|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For me, the RPG is equal parts RP and G.
Roleplay plays it's part, and so does the Game part.
How much a group focuses on which side is a matter of taste, but the important thing to remember, is that they are two parts of the same coin.
It is the balance of the two that makes it what it is, and when you cut out one or the other, you are not playing a RPG, you are playing something else.
The most important part, and I can't stress this enough, is for everyone involved to have fun.
It's the whole point.
The most important part, and I can't stress this enough, is for everyone involved to have fun.
It's the whole point.
Absolutely. There's more than one way to play the game, and everybody has different tastes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For me, the RPG is equal parts RP and G.
Roleplay plays it's part, and so does the Game part.
How much a group focuses on which side is a matter of taste, but the important thing to remember, is that they are two parts of the same coin.
It is the balance of the two that makes it what it is, and when you cut out one or the other, you are not playing a RPG, you are playing something else.
The most important part, and I can't stress this enough, is for everyone involved to have fun.
It's the whole point.
I fully agree. I wouldn't want to play in an RPG where no dice were used and there was no chance for failure. I'm not advocating some kind of "free-form roleplaying experience" where you just narrate combats and decide on successful or failure of the fight without using dice. I just want to be able to stay in character during fights, and not have my characters "switch modes" into an ultra-combat-efficient mindset with the uncanny ability to know precisely how closely I can move past someone without provoking an AoO. Or being able to calculate with digital efficiency exactly how many orcs they can envelope in a Fireball while missing their comrades by inches.
Grids and minis always seem to promote this kind of mindset, with combat efficiency becoming all-important, and characterization seemingly always falling by the wayside.
I want to be able to always accurately portray my character and his personality, whether in-combat or not, and I don't think that whether or not my character is in combat should affect how he is played. He's sill the same character; he doesn't suddenly become "combat mode Izar Talon" when a fight breaks out. Depending on his personality, a character should become more focused and serious (but not always) but not turn into an instant tactical genius.
A webcomic I once read demonstrated my entire argument much more eloquently than I can in just a few panels. To paraphrase how it went, it showed a typical group of adventurers in a dungeon, bickering with each other, joking and bumbling around, causing a ruckus, and generally not showing very much competence as they clumsily marched through a dungeon. But as soon as a group of orcs showed up, every character's personality instantly changed into ultra-pragmatist combat expert mode as they all silently moved into optimum position for the fight, even the non-warriors and the most demonstrably incompetent of them. In the last panel the DM delivered the punchline which was "Once the miniatures come out, no matter what they were like before, everyone suddenly becomes Sun-Tzu."
Just judging by the existence of this webcomic, I know that my experiences with grids and minis are far from unique.
I'm all for the GAME aspect of Role-Playing Games and don't want to downplay its importance; I certainly very much enjoy the fighting and wouldn't want to play in a campaign of D&D/Pathfinder with no fighting in it, but I do value the roleplaying aspect just as much. I like planning out characters in advance and making them as combat effective as possible (but not to the exclusion of personality) to the point that my DM once called me a munckin powergamer because my character was so much better thought out than my other friend's character, because my Gold Elven Bladesinger handily demolished his Human Barbarian. So please don't think I'm against the game element of RPGs, or against combat in games.