RPing in D&D

[Avor]

D&D is giant RP, the G part is tied on. Or that's what we hardcore RPG guys say anyways.

But alot of people just don't know how to get in their character's head. It shows, and it's annoying as all hell.

A lame example, a "LG" dwarven fighter, "Ok, we will sneak into his house and kill him while he sleeps. I know he's high level, he's worth XP."

Things like that just hurt, like "part of my soul died" kind of hurt.

The whole thing is just made worse by people picking races and classes just for sheer optimization.




The trick to RP in D&D, is to make yourself into a character. What race repersents your personality? Are you into hitting things? Orc is for you. Are you an arrogant bastard? Elf it is!

Then work with how you want to fight, and pick the according class. Like to stab people in the back? Rouge. Like set people on fire with your mind? Wizzard/Sorcerer.

Is it realy that hard for people to do? Am I only one who does it like this?

[Azerian Kelimon]

Some people just want to play, and don't care about that.

Some people are Josh, of course.

But really, if you don't have that idea for what you'd kill to be, you won't make something good, tips or no tips. Of course, some people have IT and can also make the concept INTERESTING, and some don't and that's were tips come in.

[Fiery Diamond]

I agree with you, but this really seems like a "rant." You should probably say so in the title of the thread, so people don't come here expecting a well-thought-out and reasoned discussion of various ways to RP and RP situations (which were the first two things that came to mind when I read the title.)

-Fiery Diamond

[monty]

Personally, I like playing against the stereotypes. Like my NG goblin. Playing a race the way the fluff tells you to gets boring after a while.

Nevertheless, I still follow the alignment and class. Playing a dwarf as CE is one thing; playing a LG dwarf as CE is just wrong. Playing a paladin as CN but just lawful enough to avoid an alignment change is wrong. You can break stereotypes, but don't go against the basic premise of something.

[Avor]

Personally, I like playing against the stereotypes. Like my NG goblin. Playing a race the way the fluff tells you to gets boring after a while.

Tell me about it, I'm a LG Half-Orc Samurai who is on a quest to teach his orc kin the ways of Heironeous, so that they may to can benifit from his LG teachings.

I know a horde of orc samurai just scream badass. But it suits me, I try to be LG, patient, merciful, ect. But it's hard just not to bonk some heads together when it is clearly the easier solution.

and some don't and that's were tips come in.

A quote from the comic you linked.

"When you want to design a character, start by imagining what sort of inner drive motivates them to seek adventure. Visualize what sort of family life and cultural forces would make an individual risk death on a regular basis. Then decide how a person with this sort of makeup would view the world around them and how they would relate to others.

If all of that sounds like a lot of work, then just roll a barbarian. This ain't no Writers' Workshop."

You don't need a story, purpose, or anything, you do what you want, kill what you want. You are a barbarian, what can people say?

[Azerian Kelimon]

"1337!" When you take Warblade levels and start looking more and more like Conan?

[Talyn]

If you are having trouble getting people to understand the concept of Role-playing, I've found it helpful to simplify, simplify, simplify.

Don't worry about an elaborate backstory. Keep it to a sentence. Don't worry about fully fleshed out motivations, goals, and personality. Let him pick one, maybe two character traits, and encourage him to ham it up at every opportunity. These character traits can be really, really simple, too...

I once had a character (a mad scientist in a non-D&D game, but the example still holds), who started as essentially some stats plus two personality traits - "stuffy Brit" and "collects samples of everything." He is currently approaching epic levels, and has evolved a family, and all.

[averagejoe]

The trick to RP in D&D, is to make yourself into a character. What race repersents your personality? Are you into hitting things? Orc is for you. Are you an arrogant bastard? Elf it is!

I find that racist. Also, "Into hitting things," isn't a personality, it's a way of life.

Is it realy that hard for people to do? Am I only one who does it like this?

*shrugs* Maybe they just don't have fun doing that. Is this a problem in your group? If not, why should it matter? There's no "correct" way to play, except for that Rule of Fun is paramount.

[valadil]

While I prefer roleplay to powergaming I won't pretend that how I play is above how optimizers play. Optimizing is fun too. D&D3.5 is an interesting system to work with and its fun to see just how far it stretches. But really roleplaying and powergaming are two separate (and often incompatible) but equally valid games that can be played with D&D.

[Kol Korran]

though i hear your frustration, i think you're missing an importent something- the game is about having fun, and various people have fun playing it for various reasons: some for the plot, some for their character development, some just want to bash monsters, some love to scrutinize rules and see how they can squeeze them, some like the game's challanges, but consider it more like a tactical challage, a puzzle, and more...

the thing is- as long as no one player's style disrupts other people's fun- it's all good! i myself lean far more to the roleplaying aspects (and there is a whole division there as well. a group composed of dedicated roelpalyers can still not get along), but i enjoy the others peope's input, and styles, and more. my suggestions to you:

1- realise other enjoy their game as well. forget about their alignements and so on, and just treat them as a character who's personality they actually portray (treat the LG dwarf as a murdering greedy bastard...). not perfect, but can help your own experience.

2- most "roleplayers" are focused on their character, and on it alone, rarely realy interacting with the party on a regular basis (roleplay wise, not just "battles, splitting loot, overcoming obstacles and other adventuring stuff"). through your roleplay, try and intergrate others. have your character act relying on certain responses and so on froom the others... this will work only with players who are inclined, but don't realy know how to play, or that dislike taking the initiative.

3- don't keep hammering the point. whomever wants to roleplay, will roleplay, and whomever doesn't, won't. don't expect them to be up to your standards- you're not living to their standards optimization wise, are you? (at least i guess you're not. one can optimize and rolepaly wonderfullly)

4- if things realy don't work, and you're fun is cramped each time you play- seek another group (or if you're part of the majority, eject the player who's style doesn't fit the group's). no reason to drag it along.

finding a group with everyone on the same page is fairly hard, but doable. but be prepared to accept different levels of roelplay, and different styles and emphasis on roleplay (which as i've said, can cause about the same amount of trouble as a metagamer)

oh, one last note- there are plenty of ways to pick a race (far more than the two mentioned so far), and so on. race can be importent, it can be negligent, as can class, and so many more aspects, the most interesting of which (from my humble experience) have no realy game mechanics...

another last note- as someone said before me: this is mostly a rant, please state that either in the topic, or ealy on in your first post. some people wish to skip those, or especially seek those. it would be nice to know anyway.

[Nebo_]

While I prefer roleplay to powergaming I won't pretend that how I play is above how optimizers play. Optimizing is fun too. D&D3.5 is an interesting system to work with and its fun to see just how far it stretches. But really roleplaying and powergaming are two separate (and often incompatible) but equally valid games that can be played with D&D.

The two are only incompatible if the players are immature and stupid about it. Some of the best played characters I've ever seen have been very optimised.

[Hal]

This is basically a pact between the player and the DM.

If the DM is just giving you mindless dungeon crawls and "Retrieve the MacGuffin for gp and xp" quests, then role-playing is probably out the window. Especially difficult is if the DM sets his game so that a non-optimized character has no hope of survival past first level.

On the other hand, no matter how much depth and detail a DM tries to put in his game, it is wasted effort if the players don't want to role play. They either kill NPCs or react with, "Okay, we talk to the guy, what useful info do we learn from it?"

The problem mainly comes when the DM and the players enter with different expectations, something that should be worked out before the first session even starts.

[Oslecamo]

What I really don't understand is those people who complain that they can't roleplay at all unless the game is a paragon of balance and equality and everyone is able to crush, with an arm tied at their backs, whatever challenge the DM throws at them by themselves. Yes, they demand both things at the same time.

If they just want to roleplay, why do they care so much about their character's power?

[shadow_archmagi]

What I really don't understand is those people who complain that they can't roleplay at all unless the game is a paragon of balance and equality and everyone is able to crush, with an arm tied at their backs, whatever challenge the DM throws at them by themselves. Yes, they demand both things at the same time.

If they just want to roleplay, why do they care so much about their character's power?

I make overpowered characters. I optimize whenever possible, and when it isn't possible I occasionally just pray the DM overlooks the flaws in my logic.

But I enjoy role-playing. I'm working on a True Neutral sorcerer who thinks he's a cleric, and accordingly uses Silent Image and Ventriloquism so he can "talk" to his "god." It should be quite fun to roleplay. And I can take out level-appropriate encounters with a full round action.

[Duke of URL]

For new/inexperienced players, I've found it helpful to break "types of characters to play" into three levels. The more RP experience (or acting experience, actually) you have, the higher "level" you can probably handle.

BEGINNERS: THE CHARACTER AS YOURSELF

For beginners, this is the best option. The character has basically your own personality (perhaps slightly idealized, but let's not be picky). Try to pick a race/class/alignment that works well with that personality, and just have the character act as you would. Let the DM or more experienced players help you with your concept after you explain it to them.

SOME EXPERIENCE: THE CHARACTER AS AN ASPECT OF YOURSELF

Rather than infuse your entire personality into the character, choose one or more distinctive traits about yourself (in this case, idealized versions are probably preferable, as you're going to build the concept around these traits) as the core of the character, and then flesh out some personality (separate from your own) to complete the picture. Depending on your experience level, you may still want help with the mechanics to find a good way to realize the concept.

VERY EXPERIENCED: THE CHARACTER AS A STRANGER

This is the hardest of all, and really shouldn't be attempted until you're very comfortable with giving characters their own life. Here, the character has its own distinctive personality that has no real correlation to your own (there may be superficial overlaps). If you can't figure out how to make this work mechanically by yourself, you probably aren't ready to do it (unless you have significant experience at acting).

If they just want to roleplay, why do they care so much about their character's power?

Because their character cares about how powerful he/she is?

Seriously, though, there is NO connection between power levels and roleplay. Unoptimized characters aren't inherently any "better" at RP than optimized characters are, or vice-versa. A good roleplayer can play a weak or string character equally as well; the trick is that it becomes hard to mix a party of characters that are optimized with those that aren't, because then the mechanics get in the way of giving each character chances to "shine" in the spotlight.

[Azerian Kelimon]

For new/inexperienced players, I've found it helpful to break "types of characters to play" into three levels. The more RP experience (or acting experience, actually) you have, the higher "level" you can probably handle.

BEGINNERS: THE CHARACTER AS YOURSELF

For beginners, this is the best option. The character has basically your own personality (perhaps slightly idealized, but let's not be picky). Try to pick a race/class/alignment that works well with that personality, and just have the character act as you would. Let the DM or more experienced players help you with your concept after you explain it to them.

SOME EXPERIENCE: THE CHARACTER AS AN ASPECT OF YOURSELF

Rather than infuse your entire personality into the character, choose one or more distinctive traits about yourself (in this case, idealized versions are probably preferable, as you're going to build the concept around these traits) as the core of the character, and then flesh out some personality (separate from your own) to complete the picture. Depending on your experience level, you may still want help with the mechanics to find a good way to realize the concept.

VERY EXPERIENCED: THE CHARACTER AS A STRANGER

This is the hardest of all, and really shouldn't be attempted until you're very comfortable with giving characters their own life. Here, the character has its own distinctive personality that has no real correlation to your own (there may be superficial overlaps). If you can't figure out how to make this work mechanically by yourself, you probably aren't ready to do it (unless you have significant experience at acting).

+1'ed, with a thing to 'splain: No matter how hard you try, the character WILL have aspects of your personality, unless you specifically try to null them, which tends to make weak characters. Thus, if you want a stranger, pick aspects of your personality that are minor and stick to 'em, instead of big things.

[its_all_ogre]

Personally, I like playing against the stereotypes. Like my NG goblin. Playing a race the way the fluff tells you to gets boring after a while.

Nevertheless, I still follow the alignment and class. Playing a dwarf as CE is one thing; playing a LG dwarf as CE is just wrong. Playing a paladin as CN but just lawful enough to avoid an alignment change is wrong. You can break stereotypes, but don't go against the basic premise of something.

almost every person i have played with plays the one in a million unique person who is different to their race.this includes me

frankly it gets boring fast.
also why not just play a different race who has that outlook normally?

[valadil]

The two are only incompatible if the players are immature and stupid about it. Some of the best played characters I've ever seen have been very optimised.

I guess I didn't clarify enough. Players are capable of roleplaying and optimizing at the same time. Players that only roleplay are rarely compatible with players that only optimize.

[Oslecamo]

stuff

Actually, a lot of people won't play their character as who they are, but as their ideal of hero. For example, a lot of male players will play female characters in chainmail bikini wich behave in slutty ways because the tought of a hot kickass ninphomaniac heroine feels good to them.

As you yourself said, many people play D&D to get the "spotlight". They want glory, power, money. They want to stomp over nations and defy the gods themselves, things that feel good but aren't really possible in real life.

But now, you can do all those things in D&D, but you need to worck to achieve them, both in roleplaying and rollplaying matters.

A lot of people seem to miss it however. They seem to think that if they say their character is awesome, it will be awesome. This isn't true. If you want your character to be awesome, you'll need to be smart during the adventure and you'll have to talck well at the table. This takes worck and training and decication, just like with any other complex game.

And when you have 4 other people that also want the spotlights, and each of them is trying to be more awesome than the guy at his side, then things start to get much more complicated.

[Citizen Joe]

I like to play fighters just so that the whole mechanics of the game is simple enough that it doesn't really affect my character, thus I my character gets defined by my role playing rather than how big a sword he carries. My fighters also have a lot of respect for death and mortality. As such, they tend to avoid combat as much as possible. Talk to any soldier out there and you'll see what I mean.

[Duke of URL]

Actually, a lot of people won't play their character as who they are, but as their ideal of hero. For example, a lot of male players will play female characters in chainmail bikini wich behave in slutty ways because the tought of a hot kickass ninphomaniac heroine feels good to them.

Which is precisely why I would not recommend it for a beginner, hence my suggestions above. It is important to learn how to play a role, period, before attempting to play (and identify with) a character who is significantly different than yourself.

[Lord Tataraus]

I have had an interesting experience with RPing with my group. Normally, most of the group lacks good RPing skills, games would be more hack-n-slash, and less RP, but we had fun and good times were had. However, some wished for a bit more RPing and would attempt it, but we never could get a good RP session going. My group would be on the low-side of average RPers. Then, myself and my best friend graduated and left for college, making a pact to start up PbP games with the old group. I was amazed at the results and overall improvement of RP in our PbP game. Everyone was excellent RPers online we were all amazed and impressed and had lots of fun, despite the lack of lots of combat. So, for now on, we have online PbP games for our RP fix and RL games (when we can) for our hack-n-slash fix, it works out great. Plus, now our RL games have more RP since the group has improved their skills through PbP.

my 2cp

[Kyeudo]

I would like to point out that while Roleplay and Rollplay are seperate, they are not entirely divorced from one another. Your mechanics needs to back up your character portrayal, and your character portrayal needs to back up the mechanics.

If you are playing a character who is a master swordsman and acts the part, he should be good with a sword, not just be proficient with the weapon. Your character should be as mechanicaly superior with the sword as you can make him without neglecting the other aspects of your character, not just a fighter with Weapon Focus (longsword). If your character must act counter to his characterization as soon as you hit combat, such as a courageous knight hanging at the back of the party sniping people with a bow, you are doing it wrong.

However, your character's personality should show up in the mechanics. If your cleric is a peaceful holy man, he should not turn into Clericzilla whenever trolls pop up. If this means restraining yourself to a healbot so you can be your character, so be it. You picked the concept to play, now play it.

Frankly, I want to slap people who pay little to no attention to making their characters work. I especialy recall one player who played reckless, overeager adventurers and died constantly because he hadn't a clue how to make or play an effective character. He roleplayed well enough, but I wanted to hogtie him and stuff him in a Bag of Holding as soon as we hit the dungeons.

[Tsotha-lanti]

The trick to RP in D&D, is to make yourself into a character. What race repersents your personality? Are you into hitting things? Orc is for you. Are you an arrogant bastard? Elf it is!

Then work with how you want to fight, and pick the according class. Like to stab people in the back? Rouge. Like set people on fire with your mind? Wizzard/Sorcerer.

Is it realy that hard for people to do? Am I only one who does it like this?

That's not roleplaying a character, that's playing an avatar. You seem to have missed the point entirely - to assume the role of someone different from yourself.

[veilrap]

That's not roleplaying a character, that's playing an avatar. You seem to have missed the point entirely - to assume the role of someone different from yourself.

I disagree, many of my favorite characters are based off of my own personality, but since I'm in a fantasy world i can do things I'd never do in real life like shoot a fireball or lob off someones head with a great sword.

[Tsotha-lanti]

I disagree, many of my favorite characters are based off of my own personality, but since I'm in a fantasy world i can do things I'd never do in real life like shoot a fireball or lob off someones head with a great sword.

That's pretty different from what the OP said. Every character you ever create, for an RPG or writing something, is going to reflect something of yourself. What the OP describes is explicitly creating an avatar, rather than a character

[kamikasei]

The trick to RP in D&D, is to make yourself into a character. What race repersents your personality? Are you into hitting things? Orc is for you. Are you an arrogant bastard? Elf it is!

Then work with how you want to fight, and pick the according class. Like to stab people in the back? Rouge. Like set people on fire with your mind? Wizzard/Sorcerer.

Is it realy that hard for people to do? Am I only one who does it like this?

Like Tsotha-lanti says, I don't see this as the trick to roleplaying. Roleplaying is about pushing your boundaries and playing characters who are unlike yourself. For example, one of my characters is a smooth-talking, sociopathic assassin. But in real life, I'm not at all smooth-talking.

What I really don't understand is those people who complain that they can't roleplay at all unless the game is a paragon of balance and equality and everyone is able to crush, with an arm tied at their backs, whatever challenge the DM throws at them by themselves. Yes, they demand both things at the same time.

If they just want to roleplay, why do they care so much about their character's power?

As Kyeudo says, if your character is supposed to be good at something, but gets his ass handed to him or screws up every skill check when he attempts it, it hampers the roleplaying. You want your character's mechanics to let them do what in your head they're supposed to be capable of.

For this reason I almost always leave my characters' personalities and/or backstories in flux until I have their stats rolled, as natural aptitudes will have a big influence on a character's development. During the chargen process, the idea I have for the character and what I can mechanically represent on their sheet feed into one another to a great extent. The idea of just coming up with an idea fully-formed and then putting together the (partly random) mechanics to represent it is bizarre to me.

[Neon Knight]

The idea of just coming up with an idea fully-formed and then putting together the (partly random) mechanics to represent it is bizarre to me.

Which is why I like point buy and standardized HP gains. Strip that randomness right out of character creation and save it for the actual game.

[Overlard]

D&D is giant RP, the G part is tied on. Or that's what we hardcore RPG guys say anyways.

But alot of people just don't know how to get in their character's head. It shows, and it's annoying as all hell.

A lame example, a "LG" dwarven fighter, "Ok, we will sneak into his house and kill him while he sleeps. I know he's high level, he's worth XP."

Things like that just hurt, like "part of my soul died" kind of hurt.

The whole thing is just made worse by people picking races and classes just for sheer optimization.




The trick to RP in D&D, is to make yourself into a character. What race repersents your personality? Are you into hitting things? Orc is for you. Are you an arrogant bastard? Elf it is!

Then work with how you want to fight, and pick the according class. Like to stab people in the back? Rouge. Like set people on fire with your mind? Wizzard/Sorcerer.

Is it realy that hard for people to do? Am I only one who does it like this?

Great parody of an arrogant elitist roleplayer! I'd almost put this alongside the "samurai is a great class" and the "lightning warrior" joke posts.

[two_fishes]

Dungeons & Dragons doesn't really have any mechanical support in its rules to encourage interesting role-playing, in the sense of exploring the motivations and actions of a dynamic, fictional character. It does have a lot of rules to support sneaking through dungeons, killing things, and taking their stuff. So the players who like the former are going to spend a lot of time bumping up against players who like the latter. It's hard to get too upset at players who ignore alignment, since they are, to a degree, working with the rules they're given. There are very few mechanics for punishing alignment trangression, or for rewarding good alignment play. If you're really interested in the playing interesting characters, then maybe another game would better suit your interests. Games like Burning Wheel or The Riddle of Steel have support for motivations and beliefs hard-coded into the rules. Even a D&D hack like sweet-20 may give you a better experience.