(1) Pawn is a separate stance that the blog author details. (2) Playing a role when acting often does involve role switching as the actor is an interlocutor of the character. The director has a sense of character. The author has a sense of character. The actor has a sense of character. Neither director, author, nor actor inherently has a sense of character as pawn. This is why I find such arbitrary categories unhelpful. As the blog writer says, we often switch as players between these stances seamlessly and unconsciously.
Agreed that the pigeonholes are a bit too much hole and not enough pigeon. That said, most players are going to kind of default (vaguely) to one stance, use that as a base to drift from, and then return.
I guess I see the difference as being while both the author and director have a sense of character in that they've (usually) got a clear idea of what their characters are all about, what motivates them, etc.; only the actor has a sense of character in terms of actually
being the character, inhabiting its personality and looking through its eyes. That's (ideally) what I'm after.
Saying that we should stay in Actor stance does not seem like a useful ethic for roleplay. It seems instead like an enforcement of "onetruefun." Roleplay of a character "as a real person" involves far more depth than merely what the Actor role in itself would suggest. I think that Actor stance seeks to impose an incredibly rigid and unrealistic stance on what roleplay should be that seems naively unaware of the complexity of the human agent. It's not that the Actor stance is wrong or badwrongfun, but, rather, that we should embrace the complexity of human agent as a roleplayer who engages in all stances. I would personally appreciate a system that embraces such forthright honesty of this layered complexity more than one that demands a dogmatic adherence to one mode or stance. It's why I have come to embrace systems like PbtA and Fate. When a player has great authority to be both author and actor, they paradoxically possess a greater sense of embracing their role as actor.
Simple game mechanics dictate we can't stay in actor all the time - no character ever says "I rolled a 6, plus 2 for strength and three for magic weapon - did I hit?" to her opponent!
But barring these considerations, I'd far rather say what my character says and have others do likewise than play in the third person.
How about the guy who originally both posted and quoted it in this thread?
Someone else already hit it? Must have missed that - sorry. First I noticed it was in your post.
Nah. Because as cognitive linguistics also tells us, "burger" has also developed into its own metonymic unit of cognitive meaning even though it the word derives from Hamburg. And 'hamburger' has taken on its own sort of Platonic ideal separate from its origin. I say this as a "flexitarian" dating a vegetarian so my perspective is weighted.
If I walk up to a food truck and ask for a hamburger it's only natural for me to expect to get handed a bun with some ground beef in it, along with some optional extras (sauce, lettuce, cheese, etc.); and if I get handed something else e.g. a fishburger or tofuburger or whatever I'm within reason to ask "What the hell is this?". Right?
IMHO, the goal of roleplay should be fun and developing a grasp of character within the experienced world.
Agreed. And the quickest way to develop said grasp of character is to become that character, to the extent that game mechanics and other considerations allow.
A roleplay game is also a game ideally played with friends.
Again agreed, and preferably all in the same physical place.
Yes, I recognized that, but I still disagree. Some people are more comfortable with player-speak over character-speak, and I refuse to dismiss their roleplaying capabilities or give preferential treatment to others, especially after some of the horribad character-speak I have experienced.
I'll take horribad character-speak over player-speak any day; as at least the horribad character-speaker is trying, and the results are almost always amusing and-or entertaining.
I'm also more than capable of giving back horribad character-speak, as many who have gamed with me can attest.
Some players are simply more comfortable roleplying from a position of player-speak than character-speak, but in this position, I have seen some better roleplay than character-speak.
Ovinomancer said:
All three are roleplaying.
And here's where I disagree with both of you: player-speak can give some excellent game play but in the end that's all it is - a player playing a game. The player isn't even trying* to inhabit the character, think what it thinks, speak the character's words, etc. LARPs have it right - you become the character whose role you're playing. A tabletop game ideally is the same sort of thing, only without the costumes and active movement.
* - at least, not to an observer. Internally to herself the player might be quite actively doing all of these things, but if it's not reflected in her actual play then what's the point?
Lan-"speaking from an idealist point of view here, well knowing reality always blunts ideals"-efan