What is Bad Roleplaying?

[greyorm]

Over in Bad Roleplaying? I blame Tolkien, Taina brought up a new subject, so I'm starting a new thread to exploer the issue.

Given all this discussion about what influences are responsible for "bad roleplaying", I am wondering what criteria posters here would use to judge whether roleplaying is good or bad. I mean here actual play, not game design.

For instance, some posters have argued that the inclusion of equipment lists (or possibly an unreasonable emphasis on them) is a mark of bad roleplaying. If it is bad roleplaying because of an unreasonable emphasis upon some aspect, how would you judge what is unreasonable?

Is it possible to have objective criteria by which the quality of roleplaying (its goodness or badness) can be judged? I don't believe so, as I believe that people can only apply their own subjective criteria, but I am interested in hearing other viewpoints.

Yes, a great deal of what Ralph was decrying as "bad" is only so within a certain context of play and group behavior*, but are otherwise perfectly acceptable methods and elements of play. After all, equipment lists aren't bad just by virtue of being an equipment list. Carefully tracking the use of arrows isn't bad for the sake of experiencing a detailed alternate life.

*Tangentially, I'm not accusing Ralph of confounding good use and bad use of play elements. I don't believe he would.

It becomes bad when its existance is due dysfunctional interchange between players (which includes the GM), and its purpose is to protect or defend the responder from the other individual. For example, carefully tracked lists of equipment used as a control mechanism (as in "My Guy" situations) against player disempowerment.

So, yes, there are objective criteria by which the quality of play can be judged -- this is what GNS is all about (contrary to the sometimes mistaken belief that GNS is foremost or even primarily intended to be about design), learning to identify the underlying patterns of game play, social behavior and expectation in the gaming environment provides this understanding and leads to better communication and relation between players, particularly regarding their various desires for the game.

[jdagna]

Bad and good role-playing are identical to bad and good sportsmanship.  A good athlete is skilled at what he does and conducts himself in a manner that contributes to other people's enjoyment of the game (his teammates as well as his opponents and the crowd in general).  These are the only criteria I'd say were absolute for good and bad role-playing.

Now, within that definition, there's a lot of room for specifics that vary from one sport to another.  A skilled soccer player wouldn't be appreciated on a basketball court, for example.  It's fair to say that a player in a Gamist mode would be equally unnappreciated by a group in a Narrativist mode.  Social Contract, Creative Agenda and Stance differences can all change the game significantly enough that the standards for good role-playing vary from one group to the next even if they're all playing D&D.

[xechnao]

If, after the role-playing session everybody was convinced and with no disagreements* among each other about the game, then the game was helded good and evenlly. Otherwise the game was not helded good and evenlly.
Do you agree with this?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I had replied in the original thread.

[Lance D. Allen]

I think that Taina has the right of it, essentially.. A million people can agree on something, but so long as it's subjective, they're no more right than the ten who disagree.

However, the agreement of the million is generally assumed to be the norm, and can therefore be used as a generally accurate criteria. In this case, I think it's safe to use the general Forge membership as the "million" and see what we can agree on. Sure, we'll find our standards to be disagreed with by others elsewhere, but for the purposes of discussion here, our consensus should be sufficient.

With that in mind, I posit the following for Good Roleplaying:

plays consistently, either driven by strategy (gamism) concern for the development of the story (narrativism) or based on the character's personality and the environment they're in (simulationism). People who change what they're doing essentially at random or merely to spite the other players, with no regards for the game's cohesion are bad roleplayers.

plays considerately, within the boundaries set in the game. Some games are competitive, so consideration may not mean the same thing as cooperation, but as the general goal of roleplaying is to have fun, this boils down to not playing with intent to ruin the fun of others. If the goal is to tell a good story, it means working together to build a story that everyone enjoys telling. If the goal is group advancement, it means to play with an eye to helping the group succeed. If the goal is individual advancement, it means playing to win without unduly spiting the other players or making them feel bad or stupid. If the goal is immersive simulation, it means keeping OOC distractions to a minimum.. The list goes on.

Is aware of the play preferences of their fellow players, and does not disregard them. A player who enjoys combat shouldn't turn every situation into a battle if other players prefer social interaction; ie, if the bard is trying to convince the goblins into surrendering, the barbarian shouldn't charge into the fray simply because he's not rolled dice in 5 minutes. Likewise, the bard shouldn't chatter on endlessly in his social circles while the barbarian sits and twiddles his thumbs in the corner. Even more so, the gamemaster (if one exists) should be aware of the preferences of their players, and attempt to balance the game events so that everyone is satisfied.

Is aware that certain systems do not encourage certain types of play. If a player is enamored of a certain system, they shouldn't try to cram play goals which are not best-suited to that game into it. If you want hack-and-slash and for-profit dungeon crawling, try Donjon or D&D, not TRoS. If you want to explore deep, mature themes, Sorcerer or the World of Darkness series is a better choice than Toon or Tales of the Floating Vagabond. Flexibility of the player is better than trying to flex(or drift) the system. Some drift is possible and even enjoyable, but it's important to know where to draw the line.

Those are a few I can think of. Any disagreements, or additions?

[Taina]

I'm going to reply here, if that's okay, to posts on the older Tolkien thread and this one.

Jack Spencer Jr:

Interesting that you haven't posted before after joining the Forge over a year ago. We'll send you a belated birthday card.

On the few occasions I've been tempted to post, I didn't really feel that I'd read enough of the threads to have enough background.

Anyway on this topic, I wanted to make some general comments instead of replying to or arguing with people individually - I'm not aiming to get people to agree with me, only to hear what you have to say. I do, however, appreciate your responses.

Recently, somewhere on the net (possibly a blog, I'm not sure), I came across a person who described the Star Wars roleplaying their group had recently done. They were all great fans of Star Wars, and in their roleplaying, they played out the plot of the Phantom Menace, exactly as it happened in the movie. They did this several times. Everyone in the group apparently had agreed to do this.

I've never come across a gaming style like this before and had to think about it for a while. I don't know what they got out of it without asking them, but it is a way of engaging with, and re-experiencing, a much-loved movie. Maybe it gave them the opportunity to experience the relationships between the characters in more detail than appears on the screen. This would not be very different from fan fiction exploring the same thing.

The reason I mention this is that in the two "bad roleplaying" threads, three criteria were consistently mentioned by posters as bad or "bad" roleplaying: (1) railroading/slavishly imitating the plot of a fictional work; (2) inconsistencies or inappropriateness in playing style; (3) unenjoyable play.

I wonder how far (1) is "bad" because some players do not enjoy it. When people mentioned it, they usually did in the context of a GM forcing this style on objecting players. If it is what everyone in a group wants and enjoys, is it bad anymore?

My own view is that everybody can only decide for themselves what constitutes bad roleplaying, although as Wolfen said, shared standards can usefully be decided on for purposes of discussion (I'm sure there are other purposes that this can also be useful for). When I think about what I personally consider good and bad roleplaying, I frame it in terms of enjoyable and unenjoyable play (which encompasses play that is unenjoyable because of stylistic conflicts)

Taina

[M. J. Young]

Taina is right, and Lance has made a couple of mistakes, in my opinion.

However, the agreement of the million is generally assumed to be the norm, and can therefore be used as a generally accurate criteria. In this case, I think it's safe to use the general Forge membership as the "million" and see what we can agree on.

I have to be careful how I put this, because I don't mean that The Forge is in some way elitist; yet we are something of a self-selected elite. For one thing, the percentage of posters here who have published games as against the total number of posters is rather high compared to most game sites; there's also a tendency here to reject most mainstream games, which pretty much means definitionally we're a minority (since the majority of gamers are at least buying the games that get the highest sales numbers, and presumably think those purchases are good investments). We are not a representative group.

You might as well do a survey at ENWorld to determine what the best game engine is. There may be people at ENWorld who do not think D20 is the best engine, but since the site is dedicated to all things D20, it's a pretty safe bet that most people who are disenchanted with that system stay clear of that site. I know I do--I've rarely visited it, and never found anything to hold my attention when I have. That's not to say that those gamers aren't intelligent with clear understanding of what they like and dislike; they just are not a representative sample, and neither are we, and for much the same reason: self-selection.

plays consistently, either driven by strategy (gamism) concern for the development of the story (narrativism) or based on the character's personality and the environment they're in (simulationism). People who change what they're doing essentially at random or merely to spite the other players, with no regards for the game's cohesion are bad roleplayers.

I have trouble with this because it seems to be trying not to say "Any play that is not consistent with the Creative Agenda theory is bad roleplay" without saying that.

It might be true; but putting it in the definition of good/bad roleplaying creates a circular argument: drifting play is bad because it fails to adhere to the theory that says that drifting play is bad.

I'm not certain that drifting/transitioning play is bad; I think it's just difficult to maintain coherence in a game that accommodates it, particularly at the design level. I agree that random transition and spiteful transition are bad, and transition without regard for the game's cohesion is bad; but I think that drift and transition can be part of good play--and I certainly think the jury's still out on it, at worst.

Remember, people are still considering whether hybrids are viable, and what that means.

There might be other things that could be added. Obviously, general human courtesy is foundational for good roleplaying--you can't threaten to take your ball and go home if you don't get your way, and that includes more subtle approaches such as implying that the group won't be able to continue to play at your house, or you're getting tired of running games for them, or you think their ideas are stupid or whatever. Blatant cheating is also bad, whether it's changing details on character sheets or bringing loaded dice to the table (particularly in gamist games--note that if these things don't matter, it isn't cheating to do them). Conversely, running the game such that someone feels he has to cheat to have fun suggests there's a problem somewhere--it might be that the referee is guilty of bad gaming. (Of course, there are players who desperately want win, to prove that they have what it takes to win, who don't believe it of themselves, and so feel they have to cheat because they lack the self-confidence necessary to face the challenge without that secret edge no one knows they have--that's probably still bad role playing.)

Those are some ideas, anyway.

--M. J. Young

[Lance D. Allen]

Problem with your suggestion that I might as well go to ENWorld to do a survey is this: We're not discussing at ENWorld. We are discussing here, and as such, our member's collective opinion is sufficient for discussions here. I am not trying to say that a consensus on what is good and bad roleplay that we might come up with here should then be taken out and forced on other communities.. That would be rather futile.

We discuss here, so a consensus formed here is suited to our discussions.

On your second point, I'll have to cry ignorance at "the Creative Agenda theory", as I admit to not following many of the deeper theory discussions. On that note, I can't say as I understand your criticism. Inconsistency in roleplay, or any social interaction is, and will always be, a bad thing in my book. To me, sitting down to play is an unspoken agreement to play, to play by the rules and within the specified setting, and to adhere to specifics of the explicit or implicit social contract. Those who are repetitively inconsistent in either playing at all, or in playing to the encouraged methods of the game is disruptive, and I cannot imagine how anyone could define disruptive play as anything other than bad.

Please note: I have been this disruptive player; The rest of the group conducts battle on a tactical field, whereas I attempt to play by other standards, thereby hurting the group's chances at success because my decisions are not based on tactics. I'm essentially trying to play Sim or Nar in a explicitly Gamist portion of the game. I am speaking from my personal experience.