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Dec 21, 2012 -- 3:00AM, Ghost007 wrote:

I am like the OP.  The problem is; RPG to all of us is like making a movie in our own mind with our toon as its main character.  And like the movie we expect our toons to be in character, saying the right line at the right time in the right way in front of our friends at the table, whom we treat as our audience.  But reality is movies got scripts.  If those actors had no script, and had to impromptu act on the spot, they would also blunder, babble, be awkward and not be so good.

Yet actors work without scripts all the time, in improvisational theater scenes. Ninety percent of the ability to improvise come from getting support from the other actors: having them say "Yes" to your ideas, your offers, and then adding on to them, as if it were something you'd all decided on in committee. There is absolutely nothing stopping a D&D game from being run this way, except a general perception that it's the DM's job to block the players and even discourage them.

Dec 21, 2012 -- 3:00AM, Ghost007 wrote:

It helps to define good role playing as the one you have FUN doing.  You don't got to act to be role playing  in RPG anyway.  You already are roleplaying just by playing your paladin, barbarian, wizard...unless you are one in real life.

This is quite true, but the examples in the original post are of situations in which the DM made the scenes not fun for the player. In general, roleplaying in a fun way will get a character in to trouble. Ideally that trouble is interesting, but even when it is some players wonder why they bothered roleplaying if it's just going to get them into trouble. This is the key issue with combat vs. non-combat. Non-combat is considered to be less lethal, so players can act like their character, instead of in some optimal, careful way. Combat is lethal, so players choose the course that will keep their character alive, instead of the course their character might take.

There are ways around this, but they're mostly on the DM side, and they usually don't get a friendly response on these boards. All players can do is decide that they can deal with anything that happens to their character, and place a higher priority on roleplaying than on having an optimal outcome.