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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4700797" data-attributes="member: 4937">This is almost going to provoke me to fork this thread again, but on the subject of whether my mental state and the character's should align...I'm something of a method actor when I RP.  I try hard to get into character, and simultaneously try hard to be able to drop my character when I'm no longer playing.As a player, I spend quite a bit of time thinking about how the character feels, how he behaves, and what motivates him.  I'm never in it just to level my character up or obtain power.  To me, being a player is as much or more about being the character and presenting an interesting and memorable figure in play, than it is about solving problems and getting 'the win'.  If RPing was only about leveling up and getting 'the win', I wouldn't do it.  There are all sorts of games I can play that are about getting 'the win', but only an RPG lets me emmerse myself in a character.  I'll only last about three sessions in a campaign that appears to be just about leveling up, and has no characters in it (or to it).  After that, for me it is a struggle.  If I'm invited to a session that has no intra-party role-play, and where the players seem to think 'two-handed sword fighter' is a character concept, I'm probably going to find some excuses to never come back.That is the kind of player I am.  Occassionaly it creates conflict with power gamers at the table who are confused or even angry that I'm letting the character's personality get in the way of objective success and optimization.  Likewise, I'm generally bored with them whenever character takes such a back seat to optimization that that don't bother having one, but instead have just a sheet of paper with alot of numbers on it and a list of goodies they own.  Staying in character is hard work.  Being a great player at the table that brings enjoyment and novelty to every session is hard.  I don't think I come close to always succeeding, but I do feel that I have succeeded in the past, brought smiles to the DM and heck, occasionally even awed the players and become the subject of 'campfire stories' years afterwords.  Succeeding in that sort of characterization at a table ruled by out of game logic, where 95% of what is said is related to the game and not the world within the game, is almost impossible.  I enjoy RP the most, when everyone - the GM and all the players - are making a very conscious effort to create an environment that encourages, fosters, and sustains in character interaction.  If someone's focus on the game is so 'out of world' and off his character and away from the mentality of his character, that he's presenting the DM with 'wish lists' of magic items, then that represents a player who is probably an impediment to my fun.  At the very least, my sort of player, if he wanted to acquire some particular item for his character, would never imagine that the way to go about it involved any sort of interaction with the DM, but instead would imagine all the different ways his character could interact with the world to acquire that item - finding someone that could make it, researching where such an item was known to be lost, praying to a divine patron to recieve such an item, and so forth.  More to the point, they would probably be looking at the question of whether the character had even reason in character to consider such an idea as 'I want a +3 ghosttouch sword'.</blockquote>

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