Continuum of Roleplaying
Roleplaying can be a pretty broad term. Is a MMORPG roleplaying? Is Monopoly roleplaying?
You could spend a lot of time arguing what counts as roleplaying, but the answer is not yes or no, it’s a matter of degree. Even “move your token” board games contain an iota of roleplaying. When you move the shoe on the Monopoly board, that shoe is your character, however minimal that character may be. If you identify with it, it’s your character.
This is a stab at defining the complete spectrum of roleplaying, from barely having a character all the way to complete immersion. The order is not intended to indicate merit. You’re not a better person if you’re engaged in first degree roleplaying rather than second degree roleplaying. You’re just roleplaying more, which could be appropriate or not depending on the game you’re playing.
5th degree — You are not represented in the game even if you control events in it (third person, no representation). You have a god’s eye view. You may control units but with the understanding that they serve you instead of representing you.
4th degree — You are represented by a token in the game, with no discernable personality or unique game stats (first person, token representation). You move your token but only minimally identify yourself with it.
3rd degree — You act as the character in the first person, but the nature of the character does not influence your decisions (first person, no decision alteration). You could be unaware of the rules of the game or just not taking them into account, or the character might not have unique stats. You might be ignoring the character’s personality or the character might have no defined personality.
2nd degree — You make decisions based on the character’s game statistics but not its personality (first person, rules conscious tactics). Again, you might be ignoring the character’s personality or the character might have no defined personality.
1st degree — You take actions based on the personality of the character, including making decisions you know are unwise or poor tactically but which fit the character’s knowledge or preferences (first person, personality roleplaying). Rules take a backseat to personality.
zero degree — You think you are the character. You are unaware that you are a player (first person, immersion). Not to be confused with someone who is just playing themselves, not a different character.
In tabletop roleplaying games we are mostly concerned with first through third degree roleplaying, but the fourth and fifth degrees reveal traces of roleplaying in other games. In a nation building computer game, you may have no in-game identity but you are still trying to be a good emperor and therefore literally playing a role (fifth degree). When you move your shoe around the Monopoly board it’s “you” that lands on Boardwalk, not “my shoe” (fourth degree).
Second degree roleplaying (tactics) is where most computer MMORPGs hit, along with lots of other computer “RPGs” and not a few D&D games.
Is there a difference between someone who engages in first degree roleplaying (personality before rules) out of committment to their character versus someone who doesn’t know or understand the rules? Maybe, but again it’s not about merit.
Zero degree roleplaying doesn’t happen in any game I know of, but I’m including it for perspective since it’s the logical continuation of the spectrum. It’s either the realm of virtual reality where the players don’t know they are participating, or a player who has had a mental breakdown and can’t distinguish reality.
Metagaming
Note that first through third degree roleplaying do not specify whether the player is making metagaming decisions to improve the game. A first degree roleplayer could make decisions true to the character which still hurt the game (slavish roleplaying). The druid who won’t go into the city. The loner who can’t imagine teaming up with the other players.
Leave a reply
I think this article gets to the heart of what defines roleplaying games: http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/6517/roleplaying-games/roleplaying-games-vs-storytelling-games
I think there is a danger in associating role-playing with the ‘amount’ of immersion. I think role immersion is acting – not roleplaying.
Roleplaying is the the specific activity of getting into a role for a specific purpose (the ‘playing’ part of the equation). Usually either entertainment (what we do) or education (psychological roleplaying).
The example of the druid and the loner are two good examples. Those players aren’t role playing – they’re acting. They are forgeting the fundamental purpose of the game is to entertain each other. There is nothing entertaining about being dicks.
We see this all the time in TV and movies and sometimes even books. Sidekicks come along when they really can’t help. The cop’s partner ‘checks up on them’ just when they’ve been kidnapped.
It’s suppossed to be that way because we are suppossed to care about these characters, so we want to see what happens to them.
The loner and the druid take themselves off screen from the group. So they should never have been included in the story in the first place.
If we’re talking about Monopoly and MMORGs where does LARP fit in? In my experience, it’s seems around a 0.5 degree, give or take. The player is the character in that the character can only run as far as, stay awake as long as and swing a sword as accurately as the player. It’s not quite zero-degree because LARPers don’t really think they have magic powers in those birdseed sacks or “silver” swords nor that they are really elves, but the characters are certainly unwillingly constrained by or reflections of the players more than in 1st degree roleplaying.
On the other hand, having a spectrum might assume that if you are at a lower degree of roleplaying, one can always return to a higher level. That definitely doesn’t work for LARP for the same reasons that it’s 0.5. In other words, the character and the player are such an amalgam that it’s hard to split them up going backwards.
Also, especially in LARP when people and things are right in front of you and less-so, but still in tabletop, can players cross into (and out of) the so-called “zero degree zone” without having a mental breakdown or permanently residing there? Is that an intrinsic impossibility? Take the circumstances or misunderstanding when you can’t tell if it’s the player or the character talking in a heated argument or when in an intense moment a player completely buys into the environment no matter how it looks in reality (a real-world object or a board token). If you’ve subconsiouly and momentarily lost track of reality for that moment or that argument, is that zero-degree roleplaying or just playing yourself.
Finally, I like how you said, “The order is not intended to indicate merit.” I would add to this and say that the degrees of roleplaying also do not reflect the level of emotional reaction that a person may or may not have. One can have just a personal or emotional experience to a 5th degree game as a 1st degree game. Is it any less or more emotional if your God character loses a civilization, kills an army or manages to enslave a whole race than if your fighter kills his mother to avenge his father?
Didn’t you see Mazes and Monsters?
I think Tom hanks proved that Zero Degree roleplaying is not only possible, but the logical consequences of playing the Devil’s Game.
“I am the Dungeon Master!!!!”
Don’t you mean, “I am the Maze Controller, God of the universe I have created!”
er… or something like that, I would guess, if I had seen the movie just recently with 3 of our gamer friends who would pay me to remain nameless, but only if I had, and only if they pay on time.