The RP in RPG

And let's not kid ourselves. This is a game of combat -- as much as the original D&D was, if not more so. This is not a game of out-of-combat nuanced roleplay and complicated social mores. This is a game where your character is an optimized killing machine. Yeah, you can take intimidate or bluff if you really want to, but honestly, you have a charisma score, do you really need more than that? Especially when most of the time, your intimidate skill will take a back seat to your Riposte Strike at-will power or a well timed Shadow Wasp Strike. Your characters will feel most at home in a darkened corridor, decimating all around them.

From Eric Burns's I roll to disbelieve.

When I started playing AD&D, second edition, with my brothers and friends, it was all hack and slash dungeons.

Hack 'n Slash was what we wanted at that time: to kill orcs and evil wizards and dragons. Nothing was more fun than kicking open a door to find twenty orcs in a room and have our wizard throw a fireball into the crowd to see how many could be taken down with only one strike before sending in the fighter and the ranger to cut down the rest. We reveled in the hideous descriptions of the melted corpses and bits of flesh that were scattered around the room. Bodies were stripped of anything that might be of valuable which was then shoved into our packs and pouches so we could sell and trade them away at the town that was conveniently close to the dungeon's entrance. Then it was onto the next door and more slaughter.

But after a while, we changed. We started to interact more with the characters in the towns. Our GM began creating arch villains who were more ambiguous in their evil and nobility that wasn't as noble as they would be in an ideal world. We found scenarios that we could talk our way out of that the GM was sure we'd have to fight. We surprised him and he surprised us and together we created a fuller world to play in. And in its way, this was more rewarding than the blood and guts only games we started with.

Sure, there was still plenty of fighting our way through trolls and goblins, but it wasn't the only focus of the game anymore.

In college, split from friends, I tried to find a place in a party, but with those I played, creating character and story wasn't rewarded. Most thought of unwinding from the school week should be the slaughter. They didn't want to create a narrative. They didn't want to define a character. They didn't want to play people. They just wanted to be killing machines and got annoyed that I wouldn't regress back to the way I played in junior high. I never found a place to regularly play there and never really looked after.

Now comes the fourth edition and, from a reviewer I trust, that quote up at the top. And I can see the fun in that type of a game. I just can't see getting the same sort of satisfaction from full on hack 'n slash as I did from mixing the hack with character. I just like the character stuff more.

I know that the old editions of the game aren't gone. I know that with the right people character and story can be emphasized in a game. And I know that the new edition is probably a lot of fun with the right people. But, to me, it's a shame that story and character aren't really emphasized anymore.