The Roleplaying Perspective

[Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs]

As a continual proponent of the everlasting Roleplaying Perspective, I feel it is my solemn duty to consolidate all true roleplaying knowledge into one post.

Far too often have I witnessed ruthless power-gamers lowering statistics to 3s, answering riddles far above their intelligence correctly, and misusing the idea of evilness. It must end sometime, and that time is now!

Baldur's Gate II is a roleplaying game, so you should hold yourself to some kind of rules, and not make your life nasty by doing things you shouldn't. I intend this to be the base for all exploits by people who have roleplayed an interesting character, a character with an extra spin, or anything that they feel should be changed for the betterment of the Roleplaying Environment.

For instance, alignments and races are the most often confused ideas in the game. Dwarves hate elves, and vice versa. You should never have elves and dwarves in the same party, with the exception of Viconia and Korgan. Gnomes are not wise, so should make the wrong decision every once in a while. Elves love the forest and nature stuff, so should always represent that perspective. As for alignments, an evil person may act the exact same way as a good person, but with totally different motives. The good guy hates slavery because it is demeaning and unfair. The evil guy hates slavery because he remembers how he was inslaved and doesn't want his use of slavery to encourage others to enslave him again.

Please, add tales of characters that represented the true Roleplaying Perspective, and denounce those of the evil powergamers. Let this be a home for wonderful stories of roleplaying gone right, not gone wrong.

Begin!

Gothmog, I know where you are going with this. I always try to lead my character down a path that they would choose, not always one that I would choose.

Perhaps my next character shall be called Gothmog, one whom always stands up for what they believe in, destrpying all those who are not of the true Role Playing blood. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[fable]

I'll have you know that Dwarves and Elves get along very well. The whole hatred thing is nothing more than a ridiculous rumor started by a bunch of mages calling themselves after their god, one Teesar, led by their High Priest Gygax. Before them, some twenty years ago, even the rumors didn't exist. Don't put your faith in such railings, my friend!

[Marin_XS]

Hmm.. Looking back at my old Tabletop AD&D books, dwarves and elves tend to argue and bicker, but /do/ work together in some matters. But ANYWAY...
This is one of the arguments I get into constantly as a gaming geek who has played for about half of my entire life, which is powergamers are NOT intrinsically bad. The people who don't roleplay their characters' stats, backgrounds, alignments, natures, poorly are the problem, whatever their power level. I've certainly made my fair share of game-breaking characters and played with others who have done the same, but got into every aspect of the RP, from views to the very psychology of the character.
It may sound rather cold-hearted to say this, but in RPGs, as well as in real life there are heirarchies. Some people are smarter, stronger, more powerful, etc. Whining in a game that your character can't compete, or isn't able to do anything b/c someone else is too powerful may very well be a problem w/ a cheater who is spoiling things for everyone else. But it's just as likely in both my TT as well as online gaming experience that someone's just WHINING about this other person because of their own issues... That they can't make a character interesting or play well enough to warrent any recognition. Good RP (especially important in multiplayer games) involves accepting such limitations that they have, and making their own fun. It's not that hard, if you're playing the weakling to be just as valuable as the walking god by doing the things that they /can't/ (which happens more often than one thinks) and interesting dialogue.

(in closing, I would like to say that this post is not to be construed in any way as an attack, or a flame on anyone or their perspective. I'm not accusing anyone of being whiny, or whatever, but merely expressing what I have observed)

[Morgeruat]

Originally posted by fable: I'll have you know that Dwarves and Elves get along very well. The whole hatred thing is nothing more than a ridiculous rumor started by a bunch of mages calling themselves after their god, one Teesar, led by their High Priest Gygax. Before them, some twenty years ago, even the rumors didn't exist. Don't put your faith in such railings, my friend!

firstly the emnity while it was set in print as a prettymuch permanent thing between dwarves and elves by the great one mortals call Gygax, it was first introduced by Tolkien, the father of the modern fantasy novel, dwarves disliked and distrusted elves for a long time before the Hobbit, when their imprisonment by the wood elves only reinforced it, the only reason they worked together at the battle of 5 armies was because of a greater threat than any of the 3 forces of men, elves, or dwarves could handle, and so they banded together, the mistrust can also be seen in Lord of The Rings, both the movie and the books, the dwarves had no trust in the elves, and the elves feared that the well known greed of the dwarves would make them too susceptible to the urgings of the ring to make them suitable, it wasn't really until the two towers that Gimli and Legolas became friends, with their game of who had the higher body count of orcs.

so basically the hatred has been there as long as dwarves have been dwarves (as opposed to the fairy-tale dwarves such as rumplestiltskin) and elves have been elves (as opposed to helpful sprites and spirits, or toymaking creatures more similar to the fantasy of todays gnomes)

[fable]

Marin, the problem with powergamers AND RPGers isn't a matter of powerplaying or RPGing. It's a matter of any specific individual's insensitivity towards the playing styles of those around him or her. I played (and later DM'd professionally) online for years before multiplayer stuff on the Web ever become popular (back when you did it on DOS-based GEnie), and my only difficulties arose out of lack of courtesy and understanding rather than style of gameplay.

I tend to RPG in multiplayer environments a lot. I'd never interrupt a powerplayer's hunt for kills to increase their experience, but I'd also expect a powerplayer not to barge in when a group of people, including myself, were in the middle of an RPG event, ignoring what was going on and speaking as though the environment was nothing but a code deliberately to wreck everybody's mood. As a DM, I sometimes had to arbitrate when some jerk chose to do this just to troll.

[Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs]

I seem to have a slightly different definition of "powergamer." Perhaps I should clarify this. When I say "powergamer," I am referring to the people who do things obviously contrary to their character's race, class, and alignment, and decrease their less important stats to abysmal levels to max out their primary ones. For instance, no Paladin would loot tombs in the Graveyard district, a ranger wouldn't poison the Druid Grove, PCs with low charisma should NOT lead parties, (even if they ARE Bhaalspawn) and people with low intelligence and wisdom cannot answer every riddle in the game right on the first try.

I had originally intended this to be the place where people could tell stories of things they had done that would seem contrary to their character concept, but were logical from the Roleplaying Perspective. (like the slavery thing above) People can (and should) post character concepts that are original, innovative, and interesting. But I can't oppose a full-blown RP discussion between veteran gamers.