Players Playing Themselves?

[sittaraha1]

I have just started a D&D 3.5 camp. with players playing themselves. It was easy enough to use the different tests as "What D&D character are you?", "What D&D stats do you have" and "Your ability scores in D20". After the players performed the tests, we had a average of the stats and even an idea of the char. class that they would take. We sat for one session to flesh out the rest of the skills and feats (extra as per human). It worked well. The setting will be a Sherwood Forest with a splash of fantasy .

 

[megamania]

In college I was part of a CoC game that used our "stats". It was problematic at best. I was the only one with firearm skills since I was once a town constable. Meanwhile, I only shot a handgun twice in my life and a shotgun maybe once.

Our otherwise low stats made us easy targets also. Beyond that, in my Storyhour Strikeforce: Morituri, I have two characters wisked into a DnD type reality. One is handling it well. The other is not but is coming to learn to deal with it (in complete denile of course). But even then, they are comicbook heroes and James Bond types so they are not "normal".

 

[CRGreathouse]

I couldn't immediately find it, but Monte Cook has a great article about doing this on his website...

 

[Arrellion]

If I remember correctly, this was the premise for the original D&D cartoon in the early eighties.

I agree with others that the hardest part would be stats and figuring what classes would best fit the people, not necessarily what they would want to play.

I am currently working on an adventure hook where my players will start as "0" level commoners and depending what they choose for backgrounds and what they choose to do before reaching 1st level will push/nudge them in the direction of certain classes. I am trying to come up with ideas on what to do when they make certain decisions, i.e. if they decide to play an orphan who steals, they will have a chance to become a theif, fighter so on. If they want to come from a noble birth, they may have a chance to become a paladin.

I am making a list of backgrounds and plan to let them add twists of their own so the character is something they will be happy with. I will allow them to make choices and not steer them in any one direction.

I think this may result in allowing more of the player to show in their character than normally would.

 

[Xath]

I've been thinking for quite a while about how to do a one-shot type campaign like this. And what I've come up with is that for D&D, you can't be enitrely true to reality, because well, it's D&D. So here's what I'd do. Everyone would rank their ability scores from high to low. For example (Int, Cha, Dex, Wis, Con, Str) They are awarded points in order (6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1). Then everyone else ranks your stats. Let's say someone thinks your order is (Dex, Cha, Wis, Int, Con, Str). These are awarded points (3, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1, .5) Everyone votes like so. Then you tally the points together for your final order (Int, Dex, Cha, Wis, Con, Str).

Here's where I still have to make a decision. I'd either give everyone a set of the same "Heroic" stats, or I'd let them roll, but say they have to rank them in this order. Neither way is going to be entirely accurate, but having heroic stats will give them an edge in a D&D type setting.

I havn't figured out what I'd do for classes or feats yet, but this thread is giving me some pretty good ideas.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

I'm run & played in various games like this, all with some degree of limited success/failure.

The key thing about these games, esp. if you're playing an unaltered version of yourself, is honesty about your abilities. Not what you think that you can do, but what you can actually do. Very tricky thing. Esp. tricky when you have players who already have a habit of "exaggerating" their dice rolls as it is.

I'd also say that this style game should be saved for groups that have played together for a while. I'd say that it'd be a ery uncomfortable idea for a newly-assembled group (or for a new player in an existing/established group).

However, all of these games have rather short-lived lifespans for one reason or another. They're interesting concepts, but don't endure long as a game for soem reason (the reasons why vary from game to game, whether it's a fallout between friends, real life getting in the way, etc.).

However, there are a few methods that, IMHO, really work with this base concept:

• Superhero Games: IMHO, this really works with the idea of the players playing themselves, esp. if something occurs which changes the character, imbuing them with powers, abilities, etc. Thus, in effect, the character would have a few elements that remain true to the idea, but the rest can be different w/ no problem (e.g., the players have been mutated & gain superpowers).
• Alternate Earth reality: It's you, but different. Things occured differently in this reality than in the real-world reality, allowing for some variance/difference in stats/abilities once more.
• The Eternal Champion plot: Sorta like the above idea, but much more different. In essence, the characters make PCs as normal. However, the PCs are that game world's version of the players themselves (much like Corum, Von Bek, and Elric are, IIRC, supposed to be the same person in vastly different realities). I sorta use this idea for making up a group of pre-gens for my current group: the pre-gens are a mix of a representation of the actual player with what the player prefers to play.

Basically, allow for some degree of difference/change in the hard mechanics of the PCs, though keep the basic concept/background info relatively the same. In a FR game I ran, I used the "Eternal Champion" idea for a group of pre-gens that the players used occasionally (mainly for side-games, "meanwhile" moments, and for ways for the players to indirectly affect their characters [like the pre-gens stealing the item that the PCs are questing for, etc.]). It met with relative success overall.

 

[scourger]

V&V!

Playing yourself as a character is the premise of an old favorite superhero game of mine: Villains & Vigilantes. We had a great time playing this back in the 80s. Turns out we're all strong, tough, quick, smart (geniuses, really), wise and charming. Well...it is fantasy...and we were kids...and it was a SUPERHERO game...

 

[CrusadeDave]

Hmmmm

If I ever magically transported my Players to Faerun and made them 0th level characters, I would give them a little help.

First, I'd let them assign their own stats as I'm not going to get involved in the "you're too fat for a 14 dex!" arguement.

Second, I'd have each of them teleported to Faerun with the PHB, the DMG, the Monster Manual, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and any D+D book they owned. Each one of those books is probably a 100K item. All of a sudden they have amazing intelligence and know that one of these important people in there can help them get back home, they just have to adventure enough to get noticed.

The plots would evolve around someone stealing their books, them trying to get them back, and of course get back home.

I doubt it would be very fun for very long, but it could be a cool novelty game/one shot. Perhaps it would end up like ABC's new series, Lost. Throw 150 people at a Gaming Convention into a dimensional rift and then drop them into Faerun. Now the villain can be that evil power-gaming DM you've never let into your game as he tries to turn the natives against you.

 

[TheBadElf]

I ran a GURPS game like this way back in my senior year of high school, and it led to one of the most memorable gaming moments i've ever been involved in. As part of preparation for the campaign I went to each player's house on Friday afternoon (with no warning) and explained that they had five minutes to gather anything in the house that they'd want to have with them when they were transported to the game world. From three of the four I got what I'd pretty much expected...food, kitchen knives, one guy's bowhunting gear, a huge jar of change. The last one, though...given his five minutes he disappeard into the depths of the house and emerged with chainmail armor, helmet, sword, dagger, a neatly packed backpack of camping gear, a pump-action shotgun, several boxes of ammunition, and a well-equipped toolbox.. Oh, and a very useful book about engineering on a medieval level. Turns out he had been packed to leave for an SCA event that evening, and he was the only one with the presence of mind to raid his dad's gun cabinet.

Needless to say, that made for a few very interesting sessions.

 

[D+1]

I would like to ask: Has somebody else has done something similar?

Yep. While far from the longest lived campaign I've played in, and the fact that it wound down rather suddenly and disapointingly, it was certainly one of THE campaigns that is remembered well by all who played in it.

Besides the fact that it is really strange (not that I am condeming it, but it does sound weird) I cannot really imagine how it could possibly work. An immediate problem would be translating the individual into D&D statistics terms.

Nowadays you have an actual points system to use to create "yourself". When we did it it was rather less scientific and somewhat perilous at offending touching players. We started by assigning ourselves stats, having the DM then adjust those stats as he desired according to how HE percieved us, and then the DM coughed up a points-type system where we could adjust our scores to their final levels.

Apart from character creation, were there any other major problems you had with this type of game?

If the point is to TRULY play yourself it's very hard to justify being a spellcaster of any kind. We did this under 2E and essentially wound up using 3E-style multiclassing rules because everyone pretty much wound up starting as a fighter or rogue and then quickly moving into classes that would create a properly rounded D&D party.

Meta-game knowledge is much less of a problem - what you the player know about monsters, NPC's, geography of the game world you're in - then you the character knows the same thing. The earliest levels of the campaign were the most fun because it was largely a survival situation. It was not set in a known campaign world and we came in with modern paper money and coins, etc. along with a disparate selection of weapons - no guns but a lot of stuff varying between a machete, hunting knives, display daggers and swords, and a simple 60# fiberglass bow.

As we got more levels and more "traditional" equipment under our belts it became less unique and seemed less like playing "ourselves." If I were to do it as a DM I'd ensure the low-magic aspect for the PC's. One other difficulty that might arise (though it didn't with us) is handling PC deaths. Suddenly one player is no longer playing "himself", but some other typical D&D character. A solution would be a campaign with a more unique treatment of death such as one that used some Ghostwalk Campaign rules.