Do you actually CARE about your PC?

[Mallus]

RPG characters are simply game pieces. I save real emotions for real people.

For me --and I feel the strange compulsion to clarify this-- it's not an emotional attachment to my characters. I don't care about them the way I care about people. They're tools used in the game. That said, the right tool --ie a PC with a personality that's fun to play-- makes the game a lot more enjoyable.

I like killing things and taking their stuff as much as the next gamer, but the real pleasure lies in creating amusing personalities.

And sad to say me brain can only produce a finite amount of amusing.

 

[coyote6]

Yeah, caring about an RPG character isn't much like caring about a person, for me. There's different kinds of "caring" and "attachment". I'm attached to favorite characters the way I'm attached to, I don't know, the Black Company novels. Awesome books, very entertaining, love to have more. I'd be annoyed if something happened to my copies, but it wouldn't be a great tragedy.

I'm way more attached to the people I've gamed with for 20-odd years.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

One thing I've noticed when reading D&D forums is how many different games people play in or have played in.

It really blows me away because I can count the different campaigns I've played in on 1 hand. Granted I DM 90% of the time, but if I play in someones game, I usually stick to the same system (D&D) and the same edition. I like fantasy worlds (D&D), so I don't get an itching to play sci-fi or modern worlds that much. The campaign is more important to me than the rules, so once I found the rules that "worked", I was cool with it. Things people nitpick about rules just really aren't an issue for me...I agree with their complaints, but it doesn't keep me from having fun playing D&D. I liked 2e, but I thought 3.5 was easier to run. I tried 4e, & like playing my PC in the 4e game, but I still prefer 3.5. So D&D 3.5 is my "go to" game.

But man, a lot of people (most people?) go on and on naming the different games they've played. A major reason I don't like to hop from game to game is because I really get into playing my characters. I like to see them grow. Is this uncommon? Most players I game with seem to like their PCs, but they are usually quick to throw them away and play another.

Are your characters "special" to you? Or do you see them as nothing more than a tool to use to kill things and become the best? What I mean by special is, if you had read about your character dying in a novel, would you care the way you would if your favorite character in a real novel died? Or would you look at it like a video game character where you get to just "start again" so it's no big deal?

I'm just curious to know why people are so quick to jump from game to game where they'll have to create a new character each time. Is it the simple urge to try something new? Or is playing a character as if he/she was a real person just not your style of gaming? Why do you not really care about playing the same character and watching him grow?

I have to like my character to enjoy a game, but I've never gotten really attached to my characters. Partly it's because I like combat and I like believing that my character could die in combat, so I keep a certain amount of detachment as a way of avoiding serious disappointment. But I also enjoy the exploration side of rpgs so I do use my characters as means to explore cool places, which sometimes comes at the expense of having in-depth personalities. As a result, all my characters tend to share certain personality traits: curiosity that often overrides self-preservation, and a swashbuckling fortune-favors-the-bold attitude.

 

[Oryan77]

Yeah, caring about an RPG character isn't much like caring about a person, for me.

I hope people know the difference between caring for a PC and a real person. If not, we may need a new forum for private discussions with these guys.

pawsplay is apparently still devastated about his Blackleaf character. We don't want to see a repeat of what happened with Blackleaf #1 http://www.enworld.org/forum/4897485-post6.html

Let's all just try to keep our heads screwed on tight!

 

[fireinthedust]

I get attached to characters, just like people. That includes PCs whose players I'm not fond of.

This is why I DM: I like making up characters, and I want to run *everyone* (but I can't).


I'm playing a reincarnation of a M&M hero right now, in the Living 4e here on the boards. The original was a chemistry-hero who changed forms, so I went Genasi. I was going to do Wizard, but Sorcerer covers his style way better (he's more charming than smart anyway), so we switched out. Started him in 2007, technically, so I like the characters long-term, even if it involves reinventing for different worlds.

In RL I'm doing up a variant of my character from a Comic I'm doing. HOWEVER, if he dies, I'll really feel bad. I take character death really hard.
I like to think I'm getting smarter about it, and avoiding it, but I've been DMing so long I may have forgotten how to actually *play* in a game.

 

[haakon1]

I care. I even care about the NPC's I run.

I also care about the setting. I've been running more-or-less the setting I started playing in 1981 -- old PC's are now NPC's, and it's still homebrewed Greyhawk. This through 4 different sets of players over the decades -- the first long gone, the second unofficially retired but not gathered in about 5 years, the third still going on email and ready to celebrate it's 10th anniversary, and the fourth still going with play about 4-5 times a year . . .

As for other non-D&D games, I've played more of them than I can count, and only a handful of those PC's spring to mind as having been interesting . . .

 

[dramamine]

I like my NPCs and PCs more than I should.

All of my NPCs have backgrounds, evem if it's a simple 'farmer's daughter' kind of thing.

Though, I've spent a long time developing my PCs to where I use them all around.

There have been a few PCs that didn't used hardly, so while they have a several page background and a unique voice for me to use, I just feel a little sad that they didn't get to 'live' long.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I recently had cause to list my dozen or so favourite movies and books. In each of those two-dozen instances, there's a character (often several) that I care about--if I didn't care, the story just wouldn't be interesting, let alone one of my favourites.

Count me as one of those people who have played dozens and dozens of characters over the years. To one extent or another, I've cared about every one of them. Just like in books and movies, some have developed more traction than others. So I can't claim that I care equally about all of them, but if I don't care about a character, I'll eventually ditch it and roll up another, or quit the campaign. Like a story with no sympathetic or interesting characters, what's the point?

For me, a campaign is really getting somewhere when the players care about the NPCs. . . .

 

[Mr. Wilson]

I've only played two characters that I felt attachment towards. FWIW, both were characters involved in lengthy campaigns (over a year). We switch campaigns so often it's hard for me to get attached to PCs.

Then again, I've mostly DM'd my career. Amusingly enough, I'm more attached to other players characters.

 

[Wombat]

Do I care about my characters?

Well, I could tell you about characters that I played back in the early 80s to the current day, under about 9-10 systems. I can give you names, actions, motivations, and the like. I can tell you about other members in the party.

Conversely, as I GM most of the time, I can tell you about many NPCs that I have run as well. And I can tell you about their victories and failures, and point with special pride to NPCs who have been "voted back", where my players wanted an NPC to come back into a different campaign.

Yeah, I'd say I care about them