What keeps you away from tabletop roleplay ?

[M.J. Saulnier]

You pretty much hit the nail smack-dab on the head when you said that play-by-post roleplaying is more like interactive storytelling. When I think of roleplaying, three different "types" of roleplay come to mind. 


1. The table-top roleplaying that you mentioned, which involves more acting. 


2. The purely story based roleplaying that you see in most play-by-post roleplays. 


3. And lastly, roleplaying that is somewhat story based, but involves a system. Sort of like a text-based game. 


People get #2 and #3 mixed up pretty frequently, but its not uncommon for play-by-post roleplays to involve a system as well as storytelling. Actually, people do it all the time. 


As for why people don't get involved with table-top roleplaying more often, I dunno. Its hard to say, everyone has their own reasons. But the main reason is probably because (most) people who enjoy play-by-post roleplaying are not very socially interactive people. At least, not when it comes to gathering together with a bunch of people to roleplay together. That's how I am personally, but I cant speak for everyone of course. Another reason is most likely because play-by-post roleplayers seem to enjoy writing more than acting. This is also true in my case. 

I don't find there is any "acting" invovled in dice-based RP on forums. Tabletop perhaps.


I dind more depth and complexity is required of play-by-post RP.

 

[CallmeMyth]

Yeah, there's not really any acting involved in dice role plays. 


A lot of people share your viewpoint on play-by-post RPs. Depending on what type of RP it is, especially RPs that are based on a game series (like Pokémon) some people find it necessary to have a more complex system for the RP to function.

 

[Proletariat]

Yeah, there's not really any acting involved in dice role plays. 


A lot of people share your viewpoint on play-by-post RPs. Depending on what type of RP it is, especially RPs that are based on a game series (like Pokémon) some people find it necessary to have a more complex system for the RP to function.

Woah woah woah woah I hope you're not implying tabletop dice roleplays lack acting.

 

[Umbrie]

Yeah, there's not really any acting involved in dice role plays. 


A lot of people share your viewpoint on play-by-post RPs. Depending on what type of RP it is, especially RPs that are based on a game series (like Pokémon) some people find it necessary to have a more complex system for the RP to function.

Woah woah woah woah I hope you're not implying tabletop dice roleplays lack acting.

Tabletop Dice Roleplays are generally harder, because you have to convincingly act in front of a bunch of people who are directly looking at you. this makes it harder for most casual actors and even then, i have been in tabletop dice roleplays that had absolutely no acting but lots of references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail or the Princess Bride.


you can technically act online in a playbypost, but it looks more like writing, unless your character profile becomes your persona. i act out a persona when i roleplay online. a very different persona than my IRL self. i even revise parts of my personal history to fit the role.

 

[cupidcreep]

well to put it simply...


i do not understand A THING

 

[Lost Swordlance]

well to put it simply...


i do not understand A THING

#Relatable

 

[Inner Power]

well to put it simply...


i do not understand A THING

Same.

 

[Grey]

Friendly reminder my RPs are always open to people want to try something in the tabletop style when lacking an actual group or tabletop. 

 

[CallmeMyth]

I wasn't implying that tabletop dice role plays lack acting. Just play-by-post dice role plays. But I don't know, I suppose play-by-post RPs could involve some acting too, but I have never seen any that do. 

 

[_Line 213]

The debate as to whether or not writing as a character would qualify as "Acting" could go on forever, so I think that the easier way to classify the Tabletop vs. Play-by-Post debate is by Timeframe.


I believe that being able to think on your feet is non-negotiable for Tabletop, while not necessarily being a requirement of something forum-based. When you're sitting at a table (and to a slightly lesser degree, in a chatroom or in a videogame) to RP, you have to have your character's mannerisms in the bag, because you'll be required to respond to whatever is said and done immediately in order to keep the action going. If you're not able to respond within the span of several seconds, the action will grind to a halt.


In forum-based roleplay, on the other hand, you have hours, days, maybe even weeks to figure out what you want your character to do. You can sit there for as long as you want, figuring out exactly what they would do in that situation, and if you realize that you made a mistake, you have the ability to take the action back to the drawing board and edit it until you feel it's perfect. You don't have this luxury in a tabletop environment, because once it's out there, It's Out There (unless your GM is nice and allows for a takeback after asking "are you sure").


I think that one of the main reasons why people don't enjoy Tabletop is because they either feel that they lack the ability to think in their character's head constantly, or because they simply prefer to have the time delay that forum-based material provides by nature. I got my start in chatroom-like formats, which is more or less a mixture of both of these worlds, so I have had little trouble assimilating into both kinds of roleplay, but for those that either deal with one world or the other, it's likely rather jarring to get into the opposite mindset.

 

[TPBx]

• Having no friends that play
  
• Lack of spacertain in the budget to invest heavily into it
  
• Lack the time between browsing this site, Facebook, reddit, playing games, school and work.
  
• Generally living far away from the places where I have a social life since I'm a commuter. So by default my would be friends that play would be up to an hour away from my home.
  
• General lack of interest. As cool as Warhammer 40K, DnD, and similar games look. If I was gonna play a tabletop, I'd rather spend my time playing Bang, Munchkins, or Settlers of Catan.
  

 

[ApfelSeine]

I've recently started to become acquainted with tabletop roleplaying, and from my limited experience I am feeling very discouraged about getting involved more often. It isn't that tabletop is excessively complicated, but rather that everyone who has tried to get me involved either sucks at teaching me how to play, or neglects to make room to include me properly.


With the former category, my friend brought me into a completely new system designed by his friend (in order to beta test it) and expected me to have full knowledge of what "perception checks" and "knowledge checks" are. How am I supposed to know when to roll either of those? I'd never even heard the terms before. Additionally I was given an unfinished list of spells and expected to know how magic worked despite having no background in dice roleplaying and despite the system not being fully explained to me. Additionally, I was expected to know what the limitations of each class were because "it's pretty standard". I have no experience with the standard. It's unreasonable to try to teach a system without fully defining anything. (If you tried to teach a kid to dance by saying "Do a brush back, double hop, then Cincinnati", they'd stare at you blankly. Terminology has to be defined first and foremost before one can use it to try to teach someone). This friend also tried to accomplish everything within a single setting and with rigidly defined ideas of how the story would play out. Neither me nor the dm was down with that, and to me staying in one place, especially in a deserted house in the woods, defeats the point because it keeps encounters from being likely to occur. I at least knew that much about tabletop. After all, what kind of story would The Hobbit be if Bilbo never left his house? The DM probably could have forced something to happen, but it would have felt contrived. 


As for the secondary category I've mentioned, there are two guys who have lately been immensely helpful in teaching me a lot of mechanics and lore that is used in a particular system. If I understand anything at all about tabletop roleplaying, it's thanks to them. That said, I don't know how any of the information I have translates into practice. Both of them have said that they will include me in a game and I've made steps to set that up, but I have yet to be included in anything. I'm holding onto the hope that things will play out eventually. If neither experience leads to anything fun (or anything at all) then I'll probably drop tabletop for an unspecified amount of time.


Basically, the problem for me is that few people ever stop to explain anything to me (or they assume I already know all the terminology and so their explanations are gibberish). On the off chance that someone does take the time to have a detailed explanation, they don't have time to show me how it actually works in practice. Ideally some of the mechanics I learn could be applied to the people who actually want to play with me, but everyone uses a different system and I'm not familiar enough with any of it to translate things effectively when people throw term heavy explanations at me and then expect me to initiate things when I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing based on their explanation.


I like freeform, and I'm pretty good at it. If tabletop isn't fun for me, I really have no incentive to try to make it fun. I've already got other options to enjoy when I want to roleplay. So basically, I've been having bad experiences, and freeform has all the things I enjoy about roleplaying, so unless that changes and I have some good experiences, I just won't see the point to trying to do more tabletop.

 

[Proletariat]

I've recently started to become acquainted with tabletop roleplaying, and from my limited experience I am feeling very discouraged about getting involved more often. It isn't that tabletop is excessively complicated, but rather that everyone who has tried to get me involved either sucks at teaching me how to play, or neglects to make room to include me properly.


With the former category, my friend brought me into a completely new system designed by his friend (in order to beta test it) and expected me to have full knowledge of what "perception checks" and "knowledge checks" are. How am I supposed to know when to roll either of those? I'd never even heard the terms before. Additionally I was given an unfinished list of spells and expected to know how magic worked despite having no background in dice roleplaying and despite the system not being fully explained to me. Additionally, I was expected to know what the limitations of each class were because "it's pretty standard". I have no experience with the standard. It's unreasonable to try to teach a system without fully defining anything. (If you tried to teach a kid to dance by saying "Do a brush back, double hop, then Cincinnati", they'd stare at you blankly. Terminology has to be defined first and foremost before one can use it to try to teach someone). This friend also tried to accomplish everything within a single setting and with rigidly defined ideas of how the story would play out. Neither me nor the dm was down with that, and to me staying in one place, especially in a deserted house in the woods, defeats the point because it keeps encounters from being likely to occur. I at least knew that much about tabletop. After all, what kind of story would The Hobbit be if Bilbo never left his house? The DM probably could have forced something to happen, but it would have felt contrived. 


As for the secondary category I've mentioned, there are two guys who have lately been immensely helpful in teaching me a lot of mechanics and lore that is used in a particular system. If I understand anything at all about tabletop roleplaying, it's thanks to them. That said, I don't know how any of the information I have translates into practice. Both of them have said that they will include me in a game and I've made steps to set that up, but I have yet to be included in anything. I'm holding onto the hope that things will play out eventually. If neither experience leads to anything fun (or anything at all) then I'll probably drop tabletop for an unspecified amount of time.


Basically, the problem for me is that few people ever stop to explain anything to me (or they assume I already know all the terminology and so their explanations are gibberish). On the off chance that someone does take the time to have a detailed explanation, they don't have time to show me how it actually works in practice. Ideally some of the mechanics I learn could be applied to the people who actually want to play with me, but everyone uses a different system and I'm not familiar enough with any of it to translate things effectively when people throw term heavy explanations at me and then expect me to initiate things when I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing based on their explanation.


I like freeform, and I'm pretty good at it. If tabletop isn't fun for me, I really have no incentive to try to make it fun. I've already got other options to enjoy when I want to roleplay. So basically, I've been having bad experiences, and freeform has all the things I enjoy about roleplaying, so unless that changes and I have some good experiences, I just won't see the point to trying to do more tabletop.

Tabletop roleplaying is all about knowing someone who knows what they're doing, not actually knowing what you're doing. With the provision that they try to help you figure it out

 

[ApfelSeine]

Tabletop roleplaying is all about knowing someone who knows what they're doing, not actually knowing what you're doing. With the provision that they try to help you figure it out

Lol yeah. Unfortunately all the people I know either know what they're doing but have no time to play, or they have time but no idea how to integrate a newbie.

 

[Proletariat]

Lol yeah. Unfortunately all the people I know either know what they're doing but have no time to play, or they have time but no idea how to integrate a newbie.

Integrating a noob is easy. (in DnD at least)

1. Hold their hand through character creation
   
2. tell them when to make rolls for actions and what modifiers to check for
   
3. remind them that they have to un-equip and equip items
   
4. no they cant pick pocket the troll
   
5. wait they rolled a 20, they pick pocketed the troll and found a deer bone
   

 

[Grey]

You did well to get through chararacter creation in NBN, Apfel. I hope watching the others in the leadup to Kin's introduction is helping, but now I think of it, if you have questions about anything or what is going on, lemme know.


I think it's my only game where none of the players have gone on an inexplicable hiatus yet.

 

[Bone2pick]

I think that one of the main reasons why people don't enjoy Tabletop is because they either feel that they lack the ability to think in their character's head constantly, or because they simply prefer to have the time delay that forum-based material provides by nature. 

I don't suspect that to be one of the "main" reasons as to why a roleplayer would prefer play by post RPs.

 

[ApfelSeine]

Integrating a noob is easy. (in DnD at least)






 

Well you would think, but it seems that either everything is structured in a way that never lets my character do anything, or the system is based upon having a pre-existing knowledge of D&D (but is different enough that it lacks the support structure of the more widely used systems).


Honestly, I'd like to try a game using Risible(? I'm not sure if that's what it's called), which mixes freeform with a dice system in an interesting way. It seems much more casual and revolves around a lot of social interaction, so it sounds like it would be a good fit for me and some of my friends.


Actually, if anyone knows the name of the system that uses a D6 and has the group of players vote on how "cool" they think an action is to give it a stat boost, please let me know what it's called so I can look it up. My dad called it "Risible" but google hasn't been of much help. It sounds like an easy enough game for newbies such as myself to figure out, and might be a bit friendlier to people who are much more used to freeform. Though then again, it is probably the case that most dice systems are very fun once one becomes familiar with them.

You did well to get through chararacter creation in NBN, Apfel. I hope watching the others in the leadup to Kin's introduction is helping, but now I think of it, if you have questions about anything or what is going on, lemme know.


I think it's my only game where none of the players have gone on an inexplicable hiatus yet.






 







 

Being able to read the word document of lore/skills/other things which was linked to me definitely helped a lot Though honestly it did take me a while to figure out how to allocate the stat points (I was proud that I managed to figure that out on my own). It is indeed informative to watch how the other players perform actions, but I do think I'll be able to get a better grasp of it once I get to try it out myself. Meanwhile, I am learning a lot, and I have high hopes that I'll end up getting a lot out of that rp. It's probably the best shot I have of familiarizing myself with dice rp without getting exasperated with it all.

 

[Grey]

I'd like to try a game using Risible

Risus, possibly?


http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm


FATE operates on some similar principles, and I recommend it often (it's my system of choice for doing comedy RPs and Night Vale RPs)


http://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-core/


It has a pay-what-you-want download option so you can try before you buy.

 

[BroscaHasScars]

I just tried it for the first time recently. Its pretty fun... But irl I'm kinda shy and it was super awkward when my character seduced someone. Oops. Won't be doing that again anytime soon.

 

[Mitheral]

Honestly, I haven't really even bothered to look at dice based roleplay here on RpN.  I came to RpN years ago though.  


However, I did do tabletop rpg's starting back in 1980.  I started play by MAIL (yes, snail mail) in 1989.  In 2000, I started my first PBeM using yahoo groups.  I had moved away from all of my old tabletop rpg friends.  In 2003, I went 100% mobile with very limited access to either internet or people.  It wasn't until I upgraded my internet that I returned to the world of gaming.  I started with online games like Diablo II, EQ, and WoW.  But eventually my service providers did away with unlimited data and I was forced to seek other recreation.  I tried a few RP sites, finally coming to RpN.


Now part of the reason I avoid dice based is the lack of a game system.  I don't do custom designed ones.  All the old systems I used to run have gone through revisions and I simply lack anywhere to carry books - much less the time to read them.  Many of the old systems simply no longer exist.  (Ever play Arduin Grimoire?  C&S?  Morrow Project?  Fringeworthy?  Space Opera?  I could go on and on....  I bet I could list no less than 30 more.)  It has simply been too long since I played these systems to run them and I prefer to know the rules if I play a game.


I have come to detest combat in RP's here on RpN for the very reason that there are no rules for character creation or combat.  And I find that I care little for PvP.  That comes largely from so many years of playing games where the groups were .... well ... groups.  Most our roleplay goes back to two settings.  Hobbit and Classic Star Trek.  (Yes, I realize that pre-dates most of you kids.)  In both of those cases the cast of characters worked together.


++++++


As to the writing ability of most dice based ... I am not sure that is fair.  I have come across many a poor writer among non dice based too.  Those dice based writers never had ME for a GM.  I used to adjust dice rolls based on acting.  I do the same for writing.  I have written some combat scenes where the players were floored as they read them.  They said they could practically see the scene as if in a VR setting with surround sound right out of a movie.  Granted that was one of my better scenes when I had some real time to write.