The Direction of PF2

[Interesting Character]

I think I figured out how to describe my problem with the philosophy of pf2.

You could break roleplay into two basic types, "light roleplay" and "heavy roleplay."

The difference is not in the types of encounters, but in how and when the rules are applied and used.

In light roleplay, the rules are the central part of a player's decision-making process. The player is, metaphorically, playing chess while gushing about the paint jobs of the other player's pieces and painting their own pieces, yet never letting the looks of the pieces impact the fundemental game of chess. These players think first and foremost about the system, then fill in the gaps with roleplay.

A good example is when I play a tiefling, yet I feel like I'm playing a human. This happens because neither the players nor the gm treat my character like a tiefling. They act the exact same as if I was playing a human, because according to the system, a few minor mechanics might be different but tactically/strategically, being a tiefling is a cosmetic thing.

Another example was me having the task of aquiring a certain document and destroying it. I came up with a plan and even did the prep work for it, but when I tried to enact my plan, I got ignored "because the book doesn't say how to handle that."

Another example is having a dark shape stand up and the response of players be to attack and kill it before it even acts, because they as players expect a combat encounter because of metagame reasons. They ignore what their characters would see and know. The characters don't know that initiative was rolled. The characters don't know that this a game and not a living breathing world.

Now, heavy roleplay is the reverse. In heavy roleplay, the decision-making process is inversed. Players think first and foremost about the narrative world milieu (NWM) and the mechanics are secondary, being used as support.

The mechanics are just guidelines imperfectly attempting to mimic the narrative world, for which the narrative world milieu is the main metric for choosing action.

For example, there is no mechanic in the rules for flipping a table over to get cover. There doesn't need to be for deep roleplay, cause it makes sense in the narrative world milieu that a character can do so.

Thus, when deep roleplaying, the narrative world milieu has a larger impact on the course of events than the system mechanics do.

Another example, player plays a tiefling. Uneducated goblins think the character is an actual demon, yell about it, scream about, and act accordingly, whether it be aggressive, "kill the demon! focus on the demon!" or it be submissive "We'll do whatever you want oh great demon lord!"

In deep roleplay, narrative and world milieu is the primary consideration above and beyond mere mechanics.

Thus, light roleplay is to play a boardgame and dress it up with some rp. Heavy roleplay is to rp, and use mechanics to support the play (mainly by easing communication, adding tension via uncertainty, and avoiding unpleasantness by reducing the gm's role in determining success and failure).

Additionally, it heavily impacts player agency and expectations.

In chess, you have some agency, but it is well-defined and limited and while your opponant may surprise you with their strategy, they will never take an action that exceeds your expectations.

In heavy rp, you can do anything that makes sense in the NWM.This gives infinitely more agency than can be found in chess, and can indeed have actions be taken that exceed expectations that you never thought of despite seeing the logic in retrospect.

While both these style can generally use the same rules, the rules can benefit one style more than the other.

My biggest issue with pf2 is that focuses so strongly on "light roleplay" that it is harder (though not impossible) to use for heavy roleplay, and it is visible throughout the design that the designers expect and desire "light roleplay" but not heavy roleplay.

And the unpleasant fact, for all the folks that claim to be in the middle, nearly all are strongly on one side or the other.

This is important because most modern rpgs are either focusing on light rp or they reduce mechanics (I think this is because many players want heavy rp but don't feel right using heftier mechanics in any fashion other than light rp. They constrained by the rules for some reason.).

I like having mechanical support, but for supporting heavy rp. I like supportive mechanics, but I don't like mechanics being the central focus.

[The Sideromancer]

See, I would disagree. Having properly unique characters under light roleplay requires that the mechanics accommodate said characters. From where I'm sitting, PF2 requires heavy roleplay to make up for the gaps in the mechanics when it comes to playing interesting characters.

[UncleG]

The Sideromancer wrote:

See, I would disagree. Having properly unique characters under light roleplay requires that the mechanics accommodate said characters. From where I'm sitting, PF2 requires heavy roleplay to make up for the gaps in the mechanics when it comes to playing interesting characters.

I agree.

[Mathmuse]

One of my jobs as a GM is to translate the heavy roleplay, "I flip over the table and duck behind it," into light roleplay, "Okay, that's an Athletics check to flip over the table. And then it gives you partial cover."

I learned in Pathfinder 1st Edition to interpret some freeform actions as skill checks and others as combat maneuvers. In Pathfinder 2nd Edition, it will be skill checks, attack actions, and skill-based attacks. "I snatch the Sceptre of Dragon Control out of his hand," becomes, "That would be an Disarm roll using your Thievery." I hope that freeform actions become an official part of the rules. If not, they will be a houserule.

[Vic Ferrari]

Mathmuse wrote:

One of my jobs as a GM is to translate the heavy roleplay, "I flip over the table and duck behind it," into light roleplay, "Okay, that's an Athletics check to flip over the table. And then it gives you partial cover."

I learned in Pathfinder 1st Edition to interpret some freeform actions as skill checks and others as combat maneuvers. In Pathfinder 2nd Edition, it will be skill checks, attack actions, and skill-based attacks. "I snatch the Sceptre of Dragon Control out of his hand," becomes, "That would be an Disarm roll using your Thievery." I hope that freeform actions become an official part of the rules. If not, they will be a houserule.

Yes, we don't want characters feeling locked into actions, as can happen in 4th Ed, even though there are improv rules.

[magnuskn]

You'll get a lot of flak for this post from the people who usually disagree with the premise. I agree with the basic premise in the way that PF2E papers over character weaknesses with its universal level bonus system. That makes it very hard to pretend your character has those weaknesses. Which goes to the point the Sideromancer is making, you actually need to self-pretend much harder that your character is physically weak, who nonetheless is so good at magic that he can contribute to a party of adventurers. Somewhere along the way to level 20 that paradigm disappears, due to the way attribute distribution works in PF2E.

[Vic Ferrari]

magnuskn wrote:

You'll get a lot of flak for this post from the people who usually disagree with the premise. I agree with the basic premise in the way that PF2E papers over character weaknesses with its universal level bonus system. That makes it very hard to pretend your character has those weaknesses. Which goes to the point the Sideromancer is making, you actually need to self-pretend much harder that your character is physically weak, who nonetheless is so good at magic that he can contribute to a party of adventurers. Somewhere along the way to level 20 that paradigm disappears, due to the way attribute distribution works in PF2E.

Yes, and the ability score increases are a tad excessive for my liking.

[LuniasM]

magnuskn wrote:

You'll get a lot of flak for this post from the people who usually disagree with the premise. I agree with the basic premise in the way that PF2E papers over character weaknesses with its universal level bonus system. That makes it very hard to pretend your character has those weaknesses. Which goes to the point the Sideromancer is making, you actually need to self-pretend much harder that your character is physically weak, who nonetheless is so good at magic that he can contribute to a party of adventurers. Somewhere along the way to level 20 that paradigm disappears, due to the way attribute distribution works in PF2E.

Pretending you have a weakness (ie "can't swim" or "is bad at directions") is as simple as saying you auto-fail on those rolls or writing a lower number on your sheet. The Voluntary Flaws sidebar on Page 19 already calls out this option for ability scores, so extrapolating to skills or other features isn't a stretch.

[Wolfism]

I actually think the new rules help with interesting roleplay.

The fact that you have the actions per round but a third attack whole possible is very good will get players into the mind set of looking for other things to do with their second or third action like flipping a table over or climbing a chandelier.

There design of combat maneuvers being skill checks makes it easy to think up other ways to use skills on the fly in combat because you know how that works already.

I think the only thing that really takes away from it right now is exploration mode, which is not a terrible idea just overly codified and defined right now.

Edit: Also the tight math really helps the idea that my roleplayed combat ideas might actually mean something so that I'll actually use them more often. If climbing a chandelier and jumping on an opponent gives me a circumstance bonus on my one attack that actually matters in the round I get a significant higher chance of getting a crit, and vice versa for flipping a table for cover. That means it feels good to do as a player and I'm actually a lot more likely to actually do interesting actions that interact with the world. I love that.

[magnuskn]

LuniasM wrote:

Pretending you have a weakness (ie "can't swim" or "is bad at directions") is as simple as saying you auto-fail on those rolls or writing a lower number on your sheet. The Voluntary Flaws sidebar on Page 19 already calls out this option for ability scores, so extrapolating to skills or other features isn't a stretch.

The actual point I was making was that in 3.X/PF1E you could build characters with actual weaknesses which didn't get better until the end of the campaign, just with the actual rules. If PF2E, you can't, you have to pretend that the characters still have those weaknesses.

[Crayon]

Wolfism wrote:

I actually think the new rules help with interesting roleplay.

The fact that you have the actions per round but a third attack whole possible is very good will get players into the mind set of looking for other things to do with their second or third action like flipping a table over or climbing a chandelier.

There design of combat maneuvers being skill checks makes it easy to think up other ways to use skills on the fly in combat because you know how that works already.

I think the only thing that really takes away from it right now is exploration mode, which is not a terrible idea just overly codified and defined right now.

Edit: Also the tight math really helps the idea that my roleplayed combat ideas might actually mean something so that I'll actually use them more often. If climbing a chandelier and jumping on an opponent gives me a circumstance bonus on my one attack that actually matters in the round I get a significant higher chance of getting a crit, and vice versa for flipping a table for cover. That means it feels good to do as a player and I'm actually a lot more likely to actually do interesting actions that interact with the world. I love that.

While that sounds truly horrible to me, like an even slower more cumbersome version of 4e's diseased combat engine, I'm far more curious why/how people are correlating combat tactics with roleplaying? The two are concepts are almost completely unrelated as far as I can tell...

[Gavmania]

Crayon wrote:

Wolfism wrote:

Also the tight math really helps the idea that my roleplayed combat ideas might actually mean something so that I'll actually use them more often. If climbing a chandelier and jumping on an opponent gives me a circumstance bonus on my one attack that actually matters in the round I get a significant higher chance of getting a crit, and vice versa for flipping a table for cover. That means it feels good to do as a player and I'm actually a lot more likely to actually do interesting actions that interact with the world. I love that.

While that sounds truly horrible to me, like an even slower more cumbersome version of 4e's diseased combat engine, I'm far more curious why/how people are correlating combat tactics with roleplaying? The two are concepts are almost completely unrelated as far as I can tell...

Swinging on a chandelier is more of a trope than an actual combat tactic. What swashbuckling adventure isn't complete without the hero swinging on a chandelier (or rope, or curtain, etc.)? In the real world, doing this would mean placing yourself in an unbalanced position with little control and an inability to shift in response to your opponents moves - in other words, it's a horrible combat tactic. It is however a powerful roleplay moment and should rightfully be rewarded for getting into the spirit of the game.

[LuniasM]

magnuskn wrote:

LuniasM wrote:

Pretending you have a weakness (ie "can't swim" or "is bad at directions") is as simple as saying you auto-fail on those rolls or writing a lower number on your sheet. The Voluntary Flaws sidebar on Page 19 already calls out this option for ability scores, so extrapolating to skills or other features isn't a stretch.

The actual point I was making was that in 3.X/PF1E you could build characters with actual weaknesses which didn't get better until the end of the campaign, just with the actual rules. If PF2E, you can't, you have to pretend that the characters still have those weaknesses.

The thing is I don't see how pretending to have a weakness is particularly difficult or an obstacle to a fun experience. It can be as quick and painless as informing the group about your decision and writing a lower number on your character sheet. I have yet to see a GM refuse to allow someone to be worse than normal at something so long as it wasn't disruptive.

That said, I'm not too familiar with PFS so if That's something they forbid then I could see that as a problem.

[Interesting Character]

It'll be a few hours before addressing the other stuff, but I had to address this now,

Mathmuse wrote:

One of my jobs as a GM is to translate the heavy roleplay, "I flip over the table and duck behind it," into light roleplay, "Okay, that's an Athletics check to flip over the table. And then it gives you partial cover."

...

There is NO translating into light roleplay, you translate into mechanics. The fact that you have to translate is what makes it heavy roleplay. You have to translate because the players are looking at the NWM (narrative world milieu) for making choices.

Light roleplay has no translating because the players are looking to the mechanics for making choices.

There are players out there, lots of them sadly, who will never flip a table without a mechanic for it, even though they will accept it as a valid action. They will never think of it themselves precisely because it is not defined within the mechanics which are the foundation of their decision-making process.

There are other factors, but to simplify a bit, essentially, if you have to translate actions into mechanics then you are heavy roleplaying, but if players are telling you what mechanics they are using and never needing translating, then that is light roleplay.

[PMárk]

LuniasM wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

You'll get a lot of flak for this post from the people who usually disagree with the premise. I agree with the basic premise in the way that PF2E papers over character weaknesses with its universal level bonus system. That makes it very hard to pretend your character has those weaknesses. Which goes to the point the Sideromancer is making, you actually need to self-pretend much harder that your character is physically weak, who nonetheless is so good at magic that he can contribute to a party of adventurers. Somewhere along the way to level 20 that paradigm disappears, due to the way attribute distribution works in PF2E.

Pretending you have a weakness (ie "can't swim" or "is bad at directions") is as simple as saying you auto-fail on those rolls or writing a lower number on your sheet. The Voluntary Flaws sidebar on Page 19 already calls out this option for ability scores, so extrapolating to skills or other features isn't a stretch.

Lots of games use advantages/disadvantages, merits/flaws, positive/negative qualities systems for decades. Would it be out of the question here? Negative feats, you could pick, which give you some other benefit in return? Extra xp, extra other feat, something like that?

After playing a lot of those games, I actually miss opportunities like that, for reflecting negative character quealities in mechanics in a codified way. Having old characters, characters with disfigurements, characters who grew up in a dessert and can't swim, etc.

[neaven]

PMárk wrote:

LuniasM wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

You'll get a lot of flak for this post from the people who usually disagree with the premise. I agree with the basic premise in the way that PF2E papers over character weaknesses with its universal level bonus system. That makes it very hard to pretend your character has those weaknesses. Which goes to the point the Sideromancer is making, you actually need to self-pretend much harder that your character is physically weak, who nonetheless is so good at magic that he can contribute to a party of adventurers. Somewhere along the way to level 20 that paradigm disappears, due to the way attribute distribution works in PF2E.

Pretending you have a weakness (ie "can't swim" or "is bad at directions") is as simple as saying you auto-fail on those rolls or writing a lower number on your sheet. The Voluntary Flaws sidebar on Page 19 already calls out this option for ability scores, so extrapolating to skills or other features isn't a stretch.

Lots of games use advantages/disadvantages, merits/flaws, positive/negative qualities systems for decades. Would it be out of the question here? Negative feats, you could pick, which give you some other benefit in return? Extra xp, extra other feat, something like that?

After playing a lot of those games, I actually miss opportunities like that, for reflecting negative character quealities in mechanics in a codified way. Having old characters, characters with disfigurements, characters who grew up in a dessert and can't swim, etc.

The trouble there is that there will just be cries of "minmaxing" and "powergaming" when people take disadvantages to get advantages. Even if the system is done well, there's a certain very vocal segment of any playerbase who won't be able to stand the idea of weaknesses providing any benefit whatsoever.

[Tridus]

neaven wrote:

The trouble there is that there will just be cries of "minmaxing" and "powergaming" when people take disadvantages to get advantages. Even if the system is done well, there's a certain very vocal segment of any playerbase who won't be able to stand the idea of weaknesses providing any benefit whatsoever.

Yes, this is an unfortunate reality. 3.5 had a flaw list in UA and most of them were so minor or irrelevant to a character that if they were allowed, it was common to take a couple that caused no real problem and then get a couple free feats out of the deal. Straight up min/maxing.

Whenever I run a game, obviously anyone can take any negative they want. If they want a mechanical benefit for doing so, they have to sell me that it's going to be a real mechanical detriment to them. That means none of the published ones, but I've seen some really creative custom ones. If you want to do it for just RP flavor, then fill your boots.

One weird thing I do find right now is the lack of negatives in general, though. Like, is it even possible by RAW to have a Human in PF 2e with less than 10 in any stat? That's clearly no longer "average", it's the floor. Other races have specified penalties, but that's pretty limiting.

The idea that a Human PC isn't bad at anything does kind of shine through in 2e more than previous editions. While a PC can deliberately work around it, the game's mechanics really push away from that as a goal.

[ChibiNyan]

Interesting Character wrote:

It'll be a few hours before addressing the other stuff, but I had to address this now,

Mathmuse wrote:

One of my jobs as a GM is to translate the heavy roleplay, "I flip over the table and duck behind it," into light roleplay, "Okay, that's an Athletics check to flip over the table. And then it gives you partial cover."

...

There is NO translating into light roleplay, you translate into mechanics. The fact that you have to translate is what makes it heavy roleplay. You have to translate because the players are looking at the NWM (narrative world milieu) for making choices.

Light roleplay has no translating because the players are looking to the mechanics for making choices.

There are players out there, lots of them sadly, who will never flip a table without a mechanic for it, even though they will accept it as a valid action. They will never think of it themselves precisely because it is not defined within the mechanics which are the foundation of their decision-making process.

There are other factors, but to simplify a bit, essentially, if you have to translate actions into mechanics then you are heavy roleplaying, but if players are telling you what mechanics they are using and never needing translating, then that is light roleplay.

It is one of the strengths of 5E, where most activities are not condified and the Advantage/Disadvantage system can be used to quickly adjudicate any unexpected situation. When doing something weird, the book just says "Pick the closest skill and try with that, maybe change the ability score mod." which works math-wise because of the unified system.

Pathfinder 2E also has an unified system, which means that anything you try or the DM comes up with will have sensible odds (Melee attack vs a save or a skil DC, skill vs AC, etc). This would in theory improve the Heavy Roleplaying experience of the game, however, the playbook of PF2 is very codified as you say, so you can't even try to do most things without a feat or something. There's also little in the way of GM adjudicaitng situations that aren't covered. The biggest offender here is Exploration rules, but otherwise it's the same as PF1.

Pathfinder being a high customization game has nothing to do with how the game supports light/heavy roleplaying. Even in heavy roleplaying, characters still follow the basic mechanics and internal logic of the game (My character is good at this skill because of the high bonus, he's agile because of high DEX, he can't use magic because he's not a wizard, You probably can't catch arrows mid-air without the feat). There is still a lot of things you can include without affecting that paradigm, just as long as you don't use it to gate off mundane abilities.

So my conclusion is that light/heavy roleplaying is independent of how many options the game offers, or even how crunch heavy it is. The limitation is how heavily codified it is regarding actions and situations. This is usually done to prevent common situations from becoming unbalancing (Darkness, ambushes, wilderness exploration, some maneuvers like disarm) because of GM fiat.

[Staffan Johansson]

neaven wrote:

The trouble there is that there will just be cries of "minmaxing" and "powergaming" when people take disadvantages to get advantages. Even if the system is done well, there's a certain very vocal segment of any playerbase who won't be able to stand the idea of weaknesses providing any benefit whatsoever.

The best solution I've seen is that disadvantages provide some form of meta-gaming currency when they challenge you. Ideally, the currency should be something temporary - in PF2 terms, hero points would be better than XP.

That way, you can't use the disadvantage to min/max because you don't get any benefit from the disadvantage right away, and the benefit you get from it down the road is directly proportional to how troublesome it actually is.

The finest implementation I've seen of this is in Dresden Files (at least in theory, as I haven't managed to get around to playing it). It is based on the FATE rules, where Aspects are an important thing. An aspect is simply a statement about your character - it could be a belief, a quote, or whatever. In a situation where an aspect could provide a benefit, you can spend a Fate point in order to invoke it. For example, you might have an aspect "Heir to the Ewing family fortune." You could spend a fate point to get a bonus to buying stuff (because you're rich), or get in to some social event (because of high social status), or to impress someone, or something like that. But there can also be situations where an aspect could be detrimental. For example, what if a person you meet was swindled out of their land by your dastardly father, so they have it in for the Ewings? Or maybe your family expects you to attend a social event instead of doing something useful. In a case like this, the GM suggests that they get to invoke the aspect, and if you accept you get a fate point. If you decline, you have to pay a fate point.

This is combined with a system where you start each session with a minimum of X fate points, where X is a number based on the campaign's power level, minus some amount due to cool stuff you can do. This reflects that power usually comes with a price, so people with fewer and less mighty powers usually have things go their way.

Each character is strongly recommended to have a mix of mainly positive, mainly negative, and double-edged aspects.

[PMárk]

Tridus wrote:

neaven wrote:

The trouble there is that there will just be cries of "minmaxing" and "powergaming" when people take disadvantages to get advantages. Even if the system is done well, there's a certain very vocal segment of any playerbase who won't be able to stand the idea of weaknesses providing any benefit whatsoever.

Yes, this is an unfortunate reality. 3.5 had a flaw list in UA and most of them were so minor or irrelevant to a character that if they were allowed, it was common to take a couple that caused no real problem and then get a couple free feats out of the deal. Straight up min/maxing.

Whenever I run a game, obviously anyone can take any negative they want. If they want a mechanical benefit for doing so, they have to sell me that it's going to be a real mechanical detriment to them. That means none of the published ones, but I've seen some really creative custom ones. If you want to do it for just RP flavor, then fill your boots.

One weird thing I do find right now is the lack of negatives in general, though. Like, is it even possible by RAW to have a Human in PF 2e with less than 10 in any stat? That's clearly no longer "average", it's the floor. Other races have specified penalties, but that's pretty limiting.

The idea that a Human PC isn't bad at anything does kind of shine through in 2e more than previous editions. While a PC can deliberately work around it, the game's mechanics really push away from that as a goal.

I get that, but there's a lot of min-maxing in the game already. Would it hurt so much?

Otherwise, yes, in those games (WoD, or Shadowrun, for example), you could abuse the system, picking flaws you'd rarely play out, or are insignificant and then take the best merits with the extra points, or extra powers, etc. I definitely see the problem. But is it more broken, than broken feat combos? Also, I don't think it can't be remedied with a a good system. Maybe it's not a 1 negative for 1 positive feat situation. Maybe it's something like minor negatives, which are more like inconveniences, or stuff coming up rarely, but you only get a small xp boost for them, or you get a feat for two of them, or something. Then you'd have major negatives, which are feat-for-feat, but will definitely come up and hamper the character. Oh and there should be an upper limit of how much you can get from either.

I don't know, I just say I enjoy that aspect of those other games and miss it in D&D and it's relatives, if they are not present. I'm not th kind of guy who picks "severe phobia of pink unicorns" to get "immune to blood bond" in return, but I like to take one or two flaws, if it fleshes out the character concept more. I just like my character's concept being reflected mechanically and not just being window-dressing, that's part of why I play crunchy games, like PF, or Shadowrun and got bored by D&D 5e very quickly.

[neaven]

ChibiNyan wrote:

It is one of the strengths of 5E, where most activities are not condified and the Advantage/Disadvantage system can be used to quickly adjudicate any unexpected situation.

You see, that to me is a tremendous weakness of 5e from a player perspective. I have no idea whether A) my action will even be allowed to happen by the GM because there's nothing in the rules to cover that situation and B) my action will be interpreted in the way I intend it to be by the GM. On top of that, the "well you figure it out" irks me as a GM, because it means I need to invent the rules for far more stuff that could have just been codified to begin with. That sort of resolution mechanic should be for a small amount of corner cases IMO, not huge swaths of the game.

[PMárk]

PMárk wrote:

Tridus wrote:

neaven wrote:

The trouble there is that there will just be cries of "minmaxing" and "powergaming" when people take disadvantages to get advantages. Even if the system is done well, there's a certain very vocal segment of any playerbase who won't be able to stand the idea of weaknesses providing any benefit whatsoever.

Yes, this is an unfortunate reality. 3.5 had a flaw list in UA and most of them were so minor or irrelevant to a character that if they were allowed, it was common to take a couple that caused no real problem and then get a couple free feats out of the deal. Straight up min/maxing.

Whenever I run a game, obviously anyone can take any negative they want. If they want a mechanical benefit for doing so, they have to sell me that it's going to be a real mechanical detriment to them. That means none of the published ones, but I've seen some really creative custom ones. If you want to do it for just RP flavor, then fill your boots.

One weird thing I do find right now is the lack of negatives in general, though. Like, is it even possible by RAW to have a Human in PF 2e with less than 10 in any stat? That's clearly no longer "average", it's the floor. Other races have specified penalties, but that's pretty limiting.

The idea that a Human PC isn't bad at anything does kind of shine through in 2e more than previous editions. While a PC can deliberately work around it, the game's mechanics really push away from that as a goal.

I get that, but there's a lot of min-maxing in the game already. Would it hurt so much?

Otherwise, yes, in those games (WoD, or Shadowrun, for example), you could abuse the system, picking flaws you'd rarely play out, or are insignificant and then take the best merits with the extra points, or extra powers, etc. I definitely see the problem. But is it more broken, than broken feat combos? Also, I don't think it can't be remedied with a a good system. Maybe it's not a 1 negative for 1 positive feat situation. Maybe it's something...

I'm not a fan of FATE and games like it, narrative games are simply not my cup of tea, for various reasons (hint: not because of a liking for powergaming, or playing just tactical combat). Regardless, I like the hero point idea, I'm okay with hero points (or edge in SR, or WP in woD). Still, there should be a metric of how "severe" the flaw is, snce it will cause problems and imbalances, if one character gains a lot more hero points, just because her flaw comes up more frequently.

Regardless, owning your flaws and doing heroic deeds, in spite of them and hampered by them is... well, heroic, so hero points feel appropriate.

[avr]

There's games where flaws only give you hero points, or some equivalent, when they come up. In Seventh Sea you pay some of your character-building points (not the reverse) to have a flaw that works that way.

[Mathmuse]

Interesting Character wrote:

It'll be a few hours before addressing the other stuff, but I had to address this now,

Mathmuse wrote:

One of my jobs as a GM is to translate the heavy roleplay, "I flip over the table and duck behind it," into light roleplay, "Okay, that's an Athletics check to flip over the table. And then it gives you partial cover."

...

There is NO translating into light roleplay, you translate into mechanics. The fact that you have to translate is what makes it heavy roleplay. You have to translate because the players are looking at the NWM (narrative world milieu) for making choices.

Light roleplay has no translating because the players are looking to the mechanics for making choices.

My example above is mechanics. I tend toward bare-bones description as a GM, especially during combat, because imagining the thoughts and tactics of the NPCs consumes most of my brainpower.

When I remember to be descriptive, is it light roleplaying? "You rolled 18? Okay. With a kick, you knock the table over. Cups go flying, plates smash except for one lone plate that rolls across the room, and the pitcher of beer creates a puddle on the floor. You hear the innkeeper yell, 'You'll pay for those dishes!' You drop to your knees behind the table and realize that those knees are exposed by the curve of the round table. You pray to your gods that you don't end up with an arrow to the knee."

(I play too much Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and steal its lines.)

As for making choices, rule negative one at my table is that if a tactic amuses the GM, then it has a chance of working. In the Pathfinder playtest, a wizard summoned a bloodseeker (we call them stirge) against a quasit. The bloodseeker's only attack is "Melee barbed legs +6 touch, Effect attach." Attach says, "When a bloodseeker hits a target larger than itself, its barbed legs attach it to that creature." A quasit is the same size as a bloodseeker. The wizard's player had an ingenious idea to nullify the quasit's ability to turn invisible, and the bloodseeker's abilities were too narrowly written to allow it. I ruled that the bloodseeker could make a normal grapple at +6 against the quasit, who could also attempt to break the grapple normally. Because narrative is fun.

[Seannoss]

To me the difference between light and heavy role play has to do with the players and the GM. The rules are just there for random chance its the living people that effect RP.

[Dalzarin]

Having just run Raiders of Shrieking Peaks, I have a thought on this topic. It was an investigation heavy scenario, and we finished up rather early. (It helped that players rolled well on a particular section to speed things up, but it was going quickly anyway.) The RP was definitely tending towards the 'mechanics focused light RP' as defined in the original post. This surprised me a little, because as a GM, I think I tend to lean towards more RP, and deeper, when I have the chance.

Now, part of this might be possible to lay at the feet of the system...but I think in our case most of it lay with the fact that it's a fairly complex system, and we don't know it yet. We don't have the kind of solid expectations we do of the well-trod 1st ed. So I have to be suggesting the kind of skills players might roll to get certain pieces of information, because the scenario specifies many such they might try, and it would be hard for them to guess what might be included. If they might remember something based on Society or Nature or Circus Lore, it seems only sporting that say "Hey, you might want to Recall Knowledge on that."

I'm not sure it'll be possible to judge yet. The fact that there are a lot of very codified mechanics might stand in the way of deep RP; but I suspect it will be a lot easier when all of us are not playing the game with the manual literally in our laps trying to get the rules mastered.

[Knight Magenta]

I think Light vs Heavy roleplay is as much up to players as what the system allows. We were playing a starfinder adventure where we encountered an enemy that thought that we were the villains and was attacking us. We spent a good two rounds just soaking its hits while we tried to talk it down. I even used mindlink to try to speed up the diplomacy!

I like to think of this dichotomy as "Roleplay does not stop when I am in combat." Sure the goblins don't react to the tiefling, but you, as a player can try to weave that into your interactions. Maybe you spend actions to say "I am a great demon lord, bow to me!" And the GM can adjudicate that appropriately. But the street goes both ways!

[Vic Ferrari]

neaven wrote:

ChibiNyan wrote:

It is one of the strengths of 5E, where most activities are not condified and the Advantage/Disadvantage system can be used to quickly adjudicate any unexpected situation.

You see, that to me is a tremendous weakness of 5e from a player perspective. I have no idea whether A) my action will even be allowed to happen by the GM because there's nothing in the rules to cover that situation and B) my action will be interpreted in the way I intend it to be by the GM. On top of that, the "well you figure it out" irks me as a GM, because it means I need to invent the rules for far more stuff that could have just been codified to begin with. That sort of resolution mechanic should be for a small amount of corner cases IMO, not huge swaths of the game.

I agree, though most most things in 5th Ed are codified (Attacks, AC, saving throws, ability/skill checks, etc, the usual stuff), it even has optional rules for Climbing onto a Bigger Creature, and other variants. It just happens to be very easy to adjudicate ad-hoc situations, not that they will come up that much, they haven't in my experience. 5th Ed is sort of like 3rd Ed Lite, IME.

[Tridus]

PMárk wrote:

I don't know, I just say I enjoy that aspect of those other games and miss it in D&D and it's relatives, if they are not present. I'm not th kind of guy who picks "severe phobia of pink unicorns" to get "immune to blood bond" in return, but I like to take one or two flaws, if it fleshes out the character concept more. I just like my character's concept being reflected mechanically and not just being window-dressing, that's part of why I play crunchy games, like PF, or Shadowrun and got bored by D&D 5e very quickly.

Yeah I sympathize. That's why I allow them on a case by case basis in my games. But that's pure house rule territory.

I don't really have a good solution that is both standardized and not open to abuse. It's a case where optional rules are good - then a group can decide if this is a thing they want to have or not, and those who want the experience of playing that way can get it.