there's the possibility of actually being yelled at, which I have seen in both larps and tabletop games. I've been luckier in my tabletop games, in that even in very heated exchanges, the people involved are capable of communicating at the same time that they are in fact playing a part. So somebody might get legitimately worked up in character, and slam the table or kick back their chair, but they don't actually leave the room (and the game). This is a side jaunt from where you're going, of course, but I figured it worth pointing out.
I tend to see these as cases where the contrast between what's real and what's pretend is successfully maintained.
They aren't necessarily at odds, but I can see how a context switch can upset the mental state of inhabiting and emoting a character, and for some players that's a no-go. But again, changing one's level of immersion is a skill that can be developed, much like actors taking direction in between (and sometimes during!) takes. I will refrain from linking to the infamous Christian Bale rant, however.
Now I have to Google the rant, whose infamy hasn't quite reached me yet!
<watches rant, returns to post>
As you say, Bale is being directed. And is following a script. He's not authoring his character's response (at the level of generality that we use in RPGing action declarations, like "I point my gun at the prisoner" or "I point my gun at the Terminator"). If there's a cut, and a new bit of direction is given, he has to cope with that. Likewise when RPGing, we might want to know - OK, what's going to happen next? - and we roll some dice and then people go back to portraying their characters.
This happens
all the time in RPG combat! (Which is what is being filmed in the Bale rant.) Why does the fact that it's talking rather than shooting make a difference? Human emotions are human emotions.
And I know that there is an answer to my question in the previous paragraph: traditionally RPG combat doesn't involve human emotion at all but is purely a wargame. But that just shows how this whole "combat needs mechanics but social doesn't" thing rests on premises about how the game has to be set up which are not only not self-evident, but have been expressly rejected by a range of RPGs for 30+ years now. Like in Prince Valiant (1989), where the degree of emotional investment of the character affects their combat dice. Which clearly invites the player to inhabit their character and portray their emotions (which I've seen players do, playing Prince Valiant PCs). But they also roll the dice to find out what happens.
To me it seems like there's another issue in play here, too, which I think is driven home by the next part of your post:
The nuts and bolts of a game mechanic dictating one's character's response, though, that's ultimately a player preference. If you really don't like it, you're not gonna enjoy games that do that very much.
What you seem to be positing here is a RPGer who can only
perform their character if they also get to
author their character; perhaps only if they also get to author their character
right in the moment of performing them.
So first, any comparison of that RPGer to an actor (method or otherwise) seems out of place. The whole thing about acting - as driven home by the Bale rant - is that the performance is distinct from the authorship.
Second, what happens if you and I are both that sort of RPGer, and my conception of my character and your conception of your character collide in the moment of performance? Like your character and my character are at odds, and your character is the sort who
never gives in, or at least who won't give in here, and my character is the sort who
never gives in, or at lest who won't give in here? I gather that, in one of the Fast & Furious offshoots, this issue between Dwayne Johnson and Jason Stratham was resolved by having each deliver exactly the same number of blows and then both falling out the window? (Or being blown up, or some other thing that made it a tie.)
As far as gameplay is concerned, it seems to me there are three basic solutions.
One is the "neo-trad" solution: everyone gets to play their character as they conceive it, and the GM's job is to manage things - including maybe convenient explosions - to make sure all the character conceptions can all be preserved through the course of play.
A second involves the sorts of social cues that
@Campbell describes - someone decides to give in based on some communicated signal or imperative that is not based on the play of their PC but is necessary to keep the game going. (A stronger version of this: players don't build or play PCs who can come into conflict with other PCs; an even stronger version is when they don't even come into conflict with other
characters - I saw that sometimes at AD&D 2nd ed tables.)
A third involves looking to some external cue, like the dice, to help tell us what happens next. That means that instead of clinging to our PCs in the neotrad style, we play our characters like stolen cars, wearing the dings with pride! That doesn't mean we can't inhabit them, emote them, even identify with them a bit.
