@Ludanto: Those people latched to things like emoting as being central and necessary to roleplaying, when those are tangential concerns. What they're talking about is acting. Roleplaying, as it is used in roleplaying games, is quite distinct from acting. Roleplaying is making decisions - acting is communicating those decisions to others in an entertaining way. 'Exploring your motivations' is also tangential - not all character motivations need to be obscure, complex, or particularly interesting. You can roleplay a character whose motivations require no exploration, such as 'get loot and survive the process' absolutely as much as you can roleplay a character whose motivations require 'exploration'.
@Kaldric, Yes, of course. Heck, it's all roleplaying in the broadest sense. I'm talking about the people who talk of "roleplaying, not rollplaying", the "we didn't roll dice all night" people, those that don't play D&D to explore dungeons and fight monsters, but to emote and and explore their character's motivation. "Roleplaying", in that sense, is incidental to D&D. You can do it, but it happens mostly "around" the game rather than because of it.
Meanwhile, there are other games that embrace that sort of thing, to the point of making combat (for example) incidental.
(edited!)
being someone very much into the Roleplay over Rollplay I figured I'd comment. When I say Roleplay over Rollplay I mean that Balance isn't as much of a concern to me so long as the characters created feel like the characters created. While I enjoy rolling dice I don't so much care if another character is more usefull than mine in certain situations. Our characters are different Mine is usefull at this yours is usefull at that. I don't even care when they overlap. It provides a point that the characters can connect upon. D&D has always seemed the best on this front for me. So long as I can create the character I want with the proficiencies and failings I wish it to have I am happy. I have tried other systems but the creation and advancement process in most of those systems just don't feel right to me.
@Artifact: You seem (and correct me if I'm wrong) to fall into the group that says there is no heart of D&D. I'd disagree. I think there are fundamental design considerations that make D&D (and its clones/near clones) quite different from just about every other FRPG.
There are a lot of elements that make up D&D. Lore and mechanics. Races and classes, worlds and monsters, you name it. What's the heart of it all? That's highly debatable. For one person, it might be six abilities, for another it might be alignment, for even another it might be hit points, or any combination in-between.
For me personaly, the heart of D&D is more in the story, less in the mechanics. Someone else might well fall on the other end of the spectrum. I don't believe there will ever be a firm consensus on what is, or is not, D&D at heart. We just know it when we see it (or don't, as the case may be) I guess.
So far, every game of D&D has had something that I can positively identify as being D&D. I have enjoyed followng the lore of D&D for instance, from edition to editon, seeing how things have changed or stayed the same. That's my thing; it would prolly bore someone else to death .
If a game of D&D ever comes along that I can't identify with, then I won't play that game. Those that I would normally game with, they might not understand; they might have very different feelings. That's a rare occurance though. For the most part, I think we'd find things to agree upon so that we could play the game together. Maybe that's the heart of D&D then; agreeing to play, well, D&D ?
Edit: To answer your question directly, Kaldric: No, I don't really believe there is a heart of D&D, not one that can be universally agreed upon at least. The heart of D&D has to be decided upon by the individual.
@Kaldric, @SleepsInTraffic Ah, well. "Roleplaying" is just one of those things that pretty much means different things to different people. All very messy, that.
It seems pretty obvious to me that 5E is a rejection of the '4E tabletop miniatures wargame rolled into an MMO with cards' game and the fans of that game, especially those who have never played 1E through 3.5E game back in the day, generally fall into two groups.
1. Never played much of anything besides 4E and so don't really have a good appreciation of the roll playing roots of D&D. 2. Group two have played other editions of the game but still feel that the combat centric 4E is their favorite way to play.
With regard to the 2nd group of grognards who like 4E, great, glad that you like, you just have to wait for a module to be released that layers on the 4E rules for you. Please give the 5E playtest rules a chance to define a simpler core set of rules that everyone can play with, like, and modularize to their heart's content.
For those who've never experienced the full glory of a 1E or 2E game ran by an old school DM I would suggest a quest to seek out such a mighty story teller and convince him to run a session of old school D&D for you. You might be surprised at how fun it is. You might not of course, but at least you will have an appreciation of what we are talking about when we say that the 5E rules are very encouraging to us old school D&D fans.
The cover of the 1st edition Player’s Handbook by artist D.A. Trampier. A motley crew of adventurers, the bloodied bodies of lizard men, the hint of arcane malevolence surrounding the idol, the daring thieves prying the jewels from the statue. This is arguably the most iconic piece of art in all of RPGdom.
So, you did a bit better that time, but you still spent a lot of time describing why you don't like MMOs and sprinkling in various personal experiences and things you've read that seem, well, sort of disorganized and disconnected. Why don't we try this:
Tell me what you love about D&D. Don't tell me about anything that isn't D&D, and don't tell me about stuff you don't like. Tell me what makes D&D great, to you. About what will keep you coming back week after week. That would make a good "The Heart of D&D" thread.
@Pash, I didn´t read the whole thread, just up to your post, but you must agree, D&D 4E has a lot of things in common with WoW. A think it was one of the design goals of the team back them. James Wyat was a huge fan of WoW, Wizards was seeing WoW popularity as an opportunity to make profit. Not that it´s god or bad, I personally like 4E a lot, and have lots of fun with it. A liked WoW for 4 weeks and got bored of it, but it is good anyway.
I guess what the thread starter said was that as much 4E gets closer with WoW it gets away of what it used to be. Not that transformation is bad, it´s not at all. If 4E have achieved better selling results and Pathfinder never existed, we probably wouldn’t hear about 5E to soon and 4E would be around for a lot more years.
So, we just can´t expect people not to compare 4E with WoW, and claim it´s an attempt to start edition wars every time the word "WoW" is pronounced, because they have many things in common, especially in its mechanics, and that’s just where it (4E) gets away of the original D&D. On the other hand, we can´t possibly say 4E is not D&D, because it has so many things in common with the original game, it would be insane. Also saying it´s not an RPG, is completely unfair. Saying it´s a only board game is a half true, because it is heavily board game oriented, being miniature mandatory to the game, but its absolutely a Role Playing Game as well. In my opinion it´s a full fledge Role playing system with mixed with a board game with lots of options for combat in small scale. The bad thing is that so many people didn´t realize it, or didn´t like it this way. My guess is it´s because of the presentation of the mechanics. The thing is, in essence 4E is a different game, and if people like it or not is just a matter of taste. It´s solid mechanically, but unfortunately no game pleases everyone.
For those who've never experienced the full glory of a 1E or 2E game ran by an old school DM I would suggest a quest to seek out such a mighty story teller and convince him to run a session of old school D&D for you. You might be surprised at how fun it is. You might not of course, but at least you will have an appreciation of what we are talking about when we say that the 5E rules are very encouraging to us old school D&D fans.
"Full Glory" of 1e or 2e?
I grew up playing Oed, 1e, 2e, 3e, and I'm quite happy with 4e, and I'm a roleplayer, not a "wargamer" or MMO player.
Your biased opinion of '4E tabletop miniatures wargame rolled into an MMO with cards' is your own, but 4e is, or can be, just as much fun as any other edition of D&D.
Have you ever even played 4e without attempting to see it only as you assume it is?
"I'm just killing time, since it's killing us." --Cyon Fal'Duur, Pathfinder Chronicler: Rogue Ascendant
@Kaldric, @SleepsInTraffic Ah, well. "Roleplaying" is just one of those things that pretty much means different things to different people. All very messy, that.
Roleplaying in the context of tabletop roleplaying games has a very precise definition. Include other contexts, and you get different definitions. Same with the words 'football', 'set', etc. When I define football, however, I don't make the mistake of including play-by-play announcer - although in the vast majority of games of football I've seen, there's been an announcer involved. Just as I don't include acting in roleplaying - although a large majority of roleplaying activity is accompanied by acting.
@Pash, I didn´t read the whole thread, just up to your post, but you must agree, D&D 4E has a lot of things in common with WoW. A think it was one of the design goals of the team back them. James Wyat was a huge fan of WoW, Wizards was seeing WoW popularity as an opportunity to make profit. Not that it´s god or bad, I personally like 4E a lot, and have lots of fun with it. A liked WoW for 4 weeks and got bored of it, but it is good anyway.
Actually, I don't have to agree with that. Or at least, I don't have to agree that 4e has any more in common with wow than previous editions, and I especially don't have to agree with any quality people want to assign to 4e as "WoW-like".
I guess what the thread starter said was that as much 4E gets closer with WoW it gets away of what it used to be. Not that transformation is bad, it´s not at all. If 4E have achieved better selling results and Pathfinder never existed, we probably wouldn’t hear about 5E to soon and 4E would be around for a lot more years.
Mainly what we heard in the opening post was "I hate all these things about WoW and the people who play it and I am going to use this to express some vague dissatisfaction with 4e."
So, we just can´t expect people not to compare 4E with WoW, and claim it´s an attempt to start edition wars every time the word "WoW" is pronounced, because they have many things in common, especially in its mechanics, and that’s just where it (4E) gets away of the original D&D. On the other hand, we can´t possibly say 4E is not D&D, because it has so many things in common with the original game, it would be insane. Also saying it´s not an RPG, is completely unfair. Saying it´s a only board game is a half true, because it is heavily board game oriented, being miniature mandatory to the game, but its absolutely a Role Playing Game as well. In my opinion it´s a full fledge Role playing system with mixed with a board game with lots of options for combat in small scale. The bad thing is that so many people didn´t realize it, or didn´t like it this way. My guess is it´s because of the presentation of the mechanics. The thing is, in essence 4E is a different game, and if people like it or not is just a matter of taste. It´s solid mechanically, but unfortunately no game pleases everyone.
I can't expect people not to compare 4e to WoW, because people suck, and they absolutely will do it. I can't blame people for having different tastes in gaming than I do. But I absolutely can blame them for expressing these preferences via an insulting and inaccurate rant that only serves to further the edition wars. And I do.
Seriously, though, you should check out the PbP Haven. You might also like Real Adventures, IF you're cool.
Knights of W.T.F.- Silver Spur Winner
4enclave, a place where 4e fans can talk 4e in peace.
Roleplaying in the context of tabletop roleplaying games has a very precise definition. Include other contexts, and you get different definitions. Same with the words 'football', 'set', etc. When I define football, however, I don't make the mistake of including play-by-play announcer - although in the vast majority of games of football I've seen, there's been an announcer involved. Just as I don't include acting in roleplaying - although a large majority of roleplaying activity is accompanied by acting.
But that's just my point. There are many and varied tabletop roleplaying gamers out there who would vehemently disagree with you. You don't include acting in roleplaying. Others do, and there's no one definitive source to say otherwise.
Heck, for me personally, in the context of a tabletop game, I'd say it's roleplaying if... well, if you're playing a roleplaying game.
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