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Dragon Magazine #137, September 1988, the "Forum" section:
Quote:
Would any gamers agree that ever since the publication of the WATCHMEN series, campaigns and gaming generally have become "Watchmanized"? In other words, real role-playing interaction and character psyche development are seen as more important and, vitally, more "fun" than bickering over who gets to trash the most kobolds? I for one am not sorry to retire Otto von Hackenslash, the archetypcal no-personality fighter whose only concern was to use his +3/+7 strength bonuses on the next hapless goblin, and wheel out a character who will be more subtle, more willing to interplay, and more real.
And then we come full circle with certain segments of the "old school" crowd claiming that such things are not "real" roleplaying.
I don't know if there's a circle. I think it's just another example that "You play wrong!" has existed for a VERY long time.
What I find interesting is how you can look at examples of pop culture like this (as well as books, movies, and games) and almost get a snapshot of the prevailant human tastes at the time. I mean is it a coincidence that games like Vampire: TM came out at roughly the same time period and started gaining in popularity? Or shows like The Wonder Years, or even The Cosby Show (which despite being comedy also tended to focus on deeper character growth storylines.)
It's good for a player to have an interesting character. It's also good for the player to accept that bad things may happen to his character, that his character may try and fail, and that his character may die (all this happens in Watchmen too).
In my thoroughly Old School campaign (1975 Empire of the Petal Throne), we have all kinds. We have a player whose character has a portrait (drawn by himself, since he's an artist), a well-developed personality and who rolls against his character's intelligence to see if he thinks of things (I don't require this... it's a limitation he places upon himself). We have a player of a fairly workmanlike fighter who has yet to reveal any deeper personality traits (we know that she's an amazon warrior chick, that's about it)... and that's entirely sufficient and she participates very well. We have a well-developed priest with a complex backstory, and some other characters who have some development but not so deep.
It all works. Each player develops their character as far as they wish and find interesting. Then things happen during play that can be used as springboards, if they player wishes, to further development.
What we do not do is have a character enter the game with a pre-approved "script immunity" and a sure destiny of greatness. Greatness is won by proper risk management (i.e. smart play). That is true even though sometimes a player will have his character do something deliberately dumb because it is fun.
I think it's a mistake to try to take these things as absolute positions. If you want to play a developed character, go for it. If you just want to be a grim slayer-of-baddies, go for it. Whatever turns out to be fun. Just don't expect the Ref to constantly engineer your survival... when you decide to fight a monster, its blows subtract from your hit points, not from the paragraphs of your backstory.
__________________ "I despise all weavers of the black arts. Speaking of which, can you pass the gravy?"
That, my friends, isn't role-playings. Its chess. I give his "character" as much concern as I would a pawn or the Shoe in monopoly.
If I'm not playing D&D to create a character, I'm playing a toon with nothing more than a handful or numbers scrawled on a sheet of paper. No depth. No history. No quirks and talents. No dreams, fears, loves and hates.
If I'm not playing D&D to create a character, I'm playing a toon with nothing more than a handful or numbers scrawled on a sheet of paper. No depth. No history. No quirks and talents. No dreams, fears, loves and hates.
Might as well pay WoW for all that means to me.
This, this and this.
Diablo at the table doesn't interest me whatsoever. Thankfully, I have a great group of players that have been playing together with me for about 12 years who think the same way.
__________________ Author of ZWEIHÄNDER, a grim and perilous universal game system inspired by WFRPG
Doesnt really matter to me, in the end, as long as they're having fun!!
__________________ Pablo El Vagabundo
"Mercy!? You want MERCY? I'M CHAOTIC NEUTRAL!!!" One of my rituals is in Goodman Games's Book of Rituals.
Humpty Dumpty exploring the tomb
Humpty Dumpty found Acererak's doom
All of the clerics and all of the scrolls
Couldn't resurrect Humpty Dumpty's soul.
Last edited by vagabundo; 9th March 2009 at 10:49 PM..
When I play (sadly that rarely happens for various reasons) instead of running a game, I always give my characters individual personalities and such. I'm not saying doing so is bad, at all.
What I am saying is that doing so is not the core of what "role-playing" means. You don't *need* to create a unique personality for your character in order to be role-playing. It's an add-on, an ornament to the basic structure, for greater enjoyment. When you play D&D, your basic "role" is determined foremost by class, race, and alignment (which I completely forgot about in the original blog post). I think Gygax's guidelines in the AD&D training rules (1e DMG p86) would indicate he had thoughts along those lines, and I don't think he thought personalities and characterizations were bad things at all.
Doesnt really matter to me, in the end, as long as they're having fun!!
That's where I come down on the issue, myself, being a fan of Robin Laws for the past six years or so. There's a lot of reasons we each sit at that game table and bust out the dice instead of turn on the game console/PC. And there's a lot of folks who enjoy the goblin-bashing with a side helping of socializing; I also believe the different types of players can get along at the table a lot better than some folks would believe. But it's about managing time and making sure everybody gets a bit of what they want, and their moment to shine at why they're there.
It's a difference in playstyle, not an evolution of the game, and it happened before Watchmen and independent of it.
My own style treads heavily into character development/narrative gameplay, but that doesn't mean that my players don't care about how many goblins they thwack.
I can respect those who want to thwack goblins basically exclusively, and I encourage them. I find it more fun to play videogames for that, but whatever makes you happy, kiddo.
It's rather off to indicate that somehow being more character oriented is an inherently better style of game. It's not. It's not more evolved or more complex or more "real" or more interesting or necessarily more fun. It might work well for your group, but it might not work well for your friend's group. There is no One True Way. Even in 4e.
Having not seen the recent movie or read the book or whatever it is based on, I don't really understand where the Watchmanerizing term has come from. What's so special about this literature that inspired people not to play cheese-characters?
Hasn't it always been that way? Despite people pointing back and jumping up and down and saying, "See! Look! The game came from some war game setup! It's about fighting!" Hasn't the first chapter about characters always advised to create a character in your head who is interesting with quirks and subtleties, then apply the game rules?
What I am saying is that doing so is not the core of what "role-playing" means. You don't *need* to create a unique personality for your character in order to be role-playing. It's an add-on, an ornament to the basic structure, for greater enjoyment.
Okay. I see what you're saying as true to the same degree that it's true I don't need anything more than bread to have "lunch." I don't need lettuce, tomato, turkey, cheese, or condiments in order to satisfy my hunger. They're add-ons for greater enjoyment.
Of course, not many people would advocate eating bread alone for lunch when you can have a sandwich with all the fixings...so I'm not sure what is accomplished by pointing out that bread alone is sufficient to avoid starvation.
Having not seen the recent movie or read the book or whatever it is based on, I don't really understand where the Watchmanerizing term has come from. What's so special about this literature that inspired people not to play cheese-characters?
It's the best comic book ever written.
Normally a statement like that would be setting expectations too high, but probably not in this case.
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