That being said, character progression systems, XP and what not do not gel well with WoW RP guilds.
I tried it once and even when keeping things abstract and not using levels at all, very quickly things escalated wildly out of control. If I ever run a guild again I’ll use a VERY simplified system for rolls and have NO progression at all. You might be able to shuffle things a bit and maybe gain new skills, but your attack rolls will have to stay the same otherwise I’ll have to bloat enemy stats all over again…
Your goal is to progress the story. Winning or losing is a way to achieve that, not the goal of it.
But correct. Even the good players in my group, the ones with real RP in mind, did their best to try and win - they did put RP first, they did not bend the rules or anything, but winning and losing are clearly not equivalent.
That is why I think it is important to completely separate the ‘game’ mindset from WoW RP. There are no game mechanics here.
Yeah, I don’t really RP Ashi much at all anymore. She did get a bit too excessive, didn’t she?
In my experience, my guilds end up having to inject game mechanics of some kind (Very, very, VERY simple ones I should add) because without any kind of… I suppose “mechanical enforcement”, people have a habit of never losing. Because winning feels good, RPing winning feels good. And to be utterly frank I think I can count on one hand the number of times people I know to be fantastic RPers have willingly lost a situation without input from a DM or rolls.
The mechanics in our cases tend to drive the narrative and help to make things more exciting and less entirely predictable, and forces even the strongest of characters to take a fall now and then. But the important thing here is the mechanics help to support the story, rather than the story supporting the mechanics which is, admittedly, what can happen in a lot of DnD games.
But even in the most story driven of WoW RP events, there is still a ‘win’ condition and a ‘lose’ condition. I doubt many would actively want to seek the ‘lose’ condition, or not do their best to strive towards the ‘win’, whatever it may be.
They might not be actively playing “to win” but their character is sure going to try to, and by extent so is the player. A very simple set of mechanics can ensure that there is some amount of risk and excitement even if they ‘win’. It can make those wins more exciting and engaging knowing you have a chance to not win at all, even if a very slight one.
Fwiw though I’m finding this to be a pretty interesting discussion, and quite enlightening as to how we perceive other styles of RP.
But if the character themselves wishes to win ICly, the whole point is they are “playing to win.” People are allowed to have that as the plot of the story.
I’m sorry but you just don’t make any sense. I can’t understand if you want people to not want their characters to succeed or not. Your replies read like some sort of tumblr board
We are literally playing “Let’s Pretend”.
It’s good to be serious in that you should want to engage this hobby earnestly, and work to make sure everyone is having fun. It’s a creative exercise, with a lot of genuine benefits for people and a call for attention and skill.
It is absolutely a game, though.
It’s a case of practising what you preach, isn’t it? If you post that you hate OP characters / high-strength fantasy concepts, it comes off as a little insincere when the post comes from someone who (very recently!) played a character on that exact strength level
This is true, and it’s an unfortunate reality of things. But I think we should still strive to detach our desire to win from the course of the story as much as we can, even if we can’t fully succeed, especially not with everyone.
Sure, characters trying to win is all well and good. But you are not your character. There are many situations in which the distinction becomes important.
I am not sure if I follow? I said that in DnD, even the good players in my group focused on winning in their OOC mindset. I then used that as a contrast to WoW which has no game mechanics built into its RP and is simply a storytelling medium.
You guys are complaining about me not making sense but I am just as confounded about what you think the problem is.
