No apologies for the long post. Lots and lots of ideas herein; thoughts I have been thinking for a while. I present them together, in full, as a way to stimulate discussion and see how it fares in the rest of the LFR world. I am an active LFR player and judge, and frequently attend conventions.
Most of you know that 4e is supposed to be a roleplaying game (see page 6 of the PHB for details). To an extent, LFR is supposed to be a roleplaying game...a continuation of the precedents set up in the PHB. However, I believe that LFR, as it is set up, is continually pushing players away from roleplaying and creating an environment where roleplaying is ever more difficult, where it is an rarity rather than the default.
My main thought is this: Since LFR debuted, there have been several big and small changes to the living campaign game that have served to incrementally decrease roleplaying. While none of these changes are, by themselves, solely at fault, the end effect of all them is an environment where roleplaying is neglected and discouraged.
I've been brainstorming as to what factors are a part of this and have the following list. Not a conclusive, nor necessarily correct list, but one that starts this discussion.
1) Regional Flavor. Man, I miss regional flavor. It's been stated by others on these boards the story lines and the regions are just a jumble of unconnected and uninteresting stories. It's getting better (the recent Spec2-1s & Battle Interactive, the Arts & Crafts lines, etc.), but NOTHING compares to the grand sweeping awesome of the previous Geoff storyline, for instance. Or the Theocracy of the Pale madness. I don't feel tied or invested in any of the regions the way I think players should feel if LFR is going to thrive.
2) MetaOrgs: I know these were hard to manage and difficult to approve...but they added something big and important to the game: a flavorful connection to places and things. There are groups that we can join currently (Flaming Fists, Luminous Society, etc.), but anyone can join and they add very little. MetaOrgs had players make decisions and trade resources (back in the day it was TUs and gold) for benefits and service. Those decisions make characters interesting. They were important.
3) Skill Challenges. Skill Challenges should be rare, rather than the norm. I believe they kill more roleplaying than they promote. Yeah, I know how SCs are supposed to be run and I think I know what they are supposed to accomplish. Sadly, all the system does now is promote metagaming of die rolls and entitlement towards promotion of rewards (XP, closer to milestone) rather than promotion of roleplaying. In addition, far too many SCs are inserted into modules in pointless and silly ways simply because they had to be there rather than serve a useful story vehicle in the module. This point deserves a post all to itself...but you'll have a hard time convincing me that the overall effect of SCs promotes roleplaying rather than die rolling.
4) No penalty for death. I am really not a big fan of killing characters. As a LFR judge, running over 50 mods, I have yet to kill anyone yet. However, I recognize that is pretty foolish...I've died and the penalty is absolutely minimal. It's nothing. While I think I understand why the system was set up as it was, it is hurting roleplaying. Players have no fear of death or failure...there are no real adverse effects. The new mentality is "Always play up. Get more gold and experience." This is creating an environment where character achievement means little.
5) Alignments mattered. I know many of you don't ever want to get back into the Lawful Stupid discussions...but alignments were important. Decisions your characters made should flow from your supposed alignment and understanding of how your chosen alignment affected your choices. In LFR, none of that matters. Sure, some players will play their class appropriately, but mostly it's a Chaotic Greedy world out there. Last night I literally had two paladins (Tempus and Amaunator) at my table discussing how best to sacrifice a surrendered, quasi-interrogated prisoner on his own demon altar. Really? REALLY? They wanted kill a helpless prisoner because they could not get the rest of their answers. And the sad thing about that was, as judge, what would I really do about it? (Don't answer this, plz. It's a rhetorical question. You may have experienced similar in your games.)
6) Free and Unlimited Retraining. Remember when your choices mattered? Remember when you wanted to build your character out in advance because you wanted your initial choices to matter? Remember how those choices used to form your character's personality and design? Gone now. Just change it whenever you want. Players need never commit to a character ever again. Just change to whatever new flavor you want to build to. Yep, whatever the hot new DPR build is, just switch to that. It's not that you are doing it...but those players less interested with roleplaying are.
7) Replaying. I know there is a lot of mixed feelings on this, however, replaying is determental to roleplaying. When I know you only get to play a mod once, I make every effort to learn as much as I can about the mod and truly enjoy the experience. As such, every module is more treasured for my character. I'm not there for XP or Gold, but for the experience of the module and playing my character in it. I know that the ideal is that you replay as if you know nothing and have never played it before...or keep quiet and stay out of things. I do not expect any of you to admit to anything like this, however, how many times have you been at a table with a replayer and you suspect or know that they are metagaming the heck out of things OR completely cut off because they are trying not to ruin things for people? Both hurt roleplaying.
8) Race and class over-proliferation. This game obviously has no connection to reality. We all know this and should not expect the game to function within reality (this game is meant to be fantastic), but, at some point the needed suspension of disbelief goes to far when your "heroic" party consists of a Revenant Warforged Spellplagued Paladin of Tempus. Wilders? Githzerai? At a certain point, the shark was jumped when it comes to available races and classes and trying to accomplish heroic deeds within the LFR world.
9) Emphasis on playing a "role" and "table balance" over playing a "character". This is probably my biggest bug and it's sadly perpetuated to newer players are the 'right' way to play. In no sense, in no way, should your classes supposed role (paladin = defender, wizard = controller, etc.) ever be more important than your character. As most of the erudite readers on this board know, you can build a defending wizard or melee warlock or controlling paladin...class transcends role. However, even more important than that is that your character's personality, habits, alignment, back history, tendencies transcend both class and role. That should be what is the most important aspect to your character...however, the emphasis is usually first put on "What role are you? We need a XXX." rather than, "Can you introduce yourself to me in character?" I wish the first pieces of advice new players received was "play your character and not your role or your class".
Re-stating my main point: Since LFR debuted, there have been several big and small changes to the game that have served to systematically erode and surpress roleplaying. While none of these changes are solely at fault, the end effect of all them is an environment where roleplaying is actively suppressed. Any one of the above things isn't a big dent into the overall roleplaying experience....however, as the effects stack, we have a LFR game that is greatly stacked against roleplaying and an environment where players are invested and tied to their characters. That cumulative effect is dampening LFR.
Questions for the Forum at Large:
1) If you prefer to roleplay, have you noticed a decrease in your active roleplaying? 2) Have you noticed the same in your gaming area or group? 3) What other factors do you think either help or hinder roleplaying within the LFR game?
-Pain
p.s. For the strawgolem prone, things I *did not* say in my above comments include, but are not limited to: "There is no roleplaying in LFR", "You must roleplay to play LFR correctly/properly", "I've never heard anybody ever have fun roleplaying a skill challenge", "Roleplaying in LFR is dead", and "I demand everybody roleplay in LFR". Please don't make arguments for me.
p.p.s. I'm sure we all have different definitions of what roleplaying entails. To some, it's a full change into the personality of your character; to others, it's a funny voice and abstract mannerisms, and to others it may just mean something altogether different. To me, it's about creating a character that is tied to the LFR world and the other players in your game. It's a completely fabricated social bond between how your character interacts with the world and how you act as your character. I feel that one's character should have a connection and reason for existence above and beyond leveling and gold/loot (though that certainly has it's perks) and, as a player, I strive to create meaningful bonds between the LFR world and my fellow players.
My definition of a successful mod (this is important...yours may vary): having a fun time both roleplaying and engaging in good, well-played tactical combats. Both portions are equally important to me...and please note that "winning every skill challenge and fight" and "earning max gp/exp" are not on that list. They are significantly below "having fun". I have played mods that I've won every fight and challenge and earned max gp/exp and not had fun. I've rarely not had fun when I've been challenged within a group of tactical roleplayers...win or lose.
p.p.p.s. For me, roleplaying is becoming tougher and tougher to do. Have I changed? Definitely. Has the game changed? Even moreso. It seems like more and more players are trending toward less and less roleplaying. As I'm sure you know, it is tough to roleplay all alone. I think the current LFR does not do enough to promote those connections, nor will game thrive without them.
Roleplaying in Living campaigns has always been a dicey prospect because of the time contraints. Easier in a private game at a home since you and your friends can take your time. In a public setting where there's likely moultiple slots, you need to keep things moving. You just have to inject RP in it as appropriate without bogging down the mod to point where you can't finish it.
Sorry WOTC, you lost me with Essentials. So where I used to buy every book that came out, now I will be very choosy about what I buy. Can we just get back to real 4e?
1. Wizards fight dirty. They hit their enemies in the NADs. -- Dragon9 2. A barbarian hits people with his axe. A warlord hits people with his barbarian. 3. Boo-freakin'-hoo, ya light-slingin' finger-wigglers. -- MrCelcius in response to the Cleric's Healer's Lore nerf
Personally I have seen an increase in role playing in my organized play group. I do not know each individual's reasons why but I have noticed that more and more of those in the group are coming to the table with more than just stats lately.
We have around 30 regulars in the group and numerous more who come occasionally.
A lot of us play other RPGs as well. That may have something to do with it. Within our group we have White Wolf Camarilla organizers and LARPers as well as folks like me who just get around a lot when it comes to gaming.
We have a strong, "Play what you enjoy mentality." While some optimization is always good for the survivability of the party folks are mostly encouraged to just play what they enjoy. This goes a long way.
I don't know. Several of the things you mentioned above as negatives have been positives for our group. In fact, several of the things you listed above (things you would prefer) were reasons why I avoided previous Living campaigns but the new changes have encouraged me to get heavily involved in the current setup.
In summary, I see an opposite trend from yourself so every group is different and I don't agree with most of the points.
I mostly can't agree for myself. Just for an easy example, I think alignment injures roleplaying at least as much as it fosters it, because it makes many people not think past a single two-dimensional point. And I'd just as soon avoid the 'Well, Superman is LG, but is Batman?' arguments
I do suspect that every group has its own wants or needs, so if you find some people who do agree with your own desires you could easily have them run (with a bit of DME and group agreement) in a way that'll work out better for you.
Ie, you can all agree that you aren't going to retrain like crazy. That you'll all commit to alignment and stick with it. That skill challenges will be DMEd largely away and instead all of the monsters increased in difficulty to make up for the xp and make it harder to just always play up. That once a character is dead, you can't play that character for a month. That no one will replay. You can do all of these things, if you have like-minded friends.
If you find them, you'll get what you want.
Keith Richmond Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
1) Regional Flavor -- The regional construct used by LG is not related to role playing in any fashion. LC, LD, LF, etc. did just fine supporting role playing without such a construct. I think the point of extended story threads certainly is more interesting to me as a player, and it may give me more memory of NPCs to interact with. LFR has suffered due to limited extended story lines.
2) MetaOrgs -- They do add depth to character development which enhances role playing, but they introduce difficulties maintaining game balance and cost manpower. WotC so far has not approved any organization that adds game benefits, beyond the impact of Adventuring Companies. I am not sure why players have to have a game benefit to role play involvement in organizations, but it does seem to be the general sentiment (why bother?).
3) Skill Challenges -- I disagree, but how the DM and players perceive skill challenges obviously has an effect.
4) No penalty for death -- I agree on this, but it is the 4E rule, not an LFR campaign decision.
5) Alignments mattered. -- I agree, but I suspect I am in the minority. Great role playing opportunities & drama exist when you focus on moral choices IMHO.
6) Free and Unlimited Retraining -- I agree. However, LFR is a marketing tool of WotC.
7) Replaying - I don't see that replaying limits roleplaying, although some players can't resist making decisions with out of character knowledge. Replaying an adventure with the same PC would be a problem, but that is not allowed.
8) Race and class over-proliferation -- I don't see the number as a problem, but the inclusion of certain races does hamper role playing and the suspension of disbelief.
9) Emphasis on playing a "role" and "table balance" over playing a "character" -- I think most living campaigns did have some concern over table balance for choosing characters; I don't see how that is related to role playing.
I think a fair portion of 4E design was directed to appeal to the video game / World of Warcraft / younger gamers, to try to increase new gamers coming into D&D. Those changes have not, by in large, emphasized role playing, possibly leading to a general shift that you observe. The old RPGA that promoted role playing as a player skill, and ran competitions for who was the best role player is dead and gone. WPN D&D Organized Play is simply about playing D&D (your way) and having fun.
I disagree with most of this. I find LFR 4e a lot easier to roleplay in than LG 3.5e.
Regions/metaorgs were mostly bad for me - when they were interesting, it was usually because the mod itself was interesting, not because of the region or metaorg was involved(in fact, in most cases, you could have removed the regional reference and put it somewhere else. If you played a zombie LG mod in 2006, you realized this actually happened. A lot. You think Goblin Hexers were bad, I ran into Kaorti 3 times in the same year in mostly the same context)
I like the death penalty idea of 4e a lot better than the death penalty idea of 3.5. At low levels, 3.5 usually meant the permanent death of a character. At levels 5-7, it would be mostly negative, at 8-10, mostly positive, and at 11+, you could then break the gold curve. 4e's curve is consistent across the board. Yes, sometimes PCs will play up simply because they know they can't be permanently TPK'd. But that's a lot better than when you see a player deliberately trying to get their PC killed so they can get some more gold. One even disintegrated himself right before the mod concluded because his character would otherwise be retired.
I don't personally like replaying and try to avoid it as much as possible.
But for me personally, I like Skill Challenges. I've generally focused on making them inclusionary so everyone gets involved - someone uses their favorite skill and roleplays in a way that makes it make sense, they can use that skill even if the challenge doesn't list it. They try to flat out roll it or make up something stupid, then they can't.
The RPGA used to vote for "best roleplayer" at each table and the winner got a cert that gave a one-time +1 to a dice roll. I think the loss of the winners certs hurt RPGA roleplaying more anything else.
When those winners were determined in good faith, the system worked out great and is better than no system at all.
When (in some circles, probably not very many but certainly enough to be noticed) the winners were determined in a meta-way, and factors other than actual gameplay began to overwhelm the determination, the system worked poorly and was worse than no system at all.
The RPGA used to vote for "best roleplayer" at each table and the winner got a cert that gave a one-time +1 to a dice roll. I think the loss of the winners certs hurt RPGA roleplaying more anything else.
