Musing on the Nature of Character in RPGs

[Manbearcat]

@Ovinomancer Time-limited, so can’t do a big post. We’ll probably have to just discuss Day vs Information tomorrow on Discord.

On the ordinance, I want to clarify because it seems like what I’m thinking is blowing up. No one should be able to interpret it as “impossible” to carry in London.

This is what I wrote and what I had in mind:

I would have escalated and brought your pistol into it (some kind of local ordinance against open carry).

I’m not imagining (a) London-wide ordinance here nor am I imagining (b) deeply encoded, impossible to misinterpret or abuse ordinance.

I would be making this personal in the same way that it was personal in the Wild West:

Local Lawman has wide sweeping power to keep the peace.

Think Chinese press charges like “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” that are used to brook no dissent or shut down any expression the govt doesn’t want.

So you’re talking about a local ordinance in the area of this particular ward around this precinct that invests this particular constable with powers.

So he might demand that your grip be painted bright yellow or that the hammer be fitted with a bright yellow tassle. Something to show that this rugged individualist American rabblerouser has been brought to heel. “Folks can always see the gun plain as day and know that you’ve complied with local law enforcement so they can walk easy on the street with a Yankee wearing a gun.”

The point of it would be to test your conception of character as it relates to a particular lawman putting you in the crosshairs (a portent of your Threat, The Pinkerton, coming into play downstream), to see if you submit or dispute or escalate, to see if this is fodder for a later Vulnerable move/reveal past with Mask of the Past/a reflection of how you gained The Quickening Curse, to see if this constable becomes a possible future Threat or a Side Character.


This is not an impersonal “all of London is a gun-free zone and anyone carrying is going straight to a cell” type deal. Local ordinance. This Constable deploying vague powers (perhaps abusing them or being corrupt…further play would determine) to keep the peace in a rough part of town (like would happen in a small dusty town in The Wild West that you’ve just run from and are trying to escape).

Do you still feel similarly?

 

[Ovinomancer]

@Ovinomancer Time-limited, so can’t do a big post. We’ll probably have to just discuss Day vs Information tomorrow on Discord.

On the ordinance, I want to clarify because it seems like what I’m thinking is blowing up. No one should be able to interpret it as “impossible” to carry in London.

This is what I wrote and what I had in mind:


I’m not imagining (a) London-wide ordinance here nor am I imagining (b) deeply encoded, impossible to misinterpret or abuse ordinance.

I would be making this personal in the same way that it was personal in the Wild West:

Local Lawman has wide sweeping power to keep the peace.

Think Chinese press charges like “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” that are used to brook no dissent or shut down any expression the govt doesn’t want.

So you’re talking about a local ordinance in the area of this particular ward around this precinct that invests this particular constable with powers.

So he might demand that your grip be painted bright yellow or that the hammer be fitted with a bright yellow tassle. Something to show that this rugged individualist American rabblerouser has been brought to heel. “Folks can always see the gun plain as day and know that you’ve complied with local law enforcement so they can walk easy on the street with a Yankee wearing a gun.”

The point of it would be to test your conception of character as it relates to a particular lawman putting you in the crosshairs (a portent of your Threat, The Pinkerton, coming into play downstream), to see if you submit or dispute or escalate, to see if this is fodder for a later Vulnerable move/reveal past with Mask of the Past/a reflection of how you gained The Quickening Curse, to see if this constable becomes a possible future Threat or a Side Character.


This is not an impersonal “all of London is a gun-free zone and anyone carrying is going straight to a cell” type deal. Local ordinance. This Constable deploying vague powers (perhaps abusing them or being corrupt…further play would determine) to keep the peace in a rough part of town (like would happen in a small dusty town in The Wild West that you’ve just run from and are trying to escape).

Do you still feel similarly?

Still rankling my genre logic in a way it absolutely would not in an actual wild west game.

 

[Manbearcat]

Still rankling my genre logic in a way it absolutely would not in an actual wild west game.

Then we’re just basically talking about a place where a GM and a player have a different conception of genre logic/tropes that should be relevant to play.

This is something that should go into the other GMing thread because it’s pretty straight forward. If there is player: GM conflict on genre logic/tropes, the GM should defer to the player because the player is the one in the vulnerable position here, not the GM.

So that would be a case where the player should say “this doesn’t work for me” and the GM should say “cool, how about this?”

 

[Ovinomancer]

Which leads to an interesting thought for me -- this sorta feels like a purity of setting issue, an established bit of premise in a way that fits in with D&D setting play. I think, though, that the difference is that this is 100% open -- the genre here is Victorian London with Romantic Gothic Horror monsters on the loose and very Romantic ideas of magic in place roaming the background of the city. This suggests many things to me, genre logic-wise, and I really want to roll in them the way my dogs seems to love rolling in dead things (intentionally selected metaphor). That probably makes me sensitive to the genre logic being deployed. I don't really have this issue with a game like Blades, because the genre there is much looser in application than what immediately comes to me for me when I think Victorian London with Gothic Horror tropes online.

 

[innerdude]

So I'm thinking about two approaches I've made to character building recently, one for our Tiny Frontiers (Tiny D6 sci-fi), and one for D&D 5e (using a standard PHB).

I think there's some really interesting "stuff" in the way you described setting up your The Between character, @Ovinomancer. Like others have already said, it's not that the rules (as you described them) prohibit "character imagination," it's that they specifically limit the range of imagination to just the initial, personal characteristics --- appearance, mannerisms, outward demeanor and general attitude. All of the backstory "stuff" is directly and pointedly stated to arise spontaneously through play.

Having played a bit of Ironsworn now, I can understand where it's coming from in that regard. The advice postulates that there's no need to create long strands of backstory until the context/situation warrants it.

And I think there's a lot of value to that, though I'd probably prefer a little bit more balance.


For example, for my Tiny Frontiers character, the core premise was, "We're playing in the world of the Deep Rock Galactic video game, but you're not limited to only playing 'space dwarves'."

So right off the bat, since I like the video game quite a lot, I decide I'm just going to go for the obvious, "I'm a space dwarf working for the Deep Rock Galactic mining company."

But even that decision there carries a lot of implied backstory, if you're familiar at all with the video game. There's lots of implied fictional "spaces" that my character now automatically inhabits by virtue of making that choice --- and I literally haven't even glanced at the rulebook yet.

In Tiny Frontiers, "space dwarves" would belong the "Nain" heritage---but as I'm building my character, I decide that he hates being called "Nain" for his race, and believes that returning to the appropriate "Terran" designation of dwarf is the preferred nomenclature. "Who came up with this 'Nain' designation anyway? Some uppity scholar in some stuffy university gets to decide how I refer to my own genetic makeup?", etc. etc.

So now my question would be, would something like this violate the principle of The Between? Is this actual "backstory," or is it a manifestation of a personality trait? Both? Neither?


For my 5e character, I was basically just trying to come up with something terribly incongruous, and ended up settling on a middle-aged, widowed halfling fey-pact warlock.

Don't know why it came up that way, but it did. And in this case, for a fey-pact warlock, I at least had to come up with some basic backstory about how he came to become a warlock, how his pact was made, etc.

I almost didn't have any choice in the matter, I at least needed to have something there to work with.

So this is an interesting thought experiment to say the least. Don't have time now, but may have more ruminations later.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So I'm thinking about two approaches I've made to character building recently, one for our Tiny Frontiers (Tiny D6 sci-fi), and one for D&D 5e (using a standard PHB).

I think there's some really interesting "stuff" in the way you described setting up your The Between character, @Ovinomancer. Like others have already said, it's not that the rules (as you described them) prohibit "character imagination," it's that they specifically limit the range of imagination to just the initial, personal characteristics --- appearance, mannerisms, outward demeanor and general attitude. All of the backstory "stuff" is directly and pointedly stated to arise spontaneously through play.

Having played a bit of Ironsworn now, I can understand where it's coming from in that regard. The advice postulates that there's no need to create long strands of backstory until the context/situation warrants it.

And I think there's a lot of value to that, though I'd probably prefer a little bit more balance.


For example, for my Tiny Frontiers character, the core premise was, "We're playing in the world of the Deep Rock Galactic video game, but you're not limited to only playing 'space dwarves'."

So right off the bat, since I like the video game quite a lot, I decide I'm just going to go for the obvious, "I'm a space dwarf working for the Deep Rock Galactic mining company."

But even that decision there carries a lot of implied backstory, if you're familiar at all with the video game. There's lots of implied fictional "spaces" that my character now automatically inhabits by virtue of making that choice --- and I literally haven't even glanced at the rulebook yet.

In Tiny Frontiers, "space dwarves" would belong the "Nain" heritage---but as I'm building my character, I decide that he hates being called "Nain" for his race, and believes that returning to the appropriate "Terran" designation of dwarf is the preferred nomenclature. "Who came up with this 'Nain' designation anyway? Some uppity scholar in some stuffy university gets to decide how I refer to my own genetic makeup?", etc. etc.

So now my question would be, would something like this violate the principle of The Between? Is this actual "backstory," or is it a manifestation of a personality trait? Both? Neither?

The establishment as a space dwarf from the DRG mining company might indeed be too much backstory because it does carry so much, but I'd lean towards that being as limited as the playbooks in The Between -- meaning I do not think so. It's a pretty broad area where there's still lots of things to fill in that define this character as different from another employee.

As for the heritage name, that, to me, is pure characterization.

For my 5e character, I was basically just trying to come up with something terribly incongruous, and ended up settling on a middle-aged, widowed halfling fey-pact warlock.

Don't know why it came up that way, but it did. And in this case, for a fey-pact warlock, I at least had to come up with some basic backstory about how he came to become a warlock, how his pact was made, etc.

I almost didn't have any choice in the matter, I at least needed to have something there to work with.

So this is an interesting thought experiment to say the least. Don't have time now, but may have more ruminations later.

 

[SubrosaGames]

I really dive into the mechanics of class, background, etc.. based on campaign info. For example, Paizo adventure paths usually come with a pretty in-depth players guide. Its gotten to the point I as my GMs for as much campaign detail as they can provide to help me dive in.

I wish I had a group of players now like you. In our game you can role up a character in 20 mins, but I usually reserve the first 2 hours of a new campaign for character generation. We put a LOT into character generation and personalization. At the same time, I run games that focus more on the Story/plots/goals of the characters than about hack'n slash (which gets old fast). Characters of many of my players through the years have made it into my novels because they were so unique and interesting!