From: markg@vulcan.anu.edu.au (Mark Grundy)
Subject: Re: Judging Roleplaying
Originator: markg@vulcan.anu.edu.au
Reply-To: markg@arp.anu.edu.au
Organization: Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Distribution: aus
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 92 23:47:57 GMT


    In article <1992Sep3.112526.9620@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au>,
    s892341@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Matt=Goodall) writes:
    > Whenever you GM a group of  people in a tournament there is usually  a
      place to put  a score for  roleplaying.   What does the  Gm judge  the
      group on?  Is it consistancy?  (When the player stays in character ALL
      the time).  Is  it how loud the  player is?  (Making  it very easy  to
      play a loud obnoxious character with a funny voice).  The player  must
      also make the right choices, a paladin not killing peasants etc.   And
      so I  wonder  how  the  Gm  (worn  out  and  tired)  decides  who  was
      roleplaying better, when roleplaying is such a vague thing.

    > One other thing that I think deserves consideration is the  percentage
      of a team score that is based on roleplaying.  In recent years it  has
      usually been 50% roleplaying (in  the AD&D) but this year's  Arcanacon
      major AD&D (Buate Dosta) was 2/3  roleplaying.  Is this a good  thing?
      Will next years winners not move from the first encounter?

        Something about this question disturbs me greatly.  Matt has touched
    on more issues here that just how to judge a game properly.  There is no
    reason that characterisation  should ever  be at  odds with  progression
    through the game, and yet so often in AD&D tournaments it is.

        The main problem is that in  many AD&D tournaments, the players  are
    expected to pace themselves  through the game, while  the GM acts as  an
    arbiter.  This is  a really dumb notion,  since the players cannot  have
    any real  idea of  how many  events  there are  to play  through  unless
    they've read  the module  in  advance!   This  attitude of  letting  the
    players pace themselves directly  causes a conflict between  roleplaying
    and problem-solving.   Players begin  to feel guilty  for playing  their
    character, in case they're obstructing the team from further progress...

        The other difficulty is that many AD&D designers are very lazy  when
    it comes  to storyline.    AD&D tournaments  have  a long  tradition  of
    trivialised  character  conceptions,   pointless  combats,   unmotivated
    puzzles and meaningless  rewards.   In such  an environment,  it is  not
    surprising that many people who exclusively play AD&D see roleplaying as
    something silly to do that can win prizes.  And it's not surprising that
    it's so hard to judge such an incoherent, patchwork game fairly.

        On the other hand, if you have a good game, where the characters all
    fit into the story, where the events all have a point to them, where the
    game is actually _about_ something, rather  than just being a series  of
    random encounters, then it's very easy to judge good teams from bad.

        For such games,  a good  team is  one who  provides interesting  and
    credible  character  interpretations,  who  uses  those  interpretations
    effectively in  the game,  who understand  what the  game is  about  and
    provide a satisfying,  interesting contribution  to it.   To find  those
    teams,   I   generally   use   three   judging   categories:   character
    interpretation, story contribution  and group  interaction.   If the  GM
    considers each of those categories to be ``good'' or better for the team
    as a whole, then that team is  considered for a prize.  If there  aren't
    enough prizes then I try and give them to those teams that put the  most
    into the game.  Since that's  a very subjective question, you just  have
    to do the best you can, and not  worry about it afterwards.  As long  as
    some people who  played well have  something to remember  it by,  you've
    done all that can be asked.

        These judging  criteria don't  work for  games where  there isn't  a
    clear central storyline, or where the characters are flimsy.  You  can't
    ask teams to do better than the  game design permits, and when it  comes
    to story-line and  roleplaying opportunities, so  many AD&D  tournaments
    are shoddy fare at  best.  For  many AD&D tournaments  I think that  the
    best step toward better judging might be to write a well-structured game
    in the first place.
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 markg@arp.anu.edu.au                                              Mark Grundy