The conflict of two styles of RP - the Story and the Exper..

[Hoihe]

Hello!

In my discussions with people, I've noticed a certain trend that seems to underlie most issues concerning consequences and expectations. This trend is the conflict between two usually co-habitable reasons to RP that have a few issues that put them at stark opposites of each other. These two reasons to RP are to tell the story vs to experience the setting. As with all conflicting ideas, people rarely if ever truly fall on either side entirely and as a consequence we can treat this as a spectrum.

On one end, the end that I believe the most forum goers and people I talk with out of the game to approach, we have those who play the game to tell some grand and fantastic tale - where characters are merely chess pieces to move the plot onwards.

On the other end, where there aren't as many people as on the other but there's still some presence, are those who play to experience living in the setting they roleplay in. In our case, it's the Forgotten Realms setting. I personally fall on this side.

To understand the Story-end, we must take the extreme of that idea. An individual falling purely on this side with no interest in the "life" aspect will hold no more attachment to a character than George R.R. Martin holds for one of his characters. The choice of GRRM as an example could be replaced by any other book author, for people on this side of the coin will in essence act like collaborative authors on a grand series of novels, working in tandem with their co-authors to create the best story they can - even if it means that they have to forfeit their own participation by sacrificing their voice (permakilling their character) for the greater good of the story's integrity. In essence, the existence of their character holds no essential role in their enjoyment of the ability to roleplay. They find no enjoyment in "filler RP" - where the story goes no where, merely existing to explore the characters or the setting.

On the other hand, to understand the Life or Character end, we once again must take the extreme. If any of you are familiar with the recently popularized stories concerning a person reading a book, watching a movie or playing a video/tabletop game winding up literally trapped within the story as one of the characters, then you are mostly familiar with what the extreme paragon of this side wishes to experience. In essence, the extreme paragon roleplays to lose themselves as a real life individual and don the identity of the character they roleplay as to experience life from their perspective. While not all of us are spectacled, I'm sure we all understand the idea behind putting on the wrong pair of glasses and things appearing off. The same idea applies to to this side. While the intent is to experience the world as if living in it, the manner of living hinges entirely on the mask they don. As such, the existence of their character is the focal essential point when it comes to enjoying roleplay. Their favorite type of RP is "filler RP" - having absolutely no care about the story progression so long they get to live in the setting as their character.

For realistic examples between these two paragons of their ideologies,

One can think of a person who argues for permanent death because they believe it is critical for the stories they seek to tell. Sure, they still play for escapism and choose to play as characters they believe to be enjoyable; but at the end of they day they can always just make a new character as long as the sacrifice was worth it for the story. They will happily do filler RP, but will always try to turn it into something that advances the plot.

For the other, one can think of a person who argues against the very idea of permanent death because it requires them disproportionate sacrifice for the potential enjoyment they can derive from it. They may, when they possess a sufficient stability and energy, comply with the idea of permanent death; it will still be a major net loss for them. Creating a new character is a chore and investment of energy with uncertain results. They will mostly do filler RP, even when participating in scenes whose sole purpose is to drive the plot forward, they will strive to find ways for it to satisfy either the exploration of the setting or the characters within.

Onto the character design of the two end points,

Those who seek to tell a story have a pretty simple process for designing a character, centered especially around the idea of reducing net loss and investment to ensure they can freely sacrifice anything for the purpose of the story. For them, a character must satisfy three factors: Plot relevance, Intractability and impact. Plot relevance is self-explanatory, Intractability is the maximization of designing for extrinsic enjoyment (you cut my arm off? No worries, I can weave that into a greater story) and impact is the insurance that their actions or lack of thereof will leave a mark on the collaborative story. Almost always a story-teller will choose a vat-grown character over an organic one simply due to the fact that a vat grown-character costs less investment.

Those who seek to experience a setting have to deal with a more involved character design process to avoid being accused of Mary Sueism and self-insertion. The primary goal of such a character is to provide its player with unique perspectives that shape their reactions to the world around them. To achieve this end, such a character must fulfill three key aspects. These are Past/Potential Experiences, Personality/Perspective and Social Circles.

There are two means to achieve these factors,

The factors involving story-telling are for the most part unaffected by these two choices, although plot relevance usually requires a vat grown characters, unless they wish to gamble. Naturally, nobody is a true GRRM when it comes to RPing, nor are they purely Sword Art Online wannabes, so they will seek all 6 qualities. While the first 3 are unrelated to character development styles, the second 3 are definitely related to them.

One is a vat grown character - one already gives them the key experiences they're looking for in an enjoyable PC; and as a consequence due to pre-existing personality, they will also decide the perspective with which said character. The only mutable factor remains the social circles, which can be pre-decided thanks to OOC cliques once again. Generally speaking, these characters can be viewed as the likeliest to suffer from self insertism or mary sue syndrome. Due to the high risk of such, and the immutability of these characters, their RP tends to be less enjoyable for both the player and the community.


The other is an "Organic" character. They work by the idea of planting a seed. One gives them a single or maybe two relevant high-impact past experiences to help provide an initial perspective for the designed personality. OOC Cliques are still a problem, but due to the relatively low amount of high-impact past experiences, perspective and personality become highly mutable once high-impact past experiences start to accumulate and compound their effects once the character is "live". These characters tend to be the most life-like and enjoyable to interact with and play. However, due to their very high investment borne from the fact that not every route the character takes is enjoyable and to control these routes is to godmod your character's life; the fact that one will find themselves rolling out multiple such seeds at once and cull them until one or two develops in such a way that their enjoy-ability is maximal; such characters will hold disproportionately high value for their player, making their loss require story-events to hold more value than the sum character AND the creation of a new character would.

As clearly visible, those on the "character" side of the reasons to roleplay both derive less enjoyment from the progression of plot and invest a disproportionate amount of effort into creating a character, borne from the effort it takes to create a mutually enjoyable one. Loss of said character will require them the loss of the original investment and the reinvestment to create a new one. Should they choose to invest less, then objectively speaking their new character will be less enjoyable for both them and the community.

However, even those on the story side who are not paragons of their ideology will find themselves, given an infinite participation in the campaign, will naturally err on side of minimizing investment in proportion for enjoyment. It will definitely take longer for it to occur than for Character-Side ers, but it will invariably happen.

In summary, introduction of permanent death will invariably lead to a degradation of quality of enjoyment, of quality of characters and of quality of RP. This is due to the fact that nobody is purely GRRM when it comes to RPing, and such they will start creating lower quality characters to maximize their enjoyment in proportion to their investment. Permanent Death can only exist in campaigns with definite ends for normal people, in book stories. For persistent campaigns, everyone would need to be GRRM for it to remain enjoyable for all.


Thank you for reading.

[Sun Wukong]

And once again, the best and truest type of role play is ignored... The long grind to achieve mechanical in game superiority!

[Hoihe]

And once again, the best and truest type of role play is ignored... The long grind to achieve mechanical in game superiority!

That aspect is irrelevant to the conflict regarding permanent death where RCR and muling exists. If RCR and muling didn't exist, then they'd be on the "against" side. Barring enjoyment of progress, then vice versa.

[Sun Wukong]

No, it is really not irrelevant.

I can recall the days when there was no RCR and muling on the server.

There was no RCR mechanic, so if you wanted to start over in order to fix or adjust a character, you had to start anew from level one or ask a DM to delevel you.

As for muling, the server was so unstable that it could crash and burn at a mere moment's notice. Not to mention that with largely just +1 and +2 equipment available, there was not such a great incentive to even risk muling things over.



Oh, and there is nothing wrong with permadeath as long as it is left for the player to decide. For example it is a player choice to rain down meteor spell in the streets of Baldur's Gate or at the burning bunghole of the Friendly Armn Inn. It is a player choice to axe their character at first PvE or PvP loss.

[Arn]

Once I finished reading Hoihe's post, I was like, "...Dang. I used to think there should be more DM-enforced permadeaths. But this is a pretty well-thought out argument against it. Well played, Hoihe, well played."

I think I fall more on the character/life side of the spectrum myself. I would sacrifice my characters for the sake of the story, but I would feel at a bit of a loss afterwards.

Then I would probably default to the "role play" Wukong's talking about.

I think Hoihe means that on a server where it's easy to just recreate the same character mechanically, permadeath doesn't mean as much of a loss. As things are now, it's pretty easy to recreate a build after permadeath. But the RP of the old character is still gone.

[Calodan]

I have never been for forced permanent death not done by DM strike rule already in place.

I am however more in favor of DMs using this more often and as such being more liberal in what loot is at the end or during the crawl you are on with them.

I would fully welcome more challenge and permanent death strikes if they were used as a way to enhance my experience. For me it is the danger of that strike first. Then a strong second would be that under this chance of me actually dying for a long time on a strike and then forever on a 3rd strike I would like to see some pretty damn nice gear given to those who risk this....

I as a RP player never enforce any permanent death. Has my 1 PC who is now a little more better built for all situations on BG to include PvP now done things to other PCs that could make them die permanently? Yes, Yes that PC has but I make it clear that what I did was for RP reasons of my PC and that only they could enforce permanent death or not. What the gods do or don't do is entirely up to imagination at times.

Have I enforced a permanent death on my own PCs? Yes I have. It was just appropriate and I liked the RP up to their death. It was a fitting end and I let my captors have their day in the sun....Though it did cause more of an eclipse than a day in the sun....Ha ha! EVIL WON BY MARTYRING! Thanks AOS! My PC died a Martyr for the cause of evil and was evil. What more fitting end could there be? It was so epic in my mind I could not justify him walking around a week later.

Point being though the choice was mine or theirs to make. For our PCs. I think this is the best approach.

[Steve]

I think Hoihe is writing his end exams essay for Bachelor of Gaming Studies!

[Reckeo]

I think there is a player base whose primary focus is mechanical superiority, where they attempt to make the most powerful (broken/manipulative) build, and then try to develop a 'role play' explanation around explaining their in game choices (albeit poorly).

I would think on average, many people do this to a varying degree, and why not? It is a fantasy role-playing game. If you want to explore the world and see everything it has to offer (epic content), a certain level of functionality is required, and this requires meta-game knowledge in order to make it workable. I have an epic level toon that cannot visit epic level content without a full party due to his low ac.

I fall into the category of 'character concept' first, mechanical depiction second. Sometimes during the planning process, the character concept takes some alterations, and it ends up becoming a life of it's own. The character 'concept', would be the stage of initial conception and that begins with some notion of what I would like my character to be able to do in-game, via the mechanics. I definitely try to avoid 'power-game' or broken mechanics, as I find them to be very boring in terms of game mechanics (a crossbow sniper halfling is just....ugh, to me in terms of RP, but very powerful mechanics wise). Sometimes on the level-up screen, I see something new and make a different choice. Sometimes it really hurts my build, sometimes it opens up entirely new ideas and I roll a new character to explore the mechanics and create characters I never thought of.

As for perma-death, there are rogue-like games for that. In a fantasy world where raise dead and resurrection scrolls are available, magical temples, clerics and healing spells, this is a world of High-Fantasy, not low-magic like Conan or even more grim like Game of Thrones. The idea of entering different planes of existence, magical spells, deities and demi-gods that walk among the world, places this into the realm of 'the characters in game notion of mortality would greatly deviate from our real world conception of it'. I liken the idea to role playing a character that has an in-game notion that they are living in a simulated reality not unlike living in the 'matrix', they are unable to explain what they are experiencing, but they know something is 'off', and in game-wise, while the world is supposed to be 'real' to them in game, ultimately it is purely a simulation (in our reality), thus they would be the closest to being 'correct' in a fantasy-role play/reality 4th wall sense (as long as you didn't take it too far). This is a bit off topic, and there are even philosophers and scientists who agree that in the real world, we are in fact living in a 'simulation' whether computer generated or otherwise. I recommend Jean Baudrillard.



Everyone has a different idea in their mind of what entails a 'fantasy realm' in direct contrast to an individuals 'reality'. 'Forgotten Realms' is the setting, and the rule system is Dungeons and Dragons, but everyone is exposed to different ideas of what 'magic' means in their real world psych. Harry Potter, Magic the Gathering, Once Upon a Time, Game of Thrones, Bewitched, Star Wars, science fiction, horror elements, these all curve-tail into what an individual is influenced by when depicting a notion of what it means to 'play a character'. The very notion of mortality has been curbed by the fact that spells can heal 'wounds'. The very notion of 'hit points', is fantastic in its mechanical element as a more experienced combat veteran is no more likely to survive physically than a green recruit: a lethal shot or stab wound is a lethal shot or stab wound regardless of time spent and experience. A level 20 soldier is just as likely to die to a level 4 who gets a lucky crit as a level 1 soldier is. Lethal is lethal, and dead is dead. I've read the mechanical system designed around the 'Game of Thrones' universe, and it captures the 'mortality' aspect very well. As you level up, you don't really gain a lot of hit points, if any. Hit points are generally static upon character creation, and while you may take feats etc to increase survivability, a lethal blow is a lethal blow, and thus combat is VERY lethal and VERY brutal, and there is little to none magical healing, let alone raise dead mechanics. The characters that survive the longest, are the ones in heavier armor that hide behind an army of characters who will die and fight FOR THEM; this is demonstrated well in the GRRM universe, as the characters who survive longest are the ones that avoid combat altogether (Unless you're Jon Snow and get shoe-horned Hollywood resurrections).

Are there certain players that develop the most powerful mechanical build, level it to 20+, then try to 'push around' pvp wise other players with threat of 'my character will kill you and you will perma-die or be perma-disfigured' or else you are a crap role player? Of course there are. The server is made up of people, who make up the players, and undoubtedly some of these people suffer from various mental health issues/social problems and will try to force this upon players under a guise of RP (I think you mentioned this in another thread). In no way is anyone else inclined to agree or 'play-along' with such a notion, nor is it an indicator of 'role play' ability, or anything else for that matter other than one player trying to force something upon someone else (which if anything is in effect it's own lack of role play/player respect). This type of behavior happens DAILY in the real world, and there will ALWAYS be behavior like this that will bleed over, even into fantasy RPG games, xbox chat rooms, etc. There is a simple rule for this: What happens in one players fantasy world mindscape is not enforceable upon anyone else's, regardless of what happens in-game mechanics wise, nor is it an indicator of role play excellence.

It seems you are talking about the above mentioned concepts: Fantasy realm mortality, and character depiction/mechanics. I've seen characters 'role play' raise dead spells as draining and very length processes for their characters to perform. I've seen players treat it like its just another day in a fantastic realm full of magical wands, wizards, goblins, faeries, and dragons. Some players act surprised when they see a druid shape-shift, some players act like 'ah, its just another druid'. This could be reflective of a 'new to adventure and the world' character, or a seasoned 'I've travelled the realms and know about magic' adventurer.

As players, we are 'enforcing' the notion of real world mortality and loss into a high-fantasy realm where mortality is much more subjective, and not so irreversible. Raise dead, resurrection etc, these are common things in a world of high magic, so the impact to us, as players, doesn't result in a "Walking Dead" or "Game of Thrones" OMG SHOCKER THEY DIED moment. Permanent disfigurement and permanent death would only be truly possible were there no longer easy access to raise dead/regeneration magic.

To me the very notion of mortality of a character in the Forgotten Realms setting is more fantasy than the notion of magic itself.

[aaron22]

hoihe, that was a very well written and thoughtful and thought provoking article. while reading i took an introspective view of my own play and what I do. not what i want to do, but what i have actually done instead. what i think i want and what i actually do, do not always match up.

while i believe that your view is very good, i seem to be somewhere in between the two sides. And not in a way that allows me to be in a percent in the middle of the spectrum. It seems I am more hot or cold on contradicting sides instead of warm.

I will call one side story and the other setting for ease of understanding.

ex.
-(Setting)I RP my characters from a first person POV. I try to be my character and channel feelings and experiences i did not have in real life, but in make believe, to create a realistic response from my character.

- (Story)I HATE idle RP. I would prefer meaningless chatter to be an assumed task like wiping gore from an axe and taking a piss. Boring.

-(Story)I prefer Perm death. to me this creates a more real and dangerous world. the excitement of playing with this in the setting is unsurpassed. consequences of actions is a true measure of playing in the setting style RP.

- (Setting) I do not RP to fulfill a story. I let the story be created as I play. how the dice roll and how every encounter and every decision are the lines being written. This allows every one's story to be created at the same time. Understanding fully that I am not a protagonist or antagonist but both and neither at the same time. I am the setting for some and not for others. I may not even be the protagonist in the story that I am experiencing through my character.
When I create something inside my own head that goes further than my next action, I retcon any thoughts of such hopes and wishes because I know that is an unrealistic falling of a million dominoes to fulfill. that holding on to hopes such as these will do nothing but cause disappointment in my character's development.

So while i think this breakdown is thoughtful, I also feel it is too narrow. people are so different that perspectives can be equally different. and these perspectives dictate so many factors that casting inside molds might be too linear in thinking.

good article though and appreciate you sharing your insightful thinking.

[Hoihe]

Thanks for the responses thus far!


Regarding fear of permanent death,

I would like to note that the OOC lack of permanent death doesn't preclude its IC lack. Meaning, even if you OOCly know your character won't remain lost, this knowledge is not available to your character. As a consequence, your character and play will remain tense and dangerous, and controlled by fear of death. The mere difference is in deciding whether you want to boot the game up or not. If you OOCly know your investment won't go to waste, you can freely do your best.

For example, your character will abandon their post causing the attempt at winning the campaign to fail, or even causing the entire plotline to result in a "bad end" simply because they didn't want to die, or because they wanted to ensure someone doesn't die. This with the pure understanding that these fears are OOCly unfounded.

If the above makes sense.

[Reckeo]

I think 'death avoidance' could be a character motivation, of course. But even IC, in a world where magic is commonplace, the notion of death being irreversible is not as ingrained into our characters as it is to us in the real world.

Could permanent death be an end result for a character? Sure...but is it going to be guaranteed that if one falls that they will not be 'raised' from the dead? Definitely not, and I believe most characters may know this in game, however the degree by which one may be resurrected would be conditional to the events leading up to the death. A death by magical disintegration or old age or starvation would be different then say, getting clobbered to death and mauled by a giant's club (broken kneck, crushed ribs etc). Mechanics wise, it is not different as far as I know. Your character spawns a res-able corpse, and any character can use a 'raise dead' scroll, or you can go to Fugue and talk to Death and respawn with an XP hit.

This is where the translation from PnP, role play, etc becomes one of mechanics vs player desire to continue. There are plenty of times a death can occur due to lag, a broken mechanic, etc, since it is an online video game.

I think in Pen and Paper, death has much more potential to be permanent than on the BG server, as there are plenty of elements and conditions that just simply cannot be transferred over into a video game. In Pen and Paper, if your character gets knocked out, they are down and out and for most intents and purposes, one would assume for the most part, that the foe that dropped them would cease hostilities under the impression that one is already dead (pending on the foe, of course). Unless being eaten whole by a dragon, or burnt to a ash (leaving no corpse), or lost at sea etc etc. These possibilities *kind of* exist on our server, but difficult to implement in everyday non-DM events.

For example, a character that is going into a dungeon, could easily tell their friends "Hey, I'm going to XXX location, I'll be back in a week". Said character doesn't return from said location, it is not implausible that such a characters 'brave friends' would send a 'search party' to said location, clear it out looking for their friend, find their corpse, bring them back and res them. Or after a battle, priests bring back those who were not 'fully dead' but on the brink, to a healing house where they can heal from their wounds. In a world where magic is available, the non-permanence of death in certain situations could also add to the bravery of certain characters in a sense of....

"This may be my final death....it may not be...should I fall...maybe I shall return, maybe I won't."

I would consider this IC knowledge.

Do I believe that if I were to drown that someone could use CPR to resuscitate me? Not as much as an in game character would believe they could be risen in a temple or by a cleric.

In the example of a character making a 'sacrifice' that would be more notable; would be for example, a brave paladin fighting off a dragon and distracting it while the other party members retreated; the paladin dying the process, and the others only able to escape due to the paladins actions, and the corpse being un-retrievable thus un-res-able; the distinction of the character provides a rare opportunity for the player to act the brave noble sacrifice in knowing that the possibility of a res, even in a magical world where such things are possible, will be highly unlikely, but that through his sacrifice the party will not wipe thus ending in everyone dying. But if everyone died and the party did wipe, would the perma-death be role played by everyone involved?

I agree with your assertion that in order for perma-death to have significant meaning, it must be enforced by everyone for it to bare true significance. The party example above could also always try to come back with more help in a 'corpse retrieval' quest to return the brave paladin to glory, but again, would that deprive the significance of the characters actions?

[MrPsion]

I really enjoyed OP and I respect the amount of work that went into it though I disagree. For the premise to hold true we should surely be able to observe that on other RP platforms that do not feature resurrection and where death is always final that the characters not be detailed and there will not be quality RP In comparison to this platform.

I submit the world of darkness chat, wantonwicked.net as proof by negation.

What matters most to me has always been dramatic conflict which is to say conflict in which both parties have real and relatable stakes. If I am killed in a dramatic conflict I personally choose to permanently end my PC's life. I leave whether I have put effort into fleshing out my PC to those who have reviewed my bio and journal threads.

[Hoihe]

I really enjoyed OP and I respect the amount of work that went into it though I disagree. For the premise to hold true we should surely be able to observe that on other RP platforms that do not feature resurrection and where death is always final that the characters not be detailed and there will not be quality RP In comparison to this platform.

I submit the world of darkness chat, wantonwicked.net as proof by negation.

What matters most to me has always been dramatic conflict which is to say conflict in which both parties have real and relatable stakes. If I am killed in a dramatic conflict I personally choose to permanently end my PC's life. I leave whether I have put effort into fleshing out my PC to those who have reviewed my bio and journal threads.

You are then defined as "Story over Setting", and find the main purpose of RP to be the simulation of conflicts. Simplified, the progression of a plot.

Regarding quality of character, I am going to assume that for everyone there exist a few key points that a long-term enjoyable character must have. If this key point doesn't exist, it feels like a chore and there's a disconnect OOC and IC. I'll leave the possibility that this key point needn't exist in every PC they have, but there must exist at least one that possesses at least one of the key traits.

To obtain these key traits, you can either pre-design a character to possess them. These characters will end up feeling unrealistic and uncanny. When pre-designing, you are in essence creating a robot or an algorithm for interaction. If X happens, then because of Y in the pre-fabricated backstory, Z must happen, unless E overrides. Because a player has finite imagination and extrapolation ability, this list will be incomplete. However, because the character is pre-fabricated, there will be the pretense that the list is complete and thus will be filled with robotic responses.

Organic character development means you do NOT pre-fabricate the character with these keypoints. Instead, you decide whether to play a character that actively pursues these, or is passively set up to be vulnerable to obtain said trait. Furthermore, you limit the amount of background this character can have, and as a consequence limit the "algorithms" for reaction. And, as final consequence, while you will still be using algorithms, the player's ability to extrapolate is instead replaced by genuine reactions with aid from other people at the setting. Due to the fact that these reactions are genuine, these characters will feel more like real people.

Both are high quality writing. However, one is fit to be a chess piece in a plot, while the other is set to be a pseudo-living being. If you lean more on the "Setting" side of the spectrum, your attempts to pre-fabricate will lead to more and more cookie-cutter molds in attempts to maximize your enjoyment for your investment. By synthethically adding traits to a character, you are forced to write more grandiose backstories, which forces you to have a more developed perspective out of the box, which forces you to create "robotic responses."

And finally, the amount of pre-fabricated background is conversely proportional to how "interactable" a character is. If someone has a highly detailed background, an event of equal magnitude will influence them less than someone with more focus on organic development.


Permanent Death forces you to try to ensure each character is enjoyable -> More backstory tacked on -> More perspectives decided at the drawing board -> Character has less room to develop.


Now, I will concede that a long-living organically developed character suffers from the same issues as a young "pre-fab" when it comes to room for character development. However, especially if it's a passively driven character, their perspectives and experiences will feel more natural still.

[YourMoveHolyMan]

The closer the story approaches to depth, to creative and fantastical or realistic life, the sooner you must take into account that there ought be some representation of the unexpected, chaos, and entropy, counterbalanced with a characters experiences, push towards society/law, and growth.

As I understand it, both of your views Hoihe take into account that the story, and setting, are both completely in the control of the parties involved. Even if through different ideologies and methods.

[aaron22]

The closer the story approaches to depth, to creative and fantastical or realistic life, the sooner you must take into account that there ought be some representation of the unexpected, chaos, and entropy, counterbalanced with a characters experiences, push towards society/law, and growth.

but not only that, but the unexpected should be expected as that is the trend. and it will be frequent and without boundaries.

unless you can isolate yourself inside of a group that will dictate all variables and keep the story focused upon a singular path deflecting the constant barrage of outside variables that will be thrown in the way. I am not apart of such communities inside the community, but could fathom such an existence even if i am not privy to such knowledge.