2 hours ago, BD Flory said:

You can play doubles tennis, and its still tennis. You can play tennis on clay, grass, or hard court; with a wooden racket or graphite; professionally, competitively, or just for fun. All still tennis.

"Role-playing," is a much broader category than that. You're being ridiculous.

Yeah, totally - there are lots of different types of roleplaying game with lots of different flavours, just like different types of tennis. But those are roleplaying games.

Arkham Horror is basketball. It's got some of the hallmarks - there are a couple of participants, there's a ball, it bounces and you ideally want to keep it on your opponents side of the court. There's even Nets! But really, it's nothing like Tennis at all.

Dressing up explanations on what the cards or the game are telling you to do has all the roleplay depth of a dried up puddle. It's more like a really shoddy play where you basically read all the lines but not necessarily in the right order. Your characters ultimately have no agency and no ability to affect the narrative outside of a couple of basically cosmetic choices because in the end, you're all heading towards that 6th pack, no matter what you do. You can say "my character finds this super traumatic" or "I'm scared stiff", but there's no mechanism to change anything; your character is exactly as statistically scared or or freaked out as the game says they are.

There's nobody there to interpret and adjust the game world to make those sorts of things actually satisfying as part of a wider plot.

As I said earlier, if you're having fun then please do continue. Let me assure you, there are people playing roleplaying games out there who don't care a jot for their character's motivation or what they're feeling or how anyone else character is feeling. All they care about is their +10 Staff of the Bobcat and how many damage points it dishes out. But they're still playing a roleplaying game, whereas in Arkham you're playing a something very different. It's all horses for courses, but there's no point getting all spluttery about people telling you how to have fun - people have different opinions!

Like I said this is a rabbit hole. All I can tell you is that I do consistently roleplay in this game and I do it without straining credibility. I don't do it for everything in game. It increases my enjoyment of the game. The makers of the game encourage it. Its in the rulebook. I get that it doesn't meet your definition.

4 hours ago, Buhallin said:

4 hours ago, Buhallin said:

Roleplaying is playing a character through a world.

You need to be tighter on these definitions to have a conversation. If you could give me a definition of what an RPG is to you, that may help a lot.

So I am playing a character (Daisy Walker) through a world (of Arkham Horror). But you are saying its not roleplaying, but it fits your definition. I don't think thats what you meant, but I have no idea what you meant by these words. Also, a GM is also roleplaying and is NOT playing a character through a world, so what the heck the GM doing?

Just to look at this from a different way. There are those old choose your old adventure books. Some people would consider that roleplaying. I would not. That being said if someone told me that they were roleplaying while playing one, I would say I don't really consider that roleplaying, but if thats what you get out of it, good for you (or hopefully something better than that that doesn't make them feel like I am dismissing what they are doing). Are we in that situation here?

10 minutes ago, Jobu said:

So I am playing a character (Daisy Walker) through a world (of Arkham Horror). But you are saying its not roleplaying, but it fits your definition.

You're not really playing Daisy through a world though, in my view. You're playing her through a very tightly bound set of choices which don't really create a world that makes any sense at all. You can certainly develop ex-post-facto explanations for why those tightly-bound choices might make sense, and you can certainly turn them into story bits, but your character has minimal agency in the world. Good roleplaying derives a character's actions based on their personality and environment. Can you explain why Daisy as a character doesn't have Dr. Milan along when you make your trip to the Museum, but then he shows up halfway through, then leaves, then returns to help Rex, then leaves again as you get on the train but then somehow miraculously shows up in the dining car only to get sucked into the rift with Rex but then return a few minutes later? I suppose you can, but those things aren't happening because they make sense in the world, the're happening because of random card draws and plays.

Even the fundamental structure of the game tends to break immersion. I call it the "This is my very favorite flashlight in the whole world" problem. Why can Daisy not hand a Flashlight or a Magnifying Glass to Wendy? Barring one Guardian card, every investigator is so protective of their possessions it's basically impossible to explain it away with any sense of reality. The game structure actively prohibits you from taking very common-sense actions, and if you cannot do what your character would obviously do in a given situation you cannot effectively roleplay anything.

In this way, I actually disagree that there is much opportunity to roleplay. I think the designers have made the (very common) mistake of taking some of the common trappings of RPGs (experience, stats, character progression) and confused their presence for actual roleplaying.

19 minutes ago, Jobu said:

Also, a GM is also roleplaying and is NOT playing a character through a world, so what the heck the GM doing?

You can look at the GM from either direction. One possibility is that they're enabling everyone else to roleplay while not actually doing so themselves. But I think the GM is on the other end of the spectrum - where most players roleplay a single character, the GM roleplays everyone else in the world. I think it's somewhere in the middle - the GM tries to make their characters realistic, but will often compromise that to create an enjoyable experience for everyone else.

27 minutes ago, Jobu said:

Just to look at this from a different way. There are those old choose your old adventure books. Some people would consider that roleplaying. I would not. That being said if someone told me that they were roleplaying while playing one, I would say I don't really consider that roleplaying, but if thats what you get out of it, good for you (or hopefully something better than that that doesn't make them feel like I am dismissing what they are doing). Are we in that situation here?

This is pretty close. I do think there's some opportunity for roleplaying, but I don't think the way most people describe it for this game qualifies. Roleplaying is more than just being narrative about the cards in your hand. It's about looking at the defined world through your character's eyes, and deciding how they'd react to it. The vast majority of opportunities for interesting roleplaying are either prohibited by the system, or ignored by players because they're mechanically disadvantageous.

Interesting roleplaying in this game would be things like "I've been trying to call Dr. Milan for the last three days, and he hasn't shown up (bottom of the deck). Screw that guy, we don't need him anyway (removes him from deck)." or "Zoey spent three turns getting chewed on by rats because of bad draws from the bag, she's now got a thing about rats and will only run away from them." Or even the opposite - Zoey will run away from what she should be fighting to go after the rats. These opportunities can even be presented by the game, but how many players declare roleplay but will still ignore a clue about Izzie because it's in that first train car and you know you don't have to worry about it? This is also why I say you can't both roleplay (well) and make mechanically optimal decisions all the time. They just won't line up.

Ersatz Nihilist describes it well - it's about character agency, both what the game allows and what players allow. If your character isn't doing what your character should do in that situation, it's not good roleplaying.

21 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

If your character isn't doing what your character should do in that situation, it's not good roleplaying.

So it is roleplaying. Just not good roleplaying (according to, in my mind, entirely arbitrary standards).

1 hour ago, Ersatz Nihilist said:

Yeah, totally - there are lots of different types of roleplaying game with lots of different flavours, just like different types of tennis. But those are roleplaying games.

Arkham Horror is basketball. It's got some of the hallmarks - there are a couple of participants, there's a ball, it bounces and you ideally want to keep it on your opponents side of the court. There's even Nets! But really, it's nothing like Tennis at all.

Dressing up explanations on what the cards or the game are telling you to do has all the roleplay depth of a dried up puddle. It's more like a really shoddy play where you basically read all the lines but not necessarily in the right order. Your characters ultimately have no agency and no ability to affect the narrative outside of a couple of basically cosmetic choices because in the end, you're all heading towards that 6th pack, no matter what you do. You can say "my character finds this super traumatic" or "I'm scared stiff", but there's no mechanism to change anything; your character is exactly as statistically scared or or freaked out as the game says they are.

There's nobody there to interpret and adjust the game world to make those sorts of things actually satisfying as part of a wider plot.

As I said earlier, if you're having fun then please do continue. Let me assure you, there are people playing roleplaying games out there who don't care a jot for their character's motivation or what they're feeling or how anyone else character is feeling. All they care about is their +10 Staff of the Bobcat and how many damage points it dishes out. But they're still playing a roleplaying game, whereas in Arkham you're playing a something very different. It's all horses for courses, but there's no point getting all spluttery about people telling you how to have fun - people have different opinions!

No one is saying AHTCG is an RPG, its an LCG. Some of us are saying its an LCG where you can role play, as in play a role. We also have rule book quotes supporting that.

The OP asked if you could act out in character (role play) like you do in an RPG. That is the question. They didn't ask if it was an RPG. They didn't ask the part about plots, or deciding what your character finds traumatic or not (which many actual RPGs don't give you agency in either). You can see the people who state you can role play in AHTCG never actually use the term "Roleplaying Game".

Role Playing Game is not the same thing as Role Playing (which is a component of an RPG, or at least should be, but not the whole thing).

6 hours ago, Duciris said:

When playing, we never let Ashcan put Fancy Clothes in his deck. Limited copies notwithstanding, that's proven a sub-optimal restriction based on character background.

Yeah I looked at my friend odd when he put it in Pete's deck. But I shrugged and figured everything is relative there was regular hobo clothing and there was fancy hobo clothes.

Now that I think of it, I actually knew a guy who traveled from city to city, had no steady job, stayed in squats and street performed for money. His (one) set of clothes was a tuxedo shirt and tuxedo pants. So I don't know what you would call that situation, but yeah that really was a thing.

1 hour ago, Jobu said:

We also have rule book quotes supporting that.

You seem to lean a lot on this, but I don't think it's all that compelling. The structure of the game itself doesn't really do anything to support roleplaying, and in a lot of ways is actively contrary to it. So they can put whatever they want in the rules, but the actual rules don't really gel with those statements.

1 hour ago, Samea said:

So it is roleplaying. Just not good roleplaying (according to, in my mind, entirely arbitrary standards).

I'm pretty sure I've made statements like "So bad it doesn't qualify as" repeatedly. But thanks for playing, keep looking! Like any long discussion I'm sure you can find a place where I've contradicted myself, and then you can leap out of the closet and yell "GOTCHA!"

I didn't expect the thread to get heated...

11 hours ago, Buhallin said:

Sure - up to a certain point, tennis is still tennis. You can roleplay with 3 players or 4. You can do it with a GM or without. You can do it with dice, and any number of character stats and charts from zero to Rolemaster.

But there are still things which fundamentally make tennis tennis, and make roleplaying roleplaying. Just because it's a broad category does not mean that anything you want to slap "roleplaying" on becomes roleplaying.

The tennis analogy is fatally flawed to begin with, because you're equating a single game with an entire category. What you're doing is more like saying, "Tennis is a sport, and you play with 1 or two players on a side, a ball you hit back and forth over the net, with rackets. Therefore, football is not a sport."

Which is nonsense. Just as there are many kinds of sports, there are many kinds of roleplaying, which put various emphasis on the different aspects of the genre -- some of which you call "trappings." The crunchiest, most tactical roleplaying game is still a roleplaying game, just as is the loosest, most story-oriented roleplaying game. And that's without even looking outside the pen and paper medium, where "roleplaying game" brings a broad spectrum of additional meanings.

Roleplaying can be as heavy as deep character studies (fictional and otherwise) with no dice and minimal rules, and even reaches the level of therapy tool, and only escapes being a "game" by virtue of its seriousness. Even that isn't set in stone. Roleplaying games in the electronic medium had their root with almost no roleplaying outside of equipment and skill choices (if that), and has evolved to a point where you can interact with other players in real time, whether in an MMO environment, a custom built mod, or even what amounts to a GUI for long-distance pen and paper groups.

Even within pen and paper, games can range from loose and unique resolution mechanisms like Gloom or Fiasco, to set piece tactical exercises peppered with pithy one-liners (or at least attempted pith), separated by roleplaying scenes that are a thin excuse to get from encounter to encounter. These thing are all roleplaying.

(Along with a few things that aren't proper for a family forum, but for some people, could probably also be categorized as "roleplaying" and sometimes "games.")

You brought up science fiction. Well, here's a thought from one of the greats:

"Science fiction is anything published as science fiction." -Norman Spinrad.

"Sports" is the same way. There's a fuzzy line where stuff stops being a sport and starts being a game, and vice versa, revolving around degree of competition, money, equipment, physicality, and codified (rather than "folk" rules).

The same goes for roleplaying games. Or in the case of Arkham Horror, a game with roleplaying elements, wherein you can, if you wish, roleplay your investigator any way you like. In roleplaying games, the line is a whole lot fuzzier than it is in "sport/game."

(Personally, I do prefer a looser rules framework and a few other things arkham doesn't have in my roleplaying games. But that doesn't mean one cannot roleplay arkham just because I don't wish to.)

Would I call Arkham a "roleplaying game?" No, not really. For a variety of reasons, not list of which it wasn't published as such (see Spinrad above). That absolutely doesn't mean you can't roleplay it, or a group can't treat it as a roleplaying game if they wish. And if they do, voila! It's a roleplaying game. SImple as that. Whether something meets Buhallin's definition of roleplaying is pretty much immaterial to the rest of the world, I'm afraid.

Oy vey stead of arguing all day let me clarify what I'm talking about in my OP.

Roleplay I meant as in staying in character as much as possible barring scrapes about mechanics like did we use this Treachery right or rule contridictions like "There are several options for most clues as they have same number of clues... Rules say choose the worst option hmm..." (or not if they overlooked Grim Rule) Roleplaying as in this kinda thing.

Lola moves to Locatyion B starting in a unique to her Location A then everyone else. (In best female voice if a boy playing her) "Oh.. Who are you lot? I just woke up.. Did my understudy go one what time is it? Seems I messed the curtain call!"

1 hour ago, BD Flory said:

Would I call Arkham a "roleplaying game?" No, not really. For a variety of reasons, not list of which it wasn't published as such (see Spinrad above). That absolutely doesn't mean you can't roleplay it, or a group can't treat it as a roleplaying game if they wish. And if they do, voila! It's a roleplaying game. Simple as that. Whether something meets Buhallin's definition of roleplaying is pretty much immaterial to the rest of the world, I'm afraid.

Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner!

1 hour ago, BD Flory said:

Would I call Arkham a "roleplaying game?" No, not really. For a variety of reasons, not list of which it wasn't published as such (see Spinrad above). That absolutely doesn't mean you can't roleplay it, or a group can't treat it as a roleplaying game if they wish. And if they do, voila! It's a roleplaying game. SImple as that.

To summarize that very long post: You can call anything you want a roleplaying game, whether it actually has anything to do with roleplaying, and by calling it a roleplaying game you're now roleplaying, whether you happen to actually be doing anything that actually resembles roleplaying or not. Maybe I'm just too old and crusty to get behind the "Nobody can do anything wrong so long as they're doing what they want!" but I think that's a crock. Putting a biography of Jimmy Carter on the SF shelf does not make it science fiction. From what I can find concerning the quote, I also think you're missing the point of it rather spectacularly. You want to take a statement about how the publishing world works and use it to justify an "It can be anything" amorphousness. I'll take the definitions of pretty much every other major SF author ever, in that there are indeed certain things which define SF, and there are certain things that define roleplaying, and dropping a book on the shelf next to D&D doesn't mean you're roleplaying when you play it.

1 hour ago, BD Flory said:

Whether something meets Buhallin's definition of roleplaying is pretty much immaterial to the rest of the world, I'm afraid.

Well of course it's immaterial. You say this like it's news, and more importantly, like your definition somehow matters more. Your opinion is meaningless to the world. My opinion is meaningless to the world. What, did you actually think I expected the discussion to matter? That you've somehow burst my bubble and crushed my view of myself by telling me it won't? Please. I'm expressing my opinion, which will change the mind of exactly nobody, just like yours.

The ironic thing is that I actually know that. For all your protestations of how immaterial my views are, you've contributed quite a lot of effort being offended by something you say doesn't matter.

36 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

To summarize that very long post: You can call anything you want a roleplaying game, whether it actually has anything to do with roleplaying, and by calling it a roleplaying game you're now roleplaying, whether you happen to actually be doing anything that actually resembles roleplaying or not. Maybe I'm just too old and crusty to get behind the "Nobody can do anything wrong so long as they're doing what they want!" but I think that's a crock. Putting a biography of Jimmy Carter on the SF shelf does not make it science fiction. From what I can find concerning the quote, I also think you're missing the point of it rather spectacularly. You want to take a statement about how the publishing world works and use it to justify an "It can be anything" amorphousness. I'll take the definitions of pretty much every other major SF author ever, in that there are indeed certain things which define SF, and there are certain things that define roleplaying, and dropping a book on the shelf next to D&D doesn't mean you're roleplaying when you play it.

You're right, my definition doesn't matter. Which is why I don't tell people they're not roleplaying when they say they are. Your narrow definition, however, fails to capture a wide swathe of activities that their practitioners call roleplaying.

36 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

The ironic thing is that I actually know that. For all your protestations of how immaterial my views are, you've contributed quite a lot of effort being offended by something you say doesn't matter.

You seem to be projecting. I'm not offended a bit. You do seem prepared to flounce off in a huff, though, since you've reached your habitual, "If I"m wrong, nothing matters and everyone's wrong, so nyah," phase. Par for the course.

1 minute ago, BD Flory said:

You seem to be projecting. I'm not offended a bit. You do seem prepared to flounce off in a huff, though, since you've reached your habitual, "nothing matters and everyone's wrong, so nyah," phase. Par for the course.

I have no idea what you're going on about it, but it is some impressively passive-aggressive boxing in. You're the one who pointed out how immaterial opinions here are - am I wrong that your permissive opinion is just as unimpactful to anyone as mine? Nobody's going to suddenly become a better roleplayer tomorrow because I say I have a tighter definition. Nobody who cares about quality roleplaying is going to suddenly consider WoW's Barrens chat worthy to be called RP because you have a loose one. I'll freely grant that you're more "right", in that people have slapped "RPG" on any number of things, and have a much lower bar for what constitutes "roleplaying". But aligning with the crowd doesn't make your opinion any more meaningful or impactful, does it?

Trying to get back to actual discussion, I actually found the quote interesting, because I think in context it's actually the opposite of what you want it to mean. Spinrad seems to be commenting on how publishers controlled what would and would not be published as SF, regardless of the actual content. Looking at some of his own struggles in getting published, that does not seem to be a complementary statement in the vein of "SF can be anything anyone wants it to be". But I'll freely admit that's a short study. I'd be really curious to see what Spinrad calls some of his own non-SF work like The Druid King, but can't seem to find anything.

You do get bonus points for "flounce" though. Good word, that.

Let me propose this: "role playing" in this game is less like playing an RPG and more like DMing a bunch of munchkins (the decks) who are playing chaotic neutral when they should be playing some flavor of Good. You're mostly trying to react to their antics and keep the story narratively on track.

Actually, I did just find this, also from Spinrad, apologies if I typo, having to copy it by hand:

"This indeed is a reliable formula for successful commercial fiction. Crank it through cowboys and outlaws and you have a western; spies and counterspies, and you have an espionage thriller; cops and criminals, and you have a detective story; rocketships, alien planets, a galactic overlord, an intrepid spaceman, and you have... Sci-fi"

So it would seem that his own definition of science fiction was grounded more in the actual content, and not "whatever you want to call it".

5 minutes ago, CSerpent said:

Let me propose this: "role playing" in this game is less like playing an RPG and more like DMing a bunch of munchkins (the decks) who are playing chaotic neutral when they should be playing some flavor of Good. You're mostly trying to react to their antics and keep the story narratively on track.

Eh, herding decks is WAY easier than actual players...

3 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

Actually, I did just find this, also from Spinrad, apologies if I typo, having to copy it by hand:

"This indeed is a reliable formula for successful commercial fiction. Crank it through cowboys and outlaws and you have a western; spies and counterspies, and you have an espionage thriller; cops and criminals, and you have a detective story; rocketships, alien planets, a galactic overlord, an intrepid spaceman, and you have... Sci-fi"

So it would seem that his own definition of science fiction was grounded more in the actual content, and not "whatever you want to call it".

Notice that he's talking about "commercial" fiction. He was part of the 60s New Wave, which pioneered soft science fiction, and drew on a wide array of literary influences that placed him well outside the commercial formula. You're arguing from google.

The idea that Spinrad would hew to a prescriptive definition of science fiction (as opposed to observing market trends, which is a different thing) is ludicrous. Particularly in the 1970s, when he wrote the line I quoted.

29 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

I have no idea what you're going on about it, but it is some impressively passive-aggressive boxing in. You're the one who pointed out how immaterial opinions here are - am I wrong that your permissive opinion is just as unimpactful to anyone as mine? Nobody's going to suddenly become a better roleplayer tomorrow because I say I have a tighter definition. Nobody who cares about quality roleplaying is going to suddenly consider WoW's Barrens chat worthy to be called RP because you have a loose one. I'll freely grant that you're more "right", in that people have slapped "RPG" on any number of things, and have a much lower bar for what constitutes "roleplaying". But aligning with the crowd doesn't make your opinion any more meaningful or impactful, does it?

Actually, this explains a lot -- addressing prescrpitivism brought it to mind. I'm not "aligning" my definition. I'm observing what the thing is and describing it, which is really the only way to define any genre or medium. It can never capture every nuance of the thing (because any such thing is always changing), but it's a more flexible method of taxonomy than attempting to qualify or disqualify things based on a personal perspective.

The prescriptive approach is self-defeating. As soon as you say, "it is this thing, and this thing only" (no matter how broad that is, or how many elements of the definition there are), it's dead. Art and creativity don't work that way. They're amorphous and constantly changing, as well as negotiable and socially constructed (which is why the opinions of "the crowd" matter -- "the crowd" has tremendous influence on any discussion). It isn't subjective, as such, but a collective process for which there is no objectively "right" answer."

What is roleplaying today doesn't include everything that will be roleplaying in ten years, and what roleplaying will be in ten years doesn't include everything that is roleplaying today, or ****, in different areas of the country and the world and the internet.

I'm more interested in what has meaning, broadly, rather than just to myself. Discussion is a way to bring that out, not shut it down.

9 hours ago, BD Flory said:

Actually, this explains a lot -- addressing prescrpitivism brought it to mind. I'm not "aligning" my definition. I'm observing what the thing is and describing it, which is really the only way to define any genre or medium. It can never capture every nuance of the thing (because any such thing is always changing), but it's a more flexible method of taxonomy than attempting to qualify or disqualify things based on a personal perspective.

The prescriptive approach is self-defeating. As soon as you say, "it is this thing, and this thing only" (no matter how broad that is, or how many elements of the definition there are), it's dead. Art and creativity don't work that way. They're amorphous and constantly changing, as well as negotiable and socially constructed (which is why the opinions of "the crowd" matter -- "the crowd" has tremendous influence on any discussion). It isn't subjective, as such, but a collective process for which there is no objectively "right" answer."

What is roleplaying today doesn't include everything that will be roleplaying in ten years, and what roleplaying will be in ten years doesn't include everything that is roleplaying today, or ****, in different areas of the country and the world and the internet.

I'm more interested in what has meaning, broadly, rather than just to myself. Discussion is a way to bring that out, not shut it down.

Now this is a far more interesting discussion than "You're not the boss of me!"

Rather obviously, I disagree broadly with this. I don't think the core definition of roleplaying has changed in 40 years. What has happened is people have used the term without knowing what it meant, applying it to any number of things. And honestly, even saying it's "people" is giving them too much credit. It's largely occurred because publishers slapped "roleplaying" on a bunch of stuff that really had little to do with roleplaying, and people just accepted that. I don't believe anyone has consciously said "We should consider talking about the US election in WoW's general chat as roleplaying". But because companies liked the sound of "MMORPG", they assume that anything they do in an MMORPG is inherently roleplaying.

Per your approach, terms are literally meaningless. There's no structure to anything beyond what someone can convince anyone of. That may be an interesting thing to follow per social science, but it removes any real definition of anything. How do you become a better roleplayer? We can at least agree that participating in it has a qualitative aspect, right? Should I throw more politics into the Barrens chat? Does that make me a better roleplayer?

Perhaps a prescriptive view is doomed to fail, overwhelmed by the chaos of people willing to redefine roleplaying to make money, or make themselves feel better because having someone say they're doing it wrong hurts their feelings. Yes, definitions of things can and will change - but we should be able to consider and analyze those changes, and acknowledge when the meaning has drifted so far from its original that it deserves to be something different. And it very much is something different - the fact that people have tortured the term into that different shape does not mean the new shape is inherently correct.

13 hours ago, CEOWolf said:

Oy vey stead of arguing all day let me clarify what I'm talking about in my OP.

Roleplay I meant as in staying in character as much as possible barring scrapes about mechanics like did we use this Treachery right or rule contridictions like "There are several options for most clues as they have same number of clues... Rules say choose the worst option hmm..." (or not if they overlooked Grim Rule) Roleplaying as in this kinda thing.

Lola moves to Locatyion B starting in a unique to her Location A then everyone else. (In best female voice if a boy playing her) "Oh.. Who are you lot? I just woke up.. Did my understudy go one what time is it? Seems I messed the curtain call!"

I think you can do this and its fun to do. I even think its roleplaying. While some people will say thats not roleplaying, I think everyone will say you can do that.

One more thing, you are applying the Grim Rule wrong. The Grim Rule is only suppose to be used when you aren't sure what the ruling should be. When you are in a situation where multiple locations have the most clues, you get to choose since the Grim rule doesn't apply. A lot of people don't get it the first time they read the Grim rule.

I personally feel LCG Arkham is an RPG how the articles been going on describing Arkham I haven't the mind to disagree and find it a nice take

On 11/8/2017 at 3:00 AM, BD Flory said:

...since you've reached your habitual, "If I"m wrong, nothing matters and everyone's wrong, so nyah," phase. Par for the course.

Eminently predictable:

19 hours ago, Buhallin said:

Per your approach, terms are literally meaningless. There's no structure to anything beyond what someone can convince anyone of.

Nobody claimed people talking politics in Barrens chat was roleplaying. But that doesn't mean people can't roleplay in WoW. Just as some people don't roleplay Arkham (and probably some even talk politics while they're playing!), but that doesn't mean no one can.

There's is a vast swath of territory between, "nothing means anything," and, "each thing has a fixed meaning that is unchanging." Sorry that's so difficult to grasp.

12 minutes ago, BD Flory said:

Nobody claimed people talking politics in Barrens chat was roleplaying. But that doesn't mean people can't roleplay in WoW. Just as some people don't roleplay Arkham (and probably some even talk politics while they're playing!), but that doesn't mean no one can.

I don't believe I ever said people couldn't roleplay in WoW. I've done it myself in MMOs, although the interest for it in WoW was always minimal. I've also never said it's impossible to roleplay in Arkham - I think I even gave a minor example where I did it myself. I have said that the constraints of the game make it difficult to do so well. It's really kind of starting to feel like you're declaring my definition invalid without even understanding what it is.

16 minutes ago, BD Flory said:

There's is a vast swath of territory between, "nothing means anything," and, "each thing has a fixed meaning that is unchanging." Sorry that's so difficult to grasp.

So when I said above that "Yes, definitions of things can and will change", what I really meant was "each thing has a fixed meaning that is unchanging". Who knew?

That is impressive, though - insulting me for saying something that's literally the total opposite of what I actually said.

8 hours ago, Buhallin said:

I've also never said it's impossible to roleplay in Arkham - I think I even gave a minor example where I did it myself. I have said that the constraints of the game make it difficult to do so well.

There it is again.

So, technically, it is possible to roleplay AH — but it would be "bad" roleplaying, so bad, apparently that it cannot be called "roleplaying", really.

I must disagree with that. To me, roleplaying is playing, experimenting, being creative, having fun, there is nothing serious about it. You decide, what your character does and says, but it is not whether or not you base this decision on your character's imagined psychology, the roll of a die, dramatic context, stats and abilities or just depending on what you'd like to see happening.

You can make your own rules on how you want to roleplay, of course. But to me this is like avoiding to step on the cracks in the sidewalk — a particular game you play for your own amusement or satisfaction, but in no way "the" rules to do it "right". Other people will like other things about roleplaying or expect other thing from doing it and that is fine, too.