"Roleplaying Opportunities"
Right, I'm warning everyone up front it's RANT time.
Let's get some things straight here. . . Bum stats, "bad" classes and "weak" characters are NOT roleplaying opportunities, just like god stats, uber classes and broken characters. Neither is "the bar in town," nor "The King's keep," nor "The HMS Dreadnought." The former are numbers on sheets, and a collection of rules, and the latter are settings in a roleplaying game, but none of them are ever opportunities for roleplay. "Roleplaying Opportunities" by their very nature must be VERBS. Otherwise it is just you simulating your character sitting there, doing nothing, which isn't roleplaying.
"Taking a shit" is a roleplaying opportunity, granted not much of one, and one that is usually not explored either by player omission, or DM reticence to go into specifics on the topic. Usually it's ignored beyond the player saying "I go take a shit." That is what we call a missed Roleplaying Opportunity (usually with very good reason.) There is no information, there is no exploration, there is simply the player declaring an action that on it's own has no significance and that both parties (DM and player) are unwilling to take any further, which makes it usually go unmentioned. To help, a similar action whose potential for roleplay is constantly ignored is "I squish it." Beyond the game rules for combat, and the decision to squish something, all forms of combat are completely ignored as a roleplaying opportunity by your average D&D player. And yet, it is so often sought out and capitalizes so much of our time as roleplayers.
Just look at MMORPG's and any standard RPG's released for videogame systems now, see how focused on combat it is? That is the trap that many games fall into, and play it like a videogame. Heads up fuckers, These are real people in front of you, not some jerkwad overpriced bullshit of a gaming system. There is NO formula, no pregenerated script (usually,) and you can choose to do almost anything. If you're just going to sit and watch while I'm roleplaying, and only join in when a fight starts to totally ignore the roleplaying aspect of combat, you're not roleplaying your fucking spectating, get over yourself and go home to make some room at the table for someone who actually likes to roleplay, you'll be fine gaining levels on WoW or playing Final Fantasy. (Thank god in the games I'm running people actually enjoy roleplaying, or I'd have to start killing PC's a lot.)
Also, do not confuse a board game with adventure-style themes or a card game with levels with roleplaying. I'm talking Descent an Munchkin here, both are the furthest thing you can get to roleplaying (although munchkin is fun in it's own respect.) Munchkin is a comical satire on roleplaying, much like some plays are a satire on life. Neither actually works that way, but they are funny to look at. Descent, on the other hand, takes the worst aspects of roleplaying (canned scenery, combat twinkery, and out of character information abuse,) and fucking idolizes them. It is a living breathing NPE that lasts hours longer than it should. (NPE= Negative Play Expirience, like . . . say . . . Atari's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.)
So what I want to know is, why is it that half our gaming table was diverted into playing that for 6 hours yesterday instead of actually playing D&D. Oh wait, that's right, most of the people playing still don't understand what a "Roleplaying Opportunity" is.
Let's get some things straight here. . . Bum stats, "bad" classes and "weak" characters are NOT roleplaying opportunities, just like god stats, uber classes and broken characters. Neither is "the bar in town," nor "The King's keep," nor "The HMS Dreadnought." The former are numbers on sheets, and a collection of rules, and the latter are settings in a roleplaying game, but none of them are ever opportunities for roleplay. "Roleplaying Opportunities" by their very nature must be VERBS. Otherwise it is just you simulating your character sitting there, doing nothing, which isn't roleplaying.
"Taking a shit" is a roleplaying opportunity, granted not much of one, and one that is usually not explored either by player omission, or DM reticence to go into specifics on the topic. Usually it's ignored beyond the player saying "I go take a shit." That is what we call a missed Roleplaying Opportunity (usually with very good reason.) There is no information, there is no exploration, there is simply the player declaring an action that on it's own has no significance and that both parties (DM and player) are unwilling to take any further, which makes it usually go unmentioned. To help, a similar action whose potential for roleplay is constantly ignored is "I squish it." Beyond the game rules for combat, and the decision to squish something, all forms of combat are completely ignored as a roleplaying opportunity by your average D&D player. And yet, it is so often sought out and capitalizes so much of our time as roleplayers.
Just look at MMORPG's and any standard RPG's released for videogame systems now, see how focused on combat it is? That is the trap that many games fall into, and play it like a videogame. Heads up fuckers, These are real people in front of you, not some jerkwad overpriced bullshit of a gaming system. There is NO formula, no pregenerated script (usually,) and you can choose to do almost anything. If you're just going to sit and watch while I'm roleplaying, and only join in when a fight starts to totally ignore the roleplaying aspect of combat, you're not roleplaying your fucking spectating, get over yourself and go home to make some room at the table for someone who actually likes to roleplay, you'll be fine gaining levels on WoW or playing Final Fantasy. (Thank god in the games I'm running people actually enjoy roleplaying, or I'd have to start killing PC's a lot.)
Also, do not confuse a board game with adventure-style themes or a card game with levels with roleplaying. I'm talking Descent an Munchkin here, both are the furthest thing you can get to roleplaying (although munchkin is fun in it's own respect.) Munchkin is a comical satire on roleplaying, much like some plays are a satire on life. Neither actually works that way, but they are funny to look at. Descent, on the other hand, takes the worst aspects of roleplaying (canned scenery, combat twinkery, and out of character information abuse,) and fucking idolizes them. It is a living breathing NPE that lasts hours longer than it should. (NPE= Negative Play Expirience, like . . . say . . . Atari's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.)
So what I want to know is, why is it that half our gaming table was diverted into playing that for 6 hours yesterday instead of actually playing D&D. Oh wait, that's right, most of the people playing still don't understand what a "Roleplaying Opportunity" is.