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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7915123" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I think that meaningful character development is very possible in RPGs. I think there are many factors that will either increase or decrease the likelihood of it in any given game. The participants. The GM and the players are all a big factor here. The players likely will have to come up with some kind of goal or challenge for their PC. Very likely more than one. The GM then has to recognize these goals and help bring it into play in a meaningful way. Having goals that are somehow in opposition is an easy way to challenge PCs; to gain one, another must be lost. These things need to be meaningful, though. I think that mechanics can be huge in this area. Yes, such play can be achieved with a game that has no such mechanics (or even mechanics that run counter to this goal). But for games designed to promote this kind of play, looking at their mechanics can be enlightening. Most fundamentally, how does the game reward the player? Usually some kind of XP system. Is it about GP gained? Monsters killed? Promoting a cause or belief? These things absolutely influence the kind of play a system will deliver by default. How are characters generated? What constraints are placed on that process? What elements constitute a character? All of this meaningfully shapes play. If a game has no mechanic or even a spot on a character sheet to write down “what is most important to this character?” then it doesn’t seem all that important to the game. And yet that kind of thing is far more essential to character driven play than any stat or skill or class. Finally, I think the idea of surrender is important. This relates to Ovinomancer’s discussion of risk above. I think that we as players have to be willing to give up some amount of authority on our characters in play in order for their to be meaningful growth. We have to actively move away from the idea of “my character is mine, and all of it is up to me”. We have to leave major decision points up to chance and find them through play. This is where the other elements tie together. If I intro an ideal for my PC, and then the GM beings it up in play, and there are mechanics that put that ideal to the test in some way, I don’t necessarily get to decide the outcome.  We need to give up that ownership a bit in order to be able to risk anything that we’ve established about our characters.Otherwise, there’s no loss or gain for the player, there’s just a decision they make between A or B. I think it has to work that I as a player say my character is A, and then that is challenged through play by the GM (and/or other players), so now it is a question of can my character remain A, and we resolve that with the actual chance that my character could become B.Players and GMs can do this kind of stuff in any game, but it’s far more common and formalized in some games.</blockquote>

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