I agree with that, and I wish more people who insisted on roll systems for their guilds would take these things into account when building their systems. I think folks get too bogged down in the numbers and stats and forget about the characters and the people playing them.
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I’ve been following this discussion and I’m not sure dice rolls vs immersion is really the problem. I think the problem is that losing isn’t satisfying.
We like our characters to win (this is a generalization, not pointed at a specific person/group). We have an idea in our mind of who our characters are. And we like them to succeed. We do. We like that. It’s satisfying for our character to beat up the other side - so satisfying that we aim toward it with plotted RP in most cases.
I was part of a large RP event a few expacs back where we lost. And the majority of the RPers were very dissatisfied with the outcome. Very dissatisfied was an understatement - there were rude whispers and complaints about it because some of the players couldn’t conceive that there could even be a different outcome. It didn’t matter that failing gave them a chance for their characters to experience loss and growth. A lot of them were furious and I’m sure the others were disgruntled at the very least.
If you DM a lot of RP in various games, you’ll see that across the board. Players don’t like to retreat. They don’t like to lose. They will min-max their stats so that the stats don’t necessarily reflect the character they’re playing, but that they’ll win every roll. We want to win that much.
My personal feeling is that even if our characters have done something 1000x, that doesn’t mean they can’t fail at it. And even if the dice roll indicates that they failed, there are different levels of failure. Maybe we missed because our bowstring snapped. Maybe the target moved at the last moment. Maybe we tripped over some roots. Maybe our shot glanced off their armor and did no real damage, but it still hit. And even if it’s a crit fail and we accidentally snap our bow line into our face, or our axe swing misses the enemy and hits a nearby ally, it should occasionally happen.
We just saw Khadgar lose. We’ve seen Varian, Tirion, Vol’jin and others lose. Big heroes lose sometimes. When they do, it pulls at our heartstrings - which is what it’s supposed to do. And then our characters should want vengeance. Or justice. Or to study harder, train harder, work on getting a better weapon, put together a better plan, or whatever RP comes from losing. A loss of a roll can become a new RP experience.
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As someone who has actually worked in this industry and had books published previously, if I don’t feel connected with the character or story, I’m going to be bored – and so is the reader.
YMMV of course but I’m absolutely the opposite. Being “immersed” for me doesn’t mean I’m self-inserting, it means I understand the narrative, think it’s solid, think the character motivations make sense, and can write from that angle.
I haven’t felt like writing in WoW since around Legion because the story is awful and my characters do not have motivations that fit with the direction the “plot” is going for over a decade now. Add on that the dice-rolling obsession and ERP-centric focus of most the RPers I have run into, and I’m just noping out of it entirely.
Edit: as for losing a fight, I never cared. What I care about is how boring and scripted it feels to stand around for hours waiting for an event to finish while I’ve already long since fallen asleep. I am not one for dice roll RP. It’s just not my thing and never will be.
Everything that Moon Guard rpers would get disparged by forum rpers. I’ve gone on different role playing sites looking up proper etiquette. Once of the unspoken rules is asking consent when it comes to rping consequence.
Moon Guard rpers do not do that because it ruins their “immersion.” I’ve gotten into many many ooc arguments over the years. In my experience, that sort of behavior falls under godmodding or power playing. And something that won’t see you being involved in roleplaying. I have years of experience of rp outside of WoW. Everything MG does has been nothing short of cringe and embarrassing.
I’ve given ways people can try to improve upon themselves and become better rpers. A simple challenge.
And that’s fine. I believe in quality over quantity. I don’t rp with people that don’t follow proper rp etiquette and care more about immersion than the story.
Something I’ve done in forums and on tumblr. Being selective makes for a better experience.
LOL quality over quantity in WoW RP as though that means something beyond patting yourself on the back for how much better you are than others. Sure ok.
Amen.
Failure, not victory, leads to growth.
That so many RPers adamantly refuse to allow their characters to fail or accept consequences for actions committed and decisions made simply makes the pool of potential writers that much smaller.
I certainly won’t roleplay with anyone who can’t write realistic motivations and compelling character development through experiencing both highs and lows.
While I still roleplay, I do so far more sparingly and am far pickier than I was in the past.
Too many people tie their OOC egos to IC outcomes.
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I’m like 99% sure this is the same person who insisted a few weeks ago that death knights explode upon stepping foot in the cathedral and could provide no evidence beyond “this is what I do so everyone else should do it too”. It’s got that same “I’m going to be aggressively judgmental and confidently wrong” vibe.
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This was painful to read because of how true it is. I took a few years break from WoW and in that time I was an admin/DM on a Conan Exiles RP server. The amount of work myself and other DMs put into events, the rules we had in place, the lore we wrote that expanded on the setting without going too far into the weeds…none of it mattered if a player felt like their character was at any kind of disadvantage. People would argue and nitpick over the smallest things, and it became increasingly unmanageable to do larger events because the second things would get difficult, you’d have OOC complaints, usually from the same people.
I began to realize that when some people say “immersion”, they really mean “projection”. They don’t differentiate enough between their character and themselves, and DO want there to be immersion, but that immersion has to bend and conform to their own ideals, which usually translates into never having any consequences and their every whim made manifest. Basically they want a single-player game with an audience. It’s not everybody, I wouldn’t even say it’s the majority, but it’s enough of a percentage of the general RP crowd that I completely understand it when small communities are slow to engage with members outside of it.
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If the foundation you’re approaching this from is that Moon Guard RPers are already a step below whatever foundational level you have in mind, I can see a lot of conversational friction in your future with people on this server. Doubly so if you hold forums as a roleplaying medium over in-game.
Not going to play the “RP experience” game, though to be mildly hypocritical, too old for that nonsense.
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I think the problem here is probably how the DM is handling the rolls. If you’re each individually waiting on a turn and you have a DM handled mob plus 5 other players, that’s a lot of waiting - could be up to 30 minutes between turns if everyone takes a few minutes to roll, the DM comments to say if they hit, then they roll again to find out what their damage is, emote, and then pass.
Players might want to suggest to the DM to combine rolls. For instance, all players roll at the same time against a pre-determined hit number (or all players in one group in the raid). So everyone who rolls 6 or higher hits. 6-9 hit for 1 point of damage, 10-14 hit for 2 points, 15-19 hit for 3, and a 20 crits for 5. Rolling 2-5 do not hit for whatever reason. 1 is critical miss.
Everyone rolls. Everyone determines if they hit. Everyone emotes. Then DM rolls for the mob enemy.
I’ve also seen DMs tell the next person or group in line that they’re “on deck” so they can prepare their actions while the prior group is in play. That can help with large battles. So can splitting combat between experienced DMs, so if you have 20 people, you have 4 groups of 5 hitting 4 different targets, with 4 different DMs.
Another thing I see people do is they won’t say or emote at all in between their rolls. They don’t tell anyone to look out. They don’t say they’re loading ammo. They’re not yelling insults. They’re not doing anything. The group and the DM probably need to have a clear discussion on that so people aren’t waiting for 20 minutes to do all actions for their turns at once. Otherwise, players lose engagement and start streaming Netflix on their other screen.
If a guild does a lot of roll RP, they probably need to have something akin to a session zero, where they can discuss how they expect something to go during their combat RP, or find out who might want other types of RP - tavern RP, crafting, puzzles, etc.
It’s also up to the DM to gauge how much interest the party is having. If they’re sounding like they’re asleep at the computer, lower the health of the mob and let the next solid hit take the thing out. In fact, it you don’t wait til that point, it’s better. Leave the group wanting more combat, not less.
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It’s not the DM’s fault. I just really have zero desire to have my roleplay dictated by dice. Same reason I don’t play D&D. It’s just not my thing and I’ve never enjoyed it – it becomes so mechanical that it breaks any mood I have for the story itself (if there even is one, many times these events don’t seem to really have a point).
That said, I’ve long ago stopped RPing in WoW. It’s ok. I realize the old days are never coming back and that the modern style of RPing in game isn’t for me, so I leave it to others to enjoy. I just get to 80, collect a few transmogs and mounts, then unsub until the next expac. Legion was the last time I bothered to make this my “main game” and be hardcore about RP or playing.
Times change blah blah blah all that.
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It’s healthier to remember that you’re not your character, but it’s tough sometimes - especially if you’re playing your avatar.
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And that takes a lot of coordination and more importantly, cooperation–makes it a harder sell to bring in people from outside of that RP circle who may not be used to how things work or may have their own ideas or not care that there has to be some kind of hierarchy–at the end of the day, the DM is the DM.
The premise is definitely at odds with how much of WoW has become; outside of the very high end content, most of what people do and how they spend their time in-game can and is done without the need to communicate; BGs, dungeons and raids for the most part are done completely silent outside of the much harder difficulties of those, more often than not favoring speed and min-maxing for efficiency. Which I get, but it’s a jarring transition to do all that to get the cool stuff that makes your character look awesome to 5 people standing around, there’s no flashy spell effects, no jumping and moving around, no using your abilities, etc., and you’re waiting on things to happen, often by the consequences of a random dice roll; this process will also grind to a complete halt the moment someone reaches for the ((ooc brackets)).
I can’t say there’s any kind of easy solution, but if you happen to have a small, solid group of people who are all on the same page…do whatever you can to preserve and nurture that, and integrate others into it slowly.
I’d argue that just because they can still fail, doesn’t mean it would realistically happen that often. Let’s look at your examples.
All pretty logical stuff that could happen, depending on circumstances. Assuming the individual is in unfamiliar territory (which even if its their homeland can still be plenty of places), then yeah, no one is immune to tripping over a root, a target that moves just before being struck, etc…
This, I find immersion breaking. You’re telling me a dedicated archer, who’s got 1,000+ shots of experience, doesn’t pay enough attention to the maintenance of their own weapon to realize their bowstring needs to be replaced?
That, is not a matter of chance, to me. That is a character flaw, that they are that lazy, inattentive, or lacking in sound judgement. That, should not be a matter of a dice roll: that should be by the design of the player. Flaws make characters interesting when they’re designed that way.
Not a good example. That was the most elementary school playground nonsense I’ve ever seen.
“I use my big beam attack!”
“Too bad. My magic item absorbs all magic, so I’m completely unharmed! Also, I absorbed all your magic, so you can’t do anything anymore. Haha!”
“Then I shoot at you with my void arrow!”
“No, because I give you a headache and mess with your mind. Besides, your arrows can’t hit me anyways.”
Really, the exchange with Khadgar, Alleria, and Xal’atath is not a great example to bring up. It was pretty awful writing.
Varian didn’t, “lose.” He had a heroic death.
Tyrion was killed off to open up room for the PC Paladin to head up an order and get the Ashbringer. Not what I’d call, “Good writing.”
Vol’jin died so Sylvanas could be Warchief. I don’t think he was on the throne long enough to leave a warm spot. His death remains a bitter point of resentment by the players towards CDev.
Out of everyone you listed, maybe Varian pulled at some heartstrings. The rest? The narrative was bent to conform to gameplay needs.
In my years of experience, I’ve found losing can be satisfying. As has been said before, it’s an avenue that can lead to character growth. Adversity and failure do a lot to build characters up and shape them.
That being said, these sorts of stories need to be treated with care BECAUSE they’re important, formative experiences for characters. A bad story can ruin a character. How anyone can think, “You rolled a 1,” equates to quality story-telling for loss and failure is beyond me.
Like most matters when it comes to one’s character, failure and hardship are best determined by the player themselves. Some RP’ers won’t ever let their precious OC’s fail. Their characters end up fairly flat and boring, unchanging, static. If that’s what they want, can’t say I care. There are always more interesting characters to play with.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe dice rolls have their time and place. I just find the modern use of them, the, “all or nothing,” system, to be flawed. That’s my opinion. As has been said, players will just min-max within a system to win. The mechanics of RP no longer support the intended character. RP ceases to be a collaborative creative effort, and is reduced to a simple game.
If I wanted to play a game, I’d just, you know, play the game, rather than RP.
i look at it as acting and doing improv.
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Yeah, it’s like doing stage improve, but you’re sitting at home in your underwear with a glass of wine instead.
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I see someone has a lot of time on their hands.
Ok.
Do you shoot a bow? I shoot a bow. I’ve seen a lot of accidents occur among dedicated archers using recurve bows and crossbows. I’ve seen a bowstring break. Heck, I even saw a bow break. It almost hit someone next to the archer in their eye. It’s not an every day occurrence, but it’s also far from unheard of.
In the heat of battle, it’s entirely possible that a fighter’s armor will bend and dent, that a bow, an arrow or a string will break, or that other things malfunction. It could be because the fighter was negligent. It could be because of damage sustained on the field or that no one took time to inspect their gear prior to rolls (how many people do you see ICly inspecting their kit before fighting or later doing crafting RP to repair things afterward?). Or it could be because after using grandpa’s favorite named sword for 12 decades that something in the pommel finally just gives.
Also keep in mind that not every player is RPing their character as a soldier or mercenary. Some are bartenders or farmers, pickpockets or clergy. And if they’re answering a call to arms to defend their homeland, the chances of them being familiar with how to care for armor and weapons goes down a bit.
Didn’t say it was a good example or a bad one. Just said we saw him lose. We did. He did. He lost. Maybe you would have written it differently.
You’re playing the semantics game with Varian.
Storywise, Tyrion lost because he wasn’t supposed to call on the Light once more after his final blessing while defeating the LK, but he did and it failed him. Whether you think it was good writing or not, he still tried and he still lost.
Vol’jin lost for a poor reason, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t lose.
You find losing to be satisfying. But from my years of experience, I can tell you that many players don’t find it to be so and absolutely don’t care to lose. They don’t find it satisfying and that’s ok. That’s not how they want to spend their free time.
No one should be telling anyone that the way they’re RPing is bad or wrong. If people want to use dice, they can. If they don’t, then let them do free form RP. Both types of RPers can determine how much they want to incorporate loss into their character. If they want to portray their character as a big hero, that’s fine. If they want to use loss for growth, also fine. If they don’t, it’s all still fine. No one is saying players have to use dice rolls, or use them as all or nothing. That doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t.
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Personally, I find dice rolls to largely be unnecessary and oftentimes antithetical to good writing. It can certainly be fun to introduce uncertainty to a scene, but rolls generally drag down the pace of a scene in my experience.
Beyond that, though, whether you use dice or simply emote, it all boils down to how players write. I’m convinced most roleplayers simply don’t have the desire or competence to write in a way that contributes to scene and narrative building rather than ego building.
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That’s kind of my take, too. I’m not knocking it entirely, dice can have their place, but they’re pretty much a crutch at this point and have taken over most narrative scenes. Meh.
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