I considered putting this in rules questions, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't belong there since it's not really covered by the rules as far as I can tell, but my interest stems from the section in Awarding Experience which says that pure roleplaying encounters grant XP as an encounter of CR equal to the APL.
So, what constitutes "pure roleplaying"?
Is it any encounter where no dice are rolled?
Is it an encounter where only social skill checks are made?
Is it something else?
Thoughts and opinions welcome.
I'm personally edging towards something along the lines of "any encounter where no player-driven dice rolling happens" or some such (I'm struggling around NPC-driven dice rolls), but I thought I'd throw the question out there and see what you all think.
My understanding is that what they mean is an encounter with no traps, monsters etc to base experience reward on - that is, any encounter that has some kind of "difficulty" (not necessarily mechanical) but doesn't involve anything with an already stated XP value.
As with most things involving definitions of words or interpretations of rules, there will be many different opinions on what a "pure roleplaying" encounter would be.
At one extreme would be those who say that a pure role-playing encounter would involve no dice, no character stats, no information on the character sheet beyond backstory and history and would be executed by a bunch of players sitting back and running the entire encounter in a "theater of the mind" manner.
The other extreme would say that a "roleplaying" encounter would be an encounter that involved no tactical combat but instead focused on the skills and abilities of the players and NPCs to resolve a situation strictly through negotiation and influence.
Probably the widest agreement you could get from most people would be that a "pure roleplaying" encounter would not involve weapons, attack rolls, damage rolls or offensive spells being cast at each other.
I would define it as 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?'
But that's just me. ;)
I considered putting this in rules questions, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't belong there since it's not really covered by the rules as far as I can tell, but my interest stems from the section in Awarding Experience which says that pure roleplaying encounters grant XP as an encounter of CR equal to the APL.
So, what constitutes "pure roleplaying"?
Is it any encounter where no dice are rolled?
Is it an encounter where only social skill checks are made?
Is it something else?Thoughts and opinions welcome.
I'm personally edging towards something along the lines of "any encounter where no player-driven dice rolling happens" or some such (I'm struggling around NPC-driven dice rolls), but I thought I'd throw the question out there and see what you all think.
I'd say it was an encounter where the dice-rolling is secondary to the player interaction, where the personalities of the characters in question are the driving motives behind the action.
The most notable example I can think of was an incident my Carrion Crown players went through - one character returned home to find that her "sick" father (he was actually dead, but she could not accept this) was missing (he'd become undead). Queue party (who do not know he's dead) tracking the missing father to a nearby hamlet, where everyone is dead and zombiefied. Queue combat, dice rolling, etc. Then one party member stumbles on Daddy, the chief undead, and is attacked. The daughter arrives....and helps out the undead. MAJOR intra-party conflict ensues, with everyone taking sides on how to deal with the mad character.
This was a combat encounter, with a lot of dice-rolling, but EVERYONE was getting into character. At the end of it, one PC nearly died twice, several others were injured, but no-one held it against anyone and they all agreed it was an excellent session.
Well, I would personally say that a pure "role playing" moment is when the character has to interact with his past or a social event that is linked to him, but does not require dungeon or fighting or magic skills to accomplish
It could be an encounter between characters with absolutely no dice rolling, but I might also call it a role playing encounter whose outcome will significantly affect what comes next in the story. I have never used the term though.