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What are the “boring bits” to you?
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<blockquote data-quote="SableWyvern" data-source="post: 9277956" data-attributes="member: 1008"><p>Even if I agreed that you have any right to do this (I don't), I just don't see how it works on any practical level.</p><p></p><p>Are we obligated to continue to acknowledge your character's history as well? Can we write them out of the game, as if they never were or do we need your permission for that as well? If the history up until the moment you leave the game must remain, how are we allowed to deal with the fact the character has just ceased to exist?</p><p></p><p>What happens if the PCs meet an NPC who interacted with your character (assuming the character hasn't been written out of the game)? What if things happened of screen with your character, that didn't matter then, but do matter now? Are we never allowed to discover what happened?</p><p></p><p>What happens if the character is replaced by a clone? Are you claiming ownership of the clone as well?</p><p></p><p>If we want to, we can include (imaginary versions of) actual, real people in our game, without their permission. How do you conclude that you have more rights to the representation of an imaginary person that existed in a <em>shared</em> imaginary space, than real people do to their imaginary likenesses? What about characters from other sources of fiction -- should I get permission from an author before using their characters in my game?</p><p></p><p>In what way do you feel you are being negatively affected if the character is being used without your permission? What about if you never know your character is being used?</p><p></p><p>Is there any kind of time limit on your ownership, after which the character enters the public domain?</p><p></p><p>Edit: From a very practical perspective, looking at how this might actually work in reality, no discussion about the future of a character would be likely to come up before the player left, but the PC would not continue to play a major part in my game. Probably, some vague comment would be made about how the PC went off to rule his barony in his manor, and we'd continue. I'm not sure if you'd consider making that decision for the character a breach of your rights, but that would probably be the end of it. However, it may happen than five sessions later, one of the players says, "Oh, Lanefan's characters barony is not far from here -- we should drop in and see if he knows anything about what's going on in the area, and catch up for old time's sake." If that did happen, I would absolutely not pause the session to call you looking for permission. We would play out the scene, and I can't imagine any reasonable person having a problem with that -- although, most likely, you'd never know it happened, and would thus have no reason to care, anyway.</p><p></p><p>And a further edit: The version of your character that exists in your imagination is yours, and only yours. No one can do anything with it, other than you. The version of your character that exists in the imaginations of the other participants? That's at least as much theirs as it is yours, and you have no more authority over those versions than they do over what goes on in your imagination, especially if you are no longer participating in or engaging with the shared imaginary space were those versions exist. Any authority you ever had over the version of your character that exists in the imagination of the other participants, you only had because they elected to give you that authority (and if they were actually imagining your character in a way that's at odds with your own vision, even while you were participating, that's their right, as long as they weren't being disruptive about it).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SableWyvern, post: 9277956, member: 1008"] Even if I agreed that you have any right to do this (I don't), I just don't see how it works on any practical level. Are we obligated to continue to acknowledge your character's history as well? Can we write them out of the game, as if they never were or do we need your permission for that as well? If the history up until the moment you leave the game must remain, how are we allowed to deal with the fact the character has just ceased to exist? What happens if the PCs meet an NPC who interacted with your character (assuming the character hasn't been written out of the game)? What if things happened of screen with your character, that didn't matter then, but do matter now? Are we never allowed to discover what happened? What happens if the character is replaced by a clone? Are you claiming ownership of the clone as well? If we want to, we can include (imaginary versions of) actual, real people in our game, without their permission. How do you conclude that you have more rights to the representation of an imaginary person that existed in a [I]shared[/I] imaginary space, than real people do to their imaginary likenesses? What about characters from other sources of fiction -- should I get permission from an author before using their characters in my game? In what way do you feel you are being negatively affected if the character is being used without your permission? What about if you never know your character is being used? Is there any kind of time limit on your ownership, after which the character enters the public domain? Edit: From a very practical perspective, looking at how this might actually work in reality, no discussion about the future of a character would be likely to come up before the player left, but the PC would not continue to play a major part in my game. Probably, some vague comment would be made about how the PC went off to rule his barony in his manor, and we'd continue. I'm not sure if you'd consider making that decision for the character a breach of your rights, but that would probably be the end of it. However, it may happen than five sessions later, one of the players says, "Oh, Lanefan's characters barony is not far from here -- we should drop in and see if he knows anything about what's going on in the area, and catch up for old time's sake." If that did happen, I would absolutely not pause the session to call you looking for permission. We would play out the scene, and I can't imagine any reasonable person having a problem with that -- although, most likely, you'd never know it happened, and would thus have no reason to care, anyway. And a further edit: The version of your character that exists in your imagination is yours, and only yours. No one can do anything with it, other than you. The version of your character that exists in the imaginations of the other participants? That's at least as much theirs as it is yours, and you have no more authority over those versions than they do over what goes on in your imagination, especially if you are no longer participating in or engaging with the shared imaginary space were those versions exist. Any authority you ever had over the version of your character that exists in the imagination of the other participants, you only had because they elected to give you that authority (and if they were actually imagining your character in a way that's at odds with your own vision, even while you were participating, that's their right, as long as they weren't being disruptive about it). [/QUOTE]
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