Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 27 - Role vs Roll Playing

Episode Date: June 28, 2020

What is the difference between roll and role playing?  How should players and GMs approach the balance between the two?  Thank you Trevor in San Antonio for the topic idea!

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Taking 20, Episode 27, Role vs. Roleplaying. Our sponsor for this evening is Mitochondria. I know what you're expecting me to say here, and no, that's not going to happen. Please subscribe and rate to us on iTunes or Google Play or wherever you stumbled on this idiot that's talking into a microphone. This is likely going to be a fairly quick episode, but it's an important topic to discuss. By the way, thank you Trevor in San Antonio for the topic

idea. We've had a late rush of downloads from Texas for whatever reason, but no matter, wherever you are, thank you so much for listening. Roll versus role playing. I'll spell these out going forward so that hopefully it'll eliminate some of the confusion. The difference is rolling some dice versus playing a roll. With ROLL playing, players are more interested in the math or dice aspect of gaming. ROLL playing loves the combat and skills aspect of gaming. ROLL playing loves the combat and skills aspect of gaming. It's the math of it. Rolling dice is more important than the social or character aspects.

Dice determines everything, with maybe limited modifiers to the rolls for good acting, but with purely ROLL playing, that never comes into play. ROLL playing is the crunchier aspects of the game. Tactics in ROLL playing is key because the variety really comes from combat. So if you're GMing a group like this, that means that not every combat should be a slog of standing still and swinging a weapon. In order to provide variety and a good player experience, you need to vary the battlefield. The range, the environmental challenges, combat, and the dice rolls really are key here. ROLL playing, by the way, harkens all the way back to first edition Dungeons & Dragons written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

The first editions of these RPGs they experimented with were based on miniature wargaming, which was all about dice rolling. Social encounters were pretty much non-existent and remained so until advanced Dungeons & Dragons came out, with each class getting a certain number of non-weapon proficiencies. Skills, if you will. So this form of ROLL playing uses dice to determine battle and attack outcomes with maybe limited social interaction. Contrast that with role playing, R-O-L-E playing, you're more interested in the narrative, storytelling side, and getting to know the characters. R-O-L-E playing encompasses more social interactions, plots, schemes, alliances,

maybe even an entire campaign built solely around finding the prince a suitable spouse. With ROLE playing, the players love character arcs, see episode 23, plot, see episodes 17 and 18, and telling a good story maybe even more than combat and skills. Sometimes entire gaming sessions of ROLE playing groups will go by without even the dice coming out of the box. Successfully GMing this type of group means you need varied NPCs with different backgrounds, different voices, different attitudes, and being able to clearly communicate their motivations. Now, every single player and GM and campaign and table is different. and campaign and table is different. So players, you may have watched Critical Role online and you want that exact type of role-playing experience. Before you jump both feet into a campaign, make sure you start asking questions about how much ROLE playing versus ROLL playing will be

involved. Make sure this lines up with the type of group that you would like to participate in. If so, fantastic, hop in and have a good time. But if not, you may need to look for another group. GMs, one of the things you may need to suss out in the initial interviews of your players is where they want that balance to be. Ideally, everyone wants about the same balance. It makes it easy to keep everyone happy. But more than likely, they're going to be on different levels or scales, if you will, of where they want that balance to be. So you may have to constantly juggle how much ROLE playing is in the campaign versus ROLL.

As I mentioned, each group is different. I'm currently running two full campaigns and a miniseries for an online group whose DM had to step away for a bit. One campaign and the miniseries are heavier ROLL playing. It's crunchy, lots of dice rolling, very few of them want to say, oh well I want to act out exactly how I negotiate for a better price. The other is more ROLE playing. There are a lot of interactions, a lot of talking in character voices. Talking to the players, those are the types of campaigns they wanted to be in. I love both types of campaigns equally, so I'm happy running both. One of those campaigns and the miniseries is more varied with the types of environments the players in, the type of baddies that they fight, the type of fights that they have, and the strategies being used by the bad guys.

The other campaign has Glimitwist the Nereid, Gladronoth, Lord of the Black, and Magnus the Great. Combat tends to be simpler because the players want to get through that quickly and get back to the R.O.L.E. playing. By the way, as an aside, the distinction between the two is largely academic. Most campaigns have some level of mix. Both types are fun. No one should ever tell your group the way you're having fun playing D&D is wrong. When it comes to tabletop gaming, don't yuck someone else's yum. For practical purposes, pre-made adventures may have a lot of one and not the other. The GM can improvise, see previous episode, to fill in the other that's missing and make your gaming group happy. Your premade adventure may be crunchy dice rolling and not a lot of social interactions. Your GM has to improvise NPCs and their motivations.

Otherwise, the adventure may be social heavy and your GM has to improvise, make adjustments to combat to make it more tactical and challenging. One of the campaigns I'm running, by the way, is the Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rain of Winter. A couple of my players came to me and they wanted more interaction with NPCs, and a vast majority of the NPC interactions I've given them have been positive because the PCs are running as generally good guys and they want to help people. Not all interactions have had positive outcomes though. There was a minor NPC who started interacting with the characters more. Through a complicated series of events that would take way too long to explain, including a reincarnation, she died. They met another NPC who they also reincarnated, but unfortunately because of the dice roll, this creature reincarnated into a vastly different body.

They brought this NPC back to the first NPC so that they could take care of each other. The second resurrected creature could not handle the vast shift of bodies and had a major psychotic break. She killed the first NPC, stole some stuff, and disappeared. But I'm sure they'll see her again at some point. So how do you mix the two? How do you mix R-O-L-L playing with R-O-L-E playing? If your group is mostly R-O-L-L playing, but they want to introduce some R-O-L-E playing, introduce it in small batches, maybe with brief social interactions.

One of your players says, I want to intimidate the gate guard. Great, what do you say? Now observe the player's reaction and really listen to what they have to say. If you feel like that player's R-O-L-E play was well attempted, even if it's not well done, you may choose to give a bonus to their intimidate check. But use this with caution. Players have different comfort levels with acting, and some may feel like they're being left behind if you do this. Numerical advantages within a system can help encourage ROLE play, but make sure they're equally available to all. Notice the phrasing I used, by the way. If the ROLE play was well attempted, not necessarily well executed. If you have a player who's been on

stage before, yes, they could do a great job with ROLE play. See here, minimum wage worker. We are working for your boss. If you do not let me and my friends into this town, we will beat you black and blue and drop your unconscious urine-stained body on the City Watch Captain's desk and demand your firing. DM. Not bad. Plus two on the intimidate roll. Side note. Or just adjust the difficulty class of the check behind the screen, the number they need to roll, to succeed. But don't hold players new to ROLE playing to that same high standard. to ROLE playing to that same high standard. In the online miniseries group, there's one person who isn't comfortable ROLE playing, but she expressed to me that she wanted to improve and wanted to experience a little bit of it. We had the same scenario come up, and I asked her

what her character says to the village gate guard. She was quiet for a minute, and then in a very soft voice, she said, um, if you don't open this gate for us, I'm going to punch you into your toes bleed. After a good second of silence, the entire table laughed uncontrollably. I think she thought we were laughing at her because she shrank a little bit, but everyone else was very quick to praise her for the good R-O-L-E playing. I said, very well done, plus five to the intimidate check, let's see what you get. So tables are a mix, and different players feel comfortable at different levels of R-O-L-L versus R-O-L-E playing. The live plays that we watch, the podcasts that we listen to, likely wouldn't

be as compelling changing up that mix of ROLL versus ROLE playing. Critical Role, for example, does a lot of ROLE playing. Why? Because number one, the players have natural charisma and their acting skills really show while they're ROLE playing. Plus every single one of them is stupid attractive. It's not freaking fair. All of them are good looking, smart, and have great personalities. Fark you, universe. I look like I live under a bridge and have regeneration until you hit me with acid or fire. Um, I may have gotten a little sidetracked there. Sorry. Um, actually, I need to pause for a second because the three billy goats gruff are coming by. Your gaming group is not critical role, even if they are stupid attractive.

Your players may not want to ROLE play their characters as much as you see on Critical Role. They may be just as happy focusing on combat more than character development. I'll say it again. Your gaming group is not Critical Role. Your DM is not Matthew Mercer. Chances are your DM doesn't have 500 voices he or she can draw on to make all these NPCs sound different inside a world that they completely devised on their own. Your DM might have exactly three voices and is running an adventure using source books from Exandria or

Galarian, The Sword Coast, or Kryn. That's okay. Chances are you've seen Critical Role or another Let's Play show or podcast. If you haven't, I highly recommend it. Watching one may have even gotten you into RPGs. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, not every GM runs their table like Matt Mercer, Deborah Ann Wohl, or Troy LaVallee does. If you replaced Matt Mercer with Matthew Colville in Critical Role, I'm sure the game would be just as compelling, but would have a completely different feel to it. Not better, not worse, just different. It might become more tactical and less character-driven. The players might be different because some of them wouldn't enjoy a game focused more on tactics and less on characters.

You don't have to run your RPG exactly like they do, like Glass Cannon, Relics and Rarities, or The Chain. All these campaigns feel very different, and while they're all amazing in their own way, your campaign can be very different and just as amazing. Should you borrow good ideas? Absolutely. The first time I watched Critical Role and one of the players knocked the last creature to zero hit points, Matt Mercer said, How do you want to do this? to get the player to describe the killing blow? I let out an audible as in I said out loud, fuck, that's brilliant, and I wish I'd thought of it. I immediately incorporated it into big fights. I don't always

use it, but the players usually cheer when they hear it. When it comes to role versus role playing, communication is always key. Players and DMs need to talk about the type of RPG they want to be a part of. Each one should try to find groups that want a roughly similar experience to reduce friction. In short, find that group, be you the DM, and make your campaign what your party wants it to be. Or, be you the player, find your comfort level of role versus role playing and have fun doing it. If you liked what you heard, by the way, please check out some other episodes and head on over to www.taking20podcast.com. Trevor, I hope this covered the topic exactly the way you would like. I'd love to hear some feedback from you. Let me know how I did. Once again, I want to thank our sponsor,

the mitochondria. It's the powerhouse of the no, no, no, I'm not going to say it. You can't make me. Nope. My podcast, my rules. Thank you so much for listening. This has been taking 20 episode 27 role versus role playing. And I sincerely hope that your next game is your best game.