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Nov 13, 2011 -- 11:13AM, Alter_Boy wrote:

AD: The problem here is that your descriptions focus on what they can do and not why they do it. Let me use the PHBI section on personality (pg.23-24) to show you what I mean.

 

Nov 13, 2011 -- 2:22AM, AnarchsDelight wrote:

1) Looming Mountain (a knight formerly known as Edfrey De'Mont) returned from his twelve-year saga in Shou ready for revenge upon those who killed his family. Now, having trained with masters of the far East, wielding a spear in one hand and nothing more than prayer beads in the other, Looming Mountain uses his unusual fighting style--one consisting of judo-like grabs, punches and takedown techniques--against the oppressive and heavily-armored soldiers of Baron Lespin. [Grab-fighter with a monk multi-class feat, for even more mechanistically-tied flavor.

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What is your background? Trained for 12 years in Shou. ....

You seem to ignore the dimensions implied about him and his personality. He was obviously in Shou because he sought training he felt he needed to defeat the Baron's men. Now he's returned, ready for revenge. This tells us quite a bit about him, and not just his history of murdered parents and evil Barons (though that helps us understand him too).

He's clearly a dedicated person--12 years of effort, after all--and he's also single-minded and patient to the causes he takes up. Isn't that obvious? Just because you don't mention it, or don't even perceive it, doesn't mean it doesn't satisfy your peculiar requirements for what constitutes role-play and persona.
   

2) Descended from seven generations of dragon sorcerers renowned for their ability to breath lightning, fire and acid, as the situation demands, Orssa'Kava continues the tradition of her dragonborn ancestors as the sorcerer-queen of the Kava Swayers. [No warlock can make three breath attacks, but a dragonborn sorcerer with a natural fire breath attack, the encounter-power Tempest Breath and the daily Lightning Breath can. So it's not just a mechanistic fit, but a fluff/lore/persona fit as well.

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It seems that what you focus on are things that can be mechanically inserted. Class, Race, Background. What I'm saying is that you can insert personal characteristics into your PC that have no bearing on the mechanics of your PC.

No, not mechanically inserted. Just tied to the character's persona. You say that mechanics have no bearing on the personal characteristics, yet I've just described a character who has willingly continued the tradition of multiple generations of her forebearers. That doesn't give you an insight into the character's personality? Who she is and what she values? Simply because you don't like that I have melded mechanics and persona together doesn't mean that I haven't done just that.

  However, if your Ranger is a friendly naturalist reputed for his ability to fire and hit with two arrows at once then knowing Twin Strike is probably important to the actual persona of the character.

 

How many arrows he's able to shoot at monsters won't tell you as much of his personality as why he is shooting those arrows. Are there some monsters he won't fire on? Are there some monsters he will hunt down, no matter what? Why does he adventure with people who may not love nature as much as he does?

Twin Strike doesn't tell me anything about his personality. If said naturalist is known for twin striking, it's because he knows Twin Strike.  

Of course it does. Twin Strike tells me he is not just devoted to his career and skill set. He's also quite talented--there aren't many people who can skillfully fire two arrows at once. He's dedicated many hours to the practice and study of archery in order to accomplish such a feat. That tells me a lot about his personality. I can't understand how you think it wouldn't!?

I didn't say it would be *wrong,* but it very well could be limiting--and not just in a mechanistic sense. 

I guess OD&D was a very hard edition to roleplay in, since it had so few character options. By that logic, 3ed must have been the best, since it had the greatest quantity of options available.

Hard? No, not necessarily, but it certainly had less for a player to tap into as part of his or her character's methods for interacting in the game world. We could, if you like, just narrow all combat down to attack rolls with no other mechanics or fluff. Why you think that less isn't actually less is a little mind-boggling, however.

After all, the reason 3rd edition is much more expansive than 1st is because mechanics help players to realize their characters in specific ways within the game world. There is little doubt in my mind that characters in 3rd edition tended to have greater depth and complexity in both a role-play and a mechanistic sense because of the wide breadth of mechanical options available for creating them.

Mechanics can--when well designed--add RP flavor that can be more difficult to generate without greater effort on the part of a player or DM. Even if a less-option heavy game like 1st edition isn't technically restrictive in an RP sense, compared to a game like 3rd edition that helps speed up the creative process significantly it could be argued that 1st edition is narrower and more limited beyond just a technical sense.  

In effect, the designers help players by doing the heavy lifting before hand through their mechnical-and-fluff creative efforts. Players can come along and adopt those creations with variations for their particular envisioned character. And voila! A new and unique sorcerer or grab-fighter is born, just like the examples I provided to you.

Could someone say that my character examples can exist--absent the real mechanics for sorcerers and grab-fighters--in an Essentials-only game? Well sure, but they wouldn't be as fulfilling as a character who has actual mechanics to represent the fluff behind him or her. Mechanical depth is an aid to role-playing in the same way that mechancial shallowness can be an impediment.

To make it clear, would you say that role-playing games are enhanced or worsened by the use of dice? They are, after all, just a mechanical aside. Right?