Ten Pillars of Roleplaying

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

The Ten Pillars of Roleplaying

What is roleplaying? Basically, it’s nothing more than assuming a false personality in order to play a character, much as an actor assumes the identity of the screen personality he’s portraying.

So what are the aspects that determine roleplaying in the context of a D&D game? I see 10 of them.

1. Alignment - Many people view this aspect of roleplaying backwards. Actions determine alignment, alignment does not determine actions. A paladin does not avoid killing innocents simply because he’s Lawful Good…he does so because as a paladin he does not see killing innocents as appropriate or acceptable behavior. It's his viewpoint and behavior which makes him Lawful Good. This may be a subtle difference to some, but there is indeed a difference. In the first instance, his alignment prevents him from performing an action. In the second, he avoids that action because of who he is. A paladin by his very virtue would never do such a heinous thing, and it’s because he thinks that way that he becomes Lawful Good. To say that the paladin doesn’t kill innocents because Lawful Good characters cannot do that is not roleplaying. If a player feels restrained from having his character commit evil acts, then the player obviously doesn’t want to play a good aligned character. The character carries the alignment, not vice versa.

2. Class - I often see people playing different classes in the same manner. I had one player in my group that ran a thief, and outside of the occasional pick locks attempt, you’d never know he was a thief. He charged into battle just like a fighter. His cleric was the same way, as was his wizard. That’s absurd. Characters from different classes will exhibit different behavior. While the stereotypical fighter may love to go tavern hopping and getting into drunken brawls, a wizard certainly wouldn’t feel the same way. Neither would druids see any reason to stay in a city or get a room at an inn when there’s plenty of room to sleep outside under the stars. Clerics should be eager to profess their faith and proselytize, and that is acceptable behavior for them. With other classes, professing religious beliefs is best avoided, as they are in most modern real world situations. The class picked for a character gives general guidelines for how the character will act. Druids by their very nature will like outdoor settings, and thieves will feel most at home in bustling cities.

3. Race - Perhaps the most abused area of roleplaying, race is a very critical factor when it comes to roleplaying. Not that characters need be shoe-horned into a mold, but different races have different outlooks, goals, and ways of thinking. Elves with their extremely long lifespans simply do not have the sense of urgency that humans do with their much shorter lives. An elven wizard would think nothing of devoting a decade to development of a single spell…that time is negligible to him. A human wizard simply cannot afford that luxury. Dwarves have a hardness to them that comes from being born and raised in extremely tough, harsh conditions. If a player is playing an elf the same was he plays a dwarf, human, or halfling, then he’s missing the point of roleplaying. What he’s playing is a variant of himself, not the character listed on his character sheet. If you look just at the human race in the real world, there are major differences in ways of thinking and acting. While certain human emotions and goals are universal (love, hate, the desire for family and success, etc), if you’re from rural Kansas and take a trip to Tokyo, Japan, you’re going to be in for some real culture shock! The same vice versa. It’s why business exectutives take classes in how to deal with other cultures efficiently…they need training because the cultures are so dissimilar, as are their respective ways of thinking. Now imagine an entirely different race, a non-human race like elves or dwarves. If such differences exist between different cultures within the human race, surely there would be differences between entirely different races non-related to humans!

4. Abilities Scores - This is a difficult one because it goes both ways…it’s hard to roleplay a character who’s smarter than you actually are, as well as hard to roleplay one less intelligent. We tend to think to our capacity, or our own comfort level. You take the average Joe Simpleton with an 80 IQ, you can’t expect him to think like a genius level wizard with a 150 IQ. It’s also a challenge for someone with a real world high IQ to play a dumb barbarian. The player naturally thinks like he does in real life. But that’s the challenge of roleplaying. It destroys suspension of disbelief when the uneducated barbarian on the team with the 8 Intelligence score figures out all the complicated puzzles in the game or devises intricate strategies and plots just because the player playing him has a PhD in real life. A character with a low Intelligence score should be played dumb. A character with a high Charisma score would naturally be outgoing and dynamic, a character with a high Strength tends to be very physical. It makes no sense to have ability scores if you don’t play the character appropriately. Playing a character with a 7 Wisdom as if he were Solomon is doing the game an injustice. Again, ability scores should not be a chain, but a guide. It’s rare for players to play their characters to match their ability scores, but it’s worth the effort to do so.

5. Personality - Usually overlooked, people tend to base personality on steroptypes of alignments. The Lawful Good character is a goody-two shoes, the Lawful Evil character is the conniving thief. That’s shallow. There are all sorts of personalities and personality quirks available to create interesting characters. Perhaps the Lawful Evil guy is a brutal bully who enjoys tormenting those less powerful than himself, but he cowers in the face of those more powerful than he is, becoming almost subservient. Such a character may seek to surround himself and associate with only those who are less powerful than himself, while avoiding his superiors. In a situtation where he’s the top dog, he may be very confident and bullying, but in the company of his betters, he becomes quiet and withdrawn. Or perhaps you have a character who struggles with his faith, often making excuses for his lapses of judgement or willpower. Perhaps the cleric whose order prohibits the drinking of liquor has a hard time avoiding the substance, so he uses excuses like “I’m just trying to fit in with the crowd to enable myself to better identify with them”, since he needs to have a rapport to spread the faith. Roleplaying such a character would entail a balance between avoiding liquor and letting himself go. The old 1st Edition DMG has plenty of tables for helping pick personality quirks. That’s a great reference.

6. Uniqueness - Perhaps the hardest aspect to pull off, many players never bother to try to make their character unique, prefering instead to play stereotypes. What’s memorable about the typical druid who lives in a grove? Not much. He may be remembered as “just another druid”. But what about that one druid who liked cities because he felt it was his duty to introduce more of a “natural” aspect to them? He’d often petition the ruler of the land to set up parks, ponds, gardens, and other natural areas within the city, to help beautify it. He helped farmers grow better crops, and then used that as an opportunity to teach the farmers about the worhip of nature, therefore spreading a respect and appreciation for all things natural. He’d administer herbs from the gardens to the sick in order to heal them. Why search out a cleric and pay him hard earned silver (or gold!) when you can have a cure in your own backyard? So this druid brought nature into the city. After all, cities are always intruding upon the natural world, displacing it…why not turn the tables? Now tell me, which druid would be more memorable in your mind? Yes, the second one would because he’s so unique. The player thought of a novel approach to playing the character.

7. Consistency - Here is where many players waffle. Consistency. They may play a character one way in a certain situation and another way in a different situation. For example, I knew a guy who played a cleric as this generous, kind person. However, when it came to dividing treasure he became greedy, rude, and unpleasant. Sometimes (usually when he had plenty of money), he’d give away silver to the poor. However, when he was saving up for some new armor or a new weapon he had his eye on, his purse strings suddenly became very tight, even when he’d encounter parishioners of his church in true need of help. Consistency is a key to a believable character. Yes, people do act out of character, and that’s fine…if it’s done sparingly, and not back and forth based on moment-to-moment situations. A cleric who truly cares about those in his church and with spreading the faith will be kind to people all the time, not just when he’s in a good mood because he just found a +1 weapon or a bag of gold. Lack of consistency gives the impression of a split personality.

8. Acting - Always a situation I encourage, it’s more fun for players to talk in character whenever possible, and to "perform" their actions instead of expaining them. For example, a fighter is looking to charter a boat for a mission, but one which will require the ship’s crew to help them haul treasure out of the dungeon. If the player simply says “My fighter tells the captain we need a ship and a crew to help haul treasure”, and the DM replies “The captain says ok, but it’s going to cost you”…that’s boring. Where’s the excitement in that? Where’s the first person dialogue? Imagine the improvement in mood and atmosphere if it went this way:

Player : “Grognard the Great walks up to the shipman and says ‘Hail my good captain! My teammates and I are looking to hire a ship. There be gold in it for you, and your crew as well! Provided that is, your crew is man enough to brave the Dungeon of Doom. Oh, no need for that worried look sir…I’m the great Grognard, and my team has defeated every monster we’ve ever faced. We’ll take care of any dangerous creatures there before your men ever set foot ashore!’”

DM: “Dungeon of Doom? My good fellow, you’re either brave…or stupid…to think you can conquer that fabled ruin. But when you speak of gold, ye be speaking my language. Tis a deal then…my ship will take you to the Isle of Doom, but my men stay aboard. If ye come out alive with your team, my crew will indeed go ashore to help haul treasure. But I’ll have to pay them handsomely just to make that dangerous trek…and therefore you’ll have to pay ME well!”

They call it roleplaying for a reason. And that reason is not to describe actions, but rather to roleplay actions.

9. Use of names/language - I’m a stickler for this one. I had a group of players once (for a short time thankfully) who referred to their characters as “the priest, the fighter, and the wizard” instead of “Abbot Earl, Grognard the Great, and Maligor the Wicked”. If a player refers to his character in the third person (and by class instead of name on top of that!), then he’s really outside his character, isn’t he? In real life, do you refer to yourself in the third person? If you’re an office worker, do you tell the boss “The office worker in cubicle #7 wants a raise” or do you say “I want a raise”? The same thing applies to the characters. During the game, you are that character, so why refer to it as some inanimate object? I insist that players also address each other by name. If a player says turns to another player and says “Drex, how about you buying drinks tonight? I lost my purse in that last combat”, that’s fine. However, it’s not roleplaying to have the player say “My ranger asks the barbarian to treat for drinks because he lost his purse.” Sure, there are times when it’s more efficient to just declare your actions. “I draw my sword.” “Sneaky Thomas tries hiding in shadows.” That’s fine. For declaring actions. But it’s not acceptable when roleplaying should be taking place, like when haggling over prices in the market, beseeching the cleric’s church to raise your dead teammate, or requesting an audience from the king. In-party discussion should also be first person. It makes the atmosphere more realistic. It gets you more involved. And this ties in to the language aspect. It’s not the easiest thing for most people to speak in medieval English. We just don’t know how. So I tell players to at least try speaking formal/proper English, and just cut out modern words and slang. For example, after a combat, saying “This party’s over!” suspends disbelief. Sure, it sounds cool…for a Hollywood movie! In AD&D though, it’s too “modern slang” and takes you out of the moment. Perhaps a more appropriate “Praise be to Odin, we’ve overcome the enemy!” would feel more in-character. It simply does not fit the mood of the game (assuming you have it set in quasi-medieval times) to speak with modern slang. It’s too familiar, too real world. Those players who can properly use “ye”, “thee”, and “thou” are very much appreciated!

10. Real and appropriate emotions - this is a quibble I have with gamers almost as much as I do with Hollywood. Nothing irks me more than going to see a sci-fi movie, and the characters meet the first alien life forms to arrive on earth, and what do they do? Bend over backwards to shoot off a clever one-liner or witty quip. Please! Talk about killing suspension of disbelief! Think about it…if you were to suddenly run into an actual Martian or a dragon that breathes fire, would you be dropping witty one-liners or ducking for cover? Players who, when confronted with a Great Wyrm Red Dragon, say “Cool! Looks like I may go up in level” are not only displaying inappropriate emotions, they’re not even speaking in game terms. I used to game with a group that placed little emphasis on roleplaying, and when my character got hit with an arrow, I grabbed my arm and cried out. Everyone jumped and asked if I was ok. My answer? “Yeah, I’m fine, why?”. It amazed me that they were shocked by roleplaying. It happened all the time. The DM would mention that we saw something huge flying overhead, and I’d instinctively crouch down at the table as if ducking while saying “Oh no!” or something to that effect. Amazing how that threw them every time. Till the very last game, they got caught by surprise by my roleplaying. Of course, they simply described their actions. When a party gets confronted with a dragon or a vampire or some dangerous situation, the players should express concern, fear, or dread. Dragons should evoke a sense of impending death and failure, not visions of experience points and leveling. At the same time, a character who finds a +1 sword but who lost two close teammates wouldn’t be jumping around screaming “Yippeeee!”. It’d be a more bittersweet reaction. When players supply realistic (or should I say appropriate and internally logical) reactions and emotions, the game can only benefit.

So those are my ten pillars of roleplaying. When these ten items are payed attention to, the game is always more fun, more exciting, and more believable. Which of course, makes for a better game.

[RPG Dinosaur]

4. Abilities Scores - . It makes no sense to have ability scores if you don’t play the character appropriately. Playing a character with a 7 Wisdom as if he were Solomon is doing the game an injustice. Again, ability scores should not be a chain, but a guide. It’s rare for players to play their characters to match their ability scores, but it’s worth the effort to do so.

This is a nice piece you've written. I should probably comment on more of the categories, but I'm going to limit myself to this one that really sticks out, the one that takes quite a beating.
It has also been my experience that, as you said, it is rare for players to play their characters to match their ability scores. The problem IMO, especially when the player's characters are at lower levels, is that the players are willing to sacrifice suspension of disbelief/logical gameplay in favor of having the best chance for their characters to succeed. It's not hard to understand why a player with that 8 Intelligence Barbarian wouldn't be tempted to ignore this underaverage ability if it helped his character/party figure out a sequence puzzle to reveal/open a secret door out of an otherwise sealed room that they had fallen into.
This is one of the reasons I like the ability check system of 2E, a DM can curtail those type of illogical occurrences. Not all the time, but a certain amount.

[garhkal]

4. Abilities Scores - . It makes no sense to have ability scores if you don’t play the character appropriately. Playing a character with a 7 Wisdom as if he were Solomon is doing the game an injustice. Again, ability scores should not be a chain, but a guide. It’s rare for players to play their characters to match their ability scores, but it’s worth the effort to do so.

This is a nice piece you've written. I should probably comment on more of the categories, but I'm going to limit myself to this one that really sticks out, the one that takes quite a beating.
It has also been my experience that, as you said, it is rare for players to play their characters to match their ability scores. The problem IMO, especially when the player's characters are at lower levels, is that the players are willing to sacrifice suspension of disbelief/logical gameplay in favor of having the best chance for their characters to succeed. It's not hard to understand why a player with that 8 Intelligence Barbarian wouldn't be tempted to ignore this underaverage ability if it helped his character/party figure out a sequence puzzle to reveal/open a secret door out of an otherwise sealed room that they had fallen into.
This is one of the reasons I like the ability check system of 2E, a DM can curtail those type of illogical occurrences. Not all the time, but a certain amount.

And that sort of meta-gaming is one thing i am well known for cracking down on.. If you are not going to play to your ability scores (Both low and high), then WHAT was the damn purpose in having them in the game?

[lanir]

The thing about stats and roleplaying in D&D is there are too many stats. It's not necessarily obvious how to play through a low wisdom, high intelligence character or vice-versa. The book doesn't provide a lot of guidance for this sort of thing from what I remember. And that's completely ignoring the physical stats which should also affect how a character is presented.

Another potential issue is the unwritten contract with the players. How much effort does the player of a first level mage with 1d4 hit points have to put in to keep their character alive? Is it just "Don't do anything stupid" or do they have to really work at it? Especially with some of you preferring new PCs to come in at 1st level (easily starting a treadmill of repeated deaths). Does the amount of effort you want your players to put into roleplaying compare well with their survivability? I've played in games where survivability was low. My first character I roleplayed well and it was quirky and everything. The second was a bit flat. The third was nothing more than a placeholder with a bundle of stats. When it died, I didn't bother making a fourth.

1. I've always despised alignments. If I'm not putting any effort into roleplaying a character, they matter. If I am, they are utterly meaningless artificial constructs that don't relate to anything. I go to considerable efforts to avoid filling that blank in when I play because they don't make any sense to me and I don't like having incorrect information on my character sheets.

3. Race is probably best handled like in The Dark Eye. It's a base set of stats and a culture your character grew up in. The culture part is I think what people forget. Maybe help by mentioning a couple small details when the PCs are selecting a race? Elves in your world might not use candles for light, perhaps there's a kind of slightly magical firefly they use instead. Maybe dwarves harvest glowing fungi or rocks. A few details like that can be used to imply a lot more.

10. The real and appropriate emotions that should happen in many D&D settings might surprise you. I know I've surprised my share of DMs because the appropriate reaction to so many encounters is to do your damndest to make sure they don't happen. This can backfire in weird ways. When playing this out right I've had DMs get very disturbed because many encounters assume a certain (very high) amount of foolish bravado from the PCs. But finding ways to avoid them is usually the fastest way to break any particular scenario as well as make the DM burn through material at a significantly faster rate (combats take a lot of time on their own and can drag you into other problems). Sometimes I think you're stuck metagaming on this because the scenario requires it. Ideally you'd like good communication back and forth about this. I had one DM just get resentful and he couldn't seem to realize he was the one causing the problem with the sorts of encounters he wanted to make and the flimsy justifications he gave the PCs for dealing with them.

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

RPG Dinosaur wrote:

This is a nice piece you've written.

Thanks! I actually wrote it quite a few years ago.

It has also been my experience that, as you said, it is rare for players to play their characters to match their ability scores. The problem IMO, especially when the player's characters are at lower levels, is that the players are willing to sacrifice suspension of disbelief/logical gameplay in favor of having the best chance for their characters to succeed. It's not hard to understand why a player with that 8 Intelligence Barbarian wouldn't be tempted to ignore this underaverage ability if it helped his character/party figure out a sequence puzzle to reveal/open a secret door out of an otherwise sealed room that they had fallen into.

So true. It's hard for many players to not play the character above and beyond stats they have or to not use player knowledge.

This is one of the reasons I like the ability check system of 2E, a DM can curtail those type of illogical occurrences. Not all the time, but a certain amount.

I like them as well. They come in handy, and if there's a question as to whether the player is playing the character smarter or wiser than he should (or vice versa), the ability check is a very handy tool!

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

Garhkal wrote:

And that sort of meta-gaming is one thing i am well known for cracking down on.. If you are not going to play to your ability scores (Both low and high), then WHAT was the damn purpose in having them in the game?

My thoughts exactly! They have to count for something!

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

Lanir wrote:

The thing about stats and roleplaying in D&D is there are too many stats.

I never liked the later add-ons such as Attractiveness and Perception and what not, but I would argue that the 6 core stats are the perfect number. They cover just about everything needed.

It's not necessarily obvious how to play through a low wisdom, high intelligence character or vice-versa. The book doesn't provide a lot of guidance for this sort of thing from what I remember. And that's completely ignoring the physical stats which should also affect how a character is presented.

I'd say it's pretty much intuitive. A character with a high STR score and low INT score is going to use brute force without thinking it through too much. A character with a high INT score with a low STR score will use subterfuge and stealth. A character with low WIS will not strongly consider the wisdom of his actions but rather go with what he feels at the time. Generalities of course.

Another potential issue is the unwritten contract with the players. How much effort does the player of a first level mage with 1d4 hit points have to put in to keep their character alive? Is it just "Don't do anything stupid" or do they have to really work at it? Especially with some of you preferring new PCs to come in at 1st level (easily starting a treadmill of repeated deaths). Does the amount of effort you want your players to put into roleplaying compare well with their survivability? I've played in games where survivability was low. My first character I roleplayed well and it was quirky and everything. The second was a bit flat. The third was nothing more than a placeholder with a bundle of stats. When it died, I didn't bother making a fourth.

It depends. If you're creating a throw-away character that you don't plan on taking up to higher levels (say a character for a one-shot game or that's rarely played), then not much effort is needed to build the character's...well...character. Likewise if you're treating the character as a chess piece ala the old 1E/Gygaxian style, the gamist approach where the player is the person being challenged and the character is simply a tool, it might not be worth developing the character.

Survivability depends on mainly two things - player skill and luck. A good player's character has an infinitely higher chance of surviving to higher levels than a poor player's character. Luck does play a role - significant, but no in comparison to player skill. Roleplaying and character development, I would say, has no bearing on character survival.

1. I've always despised alignments. If I'm not putting any effort into roleplaying a character, they matter. If I am, they are utterly meaningless artificial constructs that don't relate to anything. I go to considerable efforts to avoid filling that blank in when I play because they don't make any sense to me and I don't like having incorrect information on my character sheets.

I've never understood how or why people hate alignments. Used properly they're a tool, and a very useful one.

3. Race is probably best handled like in The Dark Eye. It's a base set of stats and a culture your character grew up in. The culture part is I think what people forget. Maybe help by mentioning a couple small details when the PCs are selecting a race? Elves in your world might not use candles for light, perhaps there's a kind of slightly magical firefly they use instead. Maybe dwarves harvest glowing fungi or rocks. A few details like that can be used to imply a lot more.

Thing is, in AD&D, race is more akin to species than race as we use the term in the real world. For example, wild elves are as different from high elves or gray elves than the British are to Africans and Asians. In AD&D, we can have humans similar to Egyptians, Vikings, etc. So yes, the character should ideally be played according to not just his race but to his culture within that race.

10. The real and appropriate emotions that should happen in many D&D settings might surprise you. I know I've surprised my share of DMs because the appropriate reaction to so many encounters is to do your damndest to make sure they don't happen. This can backfire in weird ways. When playing this out right I've had DMs get very disturbed because many encounters assume a certain (very high) amount of foolish bravado from the PCs. But finding ways to avoid them is usually the fastest way to break any particular scenario as well as make the DM burn through material at a significantly faster rate (combats take a lot of time on their own and can drag you into other problems). Sometimes I think you're stuck metagaming on this because the scenario requires it. Ideally you'd like good communication back and forth about this. I had one DM just get resentful and he couldn't seem to realize he was the one causing the problem with the sorts of encounters he wanted to make and the flimsy justifications he gave the PCs for dealing with them.

I think it's a mix of two things - knowing your player and what motivates them (and therefore how they're most likely to react to any particular thing) and also having players who "get the hint". In other words, the DM usually leaves hints, breadcrumbs, for the players to understand - "this is something we might want to follow up on". No DM can account for or plan for every possible player reaction. There has to be some level of the players accepting "this is sorta where the adventure starts/leads to". For example, the players expect and trust the DM to create a fun adventure. They have to "go with the hook" at least to some degree, in order to play an adventure. If the DM starts hinting at a castle full of undead who are kidnapping locals, then he'll place rumors for the players to come across, he'll drop subtle clues, etc. Pretty early on, good players will say "ah, I see...these are hints as to where the adventure lies". You always have to accept some "lead-in", which some people would refer to as "railroading" even though its not.

[garhkal]

The thing about stats and roleplaying in D&D is there are too many stats. It's not necessarily obvious how to play through a low wisdom, high intelligence character or vice-versa. The book doesn't provide a lot of guidance for this sort of thing from what I remember. And that's completely ignoring the physical stats which should also affect how a character is presented.

It might also be that they did kinda mess up in describing certain stats as covering a multitude of things. Does that 8 wisdom person just have a low willpower? Is he just poor at discerning subtleties? Does it just mean he's very un-religious?
What of that 7 int pc? Does that just mean he's slow in picking things up? Have a poor memory? Suck at speaking cause his reading of languages is non existent?

3. Race is probably best handled like in The Dark Eye. It's a base set of stats and a culture your character grew up in. The culture part is I think what people forget. Maybe help by mentioning a couple small details when the PCs are selecting a race? Elves in your world might not use candles for light, perhaps there's a kind of slightly magical firefly they use instead. Maybe dwarves harvest glowing fungi or rocks. A few details like that can be used to imply a lot more.

True, how the DM defines certain races in his realm can go a long way to helping a player RP out the culture being different. BUT even then, i have seen way too many players (and dms) just see those Demi races as nothing more than "Humans in funny suits"..

So true. It's hard for many players to not play the character above and beyond stats they have or to not use player knowledge.

It's one of the reasons i wound up developing the 2e NWP of "Monster lore", and split it up to where you have areas of focus on them (much akin to sages).. So a Player CAN have his character spend the NWPs to justify how their character knows XYZ about monster ABC..

My thoughts exactly! They have to count for something!

I've actually seen some people that think the Int/Wis stat DON'T matter for what a PC does, UNLESS they are casters. Otherwise they DON'T exist.. Hell one person feels Wisdom is a measurement of how Pious a character is...

I think it's a mix of two things - knowing your player and what motivates them (and therefore how they're most likely to react to any particular thing) and also having players who "get the hint". In other words, the DM usually leaves hints, breadcrumbs, for the players to understand - "this is something we might want to follow up on". No DM can account for or plan for every possible player reaction. There has to be some level of the players accepting "this is sorta where the adventure starts/leads to". For example, the players expect and trust the DM to create a fun adventure. They have to "go with the hook" at least to some degree, in order to play an adventure. If the DM starts hinting at a castle full of undead who are kidnapping locals, then he'll place rumors for the players to come across, he'll drop subtle clues, etc. Pretty early on, good players will say "ah, I see...these are hints as to where the adventure lies". You always have to accept some "lead-in", which some people would refer to as "railroading" even though its not.

Good point. One gang of players i tried starting up a group for, and did just the 1 session of DMing, let me know not to bother coming back, CAUSE i ran it more free-form (Sand box style, here's what you can do in this spot, here's whats over there, this is what is over here etc), cause they WERE more used to having a dm give them "OK, heres what you are assembled for, There is where you need to go" style of play..

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

Garhkal wrote:

It might also be that they did kinda mess up in describing certain stats as covering a multitude of things. Does that 8 wisdom person just have a low willpower? Is he just poor at discerning subtleties? Does it just mean he's very un-religious? What of that 7 int pc? Does that just mean he's slow in picking things up? Have a poor memory? Suck at speaking cause his reading of languages is non existent?

I think that's the beauty of the system. A character with a low INT could be played as being very bright but simply not having a good memory (very forgetful). Or he could have a photographic memory and amazing language skills but can't solve a Rubik's cube or figure out the best way to transport his gear safely (reasoning ability is lacking). Or if the INT score is really low, he may have poor reasoning ability and terrible language skills (hence his 1 language ability) and not be very good at learning things either, but he does have one hell of a memory. By having multiple related aspects for each ability (which to a great degree mirrors real life), you get a broad range of types to play and a lot of room for personalization.

Likewise, a PC with a high WIS score may have excellent intuition and judgement, inherent guile and enlightenment (understanding of the world) but he does lack willpower (maybe he's an alcoholic who just can't stop drinking). Conversely, you can have a character with high WIS who has the greatest willpower (he never falls prey to desires that go against his alignment/religion, he resists temptation, he has fanatical discipline and never quits, etc) but he lacks common sense and has poor judgement ("The white dragon seems friendly, and he is silvery white, so he's probably as good and friendly as that silver dragon we came across, right?").

True, how the DM defines certain races in his realm can go a long way to helping a player RP out the culture being different. BUT even then, i have seen way too many players (and dms) just see those Demi races as nothing more than "Humans in funny suits"..

I've seen that too often myself. I try to make that not happen in my campaigns. In most of the better campaigns with good players, we're able to pull that off. Takes work though!

It's one of the reasons i wound up developing the 2e NWP of "Monster lore", and split it up to where you have areas of focus on them (much akin to sages).. So a Player CAN have his character spend the NWPs to justify how their character knows XYZ about monster ABC..

That's actually not a bad idea! It makes sense that different characters, depending on where they're from and what they've encountered, would have experience with particular types of monsters.

I've actually seen some people that think the Int/Wis stat DON'T matter for what a PC does, UNLESS they are casters. Otherwise they DON'T exist.. Hell one person feels Wisdom is a measurement of how Pious a character is...

Well, different ability scores are going to affect certain classes more or less than others, that's true. But I'd say that each ability score applies to every character. Otherwise, we'd only need STR/DEX/CON/CHA for fighters, INT/WIS for spellcasters and DEX/CHA for thieves.

Good point. One gang of players i tried starting up a group for, and did just the 1 session of DMing, let me know not to bother coming back, CAUSE i ran it more free-form (Sand box style, here's what you can do in this spot, here's whats over there, this is what is over here etc), cause they WERE more used to having a dm give them "OK, heres what you are assembled for, There is where you need to go" style of play..

Yikes!

I tend to mix it up, just to keep the players on their toes. I may in one adventure drop lots of tips and rumors and plan events that gently, subtly "steer" the PCs into the direction they need to start the adventure, or perhaps more accurately, give them clues as to where the adventure "is". I can see a group like that, if given too much freedom, being very frustrated with no "guidance". I've had a few groups where I've asked the players "Well, what do you want to do?" and the reply was "Well what are we supposed to do?" or "Well, that is there to do?". Some players need a bit more direction than others. And I don't mean railroading. I remember adventures where the PCs misinterpreted clues or decided to do unexpected or unusual things and missed "the adventure" as written by going off on an unpredicted/unpredictable tangent, so that became the new adventure (at the moment). Example: There was one adventure where villagers in a village by the sea were being kidnapped during the night and the PCs mistakenly assumed it was drow and so mounted an expedition into nearby caves when in fact it was kuo-toa from nearby sea caves. Ooops!

[garhkal]

Yikes!:

Yea it kinda irked me, cause i heard NOTHING from them, but called them the day of to see if we were still on for that afternoon's session (got voice mail), and just before leaving checked my emails and saw that they had just sent me a "Don't bother, we are deciding you are not a good fit for us" message.. Had i NOT checked my email i would have driven 25 miles to where they were for nothing...

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

And hopefully you would have handed out a serious ass kicking...er...I mean "attitude adjustment" to them!

[garhkal]

Doubtful. The main guy (who owned the house) was a physical fitness trainer (crossfit) while the other male owned a security company, and though the wives were both rather on the heavyset side of house, they both still looked like they could pick me up with ease and toss me around....

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

I work for hire.