Comments on: Experience Points #1: Why Not Roleplay?

By: Josh Bazin

Josh Bazin — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:20:23 +0000

I will agree with you on that. Even I’m a bit apprehensive to ‘act’ more when I’m playing face to face. Of course, I would like to think that if I played with people more often rather than online, I wouldn’t have that apprehension.

Its all about comfort zones.

By: HHComics

HHComics — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:13:19 +0000

I haven’t played lately cause I haven’t found a group to ‘click’ with yet. Many RPGers refuse to actually role-play. They use their normal voice, normal body actions, etc. Why pretned to be someone else if you’re just going to act like yourself?

When I’ve taken my style of play to other groups, I tend to scare them off. If I’m a 4 foot elf, I speak in the voice of a 4 foot elf and for some reason that makes some people think I’m weird.

By: Josh Bazin

Josh Bazin — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:25:43 +0000

Kevin:

Does using miniatures change your feelings or are they ‘too static’?

Andrew:

Have you tried Mutants and Masterminds?

By: Andrew Foley

Andrew Foley — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:24:36 +0000

“So my question to you is, why not role-play?”

Because I can’t find anyone to GM the game I actually enjoy playing (Champions/Hero System).

By: Kevin Sole

Kevin Sole — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 14:50:30 +0000

I think it’s strictly a visual thing.

It’s nice to say that you’re playing a 6′2″, chaotic neutral elf, who has a tendency to run into rooms labeled ‘DANGEROUS’, just to find out if it’s telling the truth …

Or playing a Neutral Evil Cleric, who worshiped Dark Gods, carried a gigantic mace whom she would pound into the enemy, bring them to the verge of death, and then heal them. And then of course clobber them again.

Both were fun. But it was still missing that visual factor.

It’s not that I’m not interested in RPG, I’m just not interested in it, if there isn’t a visual factor involved.

By: Kirby

Kirby — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 01:13:59 +0000

I’ve never done D&D or anything involving dice, because first off, my friends weren’t interested in it at the same time as me (most of them aren’t interested in roleplay at all), and secondly, time’s a bit of an issue.

However, back in high school I did a lot of free form play-by-post roleplay in forums. I even ran a couple of small ones. I loved those because they kept me writing, even when my personal writing wasn’t going so well.

Ironically, I get more addicted to hack and slash MMO’s even though I hate hack and slash in PBP roleplay.

By: Josh Bazin

Josh Bazin — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 22:33:37 +0000

There’s definately opportunities for role-playing in the MMORPGs, but for the most part, I don’t consider them to be that ’strong’ of a RPG. I feel the same holds true for the video game RPGs on the market, though, things are changing and the game worlds are able to change based on your decisions, molding the story to your decisions. With that said, these games do boil down to a basic ‘hack and slash’ RPG.

You say it doesn’t interest you - can you quantify it more? What is it that doesn’t interest you about role-playing? I’m just curious, since as you said, you play WoW, which is at its heart, an RPG.

By: Kevin Sole

Kevin Sole — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:43:50 +0000

I used to play D&D a long, long, … long, time ago. This was like, pre-2nd edition, long ago. I enjoyed it, but always had this growing sense of … ‘this isn’t as interesting as it should be’.

Perhaps it was just lack of imagination on my part, but I couldn’t see what was happening clearly. Perhaps it was the GM we had, not making things interesting. Or we just didn’t know how to play — the rules were kind of ‘loose’ at the time. I remember there being a lot of confusion over how many spells the mages could learn, and whether or not they lost the spell after they cast it, etc.

We experimented with TMNT. and … another one I can’t quite remember. I think it was something like Netrunner. Very sci-fi infuenced, just not a universe I remember.

Nowadays, pen & paper — whether actually using pen & paper, or being an online post by post kind of deal — role playing doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

The only role-playing I get these days, is in World of Warcraft, and that all depends on your definition of role-playing.