Beagle:

It's worse than getting xp awards because I'm not required as a player to bother with xp. If I want to, then quotes in gold value are perfectly in character, for the kind of character for which D&D was designed (just read Howard's tales of Conan the Cimmerian sometime).

It's worse because even if I concern myself with xp, I am not required to do anything out of character in play. I acquire treasures and defeat monsters -- or don't -- with my character's resources. I wield a sword or shovel or whatever; I don't wield a bonus that has no relation at all to my character's powers.

As I've said before on these forums, what is OOC depends on the character in question. The Spectre or a Prince of Amber has awesome reality-warping powers. Joss in Dangerous Journeys seem to me as in-character in Aerth as RuneQuest spells are in Glorantha. Ian Fleming's James Bond tallying how many "luck points" he has to spend? I don't see it.

Where's the breaking point? For the designer of Savage Worlds, it was certainty that a figure could not be killed; hence Bennies in that game merely increase the chance of survival. Someone else might consider that too little metagame control, a third person too much.

Beagle: You're setting up a false dichotomy. Nonetheless, look at the kind of game you propose.

No difference between what you get out of the game by not participating versus actively engaging? Really?

That right there looks like your fundamental problem. Fortunately, it's not designed into the classic Dungeons and Dragons game!

First, do no harm. Then you won't have the problem of making a bigger mess trying to fix what you broke in the first place.

Is it your own game you're talking about, or your perception of 4e D&D, or just a straw man, or whst?

Quote from: Haffrung;767775I just don't think you can coax better roleplaying out of people with a reward.

I can say that, based upon my experience, that's not true. I have two players who tend to ignore their character and play their stats. They're surrounded by three other excellent roleplayers, so peer pressure hasn't done anything except make them take a further back seat.

 I have been handing out Inspiration in the past couple sessions. It's a night and day difference with those two players. Last session, the paladin performed a rear guard action while shouting about burning his foes before the undefeated Sun. This is a guy that, before that, has literally said to me "I make a Persuasion check" in lieu of actually role playing.

Quote from: CRKrueger;767869You're assuming that Roleplaying from an external perspective (for reward, as an internal movie or book running in your head, etc) is the same as Roleplaying from an internal perspective (thinking and feeling as the character does).

In the case of the cookie, you're not teaching empathy or consideration because everything (the cookie, better sex, etc) directly benefits the person.  Pleasing their partner is only a means to that end.

You're not going to teach thinking as a character by training someone to think about the character.

If that helps you sleep at night go for it. Inspiration does exactly what it says on the tin for us introverted non sexy,  non charismatic women that aren't thespians. And it does the same for guys in the same position.

Don't even say it doesn't help a quiet person like myself to go outside my shell. It might prove to be less then factual.

Quite simply it helps people to get past simple raw abilities and just be the concept that's in your mind in conjunction with your ideal, bond and flaw. I already know you'll say it's storytelling and you already know I think you're full of it. So give a compelling reason for your view already other then just get lucky or be confident.

Quote from: Marleycat;767988If that helps you sleep at night go for it. Inspiration does exactly what it says on the tin for us introverted non sexy,  non charismatic women that aren't thespians. And it does the same for guys in the same position.

Don't even say it doesn't help a quiet person like myself to go outside my shell. It might prove to be less then factual.

Yeah, teach them how to roleplay behind a narrative metalayer.

The cultish assumption that thespian style is the One True Way irks me.

That -- and all the  metagame baggage it seems to demand -- is just what I  can get playing conventional card, dice and board games.

The special appeal of RPGs is the quality of really playing the game by engaging the world from the role's POV. It's not laying a superfluous performance on top of abstract mechanical actions!

Yet the very speciality is just what thespian/modelers deprecate, while billing the common and superficial non-RPG behavior as the only genuine role-playing.

I tried playing in a game of hardcore thespians. Those three sessions were the dullest 18 or so hours of my frp career, worse even than the 4e experiences that had me barely awake (while the friend who urged me to come along literally fell asleep waiting for his turn).

It was hour after hour of posturing. My character was a fiighter, and the only action he got in was knocking out another p.c. when she tried to attack a fellow  party member. When she woke up, she ran off in a huff. I would call the whole thing juvenile, except I doubt most kids would find it entertaining.

Maybe I could  have had fun if I had a similarly insipid character. Apparently the bone I was throne was being given a magic sword just so a higher-level character (one of the group who were also jointly my mercenary  soldier's employers) could play some pranks on me.

Those players have been together for ages. Everybody knows the cast's soap-opera history. They are all amused by the endless string of trivial pursuits accompanied by flamboyant monologues.

More fun to 'em. But that campaign was not for me.

I don't come for amateur theatrics, even if they're more exciting than "Waiting for Godot" with costumes made of magic items. Deeds are worth more than words. The character of a character is shown in live choices, not in prancing like a prat and offering one's own commentary on it -- unless that really is the kind of character one likes to play.

"Wish-fulfilling story-telling" (with what seem to me pretty dull wishes) is a pretty good description of that.

"A real challenge" describes what I prefer. Keep the choices and consequences coming full steam! That does  not require overwrought characterizations. Figures can act and speak in character   without needing to be  cartoons or have every little move blown up into a Bif-Bam-Pow!-fest.

In fact, I'd say that literally talking in character, first-person, is something I don't miss when it's only an occasional conceit. Hell,  my Elvish and Klingon are so rusty I'd need subtitles anyway!

So I'm getting a few things you don't like, and a few things you do.

You don't like:

1) Play Yahtzee and then tell a story about the dice.

2) Overlong speeches about "look at my awesome character and my backstory"

3) Soap-opera style play

4) Games where nothing goddamn happens

5) "Roll the dice to see how awesome you are"

6) Games that are about wish-fulfillment/power fantasies - usually indicated by low or no risk, right?

So....  I don't play that way.  Most of the things in that list are things I'm uninterested in.  I've never done the "Yahtzee then tell a story" thing, so I can't really comment on it one way or the other, but the rest of your list is pretty much my list of RPG turnoffs.

Quote from: Phillip;767859@ Venger, Beagle, Rob:

Okay, then if you lot show up at my table, I guess I should give you metagame incentives to give up your thespian style in favor of actually approaching the situation from an in-character perspective?

Well, maybe it's to the point here how much more obviously counterproductive that would be! It's easy to see that for each step in that direction, you are required to take a step -- probably a bigger step -- right back into metagaming.

So maybe you would not find that so irritating.

How about if every time you do your Scottish Dwarf schtick, you're required to restate things in the game's technical jargon? Fuck me, once again that's just the kind of behavior Forge-y fans love and not what I prefer.

Funny how a rule that privileges one group isn't inconvenient for that group. As to the rest, well, as Marie Antoinette put it, if they have no bread then they should just have the servants bring cake; what's the problem with those peasants?

I'd like to see what that would look like (the part I put in bold).

Also, you can't stop meta-gaming.  The human mind is too advanced.  No matter how great a DM you are or how many awesome props or how terrific the story, I will continually thinking about the experience as a game in addition to viewing it as "real life except not really me".

So, if meta-gaming is inevitable, why not focus on the things that are most important in a roleplaying game?  Like roleplaying!

VS

Quote from: Phillip;767880I don't see Pendragon's trait and passion rules in the same light as this. In any case, they are internally balanced, so in the same game some players can choose to use them while others don't. (They can still come into play with such things as magic, but the more ordinary use for inspiration is strictly optional.)

 
If by "elevate their game" you mean "get a +1 bonus to anything," then obviously that's what you want. It's no more intrinsic to wanting a game in which things are on the line, than it is intrinsic to wanting a game in which characters make cynical quips, to have them turn into kung-fu master giant robot pandas with heat-ray eyes when they do.


Yes: If what you want is Fate, or Toon, or Hong Kong Action Theater!, or My Life With Master, or Polaris, or Rolemaster -- whatever flavor faves ya -- then do yourself a favor and grab yourself some.

How does this become an argument for injecting a half-assed imitation into the official baseline rules of D&D, a game that has an identity of its own?

Should we also change RuneQuest and Champions into games that copy D&D style classes, levels, hit points, experience points, attack roll/armor class, alignments, etc.? Are we so much richer for quashing so much diversity, another step closer to the ideal of homogeneity that all right-thinking people must by definition long for?

What's wrong with Toon?  It's the ultimate Cartoon Roleplaying Game!

Addressing the larger question, should we change old, familiar RPGs to be more like newer, more innovative RPGs if it results in a better game?  Hells yes!  Of course, what is innovative or better for me might not be so for you.  Them's the breaks.  D&D took a left turn you didn't like.  

VS

Quote from: Phillip;768005I tried playing in a game of hardcore thespians. Those three sessions were the dullest 18 or so hours of my frp career, worse even than the 4e experiences that had me barely awake (while the friend who urged me to come along literally fell asleep waiting for his turn).

It was hour after hour of posturing. My character was a fiighter, and the only action he got in was knocking out another p.c. when she tried to attack a fellow  party member. When she woke up, she ran off in a huff. I would call the whole thing juvenile, except I doubt most kids would find it entertaining.

Maybe I could  have had fun if I had a similarly insipid character. Apparently the bone I was throne was being given a magic sword just so a higher-level character (one of the group who were also jointly my mercenary  soldier's employers) could play some pranks on me.

Those players have been together for ages. Everybody knows the cast's soap-opera history. They are all amused by the endless string of trivial pursuits accompanied by flamboyant monologues.

More fun to 'em. But that campaign was not for me.

I don't come for amateur theatrics, even if they're more exciting than "Waiting for Godot" with costumes made of magic items. Deeds are worth more than words. The character of a character is shown in live choices, not in prancing like a prat and offering one's own commentary on it -- unless that really is the kind of character one likes to play.

"Wish-fulfilling story-telling" (with what seem to me pretty dull wishes) is a pretty good description of that.

"A real challenge" describes what I prefer. Keep the choices and consequences coming full steam! That does  not require overwrought characterizations. Figures can act and speak in character   without needing to be  cartoons or have every little move blown up into a Bif-Bam-Pow!-fest.

In fact, I'd say that literally talking in character, first-person, is something I don't miss when it's only an occasional conceit. Hell,  my Elvish and Klingon are so rusty I'd need subtitles anyway!

I agree.  That sounds like a boring, terrible gaming experience.  What we're doing with inspiration, backgrounds, etc. is not like what you experienced 99% of the time.  

Did you ever consider that inspiration might curtail the hour after hour thespian regalia?  You do your thing in character, the DM gives you a nod or thumbs up or says "you get an inspiration point for that", and then the story moves on.  Shit, get off the pot, get on with the adventure.

Find a different group with different players, try 5e RAW for 2 or 3 sessions and then if you still hate it, you'll actually have a reason... because citing tedious hours spent gaming with overly theatrical d-bags isn't much of an argument.  Those assholes could probably make any of us hate hit points or armor class or even the concept of damage!

VS

Quote from: VengerSatanis;768174I'd like to see what that would look like (the part I put in bold).

Also, you can't stop meta-gaming.  The human mind is too advanced.  No matter how great a DM you are or how many awesome props or how terrific the story, I will continually thinking about the experience as a game in addition to viewing it as "real life except not really me".

So, if meta-gaming is inevitable, why not focus on the things that are most important in a roleplaying game?  Like roleplaying!

VS

no.
Metagaming is the opposite of roleplaying.

One cannot be 100% in the immersed position, but the object in a roleplaying game is to create the most amicable situation towards an immersed, in-character mindset as possible.  That's roleplaying, playing from the position of the character as possible.  The goal is not to expect a 100% in character mind-swap, the goal is to get as much of an in-character mindset as possible.
Ever mechanic that removes you from the in-character position removes you from the 'in-character' position and into the 'player controlling the character' position.

Quote from: LordVreeg;768228no.
Metagaming is the opposite of roleplaying.

One cannot be 100% in the immersed position, but the object in a roleplaying game is to create the most amicable situation towards an immersed, in-character mindset as possible.  That's roleplaying, playing from the position of the character as possible.  The goal is not to expect a 100% in character mind-swap, the goal is to get as much of an in-character mindset as possible.
Ever mechanic that removes you from the in-character position removes you from the 'in-character' position and into the 'player controlling the character' position.

In other words, every single RPG session includes time X divided into...
A: Amount of time spent thinking in character
B: Amount of time spent thinking out of character

Every metagame decision increases B and decreases A.

The percentage of A to B that seems fun will be subjective and different to each person.
Whether a certain decision is A or B is not subjective.

Quote from: tenbones;767893I know you posted that not in a condescending way but in an honest and fun way to explain. Goddamit McBobo - you made me feel young again. Thank you. LOL

:hatsoff:

Quote from: CRKrueger;768256In other words, every single RPG session includes time X divided into...
A: Amount of time spent thinking in character
B: Amount of time spent thinking out of character

Every metagame decision increases B and decreases A.

The percentage of A to B that seems fun will be subjective and different to each person.
Whether a certain decision is A or B is not subjective.

But do note that zero time spent with B means you fail at D&D.  While zero time spent with A means almost nothing, except to those who prefer A, who aren't the target for Inspiration anyway.

Why not add a house rule that in order to pass your Inspiration to another player you have to say something inspirational?  Wouldn't that bring you closer to A, as desired?

Or as others have said, fine, don't use it.  Just stop short of advocating that nobody uses it and there's nothing left to discuss.