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On Being In Character
Poll #3 Choice between extremes
QUESTION: Which of these extreme game situations would you rather experience?
Your character lives but the story was bland beyond belief: no votesPoll #4 Dilemma (poll closes October 8)Your character dies valiantly and the tale is epic and dramatic: Tommy, Gelo, Joe, Patrick, Butch, Willem, Frank, Sandor, Chay, Adrian, Cathy, Dariel
I can't decide between them: no votes
THE SITUATION: There are times when fate is placed in your character's hands. In those situations sometimes being efficient/effective and being in-character are in perfect alignment. But for those times that you could only be one at the expense of the other which philosophy usually guided your play (answer based on your more recent games)?Be out of character and play it efficient/effective (Objective First): FrankPossibly fail but be true to the character crafting (Character First): Tommy, Josh, Russel, Willem, Sandor, Chay, Cathy, Dariel, Adrian
Tommy Lim wrote:AEGIS is full of melodramatic suicidal maniacs ... just kidding folks.
Adrian and I had been asking the question "why do people play RPGs?" One thing we agreed upon, which the poll respondents resoundingly agree upon also, is that we play to have an opportunity to be bigger than life.
Sometimes we feel our real lives are much like the first option of question #3, we live, but our story is bland beyond belief. How often we look for excitement to spice our lives. Here is where our characters come in. They have the opportunity to be great heroes, and death is not a finality because the character lives on in our collective memories and in our stories (not to mention the possibility of resurrection spells). At the same time the player goes on ... with a new character. When a character dies we feel the loss as if losing a loved one or a cherished work of art. But this character can live again, we have alternate timelines and other millieus.
In our lives we often can't afford that level of epic drama because society doesn't support it and death is a material finality for us. We want our characters to have a life that we can't have.
We like the epic drama even if it means death ... because we can afford it. That is certainly one of the appeals of the RPG, to be bigger than life in a world that hinders it.
Adrian points out that we can't give what we don't have. Each and every character we make has pieces of us in them, no matter how different we make them from ourselves. What is more, I have found that the characters we make are mirrors of aspects of our lives, even if we aren't aware of it. Thus, a piece of us gets to be bigger than life. Look back on your characters in the past and see how they mirrored your life then. Look at them not for the race or class they were but *how* you created them and *how* you played them. In those characters are who we were, our dreams, our frustrations, all in a tiny mirror of the real self.
In fact I have contemplated on my characters as a form of meditation as each one reveals something about me that I might not know. Try it sometime. Use more recently played characters.
The results of poll #4 show that people value their character crafting much.
That is all that can be concluded as, apologies folks, the poll is actually flawed. I took time to make the wording but I realized only the other day that it did not reflect what I really wanted to ask. I will be preparing a new question to more accurately ask what I am after.
Interesting questions we have, don't we? You may be wondering if there is method to the madness. Indeed there is. The answers and insights gained from the polls will help Adrian and Dariel design the PC and GM workshop that is in the planning stages at this time.
Tommy
Phred wrote:Being in characater means partially or fully forgetting my real self in favor of an alternative identity. I begin to think and feel like that other person. Sometimes though, personal biases do come out. Ask Adrian about the time I refused to kiss this beautiful maiden because I knew that toothbrushes had not been invented yet and she probably had foul breath. Adrian had to remind me that I probably had bad breath, too. I don't think it is possible to get rid of all of one's biases but I always try.
This requires two things though. A good GM and mood. The GM has to be able to inspire this kind of role-playing from me and I have to be in the mood.
Phred
Sandor Soon wrote:To add to this discussion:
Playing in character also means dealing with the situation as he sees it. That is, without knowledge of that which he cannot see or doesn't know in the first place. If the player knows Philippine History and the character does not, he should play the character as if he doesn't know who the hell Bonifacio is.
That, of course, also applies to events that happen beyond the field of his senses.
Sandor
Phred wrote:I agree with you wholeheartedly, Sandor. With one caveat:
We recently had a discussion at PhilRPG regarding role-playing ignorance. I don't want to bore you with the multitude of posts that topic engendered but generally the topic is unresolved. I do not know about your role-playing background so I hope you don't mind my talking down to you in the next paragraph.
Green slime is an example I like to bring up during discussions about player knowledge and ignorance. Green slime is literally green slime. It has few weaknesses it can eat through virtually anything. Now, in a campaign I am currently playing, the DM asked us to role-play ignorance. I asked the question: "If green slime were to fall on one of our
characters, are we still supposed to feign ignorance? Because if we were to feign ignorance, that character is dead. The only way to kill green slime fast is by applying flame to it. There's no way our characters know that!"To recap, I agree with role-playing ignorance, situations like the one above are just good points to think about.
Phred
Tommy wrote:Indeed Phred. I have however one approach that might be able to counter the "green slime" situation you posed. For such situations the GM (as I would) can declare "common knowledge" which include fact, rumor, "old wives tales", "legends" and "superstitions". The information need not be always true but it is an efficient device for allowing player ignorance without getting them into genre-shock. The reverse which is the option of getting them into more trouble because of wrong info is also made available using this device.
On other (rare but potentially dangerous) situations which cannot be covered by the "common knowledge" approach, the topic remains debatable and its up to the GM to work with the setup he made.
Why didn't I post this on PhilRPG? I just realized it out now but the thread there has already drifted to a related but different topic. I actually do and experience (mostly from Adrian and Dennis lately) the "common knowledge" approach without giving much thought to the problem it solves.
Dariel wrote:Poll #3 Choice between extremes
QUESTION: Which of these extreme game situations would you rather experience?
Your character lives but the story was bland beyond belief: no votesPoll #4 Dilemma (poll closes October 8)Your character dies valiantly and the tale is epic and dramatic: Tommy, Gelo, Joe, Patrick, Butch, Willem, Frank, Sandor, Chay, Adrian, Cathy, Dariel
THE SITUATION: There are times when fate is placed in your character's hands. In those situations sometimes being efficient/effective and being in-character are in perfect alignment. But for those times that you could only be one at the
expense of the other which philosophy usually guided your play (answer based on your more recent games)?Be out of character and play it efficient/effective (Objective First): FrankA thought just hit me - back when I was playing D&D/AD&D, my answers to both these questions would have been exactly opposite.Possibly fail but be true to the character crafting (Character First): Tommy, Josh, Russel, Willem, Sandor, Chay, Cathy, Dariel, Adrian
With regard to Poll#3, most AD&D adventures provided little reason to choose the second option - because most TSR adventure scenario goals boil down to little more than either armed robbery or mercenary work, or a combination of both. What incentive for heroism can you get from that?
A similar reason would cause me to answer Poll#4 differently; the system itself (AD&D) leaves you with almost no choice - to choose anything other than the optimal action would be suicidal. As Phred pointed out with his example of the green slime, roleplaying ignorance essentially meant giving up on your character's survival.
Acting in-character consistently (IMO - claiming Humility is all too likely to elicit a derisive hoot from Josh ^_^) requires that there be, first, guidelines on what the character's personality and commitments are, and second, incentives for acting in character. Frank Perez brought this topic up with his article on Victory Conditions, which spawned a very interesting discussion (see #001 What makes your ideal game system?).
The alignment system of AD&D is just too nebulous and abstract to really serve as a guideline to defining character personality; the Natures and Demeanors of White Wolf are more specific, but are not reinforced by the mechanics and so carry no price for being ignored or prize for being followed.
The Pendragon system rates personality Traits (which are paired opposites, like Valorous vs. Cowardly) and Passions, and simulates internal conflict by having a player roll against a Trait to see if he is taken over by it on appropriate occasions. Since I find playing extreme characters fun, I have no problem at all with this mechanic; Adrian pointed out in a phone conversation, however, that more players will tend to make their character Traits and Passions neutral-level in order to have more control (which I guess is also the reason most players make Neutral PCs in AD&D).
However, Pendragon does have an important feature when it comes to modeling a character's personality in the system; it gives incentives to act according to one's traits, and penalizes going radically out-of-character by shifting values from the ignored trait to its opposite. Furthermore, outstanding personality traits that are encouraged within the milieu (like Honor) add to the character's social standing (through Glory). Again, I find this very realistic and at the same time giving incentive to be heroic.
In Frank's terms, being able to remain true to your character's definition can become a Victory Condition in itself - because there really is something at stake when you have to choose between being in character or not.
In sum: AD&D makes me play like a cautious, methodical commando *no matter what my character is supposed to be*, whereas Pendragon (to mention just one good example) makes me act and *feel* like a Knight of the Table Round.
Thoughts, comments, violent reactions?
Dariel
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