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Post by The Keeper on Jan 26, 2011 21:15:01 GMT -8
I think when it comes down to it many of us are either:
1. afraid to really get into character and run the risk of stepping on the toes of another player because of possible awkward interactions
2. haven't completely flushed out character concept and haven't committed to that character because another "more fun" build is waiting in the wings
Either way, I think we end up playing DnD instead of stepping into the mindset of a roleplaying game. Am I wrong guys? I'd really love to see our capabilities as role players and our gaming experience in general continue to grow. I just think sometimes we let the numbers and feat/power combos get in the way.
I've been a part of some really awesome groups and some NOT so fun groups at the guild and I will say that sometimes it just isn't the right chemistry of personalities sitting at the table so maybe that's a big part of the reason. I have also seen some of our group get really into character and I've really enjoyed that. I'd like to cite Stephen's Nantiki speech "impediment" as well as Micah's Durnalla impressions as hilarious examples.
Now I don't remember where I was going with this...ok, done ranting and stepping of my soap box now. Seriously though, anyone have any feedback?
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kumatsu
Orc
I bless this board
Posts: 71
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Post by kumatsu on Jan 26, 2011 21:38:48 GMT -8
I realize that there are problems with my roleplay. I had placed a much greater investment into Feluth than I have placed into Pavu so far, a problem I continue to attempt to rectify. I continue to have trouble with creating character elements for my roleplaying, an issue I occasionally research rectifying.
Pavu actually does have a back-story mostly thought out, one I need to write down and post here. There are elements I have literally just figured out in the last two days. Having seen the players in the campaign I DM almost completely ignoring role play, I have begun to try to take it on myself to solve my own problems with rp.
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zude
Iron Golem
Posts: 171
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Post by zude on Jan 26, 2011 23:13:48 GMT -8
Pavu actually does have a back-story mostly thought out, one I need to write down and post here. I'm in much the same boat for Dawn. I have vague ideas that connect, but I'm having trouble writing it all down so that it becomes a coherent story. In any case, I didn't mean to stir up a hornets nest with that one post. My personal problem is that I'm not the most social of people, and because of that, taking on a role verbally, amongst others, is not easy for me. Writing is what I do. It's what I'm good at and it's through writing that I can bring my characters to life. I don't know if there's any way I can apply this to what goes on during the sessions, but I hope to put it to use on the forums. Maybe start a thought diary of some sort for my characters.
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Post by frobones on Jan 26, 2011 23:47:04 GMT -8
I think the nature of 4e D&D and its setting is partly to blame. The best way to explain this is for me to by comparing it to M&M, a game in a completely different setting.
Party proximity:
M&M: It's not necessary to hold hands like we do in D&D when we go about our adventures. M&M can be viewed as episodic in this nature. A crisis happens, it's broadcasted on the news, and the super heroes congregate at the location of the action. Our super movement accounts for us arriving at the scene and then epic GM story telling can take place and fantastic fights can ensue.
D&D: The core of D&D is an adventuring /party/. Heroes must band together to fight the coming evils, but we must do so as a party. If we are to go anywhere significant, we go as a party. If we are to travel to Mt. Doom, we traverse the desert, cross the ocean, and then climb to the top of Mt. Doom... as a party. Survival relies on us staying together at ALL times... especially in Athas.
Conclusion: In D&D, as so much relies on us being a hand holding party, I believe we gloss over the "task" of accepting a new member as we know it's necessary "evil" for us to continue in the campaign. So we try to minimize the tension within the party so we can proceed with the game in a relatively civilized manner.
In M&M, as we don't need to hold hands wherever we go, we can have all the tension in the world between us but we can still progress with the story. This is because we can get to the active scene on our own means and as long as our overall goals intersect at this scene, we don't necessarily need to be a party to continue with the story telling at this scene.
As for our bad RP... 4e D&D makes it so easy to slip in to power gamer role because most things in D&D can be solved by killing the guy in front of you. But it's no excuse, we just need to put our try hard class on.
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Post by The Keeper on Jan 27, 2011 7:17:45 GMT -8
I didn't mean to stir up a hornets nest with that one post. I'm glad you stirred up the hornet's nest because it was the elephant in the middle of the room. (Two idioms in one sentence? No...) It needed to be talked about and I'm glad others feel the same way. It's the only way we can all get better. My personal problem is that I'm not the most social of people, and because of that, taking on a role verbally, amongst others, is not easy for me. I'm sure once you get more comfortable with all of us as a gaming group it'll start to become easier. Writing is what I do. It's what I'm good at and it's through writing that I can bring my characters to life. I don't know if there's any way I can apply this to what goes on during the sessions, but I hope to put it to use on the forums. Maybe start a thought diary of some sort for my characters. If you refer to one of Phil's older games, Stephen created a journal for one of his characters that he frequently posted in entitled "Skor's Journal." Definitely start that thought diary. I actually did a similar thing with Borthomar (my first Dark Sun character) with an actual, physical journal...until he was savagely killed by the horrors of Athas...
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Post by reiphil on Jan 27, 2011 7:53:49 GMT -8
D&D: The core of D&D is an adventuring /party/. Heroes must band together to fight the coming evils, but we must do so as a party. If we are to go anywhere significant, we go as a party. If we are to travel to Mt. Doom, we traverse the desert, cross the ocean, and then climb to the top of Mt. Doom... as a party. Survival relies on us staying together at ALL times... especially in Athas. Conclusion: In D&D, as so much relies on us being a hand holding party, I believe we gloss over the "task" of accepting a new member as we know it's necessary "evil" for us to continue in the campaign. So we try to minimize the tension within the party so we can proceed with the game in a relatively civilized manner. Isn't this the reason why DnD should be more RP oriented? In MnM you guys just seem to fight bad guy, go home, fight bad guy go home. In DnD, you HAVE to work together. Which means you guys NEED to build a repoire with eachother and try to decipher your own motivations from everyone elses. I can be to blame here as the DM in allowing a lot of the shenanigans to go on, but i feel like I really shouldn't have to hand hold the party to RP. If you guys feel like your RP is on par for DND/ATHAS, then who am I to really say anything? It would be like Square coming into your room while you played Final Fantasy and going "SEE? Kefka is a total bad ass, no no no no no, interact with him. Now tell me how you feel about him. No, that's now how you should feel, he blew up the world! God you suck!" I can only portray a world and try to set up motivations for your characters. Right now, I am trying to align some motivations to get certain goals about. For example, trying to get Sharo, Nantiki, and Rhogar on the same page for restoring the crown to get a green athas. However, all the end outcomes that the players are gambling on may be different. Davis, I hope you know that this wasn't a shot against you, but more of hint that more character interaction should be held. It is difficult to integrate new characters to the party, understandably, but that is why you guys need to have motives for your characters or try to develop a persona. For example, if, Davis, you told me that Pavu wanted to seek out the meanings of your divine symbols or bind to it, then I may have introduced you as a ruins explorer in the mountain pass because of the religious artifacts in there. You could've then joined the party under pretense that you wanted to go through the ruins to explore, and eventually follow under the party's main objective. Dawn has been a bit easier to interact with, but it remains to be seen why no one really wants to interact with her. --- Stephen you say that it glossing over the task of integrating a new member is a necessary evil to prevent tension. But tension is the foundation for role playing. It helps establish roles for you to fill and your character persona.
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Post by The Keeper on Jan 27, 2011 8:14:48 GMT -8
But tension is the foundation for role playing. It helps establish roles for you to fill and your character persona. EXACTLY! It's kind of like playing nights of Battlefield with 4 Recon vs. balanced team. Sweet we have tons of motion sensors but god help us when we run out and we have to breach buildings with sniper rifles. This is why we get 6 DnD characters spamming Arcana checks or Thievery checks instead of relying on that ONE guy that we have come to trust to get the job done. Yeah I used an online FPS to give an example for playing a tabletop RPG but I think it still applies. Establishing those character roles and personas helps you build trust "in character" and "out of character" as players because the cleric won't just rush in committing suicide because Player can't wait to play his striker barb. We all did a good job with our first characters connecting ourselves to the world of Athas but with our first death we lost that RP connection and have found it harder to connect to the party as a stranger. When a player joins the party as a random met in the wilderness, it's imperative that the player plan extensively with the DM beforehand and play off the cues the DM gives. Joining as a random involves more effort than party building at the start of the campaign because in the latter case the DM gives the entire party the base motivation for cooperating. In the former case a new PC can stick out like a sore thumb.
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Post by reiphil on Jan 27, 2011 8:15:51 GMT -8
Oh and PS -
Dark Sun, I know has been a little bit different so far than other campaigns I have run. Perhaps that is the reason why you guys have been so distraught in setting up your characters.
For example, in JP's campaign, it took some work for Kar'Tal to reason with and join the party. Try and see how your characters varied from JP's campaign and this current one, and maybe try to shore up the holes in your characters that you see.
The other campaigns I ran tried to rely on the group as a guild or adventuring party. Mercenaries that are bound together. For example, there was the campaign where Joseph (not barros) and I ran it together. There is Karnth (which most of you haven't played in) where adventuring teams seek treasure as a job. The printed materials (keep on the shadowfell, thunderspire mountain, etc) set you up as a group to investigate an issue. What are the differences in motivations from those characters to your current ones?
---
This is also a reason why I have been advertising more GW than DarkSun lately. It is a large breather from the RP as you can really be anything and the party won't care because your motivation is mainly the same as yours, omega tech. The team's inspiration is really "take out the bigger guy and take his omega tech. Find larger guy to take out."
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Post by reiphil on Jan 27, 2011 8:21:07 GMT -8
Oh and also - feel free to give me criticism as well. If you feel that the world hasn't been expansive enough to your role playing needs, or that there are some elements you would like to see to expand on your character, let me know, we can work something out.
Tell me if I haven't been a good Dm, or compare me to other DMs that you have played with to help me become a better DM. For example, what in JP's campaign allowed you more openness to RP than my campaign?
And lastly. If you guys want. We can just put DS on pause. JP has been fiddling with the idea of restarting Coven, new party after the events of Karrak's fall and we can do GW for a bit for JP to formulate ideas and plans. Or just do GW period, or vote on a different campaign for a while (I can always run Karnth, the first 2 "adventures" have already been planned out).
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Post by frobones on Jan 27, 2011 10:26:53 GMT -8
Stephen you say that it glossing over the task of integrating a new member is a necessary evil to prevent tension. But tension is the foundation for role playing. It helps establish roles for you to fill and your character persona. I did have this idea for a slightly maniacal fire Sorc/Wiz that wanted to burn and defile everything... I guess I could give him a shot as my next character. I just thought it would cause to much inter-party conflict.
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Post by reiphil on Jan 27, 2011 10:34:13 GMT -8
just remember you can't expect your allies to not attack you when you try to defile!
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Post by kore on Jan 27, 2011 10:47:28 GMT -8
We all did a good job with our first characters connecting ourselves to the world of Athas but with our first death we lost that RP connection and have found it harder to connect to the party as a stranger. The topic this touches on is something that I've thought about lately, though it's not the first time. That is, that roleplaying is a collaborative storytelling experience. The DM should create or utilize an existing setting that is robust enough that players find some element with which they would like to identify and then build or grow their characters out of that concept. This process requires a certain investment that is both imaginative and emotive. The next thing that has to happen is crucial: the DM, with the help of the player, has to have enough information on the character to place it into the setting in an organic way that fits his initial vision of the setting while also considering what motivates the character/player about said setting. This requires flexibility from the DM and especially the players. If this kind of collaboration takes place and this much thought is put into creating a character, one can see that the difficulty of creating a new character might arise with the lose of such an investment. Example:Almost two years ago, when I first joined this community of gamers and after over a decade of not playing, I put a lot of time into my first character because I wanted it to be well integrated into the setting that Joseph had created; I may have even over-stepped the bounds of integration, but Joseph let it go. Having invested so much effort into the character, the thought of losing it and starting fresh crossed my mind and it seemed daunting. At the time I wondered if I had exhausted my creativity on this one character and whether any subsequent character I created for the setting would be a simple parody or just as robust as that one. My second character meant for an ongoing campaign, Aeron'eth, focused more on the build than the setting and I had to be creative about how some of the features (worship of Corellon) fit into the setting (Eberron), but this time I had a character with no history because I ended up using the old trope of memory lose. David allowed me to do this but in the beginning, I remember, there wasn't that same sense of integration and investment; not that there was no substance to the character. But I adapted and found elements within the campaign that seemed like natural ways in which the character would plug in to the world and now, after over a year of playing this character, I am deeply invested in the campaign. However, if Aeron'eth is obliterated, my experience and understanding of the campaign has provided several threads from which I could create a new character, if needed. Summary(tl;dr): the process is collaborative.- The DM should provide a robust enough environment from which players can generate characters. Having a campaign setting, like Eberron or Dark Sun, makes this part easier. - Players should utilize the environment for the genesis of their character and to find motive. This means understanding the setting and finding an element to which your character relates. - The DM and player should work together to organically bring the setting and character together. Roleplaying happens naturally and a single story is told by the mutual and continuous participation of everyone at the table.
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Post by reiphil on Jan 27, 2011 11:14:54 GMT -8
Summary(tl;dr): the process is collaborative.- The DM should provide a robust enough environment from which players can generate characters. Having a campaign setting, like Eberron or Dark Sun, makes this part easier. - Players should utilize the environment for the genesis of their character and to find motive. This means understanding the setting and finding an element to which your character relates. - The DM and player should work together to organically bring the setting and character together. Roleplaying happens naturally and a single story is told by the mutual and continuous participation of everyone at the table. 1. i hope I am doing a good job at creating the environment. There is a lot of stuff that I have allowed characters to fumble with, and the most character growth so far I have seen is from players who have an invested backstory. 2. I agree that it sucks to lose a character with an invested back story, but is it really so hard to take another approach to the world and see how to import yourself? For example, when I lost Ael'Thir to the Roc in Revenge of the Giants. I was really upset because of the rich hopes and dreams i put into the design of the character. Then I came across Neji, who took a bit more to get into the game, but after coming across a persona that I thought fitted, it allowed me to RP freely. 3. This is the problem i find the most. A lot of players don't have ideas stored or want to even attempt to integrate new characters into the world after a loss. I even have/had players who refuse to even look at the campaign setting to try and find their own niche. Characters who currently have a higher investment, Nantiki and Rhogar, RP more consistently for the story. The issue here though isn't an integration of character to story, it's the integration of character to character. For your example of Aero'neth, it really helped that Brinjin and Aero'neth decided to work together as mercenaries protecting each others backs. It helped us develop that RP relation and further flush out the understanding of the campaign. When new players came in, like Watcher, both Brinjin and Aero'neth provided RP with Watcher to both integrate him, and try and get a feel, character-wise, of the metal man. This doesn't happen in my game currently. And I am not sure what to do.
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Post by frobones on Jan 27, 2011 11:54:53 GMT -8
When new players came in, like Watcher, both Brinjin and Aero'neth provided RP with Watcher to both integrate him, and try and get a feel, character-wise, of the metal man. This doesn't happen in my game currently. And I am not sure what to do. I guess the harshness of Athas can be partly to blame... people aren't really the friendly type. It's probably a combination of bad RP and RPing in a world that doesn't reward people for their generosity. Nantiki is on a mission, and until people get on his good side, he will use you for what you're worth... like Pavu being a wagon or Dawn being a forest guide. Rhogar is currently extra "muscle" in Nantiki's eyes, but we're on the verge of discovering that we may be more similar than we think.
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Post by reiphil on Jan 27, 2011 12:14:51 GMT -8
Nantiki uses people, that's fine. But does he just pick up tools he's not familiar with or doesn't know he can trust?
Pavu, Dawn, or anyone could've been a plant from Hamanu by this time, but no suspicions or questions have happened.
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