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Forums: General Discussion Board
Really, in a game like Dungeons and Dragons, how important is social interaction? No, not with the other players, but within the game realm itself. For instance, is social interaction important enough to make it a limiter on how some classes should be played? We all know that paladins must follow the laws, be honorable, etc or they will lose their powers. Is the real force behind this the social one or a mechanical one?
Just a topic I thought would be interesting to discuss.
| How important is social interaction in D&D? |
| Posted on February 24th, 2002 at 6:01PM CST by Guest |
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| Well from my own point of view social interaction makes the world go round. It brings the world alive and is the primary tool of a DM to envelope the players in the campaign. Without frequent char - char and char - NPC interaction it becomes all too easy to start thinking about the world in a meta-game way. Having said that, the class of one's char is a very defining aspect to how one interacts. It represents the primary attribute of your char before the player took over control so to speak. The intellectual barbarian with good manners for example, while it can be done, is going to be a real challenge to bring across in a manner that is believable. For the most part it becomes the DM's decision on what the limits are. If a player wants to play a particular type of char socially but chooses a very inapropriate class for it, either the DM can speak up or use social interaction to segregate the char from the rest of the world. For example most people in the game world may simply refuse to give any aid or even talk to the piromaniac druid. They simply come across as insane. The player can either change their character slowly (or quickly!) to come more in line with the reality of the game world, or suffer the negative side effects of playing an outrageous char. |
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| How important is social interaction in D&D? |
| Posted on March 14th, 2002 at 11:15PM CST by Guest |
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I agree with what you've said entirely. It seems that too often D&D (the grand daddy of all roleplaying games) is devolved into a pen and paper hack 'n slash. To me, roleplaying is the basis for the game instead of how high I can get my to hit modifier. If a character doesn't _have_ character, what is it really? Would love to hear from any readers on their views.
>>On 02-24-2002 06:01PM, T. von Artigbrauer wrote:
Well from my own point of view social interaction makes the world go round. It brings the world alive and is the primary tool of a DM to envelope the players in the campaign. Without frequent char - char and char - NPC interaction it becomes all too easy to start thinking about the world in a meta-game way. Having said that, the class of one's char is a very defining aspect to how one interacts. It represents the primary attribute of your char before the player took over control so to speak. The intellectual barbarian with good manners for example, while it can be done, is going to be a real challenge to bring across in a manner that is believable. For the most part it becomes the DM's decision on what the limits are. If a player wants to play a particular type of char socially but chooses a very inapropriate class for it, either the DM can speak up or use social interaction to segregate the char from the rest of the world. For example most people in the game world may simply refuse to give any aid or even talk to the piromaniac druid. They simply come across as insane. The player can either change their character slowly (or quickly!) to come more in line with the reality of the game world, or suffer the negative side effects of playing an outrageous char.
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| How important is social interaction in D&D? |
| Posted on April 23rd, 2003 at 4:06AM CST by Guest |
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I agree with you both. A character with no character is simply a sheet of paper with numbers on it. Hack-n'-slash has it's place, but it is by no means the center of the game; it seems fun for a novice player, but as you become more experienced (as a player, not as a character), you will get bored by combat alone.
On 03-14-2002 11:15PM, Chance Paedragn wrote:
I agree with what you've said entirely. It seems that too often D&D (the grand daddy of all roleplaying games) is devolved into a pen and paper hack 'n slash. To me, roleplaying is the basis for the game instead of how high I can get my to hit modifier. If a character doesn't _have_ character, what is it really? Would love to hear from any readers on their views.
>>On 02-24-2002 06:01PM, T. von Artigbrauer wrote:
Well from my own point of view social interaction makes the world go round. It brings the world alive and is the primary tool of a DM to envelope the players in the campaign. Without frequent char - char and char - NPC interaction it becomes all too easy to start thinking about the world in a meta-game way. Having said that, the class of one's char is a very defining aspect to how one interacts. It represents the primary attribute of your char before the player took over control so to speak. The intellectual barbarian with good manners for example, while it can be done, is going to be a real challenge to bring across in a manner that is believable. For the most part it becomes the DM's decision on what the limits are. If a player wants to play a particular type of char socially but chooses a very inapropriate class for it, either the DM can speak up or use social interaction to segregate the char from the rest of the world. For example most people in the game world may simply refuse to give any aid or even talk to the piromaniac druid. They simply come across as insane. The player can either change their character slowly (or quickly!) to come more in line with the reality of the game world, or suffer the negative side effects of playing an outrageous char.
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| How important is social interaction in D&D? |
| Posted on April 23rd, 2003 at 4:01AM CST by Guest |
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| IMHO social considerations must come before any mechanical considerations. That's the entire fun of a role-playing game - social interactions rather than roll-playing. Sure, combat is fun, but combat alone does not make an RPG. And social situations are atleast as interesting to play out as "mechanical" ones such as combat or trap detection/disarmament, and both elements are important to a good, long term game. |
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