, but you didnt see him in the post credits saying man... I'd rather be more like thor and less like me. He was cool because he did what he do... Black Widow didnt say 'damn. i'm just not suited for this fight. let me roll up another character...' she said 'I think i'll just hitch a ride on a giant floating gun platform... It'll be fun!'

I want my players to give that kind of a thing a try. I'm not saying I want my players to 'role play' more or become 'master thespians'... I just want them to build a character they actually like... so that I can build the campaign around them instead of them building around me, so that I can give them a game with more variety and a character that can last longer than a single objective.

[Knaight]

They are currently building their characters in what I call the 'matrix boot sector'... the white room. No information on what kind of world they will go to or what kind of campaign its going to be. Design the character you'd be happy to play no matter where it goes or what the task is.

It's proving to be more challenging than I expected. I've gotten confusion, speechlessness, awe, pushback, attempts to worm information out of me... its been quite a task.

This seems like something that would actively get in the way of role playing. It's much easier to role play if the character was built to feel like they are a part of the broader setting, with actual ties to it beforehand. Cutting that out of character generation pretty much requests focusing on mechanics instead.

[VincentTakeda]

Cutting that out of character generation pretty much requests focusing on mechanics instead.

I'm ok with that. I'm trying to circumvent 'meta' gamist and narrativist character design. I'm totally fine with them choosing their mechanics only and developing personality later. I just dont want the mechanics to depend on what they plan to face. For example there's so much more to a zombie campaign than simply killin zombies (you could have chefs, carpenters, biological engineers, armorers, priests...), but at my table what you'll end up with when you say zombie campaign is a table 100% comprised of elite purpose built zombie killin supersoldiers... their only skills will be shootin zombies, killin stuff that aint zombies so they can steal it's ammo, and then using that ammo to shoot more zombies.

My players have become so addicted to 'being super effective' that they don't give a second thought to 'being anything else.'

Even if 'being super effective' actually leaves them bored, or completely useless at the campaign even taking a brief segué into a different direction. That technique worked out great for the alchoholic in Independence Day. "i'm pilot..." "I fly plane"...

But for the rest of the campaign that isnt about "bein pilot" and "flying plane", their characters couldnt cook a can of soup to save the party from starvation.

So as a gm I'm then forced to make every campaign every week about the one thing the characters are competent at... Whats the campaign going to be like this week? Oh... It'll be about flying planes... What about the week after that. Oh... I figured I'd have you guys flying some planes or something... Sounds cool... I had a neat idea... I was thinking about changing things up a bit, so I've decided that I'm gonna let the campaign take a little jaunt into flying some PLAAAAAANES.... You guys maybe up for flying some planes instead of flying planes? You cant fly planes this week because all the planes need to be repaired. What do you do? Oh, we'll just wait until our planes get fixed... Uh... They wont get fixed because nobody rolled up an aircraft mechanic and your landing was an emergency landing not at an airfield in enemy territory... Might as well be Rocks Fall Everyone Dies at that point because everyone wanted to be a supreme badass at flyin planes. And at the end of the day nobody at the table even likes planes or flying or air to air combat or playing a pilot.

All because when the characters ask me what the campaign is about I said the world will probably be at a technology level where planes are available.

Granted thats a smidge of an over simplification, but in most aspects, this is entirely what happens at my table.

[BWR]

In most cases my characters start out as nothing but a collection of mechanics I think sound fun to play. Personality develops through play. They start off being defined by the mechanics and eventually become defined more by character traits and history. I'll usually start with some broad, vague idea of a personality just to have the semblance of being more than a bot. Soon the true personality will start to develop.
I've tried coming up with a detailed personality to go with the mechanics before the PC is introduced and sometimes it works but rarely have I made a person and then thrown appropriate mechanics at it. The only two I can think of off-hand were a bureaucrat for V:tM and a scholar-berserker for L5R.

[Xuc Xac]

Star lord and Han solo were not 'cool' because they were smugglers. They were smugglers, but the game they were in had barely anything to do with smuggling. They were cool because they were able to use their skillset to handle whatever wierd plot life threw at them. I'd like the characters in my games to be more like that. Han solo could easily 'deal' with a zombie apocalypse, ideal for it or not. And personally I'd wanna play that game.

Do you think they would have had those skill sets if their GM hadn't told them that they would be in a setting with spaceships and lasers?

[VincentTakeda]

Do you think they would have had those skill sets if their GM hadn't told them that they would be in a setting with spaceships and lasers?

Hard to tell. There are so many other things you could do in a world with spaceships and lasers.

[JusticeZero]

Seems like a ridiculous idea. I mean, I often don't tell people what the campaign will be about, but setting information is easily at hand. If I don't have any information to go on, you're getting Wacky Combat Build #9 out of me.

[Arcane_Snowman]

If I don't have any information to go on, you're getting Wacky Combat Build #9 out of me.

Pretty much what I end up resorting to if the DM is stringent on information, as much as I'd probably be more interesting to play something else, I've had more than enough of characters that were built to do something other than combat, see nothing but combat. And lets face it, violence often gets presented as the only or best solution to a problem, which really doesn't encourage people to try and solve it any other way.

As for rewarding roleplay, I have a tendency to play systems that already have roleplaying rewards in place, such as awarding rerolls etc, it's an innocuous bonus that doesn't overly reward people for it in mechanical terms, but it's still an incentive to try. That being said I also try to remember to reward people for interesting cool/ideas, regardless the roleplaying aspect of it. If it makes the story better, then I'm happy.

[VincentTakeda]

I wont deny I am a different sort of DM.

[AstralFire]

The best tools in my box for encouraging roleplay are also the best ones in my box for encouraging 'roll play.'

- Make the players' actions have consequences, good and bad.
- Provide them with plenty of premade material for them to read at their leisure, with only a small amount required but loads optional.
- Be available to answer questions.

They get investment in the system and in the characters that way.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Sorry if it seems a bit backwards, responding to an older post later, but it's taken me longer to formulate my answer here:

I'm ok with that. I'm trying to circumvent 'meta' gamist and narrativist character design. I'm totally fine with them choosing their mechanics only and developing personality later. I just don't want the mechanics to depend on what they plan to face.

Honestly I never really seen that as a problem, in fact I encourage people to tailor their stuff around what their characters are going to be facing. Depending on the campaign of course.

For example there's so much more to a zombie campaign than simply killin zombies (you could have chefs, carpenters, biological engineers, armorers, priests...), but at my table what you'll end up with when you say zombie campaign is a table 100% comprised of elite purpose built zombie killin supersoldiers... their only skills will be shootin zombies, killin stuff that aint zombies so they can steal it's ammo, and then using that ammo to shoot more zombies.

I'm going to take this example and run amok with it, because it's going to be used to illustrate my point:

I personally think that in order for a game to work, there needs to be a lot of transparency between the GM/Players as to allow for everyone to enjoy the game, if the players don't know the parameters of the game and what you as the DM is expecting and where you're intending to go with it, then everyone is going to misunderstand one another, as there are a lot of tropes attached to a specific genre of game types, all of which can produce wildly different games.

For a zombie apocalypse style game, reinforcing other aspects of the game invariably would require a whole slew of mechanics added. For example, if they don't have proper medicine and people to use it, then otherwise innocuous wounds will fester and they'll start to accumulate penalties. Keep track of their meals and if they don't have any, they'll start to weaken etc. These things should would reinforce the need for a more complicated group dynamic. And if you don't reinforce a need for things like bullets, fresh water, and all those other things that would ensure a person's survival, then there's no reason to do anything else.

For a zombie survival game intended to tackle all these things, a community where you get to control multiple characters would be much more enabling for a wide range of characters, as each player can have a character that is capable of tangentially participating, even if it isn't their area of expertise.

There's also a pretty big adjustment time to take into consideration, if you're playing with the prototypical D&D group and then just drop them into a political game, expecting something other than havoc to happen is folly. A certain amount of "training" is needed so that they can differentiate between the game concepts, because unlike something like a action game wherein there are a lot of visual and mechanical cues to put you into the mind space of the game, the Tabletop Roleplaying Game doesn't really fundamentally change, meaning that there's a bigger workload on the GM to ensure that people are with the program as it were.

My players have become so addicted to 'being super effective' that they don't give a second thought to 'being anything else.'

Well, there's nothing wrong with being super effective, as long as that super effective is something interesting. A decent amount of systems would support a know it all, with every knowledge skill under the sun, but there's not as many that makes this a truly valuable thing to be, unless it's a side effect of something else, like being a wizard for example. As such, some work does fall on the DMs shoulders to make these other things valuable.

I often find that giving people some sessions to get a feel for the game, and change their characters accordingly, goes a long way towards getting everyone on the same page.

[AstralFire]

I think building a game around the characters is a valid concept, but you really have to have some sort of... common ground for it to work, and I'd bet that's where the players are stumbling. If one guy wants to play a cursed servant of the god of the wind and another wants to be a cannibal cook while a third is interested in political intrigue, and they have no idea of setting, they also have no notion how they're going to "fit in" to each other as a party.

I frequently build worlds around characters as a writer and as a freeform RPer for one-on-one RPs. But when doing any sort of mass freeform RP, I pretty much have to provide some sort of base for people to move forward on.

[RPGuru1331]

Hard to tell. There are so many other things you could do in a world with spaceships and lasers.

No, it isn't. Trying to refer to Starlord and Han Solo as examples of good characters is antithetical to your point - Starlord and Han Solo were both created to fill specific roles in their plots. Also, smuggling provides the impetus for Han's inclusion in star wars, and while smuggling is not directly germane to what he actually does in the movie, flying well and shooting well (Skills that flow semi-organically from his background in this particular crime) are absolutely relevant.

@both Vincent Takeda and OP, Changing your system up can help some. Another way is to provide mechanical bonuses to your players when they're being interesting - or at least apparently putting an effort in to you - you'll start to provide them incentives. And I'm willing to bet that once they get into the habit of doing interesting things, they'll start making more interesting characters.

[Frenth Alunril]

I only ask, because it took my players an hour to choose one of 3 options: use a distraction/magic and cross a guarded street, use magic to confront group at intersection A and run past them in a mad dash, or go back and find another way.

It was strange listening to the conversation because it should have been, "hey, Cedroe, you sneaky halfling, can you run across the street and check it out, you're small, they aren't going to see you."

But they were saying, "I'm a thief, my stealth bonus is the highest, but I'm also the strongest, and have to carry this 200lb paladin. Who is the next sneakiest? Elf, you are a ranger, but you don't have proficiency in stealth, halfling, you are a cleric, you can't sneak."

This went on for an hour, I should have attacked them with more mooks after 5 minutes.

But they are all new to the game and I'm some gygaxian grognard.

[AstralFire]

I only ask, because it took my players an hour to choose one of 3 options: use a distraction/magic and cross a guarded street, use magic to confront group at intersection A and run past them in a mad dash, or go back and find another way.

It was strange listening to the conversation because it should have been, "hey, Cedroe, you sneaky halfling, can you run across the street and check it out, you're small, they aren't going to see you."

But they were saying, "I'm a thief, my stealth bonus is the highest, but I'm also the strongest, and have to carry this 200lb paladin. Who is the next sneakiest? Elf, you are a ranger, but you don't have proficiency in stealth, halfling, you are a cleric, you can't sneak."

This went on for an hour, I should have attacked them with more mooks after 5 minutes.

But they are all new to the game and I'm some gygaxian grognard.

That doesn't really fall under "roll play" (which is a stupid term), that's "the game's being bogged down in minutiae". When it boils down to it, that's actually a very reasonable conversation to have in-character: "I'm the sneakiest, but I have another task of priority."

In 3E & 5E, I might have provided an environment that would give a circumstance bonus, like a distraction happening up street.
In 4E & SWSE, I'd be less likely to.

Either way, I would have told them to chance it on their general competency.

Or alternately, yeah, warned them that their discussion was taking up too much IC time, and then thrown a fight at them if it kept up.

[Vitruviansquid]

I don't do anything to motivate my players to be better roleplayers.

As long as you're not playing a system where min-maxed characters can easily break the game for everyone else, I think it's a fairly good policy to let everyone at the table just play how it feels right for them.

[DigoDragon]

I encourage rp by making part of their exp gain based on how well they play their characters. I don't look for Shakespearean actors, just that they make the attempt and play consistently to their character. If they want character building where they overcome some disadvantage that is good too!

[VincentTakeda]

I too am a grognard, though more of a Greenwood/Zeb Cook type.

I have found a band of overspecialized, over optimized one trick pony parties isn't 'wrongbadfun'... for the right type of players. If you're happy to build a smuggler and then get disappointed that the campaign doesnt have any smuggling though... That's a problem. If by extension you build a character who's ONLY good at smuggling, then even when the campaign is about smuggling, it feels very monotone and goes very badly when it varies even a little... You're actually practically building a character for the purpose of not enjoying it...

Like... On purpose...

I find that what happens is my players will hunger for variety, and then get very bothered by the notion that when I provide it, they are not as unilaterally successful as when they tackle 'job one' 'for which they are built'. It leaves them unsatisfied with a character design they chose for themselves and at the same time...

One of my players' most frequent quotes is 'detectives we are not'. What he means by this is that he's very aware that the party has little capability other than solving the problem for which they were designed. He's clearly not happy with that situation, but they literally can't help themselves... its real life neurological programming. The world doesnt care who you are... The world cares about what you do. So they don't build characters that are great, they build a party that does one thing really well. When the moment comes for them to need to execute in a different way, even they find themselves wanting. We've talked about it directly, like 'you could build something thats got a more versatile portfolio'... but one player has actually said, and I'm quoting him directly here, 'The only way I can avoid optimizing is if you take away my ability to...'

We then had him use a system where nearly every character decision involved a die roll and it did indeed produce a well rounded character that he did enjoy... The one sitting next to him wasn't ready for that kind of commitment and thus completely chose all of his options and immediately enjoyed his character not a lick. It was a pretty impressive display of the thing that happens all the time at my table. Given artistic control over what my players play, they seem to have a knack for overspecialization followed by disappointment, to a degree that even knowing about it can't circumvent it. Leaving them unsatisfied.

It's kind of like the 'nobody wants to play the healer' problem. Everyone wants to play the guy who's good at what the campaign is about, but even if things would go more smoothly to include a healer or a scout or a support character... the players have a much harder time convincing themselves to be versatile in the face of so many great ways to pile on to the best possible solution. Leaving a party full of stone cold killers with vulnerabilities in every other aspect than stone cold killin. Who then get upset when the campaign is all about stone cold killin, and then upset again when they're not as successful at the stuff that isn't stone cold killin.

It simply leaves me feeling... unsatisfied as well.

I'm not saying my solution is the perfect solution. I'm not saying its going to work well. But somethin's gotta change and its about more than just 'giving them a crunch buff each time they acknowledge having built poorly' or fiatting away the parts of the campaign they're not well built to handle.

I'm not just very hungry for them to build something that isnt so laser focused. Even though they, themselves, can see the problem, at the same time they've practically stated outright that they're horrible about doing it unless the options are taken from them. Literally pried from their cold dead hands... Its as if they'd be much better off if I made all the characters and just handed them the sheets and said here. This is you.

I know that's actually how some people play. I'm not happy being that kind of gm.

I know some folks that really enjoy doing one shots... When the game day ends, the campaign ends. I'm not happy with that kinda game either.

So if they 'can't avoid building to setting and task unless I take away the option'... I'll take away the option. If they can't talk themselves into not building to setting or to mission, then the paradigm is now 'build a character that can you'll be happy taking on any job in any setting. Build a character that handles the kind of problems that you'd enjoy being able to handle in the way that you'd enjoy handling them, having no idea where he's going and no idea what problems will be put before him.' 'Build a character that is happy with who he is and happy with what he does and is aware of the possibility that each day might put him in a situation that he's not ideally suited to handle and where the laws of physics may change at a moments notice...'

Thats actually what adventuring is... Its what the game is supposed to be about. For me at least. With the 3.0 and 3.5 systems coming out and games being published to cater to the mmo/moba videogame playstyle, the gaming community has become populated with far more gamists for my taste and there's not much I can do about that.

Of course as a gm its my job that if they all built pilots that I shouldnt put them on a world full of all dinosaurs and no planes... I'm not a fool. But you'd almost get the impression that my players are worried such a thing would happen, despite never having been that kind of gm for them before.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Uh, they should always build to setting. You think of a game about piracy on the Chinese seas... nobody knows how to operate a boat, and one of the characters is a detective. This is assuming you're using a system for only modern games and none of them show up with a sorcerer. Maybe you don't want that "perfect fit", but you could at least tell them they're going to be part of the underworld. Even if you change it all around to fit them, you've still gotta scrap that whole idea for now.

[VincentTakeda]

Like I said. I'd be a fool if they build characters that couldnt pilot a ship to make a campaign that is all about piloting a ship. I'm not a fool. I can build a campaign around a pirate, a detective and a sorcerer no problem. I don't have trouble with a super diverse party at all. Its in fact what i'm going for in the first place. It is in fact tacitly my actual goal.

I could probably storyboard up about 6 months of very dynamic campaign in about 20 minutes for a team that wanted to do a little bit of pirating, a little bit of investigating and a little bit of sorcery... What I have a harder time with is keeping any campaign interesting when the players are only good at one thing, and the one thing they're good at is the one hint I gave them ahead of time.

So this time around... my hint is 'the campaign will be as broad as possible. It could literally be anywhere about any thing'.

I have completely removed the ability to build to setting or task. Because they told me they couldnt do it any other way.

Which I find supremely odd since I spent 20 years building characters not knowing what the setting or the plot was going to be, and those games turned out just fine.

You know what its like when you like... You go out. And you get a job. And maybe its not 'what you want to do for a living' but it pays the bills... And you're good at it... But you don't really enjoy it? But its easier than going out and finding a job that maybe you like more... 'Eh. I don't enjoy it... But I'm good at it and it pays the bills.'

Thats what I have... I don't have players. I have employees. 'What's the job, boss?' They're very good at the job and maybe not so good at enjoying it. And they keep doing it because it seems easier than doing the other thing which they might enjoy more. I mean... Sometimes thats the right way to go when we're talking about getting the bills payed. But this is supposed to be a game you do for fun in your spare time... You'd think you'd gravitate to what you enjoy more than you'd gravitate to simply getting the job done.

The job is going to be on an oil rig...
Three oil riggers, boss.
Yeah but... its going to be under siege by mutant sharks
Oops. Sorry boss. Here you go. Three mutant shark killers...
Yeah but... its going to be about finding out where these sharks are coming from... A dimensional portal to another world where you might find them controlled by a sea god or your oil rig might have tapped into the oil reserves of a country of aliens on another plane of existance... Your characters could be the ones that like. Discover Narnia or somethin...
I'm not sure what you're askin for, boss... Would you like us to reroll up three british schoolchildren?
Boss, perhaps we should just stick with the mutant shark killers... That seems like it would translate pretty well into handling anything we find in Narnia...
There's going to be a lot going on that isnt just about killin.
Look boss... I'm having trouble puttin a crew together here until you tell me what this job is actually about.

How do I put this... There's actually a reason why the players guide to every D&D edition thats come out starts with the character... In palladium the books all explicitly state 'first... imagine the character'... 'then imagine the setting' 'then imagine the action'.

Thats not an 'accidental thing' to put it in that order.

I think the whole 'here's the adventure, now build your team' thing is the worst thing thats ever happened to the hobby. And nowadays its like suuuuper pervasive... Like its hard for players these days to even imagine not designing to setting and job. Like even the suggestion of it starts them chuffing and rabbling. "whuwhu? what? how? why? Why would you do that to us?" But... Thats what adventuring IS!... its the actual point of the game, being taken to unexpected places to do unexpected things...

You're playing an adventure game, but anymore it seems like not knowing whats coming before it comes is almost... physically or psychologically painful. I mean I've played that way for decades just fine, but suggesting such a thing to a player anymore is thought of as 'you should never ever do that'...

I hate to sound contrary, but it used to be 'thats the way it was done'... Now even suggesting it is met with either 'how could I possibly game that way' or worse... 'how dare you'. As if its not even possible to build an enjoyable character if you don't know what's coming and where you're gonna be ahead of time.

We NEVER used to do that. But anymore a lot... A LOT ALOT of players anymore almost physically can't bring themselves to build a character unless they know 'where its going to be' or 'what the task will be'... That takes a pretty amazing chunk of the adventure out of adventuring... I start to feel like either the world or the hobby is programming people's brains to find the unexpected.... painful... to experience and expect the unknown... is somehow a bad thing. In a game thats allegedly about the fun of adventure and discovery... arguably played by real humans who are in a life that at least, to some degree, should be about fun and adventure and discovery....

I can't wrap my mind around it.

[Pinnacle]

I only ask, because it took my players an hour to choose one of 3 options: use a distraction/magic and cross a guarded street, use magic to confront group at intersection A and run past them in a mad dash, or go back and find another way.

It was strange listening to the conversation because it should have been, "hey, Cedroe, you sneaky halfling, can you run across the street and check it out, you're small, they aren't going to see you."

But they were saying, "I'm a thief, my stealth bonus is the highest, but I'm also the strongest, and have to carry this 200lb paladin. Who is the next sneakiest? Elf, you are a ranger, but you don't have proficiency in stealth, halfling, you are a cleric, you can't sneak."

This went on for an hour, I should have attacked them with more mooks after 5 minutes.

But they are all new to the game and I'm some gygaxian grognard.

Your players were discussing who was best suited to a task based on their actual capabilities, and you wanted them to stop and says "Halflings iz sneekers!"?

That... sounds like roleplaying. What characters are good at doing is definitely part of roleplaying.
Also some being unsure how to proceed since they're new players. For that I suggest offering some suggestions--never just one--or reminding them of some details that they're not thinking of.

[Arbane]

Nobody likes to find out they brought the Wizard of Paper to the Land of Scissors.

[VincentTakeda]

Nobody likes to find out they brought the Wizard of Paper to the Land of Scissors.

Like I said. I'd be a fool if they build characters that couldnt pilot a ship to make a campaign that is all about piloting a ship

I might have addressed this upthread a bit....
Sorry for the long posts.
And to quote Darth Ultron from another thread...

But worst of all, knowledge, is boring. It's no fun to figure out the plot on page one. It makes playing the game pointless.

[Faily]

I let my players know what genre of game we will be playing, so that they can make characters accordingly.
It's no fun playing a Bard specced to the teeth for social interaction with nobility, with a focus on magic that targets the mind of humanoids... only to be sent into the wilderness to fight animals.

People sit down at a table to have fun, after all, and people tend to have more fun if they can make a character that actually works in the setting.

If people want to play mounted super-chargers, I will let them know if the campaign or one-shot adventure don't really work for that (because it will be indoors, in tight corridors).

I trust players with optimizing how they want, because I feel that it is mostly my job to make them roleplay more. If I don't make the world interesting to interact with, I'm not surprised if roleplay is going out the window. It's why I take great care to make places interesting, make NPCs that the players care about, or to engage them in the world their characters occupy. That is where people start to roleplay, in my experience.

[JusticeZero]

The job is going to be on an oil rig...
Three oil riggers, boss.
Yeah but... its going to be under siege by mutant sharks
Oops. Sorry boss. Here you go. Three mutant shark killers...
Yeah but... its going to be about finding out where these sharks are coming from... A dimensional portal to another world where you might find them controlled by a sea god or your oil rig might have tapped into the oil reserves of a country of aliens on another plane of existance... Your characters could be the ones that like. Discover Narnia or somethin...
I'm not sure what you're askin for, boss... Would you like us to reroll up three british schoolchildren?
Boss, perhaps we should just stick with the mutant shark killers... That seems like it would translate pretty well into handling anything we find in Narnia...
There's going to be a lot going on that isnt just about killin.
Look boss... I'm having trouble puttin a crew together here until you tell me what this job is actually about.

So you do what I always do: "The adventure is going to start out on an oil rig, so you need to be able to explain why you're there." But you specifically said that you won't even give them that!

[Frenth Alunril]

Your players were discussing who was best suited to a task based on their actual capabilities, and you wanted them to stop and says "Halflings iz sneekers!"?

That... sounds like roleplaying. What characters are good at doing is definitely part of roleplaying.
Also some being unsure how to proceed since they're new players. For that I suggest offering some suggestions--never just one--or reminding them of some details that they're not thinking of.

I made the example of possible role play consideration about the fact that they were only using meta data in their discussion. "let's consider, this room, which of us would actually sneak the best, Bobby or myself? (we are physically the largest people in the room, larger than average humans) even though I'm quite sneaky, you can't see my character sheet and you don't know I have levels in rogue, so, this conversation is really strange. Perhaps the the smallest is the sneakiest, or the one who volunteers us the option you go with."

I guess my underlying concern is that they were metagaming out numbers instead if the situation.

I really liked the avengers example above.

Don't good stories start with characters who do a thing because they have to based on the situation and their moral fiber, being statted-out to exploit a situation is what happens at the end.

I guess I'm into the long campaign.