The objective of roleplaying is to have fun. I haven't played for years, been the GM instead. When GMing I am more comfortable when I have the facts straight: if the game is on Harn I need to have pretty good picture of the social dynamics, trades, classes and law. When the game takes place in 1800-century Scotland, I prefer knowing the major NPC:s, professions, technology, fashion, etc. When playing in a science fiction setting, I need to think through the effects of hi-tech on the society, employment, law, companies etc. To turn this around, I won't GM unless I have these sorted out.

Now, next week I have the opportunity to play. Clearly, the GM -- though creative and talented -- does not share my zeal to the details. Well, I am not that bad, but you know what I mean. For the first time I am worried, whether the world we play in will give a response to the characters' desires, background, and . I know the setting we are about to take on is somewhat unfamiliar to all of us, and it will be hard for the GM to wing everything. It will be vague and ad hoc, maybe illogical at times, I am afraid. It is like you reach the yellow borderline of the playable world saying "do not cross".

Is it really worth all the fuss about the facts when the point is to have fun? Is it worth carving a complex character when you in a sense see the world in more detail than the GM? Am I making sense? Do you ever have doubts like this?

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Running: AD&D / When a star falls
Running: MERP / Woses of the black wood

That's exactly why I haven't played since the early 80s, just GM'd. Because that yellow line, as you put it, ruins the game for me every time. I love the detail of making PC who has ambitions, flaws, and interests, and I never had a GM who shares that interest. Plus, I like long-term campaigns, and those are rare in the areas I've been in. However, I've found it easier to find players who are interested in such a campaign.

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43 sessions, 183 hours 'at the table' in a Harn containing the much-feared potâtoe!

12th Knight, 8th Constable, 2nd Baron of Harn(Forum)

I'm in the same boat! But in my case I am trying to turn a blind eye to things and enjoy the game one of my players is running.

On the plus side i have high hopes for the game that Daisho is going to run with Spartan and I as players!


Gothmog

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Ok, let me get this straight. These guys come in, trash the place, slap Agrik & Larani around, and the most intelligible thing they said was "Zog!"?

Watch Spartan like a hawk; the man has a twisted mind.

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43 sessions, 183 hours 'at the table' in a Harn containing the much-feared potâtoe!

12th Knight, 8th Constable, 2nd Baron of Harn(Forum)

Flattery will get you nowhere.

-Mark

P.S. I just might .sig that, DT.

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Putting the "Ho" in Hodiri since 1998.
The Forge: Western Martial Arts

Indeed.

Goddamn Albertans.

E.

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Blessed is the Father, his coming and his going,
all the turns of the Cycle, down the endless ages.

The point is to have fun. If you believe that you will spend many hours wanting to develop a character and rich background, then figure out how to have a little input into the shared creative process. I've played and GM'd for years, and I too have found myself at the opposite end of a GM who had a more 2D world than I am use to. Instead of frustrating my own creative desires, I took what information my GM could give me, and tried to weave some detail into my own background. I didn't try to drive the campaign, just flesh out elements my GM was floundering on.

my 2d

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A moment is the most you can ever expect from perfection.

No Albertans here... I be a Maritimer, laddie! Which are generally more twisted. And look sharper in kilts. By God, it's time for a Keith's. Which is pronounced "Keets". But not by me. :drinking:

-Mark

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Putting the "Ho" in Hodiri since 1998.
The Forge: Western Martial Arts

Well I was born in Ontario... but no one is perfect!
besides... the best thing east of Alberta is the road going west!

Gothmog

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Ok, let me get this straight. These guys come in, trash the place, slap Agrik & Larani around, and the most intelligible thing they said was "Zog!"?

Since this is sort of a pet peeve of mine; let's explore it more.

I'll agree with the purpose (I think), but not the exact words. The objective of roleplaying games is not to have fun - it's to experience something. Having fun sounds like having jolly good time - I disagree with that, it's like saying that the only good movies are comedies, since you're having fun watching them. You might not have as much fun when watching a movie (or reading a book, or whatever) that makes you feel uncomfortable, scares the knot out of you or presents themes that make you feel outright sick.

In the end, it might still be a worthwhile experience. Usually even more so than watching a comedy, which has a few good puns - might even be witty, but doesen't really have too much content beside that.

Not that there's anything wrong with comedies, mind you.

Same goes, at least for me, for roleplaying games. I don't think it's all about fun, if fun is about being entertained and having good time. It might be about fun, if it's about somewhat broader concept - passing that eight hours by experiencing something that moves you deeply, wheter that thing moving you is hilarious, dramatic, sad, hatefull - whatever.

There. Said it was my pet peeve.



Depends. I'm not too keen about nitty-bitty facts, like that all the castles in Harn should look like they're from a certain period of our history. If GM says that there's a castle with, say, seven towers, then fine. I probably won't even notice.

For me it's more about internal consistency. Things have to make sense (not necessarily to the character, though - I'm sort of a sucker for certain kind of absurd mysteries), and the world has to act like it would be a real world. Not our world, but the one GM is trying to potray. The characters should feel like they're part of the world, if they've spent their life there. Things shouldn't happen just because, well, they're part of some obscure plot, but because there are reasons for them to happen. The reasons might not be outright obvious, but they should be there. And player should be able to trust the GM to do the thought-work beforehand.

I would be a bit alarmed if I'd be going to game with people I wouldn't know beforehand, where the GM describes the game with something like "Well, it's fantasy, u know. You'll be adventurers. The other folks have made a mage, a cleric and thief - just roll up your character and bring it with you, we'll start playing at 6pm".

It might be good, but unless I knew that the GM was capable of running such things, I'd be a bit alarmed.

But when it comes to details and facts as such - I'm not that keen with them. It's good to have them, but if the GM is good and other players are good, I can do without them. I can make them up for my part as I go on.

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Merten at iki dot fi
Currently on hiatus of unknown length.

Hmmm...your definition of "fun" is a little limited, merten.

"Fun" to some people is being flogged with a whip. In fact they have so much fun they tend to... well, you know where this is going.

Perhaps it might more closely fit your definition if the phrase were to be changed to "The purpose of role playing is to enjoy oneself". It may be excrutiating agony, but if you can look back on it with pleasure, then you enjoyed yourself...in other words, you had fun.

My take is that roleplaying is an excuse for a social gathering of your friends and for everyone to enjoy themselves. If that's exploring a dark dimension that is unlike your own nature, or just revelling in being included in a close-nit group (either in reality, or in game), or as you put it, experiencing something, then the objective or purpose has been accomplished.

One of the things that makes role playing enjoyable for me as a player is that I get the opportunity to watch a fictional character that I've created grow as a "person", become more complex and eventually reach a stage where I can no longer play them, because they have become a distinct personality. They they appear from out of the back-story of the campaign usually in some subtle but powerful way, and occassionally, they get taken for a spin in a full-blown adventure.

I've got PCs that are 15 years old, have grown, aged, married, had children, built houses, become businessmen, or even powerful behind-the-scenes manipulators. All through, they've grown and advanced in skills, and in personality. That is, they've become more real. Hell, half of them have e-mail addresses; real ones! One's even a member of this forum! (He hardly evey logs in, though. But I guess when you have two wives, and five kids, you get to be kinda busy with other stuff. )

Internal consistency is an absolutely critical factor for me, too. It's the prime ingredient in the "suspension of disbelief" that is such a necessary part of any successful entertainment, whether it be an RPG campaign, a book, a movie or TV show, or a play. If you come up against something that makes you go "Huh? Wait a minute; that doesn't make sense!", then for you, the entertainment is marred, because you are no longer immersed in the story. Dragons flying about breathing fire may make no sense when viewed externally, but within the context of a fantasy story, they are such an integral part that you accept them. But if the fantasy environment has a huge, ancient dragon inside a hall with a single man-sized door as the only exit, you are suddenly brought up against something that doesn't make sense within the context:

"What does it eat to stay alive?? Surely not wandering denizens, since they'd all have been eaten years ago, or learned to avoid this place."

"How did it get here? Where's all the dragon dung?....."





As a player, you sometimes have to give the GM some elbow room to learn the environment. If you are going to play for the first time in ages, it's going to take some effort on your part to stop you from trying to take over if the GM does things differently to the way you would.

But if you want to keep this person's friendship, you will have to back off, and let them do things their way. As for carving out a complex character, I do that for my own pleasure. I really don't care if the GM appreciates all the hard work I put into the player's back-story and history, because I do it for my own pleasure. But it's also a perfect opportunity for you to create story hooks for the GM to hang an adventure on that involves your PC.

I don't know how many times a chance comment or sentence in a PC's background has been used for a multi-session adventure of epic proporations in our group. And all because I and my friends enjoy creating complex, detailed PCs with extended histories, and lots of quirks and foibles.

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Leitchy
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I know. Apart from being a pet peeve, it's also about sematics which makes it a double-nitpick material.



I could go on and on, but I think we share the common view and just disagree with the sematics. We'll... Leave it to that.



That, there, is a piece of wisdom that needed to be quoted.

Immersion and suspension of disbelief are tricky issues, though, and can be broken up by so many things. Going a bit off the beaten path, here - I've always wondered about the difference of immersion in live-roleplaying games and tabletop games. In latter ones, at least where I come from, Out Of Character speak, bad punchlines and witty quotes from movies are more like a norm than an exception. In the former, though, almost anything that's not experienced by the character, breaks the immersion.

I'd dearly want to experience a tabletop session that would be so, uhh, "immersionistic" that it would be all about being in character. Can anyone claim having succeeded in that?

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Merten at iki dot fi
Currently on hiatus of unknown length.

Only once. I played a few sessions of an AD&D game some years ago where this was the normal mode of play - I found it a fantastic experience. Sadly, though, vanishingly few RPGers are really interested in having such play as an objective

If you are interested in such matters - various styles of play and how to promote/encourage them - you might take a look at the newsgroup 'rec.games.frp.advocacy'. I know the title doesn't sound too preposessing, but a lot of interesting stuff gets discussed there. Be sure to check out the FAQ before posting, tho'.

Look here for some 'RPG theory' stuff by John Kim, the guy who maintains the r.g.f.a FAQ.

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Balesir
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- Eschew Obfuscation!

I've been in few sessions (with the folks I regulary game with) which come close to kind of a total immersion, and been running a few. It's quite usual for such "immersion trips" to go on for few hours (obviously that's mostly social chit-chat playing instead of, say, combat), but that's about the top of it.

Don't know if it should go on longer than that, though - even if I consider live-roleplaying and roleplaying to be quite the same thing, there are still some fundamental differences between their method of immersion and game flow. Most notably the GM.



I have a sort of a "wouldn't touch that with a twelwe-foot stick"-approach on the really theoretical stuff, but I might check that out. The certain "schools" of thought tend to be a bit, umm, sticking too much with their own theory of choice for me.

Then again, the damn theorists have lurked into my gaming group(s) as well...

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Merten at iki dot fi
Currently on hiatus of unknown length.