Okay - I'll admit I've been playing pathfinder, and say what you will about its bullshitness, its approachable because of the breadth of it's playerbase.
How does one effectively perhaps subtly characterize their character beyond their combat prowess?
My character is very "me" which is both a fault of me, and the system's lack of actual character depth. Or should I accept that the combat bogs things down too much for actual role playing? Even with the role playing hooks given by the GM, I find it hard to get a good grasp of "how to role play" and I find myself feeling like I'm feeling I'm trying to optimize much more than make meaningful choices.
Or perhaps its just another big system fault. If thats the case, what are ways to circumvent that - it's open ended enough and I have a fair bit of pull when it comes to the GM. He recognizes the system's faults, and the problems with the writing as they occur.
How should a GM encourage meaningful decisions without railroading?
Or does that bit rely on the players?
Reading over this all it sounds like a bunch of whiny bullshit. And I'm tired, but I'll try to stay online at least a bit longer.
>>47621647
Would animal cruelty laws apply to humans in a campaign setting as they (humans) are animals, it seems like it would be playable with regard to regions.
>>47621708
Whats "it"? I'm a little confused.
>>47621647Have you tried not playing D&D.
>>47621856
Funny, I suppose I could try GM myself, the system I'd want to GM would be Burning Wheel. I just haven't asked to try for whatever reason. One of my good friends had just asked to GM and is currently GMing a second pathfinder session that most often substitutes the current pathfinder session.
I can't say I'm enjoying the initial session, but I'm enjoying my close friend's considerably more than any pathfinder session or dnd session I'd had before.
Its a slightly awkward situation, and simply saying bite the bullet is easier to say than actually do.
Not that it necessarily takes much maneuvering, its just slightly awkward, and I suppose by all means I could just ask.
>>47621901
Additionally I might really be the only person not enjoying the session. Its hard to tell sometimes, but the player I thought was most prone to powergaming actually ended up being someone who wasn't enjoying the "fight!" heaviness of the game.
Theres more roleplaying in the secondary game, but its still not really much.
And it would be a stretch to claim simply playing another game would considerably improve my role playing skills. Not saying that pathfinder isn't hindering, which it probably is.
I'd still like to improve. So beyond practicing in game, how does one improve when it comes to role playing? What are ways to do so?
>>47621647
If you're just doing combat there's not much to do there, unless the system allows for it and that's at least rare. If there are decisions and conversations and variability then it's a lot easier. For example there's a civil war breaking out, and you can side with the peasants wanting less tax or the officials, don't make either one the bad guy so different characters will take different sides, allowing you to express the character's personality and morality. Even better if that splits the party, as you get inter-party conflict and someone will have to compromise - don't actually go separate ways or fight each other. Then you can have tons of hidden stuff, maybe someone in the peasant ranks is planning to take over when they win and turn it into a monarchy again with him as king.
Dragon Age (I only played Origins but I'm sure it's the same with the others) have great examples of this, even if it is less freeform so there aren't as many outcomes as in a TTRPG. Having several tasks and choosing to do one over the other is also a way to explore a character/party, if they value saving the princess or finding a magic item or whatever. It does depend a lot on the players but I'm not sure I can give tips or anything, my group often has combat-less sessions, last time we were planning an invasion on some hunters' headquarters after being ambushed by them and getting 2 party members kidnapped, we just went around town talking to NPCs, stocking up and planning for what was to come. Again though, the GM does have to set up a lot of this, if it's laid out as just bad vs. evil on the battlefield you can't do too much.
Burning Wheel sounds like it would be great for you to explore these things, I can't comment on it myself but I've read some of it and heard many recommendations.
>>47621923
>>47621901
Ah, sorry for the shitposty answer, I wasn't expecting such a serious reply.
I definitely know about the problem you seem to be describing, and it can actually apply to just about any game. You're playing the game to win or avoid punishment rather than to picture yourself in the shoes of your character.
I found the disconnect can only be overcome by just not caring about what happens to your character. It sounds weird, but when you think about your character as a small part in a much bigger story you stop caring about the mechanical aspects of the game and care more about what happens in the game.
I've played as a conniving professor afraid of death, a stoic hobo, a buff sorcerer that was chock full of hubris, an ex wannabee gangster turned extremely straight laced cop, and lots of other characters and every time I played these characters I did not care about what happened to their future, I just spent all my effort into thinking about what they would do in each situation.
What would my character say?
What kind of food does my character like?
Would my character find things others are fine with wrong, or be fine with things others find wrong?
What have I made my character do in the past? Would this taking this action contradict their behavior to similar situations? Does my characters need some form of justification for being a hypocrite, does he refuse to take the action even if it leads to his death, or would he do the action without even trying to justify it?
>>47621937
I'd been given Dragon Age Origins but had trouble stomaching the dilemma morality and the MMO-like combat. I hear it takes a little bit before it gets better, and it keeps coming to mind.
I remember being excited for Pillars of Eternity but disliked that a lot of the adventuring and questing became unimportant or didn't really feel like fixing things fixed things they should have fixed.
I played Age of Decadence and loved the text-based-adventure-feel, but hated the grindy combat and succeed-or-die-save-load nature of it.
My GM is inexperienced, and its difficult to "share the spotlight" with other players. Some of them want to "get through" what the GM is directing us to do, and it kind of sucks when player-NPC interaction is onesided. Either the players are together, or the NPCs are in the middle and don't actually matter. Or maybe the other players kind of heckle me or each other or are all like "oh no not this" whenever we attempt some role playing outside the convention of "kill and proceed"
I've heard good things too, and watched some people play it for ages, but I wonder if their sessions were entertaining and good on account of the GM being incredibly skilled. I guess I can't expect my version of lets play pretend to actually improve unless I put the effort into it- but thats what attempting this discussion is for.
I understand pathfinder has limitations, but they're more like penalties rather than a bottleneck I hope. They're still pretty strong and hard to break out of.
Sigh.
I force my players into extreme situations and constantly push their limits. After the initial buildup in the campaing I give them very little to no time to rest, constantly pushing their limits and when they are at their limit I push them some more.
They were traveling through the woods during snowstorn with no food, hunted by greenskins. When they finally get to a village in which they were supposed to rest and replenish their resources it turns out that it was already raided by orcs and burned to the ground and orcs left some of their scouts behind. But PCs have that one guy with a broken leg who can't walk.
>>47621975
The apathy thing is good advice, I'd lost sight of that. Probably would help more if I'd thought of a personality. My character is just a stat sheet right now, and I dont know how much of that would have a bearing on who he is.
>>47622041
I think it's more that PF is the kind of crunchy system where people will be more likely to be murderhobos, playing something simpler/less min-maxy, something with a lot of rules for out of combat things and a focus in the books on being able to do other things, then that can encourage players to do those things. What's often the issue with inexperienced groups/GMs vs. experienced ones is that when you're experienced you don't need the book to tell you how to play, you already know it. So even if the books are all about combat, the GM can run a game that isn't very combat-focused by houseruling and freestyling it, and even if a combat-focused game is desired they're able to do it in a way that still involves a lot of roleplaying with the decisions, the few NPCs you meet are interesting and have agendas etc. Getting to that point can take some time and if the group wants different things and some are content with it as-is, the GM may feel like they don't need to change anything or go out of their comfort zone. Playing different games is the best way to explore what you enjoy and how you can get better at playing and GMing I think, though many D&D/PF groups are more casual about it and not interested in TTRPGs in general.
I'm not very experienced myself, just to make that clear. It's a difficult subject, and I'm probably wrong about some of this stuff. I do strongly suggest you to take the initiative though, learn another system that is quite different like Fiasco, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Pendragon etc. and just say that "hey, do you wanna come over Friday and try out a game I got?" Beers and pizza may help, if it's presented to them as something they can just show up to and check out it doesn't require much commitment from them.
>>47622141
I've played a bit of Fiasco before, with the same people both times. I imagined it differently than what we came up with, so I suppose mileage can vary based on players. We ended up with pretty campy, silly, stories, though I'd probably enjoy them more if they weren't, I can safely say I've enjoyed them more than the usual Pathfinder I've played.
I remember years ago a particular player kept wanting to play different systems, but we never got around to them because of X or Y reasons. Maybe it was just hard to get people interested, or maybe the person getting interested wouldn't actually put the time in to guide everyone else.
Most people were stuck in the wanting-to-be-a-player mindset, but right now I'm feeling like theres much more freedom in GMing so I'm kind of excited to try to get something going.
>>47622207
Yeah I really like playing new games but it takes a lot of effort to be the person responsible for making it happen. My group is mostly interested in playing different games so we're dividing them up between us, but it still takes a while learning the rules and getting a game ready.
>>47621647
I don't know if Leon was a cool guy, or a huge faggot, for not banging Mathilda's brains out
>>47623781
There was apparently a deleted scene where he does, and then cries immediately afterwards.
>>47623781
Huge faggot
>>47623781
Leon was a huge autist. Period.
He was a foreigner who could not even read. He clearly had development issues.
