Roleplaying Mechanics

[The Hive Custodian]

So, what are "roleplaying mechanics"? A somewhat lengthy explanation:

On one side of the game, we have the rules, the dice, the stats. On the other side, we have our roleplaying, our imagined game world, our alternate personalities. The puzzles come in trying to go from one side to the other.

Many of the threads here deal from going from roleplaying to rules: how to put a roleplaying concept into numbers as accurately, as balanced, and as simply as we can. Doomsmile had his half-golem idea; we figured out how to quantify his idea in terms of statisics. Stealthbanana felt that combat wasn't realistically lethal, so we tried to come up with a way to make it so.

Other threads here have to do with mainly just rules; whether a rule is consistent and balanced. Ranger animal companions, ways of calcuating ECL, and so forth.

A few threads have to do with mainly roleplaying. Some describe parts of the game world (such as the Deep North), while others analyze the way that characters act (such as Theory of Alignment II).

And so we return to our original question, and the answer is this: Roleplaying mechanics is how we translate the rules to roleplaying. The rules don't explain exactly what happens in the game world. Say your character gets an arrow shot at them. The rules say your character gets hit and suffers 3 points of damage. But what does that really mean in the game world? Is it a mere scratch, or a grevious wound? Short of killing your character, the rules don't say. This is the kind of thing roleplaying mechanics covers.

[The Hive Custodian]

First, a copy of my parallel OOC thread idea. Though this has more to do with posting conventions than roleplaying mechanics, it is important because it helps seperate the rules off from the imagined game world, and it also allows greater freedom in who gets to interpet the results of the rules.

Parallel OOC Threads

I have this idea for parallel OOC threads. Basically, it's a system of keeping [OOC] posts out of the IC thread. It also allows for a change in who describes what if desired.

Essentially, each IC thread will have a parallel OOC thread. When a character does something that involves the game rules, the mechanically-oriented stuff goes into the parallel OOC thread. For example, say Richard the Fighter attacks an orc. In the IC thread, he'd post something like:

Richard the Fighter draws his longsword with a "shing!" as he advances and slashes at the orc, shouting, "Die, foul orc!" etc. etc.

At the same time, he'd post in the OOC thread as to his action, something like this:

Post #103
Richard the Fighter closes with the orc and draws his longsword as he does so. He makes an attack against the orc (attack bonus +9, 1d8 + 3 slashing + 1d6 fire, 19-20/x2 critical).

Now the DM resolves the attack, as well as any subsequent events. He has a few options here. He can descibe the effects of the player's action, resolve subsequent events, and describe them, as we usually do. In the IC thread, he could post:

The longsword slices a curve of blood and fire into the orc's shoulder. The orc roars, swinging with his greataxe, but the stroke passes harmlessly wide, etc., etc.

And in the OOC thread:

Post #104
Richard the Fighter hits. Orc attacks Richard the Fighter and misses.

Alternately, he could leave the description of the orc's attack up to Richard's player. The IC thread would then be just:

The longsword slices a curve of blood and fire into the orc's shoulder. The orc roars, swinging with his greataxe.

The OOC thread would be the same. Richard's player would then describe the orc missing in his next post. This allows the player to take advantage of the abstractness of the hp system for dramatic effect.

The DM could even not post anything at all IC, and simply post OOC:

RE: Post #103
Richard the Fighter hits. Orc attacks Richard the Fighter and misses.

And then Richard's player would describe Richard hitting, the orc missing, and what Richard's doing in the next round.

Obviously, the latter two options would work best with fewer players, unless the players are willing to describe the results of each others' actions.

In any case, this will hopefully make the IC threads more atmospheric.

[The Hive Custodian]

The Ends Justify the Means

There are some points in the rules where the rules only really describe the beginning and the end. Two major examples:

Creating a 7th level character. The DM says your backstory ends at 7th level (a person of considerable power, by nearly any interpetation of the rules).
Hit points. When you're at full hit points, you're unwounded (by most interpetations). When you're at zero, you're disabled, when you're negative, you're dying, and after -10, you're dead.
The rules describe the effects of the beginning and the end in-character. You start out as a humble 1st level character at the beginning of your backstory; you come out as an accomplished 7th level character. You're unscathed when you're at full hit points; you're dead at -10 hit points.

However, the rules don't tell you what happens in between. That is, you can make up pretty much anything in-character without breaking from the rules.

For example, when you write a backstory, you don't have to write each section corresponding to a level or levels of your character. In fact, you shouldn't, because levels don't exist in-character. Just because you picked Whirlwind Attack after Spring Attack when constructing your character doesn't have to mean that your character necessarily has to have learned those techniques in that order. Your 7th level sorcerer could have known how to cast arcane sight all his life, even though a 1st level character doesn't know how to cast that spell. As long as you end up with a legal 7th level character, it doesn't matter what order you gained your abilities in-character.

Or how about hit points? Say you have 100 hit points, and you get hit for 3 damage by aforementioned arrow. Rules-wise, that's a piddling amount of damage. However, it doesn't have to be just a scratch in-character. If you feel it dramatic, you could have that 3 damage arrow be a near-mortal wound, and spend the your remaining 97 hit points desperately staving off death. On the other hand, you could have your first 97 hit points be mere scratches, but get finally dealt a decisive blow at the end. After all, anything can be made lethal in-character. If you wanted critical hits to seem more special, you could downplay the effects of regular hits while making critical hits truly devestating wounds.

[Doomsmile]

Backtracking to the "parellel OOC threads," could I request that rolls be posted? I think this might be really cool if the DM doesn't mind.

[nightinverse]

I'll post rolls.

[Doomsmile]

Thanks ye. It will aid my descision-making greatly.

[Daedalus]

Sounds interesting, if complicated. It's certainly something that's worth testing.

[The Hive Custodian]

Matching Alphabets to Fonts
Yes, another of my crazy ideas. This one is matching each alphabet to a font and possibly formatting and/or color. The availiable fonts:

Arial, Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Book Antiqua, Century Gothic, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Fixedsys, Franklin Gothic Medium, Garamond, Georgia, Impact, Lucida Console, Lucida Sans Unicode, Microsoft Sans Serif, Palatino Linotype, System, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana
We could attach a font and possibly formatting and/or color to each alphabet. The list of alphabets is Common, Celestial, Draconic, Druidic, Dwarven, Elven, and Infernal; here are my suggestions:

Common = Verdana. Verdana is the default font; Common is the default alphabet.
Celestial = Book Antiqua, white (at least size 3 for readability). Because good sterotypically dresses in white.
Draconic = Arial Black (at least size 3 for readability, plus dragons are loud). Also could be used for spellcasting, in which case the color could depend on the type of spell being cast.
Druidic = Tahoma, yellow green. Like a shrubbery.
Dwarven = Courier New, bold. Unfortunately, none of the availiable fonts is constructed entirely out of straight lines, which is kind of the idea of Dwarven.
Elven = Garamond, italic (at least size 4 for readability; the default size 2 looks like this). A thin font fits Elven well; you'll notice that the two thinnest fonts are Courier New and Garamond. However, Courier New is too typewriter-like to be used for Elven.
Infernal = Impact (at least size 4 for readability). Usually red, but you can make each word a different burning color if you want. YOUR SOUL IS MINE, MORTAL.

Colors could differentiate individual languages or dialects.

Thoughts? Flavorful? Too complex? Too distracting?

[nightinverse]

I already implemented different colours for different languages, and I think a size/font stipulation would be a little too clumsy.

[Daedalus]

I agree.

[Doomsmile]

The color idea is cool, but fonts and sizes are difficult to work with on a regular language.

[The Hive Custodian]

Oh well, just a thought...

[nightinverse]

Are the current coulors okay, or do you want them changed at all?

[Doomsmile]

Where'd you find the wingdings?

[The Hive Custodian]

Do what you will, but I'm going to use this Pale Turquoise italicized Garamond for my character's speech in Elven. If you don't mind. Of course, Common speech will remain in good 'ol Verdana, the standard for forums everywhere.

If we want to go by color, here's my suggestions:

Common = default (or silver, which is slightly brighter)

Abyssal = Magenta. Garishly colored daemons from the void!
Aquan = Medium Turquoise. I would have picked a deeper blue, but it needs to contrast with the background.
Auran = Light Blue. Look, ma, I can fly.
Celestial = White. What many consider to be the purest color, though not technically true, as white is a combination of all colors.
Draconic = Deep Sky Blue. Because dragons fly.
Druidic = Yellow Green. A fairly neutral green tone.
Dwarven = Orange. Like a forge.
Elven = Pale Green. 'Cause they have pale skin, and they hug trees.
Giant = Dark Orange. It's the Dwarven alphabet, so it might as well be orangish like the other two.
Gnoll = Gray. Who speaks Gnoll, anyway?
Gnome = Cyan. Because we all know that technology is cyan and gnomes are technology. Or because there weren't any other colors left.
Goblin = [Piss] Yellow.
Halfling = Wheat. Most agrarian of the races, I'd say.
Ignan = Red. Fire fire fire!
Infernal = Dark Red. Contrast sucks, but meh.
Orc = Green. Because they are green. Again, contrast sucks, but we were out of colors.
COMPENSATE BY YELLING ALL THE TIME LIKE THIS! WAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!
Sylvan = Lime. In general, Sylvan is associated with the positive side of nature, so it gets the brighter green.
Terran = Sienna. Pushing the lower limit of contrast, but meh.
Undercommon = Dark Orchid. Somehow, I've seen Drow associated with purple.

[The Hive Custodian]

Where'd you find the wingdings?

I used the font=wingdings and /font tags.

Somehow it isn't showing up my own computer, though....

[nightinverse]

Here are the current colours for the languages.

http://www.online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5253