tetsujin28
First Post
After 27+ years: nothing. Please. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs professional help.Rafael Ceurdepyr said:
Self-discovery through roleplaying??
vulcan_idic
Explorer
I suppose my characters could be seen as something in the vein of "Mary-Sue"s... I tend to see them as I do all the characters, but particularly the protagonists, in the stories, plays, and so forth that I write... I can certainly relate to them... They are aspects of myself fleshed out, and thus tend to have similar flaws to ones I know I manifest myself from time to time... some of them have tempers - something I've known about me since I was about 5 and over the years have had good years and bad years as I learn to control it - for example. Others have other flaws but they're all things that I see in myself, like reflections in a funhouse mirror twisted so they are me, and yet someone new too... I generally try to get into their mind, see things from their point of view, feel what they feel, sense what they sense, know what they're thinking each moment... which is rather disorienting and yet quite informative when I try, from time to time, playing a female character. It's interesting to see how each character reflects me, echos me, and yet grows apart and lives a life of it's own from the seeds of me planted in the ground of a different background and grown through the course of adventures and so on.
My characters also tend to be intelligent, rational minded type tacticians, like an earlier poster mentioned - which *is*, admittedly, an idealized version of the way I see myself. They are generally erudite to a greater or lesser extent, and have seemed to often wind up the leader of the group. I don't mind this role, but I also don't want to hog the center of attention... let other people lead sometimes. I remember several campaigns with a group where I tend to lead where I made a conscious effort to try to fade into the background and was unsuccessful... I'm not sure what that says about me really... maybe has something to do with the fact that my BA's in Theatre Arts, but that's what I've noticed. What specifically I've "learned" from roleplaying D&D and not from from reading, reflection, and personal experience I'm not entirely sure, but I'm sure there have been things. And I don't think, as another poster said:
My characters also tend to be intelligent, rational minded type tacticians, like an earlier poster mentioned - which *is*, admittedly, an idealized version of the way I see myself. They are generally erudite to a greater or lesser extent, and have seemed to often wind up the leader of the group. I don't mind this role, but I also don't want to hog the center of attention... let other people lead sometimes. I remember several campaigns with a group where I tend to lead where I made a conscious effort to try to fade into the background and was unsuccessful... I'm not sure what that says about me really... maybe has something to do with the fact that my BA's in Theatre Arts, but that's what I've noticed. What specifically I've "learned" from roleplaying D&D and not from from reading, reflection, and personal experience I'm not entirely sure, but I'm sure there have been things. And I don't think, as another poster said:
Anytime you learn something about yourself, no matter the source or situation, it's a good thing I think. Self knowledge is one of the most important things in order to succeed in life. To quote Sun Tzu from his "Art of War", "Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
Tinker Gnome
Explorer
I learned as a DM that I sometimes default to certain personalities depending on how the PCs act. as a player I also can not seem to play an evil character, iI always drift towards Neutral with good tendencies. My charcters have a tendency at times as trying to clean up the mess that the other PCs create. Like when they wreck a tavern or something. Or hurt the feelings of an NPC. He might offer to pay for the damage or comfort the NPC.
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tetsujin28 said:
Tetsujin, I wouldn't begin to presume that you personally learned something. However, if you mean to imply that anyone who thinks they learned something needs professional help... well, you're wrong.
You can learn things about yourself if you sit back and examine how you behave during any particular activity. How you behave when you play baseball, for example. Or how you behave when you go out with friends for a night of drinking and dancing. If you can learn something about who you are from how you behave in heavy traffic or during the X-mas shopping rush, why can't you learn something about yourself looking at your gaming?
Kemrain
First Post
I'm amased that anyone could honestly claim not to have learned about themeselves through RolePlaying. I've become a much more self-knowledgable person because of RP, and though I do partake of professional help on occasion somehow I don't find the concepts related.
From RP I've learned about what it means to be human, thought out moral quandries that don't often come up in our daily lives, and examined gender from all 3 sides of the fence (Male, Female and Neuter, for those who're confused.) I've played myself, quasi-myself, barely-myself, nearly-myself, and somene-else-entirely, and learned and grew from it all. I'm a much more patient, accepting, and observant person because of RPing.
Now, granted, I might be biased towards saying these things because Role Playing has made up a large chunk of my adolecent social interaction, and I'd probably have made progress in those fields without RPing, but I think that's peripheral to the discussion.
I love RPing. It's helped me become the person I am, and I'm very grateful for it.
- Kemrain the Professionally Helpless.
From RP I've learned about what it means to be human, thought out moral quandries that don't often come up in our daily lives, and examined gender from all 3 sides of the fence (Male, Female and Neuter, for those who're confused.) I've played myself, quasi-myself, barely-myself, nearly-myself, and somene-else-entirely, and learned and grew from it all. I'm a much more patient, accepting, and observant person because of RPing.
Now, granted, I might be biased towards saying these things because Role Playing has made up a large chunk of my adolecent social interaction, and I'd probably have made progress in those fields without RPing, but I think that's peripheral to the discussion.
I love RPing. It's helped me become the person I am, and I'm very grateful for it.
- Kemrain the Professionally Helpless.
Rafael Ceurdepyr
First Post
TheGemini said:
Great post--I have to build in flaws--to me it makes the character much more interesting. I prefer Spider-Man because of his flaws. I like Tim Powers novels because (among other things) of the horrible things he does to his characters.
One of my fellow gamers said that Raef is me with all the inhibitions taken away. Not sure about that, but some of the character flaws he has I didn't really intend. Like he has a very high Diplomacy skill but generally sticks his foot in his mouth when dealing with fellow party members. Sigh.
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