Have gamers ever been tolerant?

[bondetamp]

I beg to differ.

People are not good. They are inhernatly hateful. The meat do not inherit the Earth - they petty do. Life does not go to the strong - it goes to the cruel. Power does not corrupt or change a person - it just lets them be who they always wanted to be wishout fear of reprisal.

Brilliant!

Is it your own or did you rip of some author?

I fear I may have to steal it for my sig file.

 

[Someguy]

All this talk of Munchkins is making me hungry!

 

[Henry]

For your edification, here is a simple dictionary definition for ham:
Ham 3 (short for hamfatter, from "The Ham-fat Man," a minstrel song) : a showy performer; especially an actor performing in an exaggerated theatrical style.

EXACTLY my point. Your definition makes no discrepancy between "serious actors" and "non-serious:, just the style of the performance. It doesn't mean a serious actor can "ham it up" if the audience calls for it.

Incidentally, I did not demean your credentials, and if it came off that way I apologize. I gathered from your post that acting is your profession. It's only when, as I said, people start making absolute statements like "serious actors" and "real roleplay" that I become very wary of what they have to say. 7 times out of ten, the next thing that comes from that person is a statement that glorifies the way they do something at the expense of people who do it differently.

Hence the origin of this thread. Gamers are just as intolerant of other gamers as football (soccer) fans for opposing teams.

You may have an opinion of "hammy actors" as not serious, but a closer and more sustainable line is to look at it in terms of "professional" versus "amateur." A professional makes a living from his or her craft; an amateur is someone either unable or unwilling to do this. I'm pretty sure there are a few "hams" making a living when by other peoples' opinions they shouldn't, but then that's what free enterprise is for; if one successfully makes a living doing a certain task, then one must be doing SOMETHING right. What that thing is, I'll leave for wiser heads than mine.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I've just been at the Edinburgh Festival with a musical. We had a drag queen as one of the lead characters, who seems to fit some of the criteria given for a hammy actor.

Night after night, he would ad lib. Now mostly, they were funny, they got a good reaction and people thought he was good. But when you are on the end of them, night after night, you begin to realise that he wasn't interested in the show, he wanted bigger laughs for himself.

On several occasions, just as another pair of actors were finishing a song, he chimed in with one of his ad libs, got a big laugh and exited. However, the two actors <i>didn't get any applause</i>. Why? Because he had taken their moment.

This is similar to a powergamer/munchkin/whatever. Instead of letting everyone have their moment, instead of letting a climax happen, the sterotypical munckin chimes in with "So what treasure do we get? Is there a big sword?" or "So have I leveled up yet?"

spunkrat said:
"Next time you roleplay, try this:
Take the focus off yourself, and your characterisation, and focus on giving your fellow players (and GM) as good a time as possible. Make them look good. If everyone did this everyone would have a better time."

Amen to that. That's a piece of advice everyone should follow. Even if you think you do it now. People will soon start reciprocating it and the party will go through the roof.

 

[Henry]

spunkrat said:
"Next time you roleplay, try this:
Take the focus off yourself, and your characterisation, and focus on giving your fellow players (and GM) as good a time as possible. Make them look good. If everyone did this everyone would have a better time."

Amen to that. That's a piece of advice everyone should follow. Even if you think you do it now. People will soon start reciprocating it and the party will go through the roof.

I agree wholeheartedly. Most any group activity benefits when this attitude is taken.

 

[The Sigil]

You may have an opinion of "hammy actors" as not serious, but a closer and more sustainable line is to look at it in terms of "professional" versus "amateur." A professional makes a living from his or her craft; an amateur is someone either unable or unwilling to do this. I'm pretty sure there are a few "hams" making a living when by other peoples' opinions they shouldn't, but then that's what free enterprise is for; if one successfully makes a living doing a certain task, then one must be doing SOMETHING right. What that thing is, I'll leave for wiser heads than mine.

Well, since my quote seems to have started this little tiff, I'll define my terms (sort of).

When I think "ham" I immediately think of Adam Sandler, Jim Carey (including the Truman Show to some degree), and Mike Meyers. These guys are very good at one genre - comedy - and to me they seem to be hams - in that their performance seems to be, as indicated, limited to comedic, outlandish, exaggerated spoof stuff.

This does not mean they CAN'T do serious acting (see: Robin Williams, who has done a lot of serious stuff of late but was probably considered a ham early in his career), but simply that they DON'T do it.

Note also that I did not say "all serious actors despise hams" - I said there are (some) serious actors who despise hams. By serious actor, I suppose I should have said something a little more inflammatory, such as, "someone who is vain about the acting profession and thinks of it as a highly evolved art form and despises the fact that some people seem to want to take it and do lowbrow comedy to amuse the masses." In other words, people who think acting should always/only include serious characters and that comedy never has a place.

Whether or not a ham is selfish and hogs the spotlight is not the point - plenty of "serious actors" are selfish to the point that they are prima donnas and can't stand anyone else getting attention either. Do they come on stage and crack a joke to steal the other guy's thunder? No. Instead, they put in a well-placed complaint/veiled threat or two and get the other person in the spotlight fired. Which is worse? IMO, both are equally bad in different ways.

Before you go looking down your nose at my statement simply because it relies on some slight generalizations, please step back for a moment and see if it contains a grain of truth. The reaction the statement has gotten does nothing but prove my point - that some people despise hams even though a lot of people love them because they want comedy - even lowbrow, pandering comedy.

Now, I'm not saying these guys are like this in real life. For all I know, they are serious, dedicated actors - as serious as anyone - in fact, I kind of suspect they are - but their persona is hammy and goof-off.

BTW, for the record, 99 days out of 100, I despise Adam Sandler, Jim Carey, and Mike Meyers movies - I have no need for the immature, lowbrow humor. 100 days out of 100 I despise Carrot Top. But does that mean that I have the right to say they're doing things the wrong way and are not doing things correctly? Especially on that 1 day out 100 that I actually want to watch an Adam Sandler movie? By the amount of money they rake in, I would say not - obviously a lot of people have different opinions.

And that is what it comes down to - it's a difference in opinion. 99 days out of 100 I want to play a "role-playing" campaign with a depth of roles and stretching my imaginative limits. But there are days when I just want to pull out my +12 Hackmaster and start mowing down anything that moves indiscriminately.

Ultimately, we need varied experience - we need to laugh at "hammy" and cry at "serious" potrayals. We need to stretch ourselves and roleplay something that is completely out of our normal experience (perhaps a CE mind flayer priestess of hellspawn) as well as something that is a magnification of what we hope are our best qualities (that LG paladin that is always on the verge of putting Good too far ahead of Lawful). And sometimes, we just need to bust out our +12 Hackmaster sword and a can of Whoop-Arse. It's dangerous to call someone a munchkin just because he's doing the latter - who's to say he can't do the former?

To paraphrase a famous LotR line - Many that live deserve death... and some that die deserve life. Can YOU give it to them? No.

Many that "munch" need a dose of "how to role-play"... and some that "role-play" need a dose of "munch." Can YOU give it to them? Yes. Then do it and do both of you a favor - let yourself loose and go munch once in a while - and educate them in the finer arts of "role-playing" - then you can BOTH be comfortable in each other's world.

--The Sigil

 

[ghoti69]

I'm inclined to agree...

...with the masses. This type of thing exists anywhere you have more than one person. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone else is stupid/ignorant/clueless/whatever because they don't share your opinion. Just like everyone who thinks I'm wrong on this is stupid! j/k

Personally, I tried to avoid munchkinism in my last game, as the previous group I played with ended up being munchkins. I realized the problem when the group of five encountered a 12-headed hydra that didn't survive the first round, mainly because it lost initiative.

However, when those people get together and we reminisce about playing, there are always great stories, full of color and fun. On the other hand, my last gaming group, we can only really remember how much a pain in the butt our resident rules-lawyer was.

This is one of the main reason I like 3e. If you take a 3e character and compare it to a 2e, I think the 3e would come out relatively munchkin in comparison. But, the rules allow for a sufficient balance so that, in 3e terms, the character isn't a god-killer.

The most important thing is...give your players what they want. This is a game, it has nothing to do with real life. The only time it TRUELY matters is if you make your living off of it, as a writer or whatnot. If your players want to munch, let 'em, just put bigger and badder critters in their path. If they want to role, give the critters a personality they can interact with.

And, screw Gygax. If you read anything about his origional campaign, he INVENTED munchkinism!

 

[Heathen72]

I think we pretty much agree

At the end of the day, I think that we are pretty much in agreement, perhaps disagreeing on a strict definition of what constitutes a ham actor.

For the record, I love people who give as performers, and people who take a big risk to give an audience its money's worth - whether that be a laugh or a cry- and I truly admire the ones who do it well. (Sorry if I was a bit narky in my response.)

I'm not against exaggeration as a comic form (or even sometimes as a dramatic form) - it is, in fact a very important tool. I guess my definition of "hams" includes those who habitually exaggerate, even in those moments when a little subtlety is required. It's one thing to occasionally "ham it up" a bit and quite another to do it all the time. Unfortunately, one of the first victims of such serial Exaggeration is the ability to "listen" - the ability to be affected and altered by the people with whom you are on stage.* And the ability to listen is really crucial to being a 'good' actor.

A couple of people SIGIL mentioned as possible hams may exaggerate (a lot) but they are excellent "listeners". A lot of them initially made their names as improvisers, and you really can't be an excellent improvisor unless you can listen, no matter how quick you are.

Anyway, at the end of the day, I don't thnk I ever said that they should be banned form the stage, or that they shouldn't "be allowed" to make a living if that is their career choice. I just remarked that I didn't enjoy working with them. Or any selfish performer** Why would I when there are so many talented (and generous) actors out there?

The same thing can be said for 'munchkins' (lest we forget what this thread is about). I play with the people I enjoy playing with(my friends, basically).


Have a good one.



*Actually; this could be a chicken and the egg thing - they might be hams because they can't listen.

** I don't like working with Prima- donnas either

 

[SSS-Druid]

I used to love being called a 'dungeon-crawling ROLL player' by folks with the words 'celerity' and '8th generation' written on their sheets.

The sheer irony of bitching about another group of role-players in a thread that wonders whether there is such a thing as a tolerant role-player is just mind boggling.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Brilliant!

Is it your own or did you rip of some author?

I fear I may have to steal it for my sig file.

It is all my own raging viterol.
And that is supposed to me "meak" not "meat." Stupid spelling errors.