The Race to the Bottom in RPGs | Black Lodge Games Podcast
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มิ.ย. 2023
- Today we talk about hostility to actual roleplay at the table. Getting into character is one of the easiest ways to enhance immersion at the table and aversion to it is largely rooted in a fear of embarrassment for bringing a little sincerity to the game.
Cynicism and the hatred of sincerity is a plague on mankind and poisons everything. If you want a better experience at the table, go beyond doing the bare minimum. This doesn't mean you are "method acting" and doesn't require "doing voices", it just requires that you actually get engaged and play a little bit of make believe in the Elf Game. Children instantly know how to do this, so why don't you?
#dndpodcast #dnd #osr #dungeonsanddragons #ttrpg #roleplayinggames - เกม
Dear Ginger Frasier and young Steve Buscemi ; do you wrap your players knuckles if their dwarf drops the Scottish accent from time to time? I don't even disagree with you on principle its just that you communicate your position so poorly you invite this your podcast is just you guys belittling and yelling at your audience, pretending to be big bad edge lords that call everyone garbage.. good luck with that...
Thanks!
Ooph. I get what your saying here and the immersive and "acting" is what role-playing is. But drama clubs don't roll dice at the end to determine the outcome. Anyways. the people who just roll dice and laugh as story time or the opposite the would be the over the top take it to far actors if you will both lose something. I think there's a beauty in the middle of those. Salt and pepper
Stop conflating "Being in Character" with "Using an Accent."
Gotta disagree. You have some good points about letting go and encouraging people to relax and get into character more, but saying "You're WASTING YOUR TIME playing a game the way YOU enjoy it and not the way I enjoy it!" ad nauseum into the camera isn't a compelling argument... it's peak RPG Karen cringe.
@@DrAnac-qh5dci don't think that's what's being said here at all. Like The Last Jedi fans, no one is saying you can't enjoy the things you enjoy, we're just saying that the thing you enjoy is objectively inferior and destructive to the hobby.
I once played in a call of Cthulhu game where everybody including the GM stayed in character. At Lake's camp, it was so freaking cold, that everybody at the table felt like they were getting frostbite even though we were in a hotel room in California. It was more immersive than a movie and a game that everybody involved in will remember for the rest of their life. Wish I could find a group like that to play with regularly.v
I somewhat recently made the dual decisions to stop ever lying, no matter how trivially, and to start being Disney levels of sincere. Huge quality of life improvement in a very short time. I fully agree that to believe "sincerity is cringe" is poisonous and hastens cultural decline.
Word homie.
_Disney levels of sincere_
😬
I think a lot of those ppeople who are opposed to roleplay are people who have been buried and laugh at when young for playing D&D and that was their defence, "man, it's just a game; we just get together, roll some dice, joke around..." Over the years, they internalised that.
SAD!
Yeah, I think that's probably true. I notice people (while playing online at least) will crack a joke as soon as any tension starts building. Kind of the same thing that happens in MCU movies, gotta pop that bubble of tension with a quip before the audience starts feeling anything. They also don't seem to be able to live with any ambiguity. They'll play a Call of Cthulhu scenario and then insist the Keeper explain the whole plot to them after the game is over. They live with this meme-ified version of gaming, don't split the party, rocks fall everyone dies, i'm a dice goblin, etc.
_"Nobody remembers rolling a 20 or Great Cleaving a goblin"_
My experiences have been the opposite, actually. Not in the trivial sense like in the example you gave, but moreso when a player's ability choices made the difference in an extremely dicey situation, or when a critical success was rolled on an otherwise desperate actuon that saved everyone's ass, those moments are remembered more than any RPing my group has ever done.
A "character accent" also has the enormously practical effect of separating your in-character words from your real personal words, which is extremely useful around a table of other people imagining the world together.
I always think the gametable should blend a little bit of everything, including some occasional voices, RP'ing in character. I've never had a problem with this as a DM or a player. The backlash is probably a reaction to the "Hollywood" style liveplays.
And the backlash is merited in those cases as those can hardly even be described as games. They are performances meant to entertain an audience, not actual sessions of table top RPGs.
@@blacklodgegames It's part of the reason I wanted to put my live plays out there, so people could see how a group that's been together over 25 years handles business at the table. Nothing romanticized or hammed up just for the camera. It's just all very normal (or at least what used to be normal). Occasional periods where we talk in character, many more out of character, some derailing side conversations, the occasional joke, some inside jokes and the odd song here and there.😉
RPGs without Role Play is just a beer and pretzels bad wargame. I like war games and I like role-playing and the two are not the same.
Agreed.
Omg... we used to light roleplay during 40k tournaments...😅...it made it more awesome.
I agree with most of what y'all have said here. I think the only difference is I do refer to my character in the third person action wise, and even then I still talk as them and all the other stuff. The immersion is so worth the chase I can't imagine why people would only half ass this sort of thing!
Imo, actually roleplaying and playing make believe is actually EASIER than distant play. When you’re in character, you ONLY need to be concerned about what your character would be thinking about. Not the grid map, not the placement of ALL the enemies, not even XP at least not until after the session
I still think mechanics matter a lot, otherwise you can just do anything arbitrarily, but I definitely get what you're saying
@@blacklodgegames I 100% agree, and I could’ve made my point better yeah
Thank you for articulating what I've long noticed about modern media and society.
There is definitely a fear of sincerity in modern society. I think it's because in order to be sincere, you have to be willing to be emotionally open and, in a sense, vulnerable with others. This disconnect with sincerity feels odd in the current, touchy-feely "Live your truth" world we reside in nowadays. With as much as people tout the idea of emotional openness and acceptance of others, most people truthfully remain afraid of putting those ideas into practice in their day-to-day lives.
Pop culture constantly bombards us with movies and series where any sense of stakes and urgency are undercut with constant quips, and this atmosphere of irreverence has definitely infected the RPG hobby.
There is a quote from a recent video I watched somewhere that I feel summarizes this situation and people's aversion to sincerity in modern terms:
"A person who refuses to risk looking cringe will never be based."
Nick started talking and i clapped
Many such cases!
I know who that is!
My group finds that doing voices of any kind is immersion breaking and distracting, whether they're 'silly' or actually just speaking in our normal voices but as the character. We play over VTT, we do all our out-of-character discussion via audio, but we do all our in-character description and dialogue (unless it's basic like "my character will go upstairs too" or whatever) in text form. For us, that is much more immersive.
ARREST THESE MEN! They want to roleplay in their games!
3:30 "if you're one of these people who just wants to roll dice-"
Yeah we dont discriminate against dice enjoyers
3:33 "-or who are insanely opposed to any kind of effort or improvement-"
Well that escalated quickly
Holy moly! You nailed my gender at about 45:30. I now identify as RP curious/immersed. My pronouns are now cleric/other.
Lol
I don’t recommend doing this, but even when I was absolutely hammered to the point where I could barely think, I could STILL stay in character with almost no effort. I don’t remember the session beyond a part where my character, a Lawful Good Half-Orc Paladin, was beating the shit out of a smug bandit shouting, “I THOUGHT YOU SAID I’D NEVER TAKE YOU ALIVE BITCH?!” Over and over in my character’s voice. If I had just been playing Cool Math Roleplaying Games, it would not have been nearly as memorable.
15:30 thats it ! When a player is immersed in a ttrpg as opoosed to other games the amount of agency a player has is higher than any other genre of games. ❤
Well said
I'll be posting a 4+ hour long video response to this. If my editor doesn't die.
We expect nothing less
43:20 I completely agree. That has been my experience as I've started my efforts to be an actual roleplayer. No element of the hobby that we previously enjoyed has diminished in the slightest as we improve roleplaying (staying in-character).
It generally enhances those things.
I would make an analogy to my better half's favorite hobby: bridge. There are party bridge players that get together, have a beverage and some snacks, and have a good time. Then there's the competitive players who take classes for years, earn master points, play team bridge, play in tournaments, play duplicate, and generally look down at party bridge players because they're sub optimizing the bridge experience (underachieving). In the end, if you want to go all in and be a bridge nerd, you do you. If you want to get together and play a few hours and have a few laughs, I've got no problem with that either.
Here here. if anything there no wrong or right way to ttrpg. Given immersion and unscripted emergent gameplay thanks to whoever said that is what a ttrpg can be. but if you like crunchy mechanics too the. I'd say do that as well. I was just remembering a game where I was immersed and yes some dice were involved but the experience was pronounced by one player characters particular phobia flaw. which led to hilarious outcomes.
@@joe-wi8nj The heavy, immersive play came in with Vampire. Before that, you were pretty content to play in miniatures on a grid. That still works for a lot of people.
“We’re not here to convince you to pay our way. We’re here go you to agree with us.”
So this video is for a circlejerk then?
Hi from the sewer
Sewer/insult section
Despite being one of the "evil" leftists you dislike :P I agree that it's just weird when people don't want to roleplay their characters. If we aren't going to roleplay, and we're just going to roll math rocks, then why aren't we just playing video games instead? The true magic of TTRPGs is being able to get immersed in another world and in your character. Plus the only way to learn to do good voices is to do bad voices a hundred times, so might as well get started on those hundred bad voices.
Agree completely! And we have plenty of lefty friends, we just don't like politics encroaching on the actual game
@@blacklodgegames"We just don't lke politics encroaching on the game, so we made a podcast where we derided people who don't agree with us politically and made them the target of our debate" hmmmm, i sense some lack of honesty here....
@@Mekhami I sense a lack of IQ
@@Mekhami "We just don't lke [sic] politics encroaching on the game, so we made a podcast where we derided people who don't agree with us politically and made them the target of our debate"
You make an excellent point sir; I mean, it's not like there's a shortage of filthy right-wingers who have secretly infiltrated their way into Wizards of the Coast, or Onyx Path Publishing, or just about any other development/publishing company that is responsible for tabletop RPGs, and it's _definitely_ totally not like those right-wingers have been attempting to reshape the content to support and push (checks notes) 'self-reliance, private property rights, firearm ownership, fiscal responsibility, and. . .' what the hell is a 'high-trust society?' Never seen that before.
But seriously, can you imagine if the right-wingers _actually_ did something like that? I know a lot of stupid conservatives like to play the 'hypocrite game,' where leftists do something absolutely vile, and then conservatives start patting themselves on the back saying "can you imagine how they would react if _we_ did that? Ugh, so _hypocritical_ ! It's a good thing _we_ don't do stuff like that, otherwise the leftists might get extra triggered and call us mean names like fascist, right? [Insert the dumbest-sounding, most self-satisfied laughter you could possibly imagine here]."
Leftists get attacked like that because they're the ones who pull this shit. They were the ones who created x-cards as a means to normalize freakish BDSM kink-talk _in tabletop RPGs_ . Literally use the term 'aftercare.' That is a _sex_ term. They're the ones who wrote articles saying traditional depictions of orcs are anti-black racism, to which I ask, how the hell is a fantasy version of corrupted Anglo-Saxon elves (warrior-honor culture, fights with axes and anger) _anything_ like any stereotype of black people? What about the WotC higher-up who said he wanted less white people playing tabletop RPGs? What about the insertion of leftist gender propaganda into the game? _Nobody but leftists are using tabletop RPGs as platforms for their activist attempts to tear down or reshape society_ . Part of the reason for that, is because the _praxis_ of their belief demands that all things be subsumed for the sake of the revolution. That's why _they_ , not I, said "The issue is never the issue; the issue is always the revolution." If you're going to complain about that, you're complaining about leftists. We don't want your revolution in our games, but of course, the nature of your revolution demands that it be everywhere, which means, necessarily, we don't want your revolution at all.
@@blacklodgegames It's not a lack of I.Q., it's genuine, honest-to-God dissembling. It's nothing more than a straw-grasping, cynical attack in the face of an ironclad argument based on softly stating observable facts of reality, because that's all people like him have.
24:35 excellent point by Nick. Great podcast.
Yeah that ended up being the core idea
Roleplaying has emergent properties! Characters are allowed to be active participants in the world and the world to be active participants on them. The development of the characters isn't scripted at all, they are these living breathing things that react uniquely from the roleplayers themselves. I think you'll see GMs who want to roleplay but think that means making a distinct plotline (not devoid of choice but where they expect certain results to occur) are often disappointed when the PCs sidestep combat or some kind of issue in the game with smart thinking, even though the players themselves are proud of what occured. They think that it wasn't dramatic or interesting enough rather than that the PCs got to express some agency and do something outside the box. Something like a character driven sandbox game would encourage that kind of thinking, where characters get to decide how they go about things and no one's strictly disappointed when it goes as planned or if it doesn't.
Agreed!
*Doritos!!! Does Nick even game?!
I’m all behind you guys on roll-players (min/maxers)not getting the full concept of taking on a role of a character. I fully dive into my character..(even accents). I think what has soured many are “performers” like CR, it appears scripted. Are they playing their character or writing a screenplay?
Your intuitions are exactly correct
Both, they need to be entertaining to their public
My answer to pretty much everything said in this video:
Exactly.
I agree on everything, except doing voices. Doing voices kills the immersia for me :( they are usually really bad... Narrating in 3rd person what character is doing, thinking or feeling seems to be better tool for me to create immersive experience.
I've been watching your catalogue for about a month now, I like your guys ramblings on the subject, very fresh and I resonate with a lot of things being said.
I do want to ask you about the "mission from God" part, do you mean it more agnostically as "good" or the literal sense of God?
Yes.
Thx.@@blacklodgegames
This will piss off those that loved D&D and OSR games but the system I've seen that best encourages real roleplay is Chronicles of Darkness (2nd edition if your interested) Kevin Crawfords stuff does a good job too, and that makes sense because he himself played a lot of Mage the Awkening 2e.
We are huge fans of chronicles of darkness. VtR 2e is one of my favorite games of all time
@@blacklodgegames I had a lot of fun with vam 2e, but regular mortals and mage is just fantastic. You should give those a try sometime.
@@k9ine999 All my vampire games start as mortals games. I love classic Blue book, World of Darkness and the god machine chronicle
Imho, there is no Dungeons & Dragons after 2E or 2.5. V3.5 is acceptable, but having a skill for everything negates roleplaying. I use some of them in DCC/MCC. But none that disable trap nonsense. Traps should be unique. Grimtooth's Guide to Traps is where the true magic lies. There's a version for 3E & a few for DCC. The only time a detect trap Thief skill comes into play is when a player inspecting something and disabling said trap should almost always be a description of how he's disabling it. You have to give the players the info of what they see and they have to use their heads. Every once in a great while I'll allow a Disable Trap for a treasure chest or something.
10:45 yes immersion That is the deal.
DMGR1 was published in 1990 and covers what they call 'styles of play' in detail, in the first chapter. See "Righteous Roleplayer
" on page 10. In short, not a new idea.
I get an actor/actress ideally is so immersed themselves in the script/character hopefully the audience becomes immersed.
On the counterpoint, ttrpgs your only responsibility is to immerse yourself without a script. huh? 😊
Do the rules in most TTRPG's enhance RP? or are they often left with the bare minimum? perhaps the reason most grognards unconsciously despise RP is because there are very few TTRPG's that not only facilitate, but uphold character development?
Rules *can* enhance RP but a lot of games don't even really try to do that. I think systems that are deadly and have low HP tend to make you engage more because you could die when violence is on the table.
I have found that lack of rules facilitates roleplaying. Without a rule for example you would have to say, I'm going to slice through that entire row of goblins with my ax. That's a lot more immersive then I'm going to use the great cleave feat.
8mins in. ❤ still love ya 😊
Oh.
I've always roleplayed dice results. I'm a fan of playing through a backstory. If a player has a 3 to 5 page back story for a Level 1, 2 or 3 PC, the PC has already succeeded, so why use the PC? LoL. Just joking. Play what is fun to you. That's the only true rule of RPGs. I run DCC/MCC and the such.
I would put it in a more diplomatic way (we've been cancelled enough already) but I entirely agreed with you guys about this.
mechanical turding ??? lolz
If the comment section is a sewer, then disable it...
No.
@@blacklodgegames Good. "The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.”
― John Madden
I understand where you two are coming from, but I think you have taken too much of an aggressive stance on this. I do not know anything about ttrpgs in any way, I have never heard of any commentary coming from the other side, but the way you two try to explain your point is needlessly hostile. You say you are okay with and want people who like playing this way to continue on their own, yet you attack them by calling them losers.
I agree that fear of sincerity is a bad reason to do anything.
But you are a pair of condescending, narrow minded elitists who fixate on a single detail and I hope to never have to put up with anyone sharing your attitude at a gaming table.
I'll switch between talking in character and in 3rd person depending on the game, situation, even mood. No, it doesn't always make the situation better to be in character especially when I'm focused on creating an interesting story or focused on the world. I sincerely care, but usually not about feeling like I am actually my character. And I'd rather just skip the in-character shopping to get to more interesting scenes to act out, because that garbage made my early DnD games pointlessly boring.
Edit: Also, you say you don't like dungeon crawling. Well that's where the hobby started, so don't try to call it a preference, you're just WRONG and you RUIN this whole hobby. (/s in case it wasn't obvious enough)
I am happy to ruin the hobby for you. Please get out.
I have half a century of role-playing, I've never experienced the type of push-back towards anyone at a table playing 'trying' to role-play.
Ok they're back to preaching a judgemental blathering of "our version is right and best."
I don't believe you actually think and feel what you say in your trash talking other styles, when you start being defensive with your narrative.
You may not be a nleeding heart, but you are sitting on a high horse, when you judge other players: about their ability, skill or desire to play in any way / other than the way you demamd if everyone.
Sheesh, bare minimum blathering again.
Do you not understand how someone might -
Narate as they consider.
And then when the player says: "How much is the sword?" That's a shift to 'speaking' In-Character... (With or without a 'voice') Understand?
I'll have to wath the actual play you mentiond that you've got on your channel. See, I'm still trying to give you guys the benefit of the doubt.
Terrible "wrong way"...
I was in a game with a twenty-simething new GM with another older guy I didn't know in an roll20 on-line ttrpg site over discord, with a third younger guy. 2 hours in the GM stopped play - and told us we had been role-playing more in those 2 hous than he'd experienced in 3 years of playing. We two OSR grognards laughed. The new guy didn't understand it was strange because that was his introduction. Promarilly because we asked the GM clarifying questions to draw out more description into his world, for us to play our charscters off-of.
It's your attitude, that's weak.
Do you not understand you're 'attacking' imaginary groups of people playing differently, than what you want. Who are you two, to judge what others are getting from playing, and enjoying it in their way.
You don't know, that there's more in the AD&D GM Guide - from how you talk about it. Most people wanted to plsy, not GM.
Who insulted you two, that you assumed are or were OSR people? Who, hurt you?
Why are you so offensively defensive about "role-playing"? Assuming OSR isn't 'Role-Play'?
I haven't experienced anyone (older or younger) who's into OSR, no one uses the term you ascribe to others calling things you do ss "cringe".
I have more than 30 million years of experience as a DM.