Ragitsu

If you're not doing at least a little bit of acting when playing an RPG you're basically just moving a piece around a theater-of-the-mind boardgame (I think the word "theater" is quite appropriate here). Doing that makes D&D not much different from Chainmail (with the fantasy supplement), which is not an RPG. A lot of people have grown up believing, thanks to video games, that any game which tracks the progress of a character over time is an RPG. And maybe that's all it takes for a video game to be a "video game RPG", but that's not what a TTRPG is. And you don't have to be an accomplished (or aspiring) stage actor to "play act" a character, or to engage your brain in solving the GM's puzzles and mysteries.
 
Yes, there are definitely areas in which heavy game abstraction is a practical necessity. Combat and most physical activities, for instance. When you don't want to abstract those things, you go LARPing. But mental and social activities do not require much abstraction (sometimes none at all). And the fact that mental/social actions involve the least abstraction possible is what separates an RPG from a boardgame.
 

Oh, I definitely agree. Metagame knowledge should not be permitted to affect the game.
 
I just think that when it comes to intellectual and social abilities, this cuts both ways to an extent. Yes, we are playing characters who are not (usually) copies of ourselves, with abilities we don't necessarily possess. But RPGs are like boardgames where players have the unique opportunity to "play out" social interactions verbally, and to work out mysteries and find creative solutions to problems themselves. They should be availing themselves of these opportunities rather than sloffing off those responsibilities exclusively to dice rolls. Whenever someone uses dice to resolve a roleplaying opportunity they are, by its very definition, roll playing rather than role playing. Obviously any group is free to allow that if they wish; I'm just saying that it's like buying a boat but never taking it out onto the water. Might as well just buy a picture or model of a boat instead.

Roofers and open-ocean fishermen are in higher risk jobs.
 
Edit: Loggers too, apparently.

If I may (and I shall anyways), try to find a copy of GAZ3 - Principalities of Glantri. It details a full magic school where students are 10 years old at start. It also details mis-casting of spells due to them not being able to weild magic as well as a full grown adult.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TamLin

Another thing: they don't have the ironclad unions that police officers enjoy.

To my mind this is the Roll Playing vs. Role Playing debate, and while I fall somewhere in the middle on that, my old school gaming background pulls me closer to the role playing camp than to the roll playing camp. When it comes to mental and social activities in the game, I want the players to do most of the work themselves, and not rely on dice rolls. My rule of thumb is simple: if you aren't comfortable portraying a character with high mental and/or social abilities, then don't make one. Turning everything you do into a dice rolling exercise places too much emphasis on the Game and takes too much focus away from the Role Playing. Combat is different, of course, because the usual flow of play is suspended while everyone plays a skirmish-level wargame for a couple of hours.

Surprising number of jobs are more dangerous and yet those people don't get hyped up like super heroes even though we all need roofs, plumbing, electricity, food and the like.

Roofers and open-ocean fishermen are in higher risk jobs.
 
Edit: Loggers too, apparently.

Well, to be fair, in The Hobbit the DM had the charitable sense to give the hapless 3rd level Halfling Rogue an enchanted short sword and a mythril mail shirt, and to make a Ring of Invisibility available during the quest, knowing full well that the climax of the campaign was going to be an encounter with an ancient red dragon and a large-scale battle involving five armies and a huge werebear. And yet despite all that wonderful gear, said Halfling Rogue talked his way out of his encounter with the dragon rather than trying to fight his way out of it. And in an Old School game, this would be resolved through in-character conversation between player and DM, not a "skill roll".

Although I am grateful we have Republican opposition to Trump on our side, I keep reminding myself that some of those Republicans would enact many of the policies that Trump is trying to push through. They would work methodically and put on a saner, more urbane face. If Donald J. Trump is the bear dead ahead, then John Q. Republican is the adder in the bush.

"Bilbo meets Smaug" is what happens when the player has to talk to the DM and cannot depend on Diplomacy/Bluff.

The United States of America needs a rascally kid from the 1950s to break its Overton Window with a stray baseball so it can be replaced by something better.

Skills aren't necessary for coming up with and executing a clever plan to avoid combat and still achieve your objectives. In fact, the standard of play at the time allowed characters to do most mundane things without having to make skill rolls, so long as the player described what their character was attempting in a plausible manner. This notion that it's all about the player's abilities rather than the character's abilities (outside of magic or combat, for the most part) is what distinguishes "old school gaming" from contemporary RPGing. Combat was not the only objective resolution mechanism, and in fact, it was probably the least efficient in most cases, unless a poor GM left no other options open to the players.
 
Giving monsters low XP awards was to disincentivize combat. Awarding high treasure XP was to get players to focus on the objective rather than the obstacle. Destroying an obstacle was to be viewed merely as a means to an end (attaining the objective), not an objective in and of itself, hence the low XP awards for that. If there are other means to the same end that don't require such heavy expenditures in blood and treasure, then smart players are always going to take them. But this design approach requires sophisticated DMs that understand this design ethos and mature players willing and able to align their play style to it. That's why it worked for Gygax and his gaming group--and others of similar ilk of that era--but quickly fell apart when the game landed in the hands of 1980s teens and tweens.
 

Not a good person; then again, neither is Biden. Ahhh...I enjoy being reminded that the choice is between raccoon vomit and porcupine diarrhea.

Here are some relevant parts from the AD&D 2e DMG's chapter on Experience.
 
 
 
 
 
 
No longer are you primarily (or only, for the truly oldest of old school DMs) awarded XP for combat and retrieving treasures. This is one reason I prefer AD&D 2e over AD&D 1e: the shift towards encouraging loftier, romantic adventuring. You can still play an avaricious killing machine, but it isn't the only route to advancement.
 
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Here's something I found interesting.
 
 
This is effectively an "anti-grinding" measure. Very cool.

Yeah it was great. Going by the situation and the seat of your pants.

Dude, I don't think you grasp the enormity of what I'm talking about here.
 
I have good friends talking casually about groups of people being killed (by policy or enforcement) as a desirable outcome, my brother included in that group.  If they were coworkers that I saw daily, I'd be hearing this more than once a week.

No. It hasn't reversed. Positions on both sides have hardened and become more extreme, true; but the actual threats of thought-policing today are not coming from the left. Painting unequal things as equivalent is one of the factors that got us here.

I hope you understand, the only times I've had to engage in 'thought policing' with my conservative friends is when they literally advocate for welfare to be cut so people on welfare can 'just die already'.
 
If you think political correctness is rough to deal with, try having friends talking about indirectly killing off your brother.

There, or Australia.

Although I am grateful we have Republican opposition to Trump on our side, I keep reminding myself that some of those Republicans would enact many of the policies that Trump is trying to push through. They would work methodically and put on a saner, more urbane face. If Donald J. Trump is the bear dead ahead, then John Q. Republican is the adder in the bush.