Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6745423" data-attributes="member: 4937">As I said, playing yourself is a subset of the agenda and requirement to play your character.  If you are playing yourself, then injecting yourself into the character is entirely appropriate because that is who your character is.  Injecting something of yourself into a part, regardless of the part, is also an inevitability but not necessarily an unfortunate one.  In the same way that different actors might portray Hamlet or any other character in slightly different ways, so long as they stayed true to the character and did a good job of acting, you'd say that although different each actor saw the character clearly and did a good job.  The variation would be desirable, and not unfortunate, allowing you to see different possible sides of the same role and allowing you to admire what each actor brought to the role.The only time injecting yourself into a character is undesirable is when it is thoughtless and in particular, when the portrayal is now at odds to who the character is established to be.  I would not call out "playing yourself" and "playing the character" as being very big differences in approach.  The big difference in approach is whether you are playing a character - that is, you are constrained by the personality and beliefs of the character in some fashion - or playing a pawn or playing piece, where the character has no particular beliefs or personality and is simply pushed around "a board" to obtain a victory.  Unlike the first distinction, this is actually a contrasting agenda of play which is potentially in tension.  As I said, you can have two players at the table, one playing themselves and another playing a character, and both will be perfectly peachy keen happy.  Neither is interfering with what the other wants.  But if you have someone playing a character and someone playing a pawn, then that can be a source of tension.  In practice though, this is partially mitigated by the fact that you almost never encounter someone that is purely playing their character in one way, but as a mixture of character, themselves, and pawn.As far as which is better, I will advance the controversial position that "playing a character" is a higher level of skill than "playing a pawn" and as such is more desirable in a player.  The reason for this is that players will evaluate DM's as playing at a higher level of skill if they play characters rather than pawns, and do not inject themselves into every character but rather make characters distinctive.  I've played for 30 years and never yet met the player that didn't make that judgment of my play, and never yet met the player who wasn't appreciative of me bringing NPC's to life in that fashion.  By the rule that you should reciprocate by behaving in the way you want others to behave, playing a character is better than playing a pawn.   Not because playing as a pawn is wrong, but because it requires more skill.  Indeed, the highest levels of skill are seen in players that both play characters, and who possess a high degree of ability at keeping those characters alive and succeeding at their goals.  Because ultimately, what the game asks of the players is for them to play protagonists in adventures, and that is what a 'reader' usually wants to see in the protagonists.As I said, "playing yourself" and "playing a character" is not incompatible.You are conflating two completely separate things.  I agree that deliberately putting difficult or interesting choices in the path of a character that relate to their stated beliefs is more of a Narratavist technique than a Simulationist technique, although in practice this can be highly blurred.  For example, my current campaign would be identified by Edwards as Sim, but because we created character backstories that implied particular conflicts in the character's background, the very fact that the game universe exists as described in those backstories means those backstories are continually catching up to the characters in various ways and challenging their beliefs, loyalties, and desires.  So the line between Nar and Sim is here blurred in practice in a way that it isn't in theory.  Again, the biggest problem with the theory is it thinks that there can only be one thing going on at a time.  (And why that is clearly and wholly wrong is something I have an essay idea for.)However, putting interesting challenges to a player's beliefs and loyalties in their path is by no means stating that you expect a particular outcome to those challenges.   If you did, then effectively you'd have a railroad with to some extent pre-scripted results.  In fact, in most story's characters don't have mutating beliefs.  It's not the normal way a story is written for a character to abandon their basic nature.  The 'reader' normally will receive this as bad writing, and will normally lose empathy for the character.You can usually tell which characters the author intends to have a personality crisis, and in which areas when a character is introduced.  That's because usually the character whose beliefs are going to evolve over the course of the story are the ones introduced with fundamental contradictions in their character's beliefs that will have to be resolved once the character is placed in crisis.   Bilbo is introduced to the reader as someone chosen to go on a heroic adventure, who is a coward.  Only his pride initially is the major motivation for pretending to be brave, though he isn't.   He just doesn't want people to think badly of him.  And this is going to have to be resolved one way or the other over the course of the story.  Ultimately the contradictions are resolved and Bilbo becomes almost purely brave and humble - at which point the character becomes stable and basically resists any temptation to change that thereafter comes along.  Likewise, when Han Solo is introduced, he's introduced as a cocky criminal who over the course of the movie is placed in heroic situations.  At the end of the movie, he has to choose which path to continue.   That's a contradiction that has to be resolved.Generally, the reader 'hopes' that the conflict will be resolved favorably in the case of a sympathetic protagonist, and is surprised (and in some cases even disappointed) when the conflict is resolved favorably in the case of a non-sympathetic character.  Author's usually deal with this problem by having the non-sympathetic character redeem themselves only in death.But it's not the case that we know ahead of time which way contradictions are going to be a resolved, and its likewise not the case that every character needs to change in this fashion.  The character without contradictions we don't expect to change.  There is nothing about their character that is compelling that change.  Instead, particularly if the character is heroic, we expect to see their character validated.  If we see changes in their basic nature driven by challenges they face, they become tragic characters and we certainly don't expect every hero to become a tragic hero - nor is there any particular reason why they should.If a character is playing an honorable Bushido and has no contradictions in his character, I would never expect that either the player or the GM expects his character to be anything other than a paragon honorable Bushido and that every challenge thrown at him would do anything other than give that character a moment to shine and prove his worth.   If a player signaled an intention to play a character that evolved, I'd expect them to do so by stating character traits that were in tension - greedy and honorable, for example.  That signals an intention to be placed in situations where you have to choose between the two traits, and that is also well and good.  I'm sorry, but I don't see your Paladin as very Paladin-y.  I'd be disappointed in the play.   While I fully agree regarding your understanding of the word tolerance, because tolerance is actually a sort of mercy, and mercy a sort of love - I wouldn't expect a Paladin to actually have to come to that belief, nor would I expect them as a paragon of virtue, to do anything but get wiser.  A Paladin without tolerance would be LN, and not LG.  A Paladin that fails to show tolerance is fallen or falling, and this is a typical trajectory we see in characters destined for that fate - noble but contradictorily also intolerant.   But wisdom would not mean compromising, nor does tolerance actually mean compromise, indifference, negligence, or weakness.  That isn't to say necessarily that I see your Paladin as a non-Paladin at this point, but whether I would depends on whether he's come to some belief in the utility or necessity of evil.  Your outline doesn't touch on that sufficiently to judge. I agree regarding the difference between the two approaches you describe here.  I disagree that Nar and Sim imply differences in how a character is played or what is expected of a character in play.  Either equally can expect evolution of a character, and neither necessarily expects a particular outcome.  Nar neither expects cowards to become brave, nor does it expect Paladins to necessarily fail.  Nar is not invested in how the story happens, only that a story does happen.  Claiming that the story is only good if Paladins necessarily fail is not a position on how to play RPGs, but a position on the meaning of life itself and as such is more akin to having an 'alignment' (IRL) than it is to a particular approach to playing a game.</blockquote>

Verification