Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6743868" data-attributes="member: 4937">How is it possible to play a character and not inject something of myself?But then, you are not playing a character.&nbsp; You are playing yourself.&nbsp;&nbsp; And while it's perfectly fine to play yourself, and arguably the majority of gamers are only functionally able to play themselves, if you are playing yourself it is ridiculous and meaningless to label the beliefs of the character as being anything other than your own beliefs.&nbsp; I have no idea how any of that follows, but I sure as heck don't agree there is some sort of social contract to undermine other player's characterization.&nbsp; Rather, when I acting as either a player or a GM state my intention to personify a Paladin in the game, what I'm stating is that this what I think it means to be a paladin (as approved by the GM, whoever that may be) and it is my job to show all the other players at the table how very paladin-y my character is.&nbsp; In the case of a Paladin it will be by following a code which we all agreed was very Paladin-y.&nbsp; I never assume either as a player or a GM that the point is to get characters to act in a way that is out of character, much less that it is an inherent nature of moral codes that they fail which is what you seem to be saying here.Nor do I see how this invariably leads to a story, or how it more invariably leads to a story than some other approach.&nbsp;&nbsp; And at some level it's a bit ridiculous.&nbsp; If I'm playing myself, rather than a Paladin, and injecting my own beliefs rather than the Paladins, then of course the result won't be a Paladin because I'm not one.&nbsp; And the whole exercise in then calling this character a Paladin is insane, and one wonders why in the world you'd bother to do it.&nbsp; But regardless of the utility of this, this is not remotely what you have outlined earlier in the context of explaining &quot;nar&quot;.&nbsp; Closer to what you have outlined is - &quot;Repeat this cycle until the character with the dramatic need fails or betrays themselves.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nor for that matter does I think your archetype really describe all or even most stories, much less describe what I think it is a good plan of attack for creating a good story.&nbsp; In order to fit this design to stories, we are going to have to adopt very vague and generous definitions of the above ideas.&nbsp; Nor for that matter, if we are to accept that this is the means of generating stories, is it in any way obvious that it's not applicable to what Edwards describes as the &quot;sim&quot; approach of contractually agreeing to play a character.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6743868, member: 4937"] How is it possible to play a character and not inject something of myself? But then, you are not playing a character. You are playing yourself. And while it's perfectly fine to play yourself, and arguably the majority of gamers are only functionally able to play themselves, if you are playing yourself it is ridiculous and meaningless to label the beliefs of the character as being anything other than your own beliefs. I have no idea how any of that follows, but I sure as heck don't agree there is some sort of social contract to undermine other player's characterization. Rather, when I acting as either a player or a GM state my intention to personify a Paladin in the game, what I'm stating is that this what I think it means to be a paladin (as approved by the GM, whoever that may be) and it is my job to show all the other players at the table how very paladin-y my character is. In the case of a Paladin it will be by following a code which we all agreed was very Paladin-y. I never assume either as a player or a GM that the point is to get characters to act in a way that is out of character, much less that it is an inherent nature of moral codes that they fail which is what you seem to be saying here. Nor do I see how this invariably leads to a story, or how it more invariably leads to a story than some other approach. And at some level it's a bit ridiculous. If I'm playing myself, rather than a Paladin, and injecting my own beliefs rather than the Paladins, then of course the result won't be a Paladin because I'm not one. And the whole exercise in then calling this character a Paladin is insane, and one wonders why in the world you'd bother to do it. But regardless of the utility of this, this is not remotely what you have outlined earlier in the context of explaining "nar". Closer to what you have outlined is - "Repeat this cycle until the character with the dramatic need fails or betrays themselves." Nor for that matter does I think your archetype really describe all or even most stories, much less describe what I think it is a good plan of attack for creating a good story. In order to fit this design to stories, we are going to have to adopt very vague and generous definitions of the above ideas. Nor for that matter, if we are to accept that this is the means of generating stories, is it in any way obvious that it's not applicable to what Edwards describes as the "sim" approach of contractually agreeing to play a character. [/QUOTE]

Verification