Players Playing Themselves?

[Roman]

I read a post on the WotC board a while ago that a certain poster had his players play 'themselves suddenly transported into the Forgotten Realms'. I did not want to take the thread off topic, so it is best to post my questions about this here.

I would like to ask: Has somebody else has done something similar? 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. Most likely he or she would be a 1st level Commoner or Expert, but going beyond that would be very difficult. How would you determine ability scores? How would you determine skill points and feats? This seems almost insurmountable to me. If you have played such a game, how have you dealt with this? I guess, perhaps having other people in the group assign these stats to the individual works best, or else his or her inflated ego would likely... inflate them.

Apart from character creation, were there any other major problems you had with this type of game? I can think of several that would be likely to occur, but it is best to hear directly from those who have experience in the matter.

Thanks!

 

[langolas]

My problem with this is that people woudnt play themselves. They would get killed by the first wandering goblin they encountered, or would run.

We tried this in a modern Palladium game, basically we all took an online iQ test for Int, guessed on other stats based upon physical fitness, running ability, etc. STR is pretty easy to guess, but other intangibles aren't. Been a few years since we did this, dont' plan to do it again. Besides, what would a computer-geek who types messages at 6:30 in the morning want to do in Forgotten Realms?

 

[Zappo]

Overall, I think it's something that should be treated with extreme care to prevent anger and hard feelings. I wouldn't even bother, but that's me; it may work better in other groups.

If I had to do it, I would choose a point-based system with no mental stats, a limited range of values for physical stats.

Leveled system (ie, D&D) don't work very well for real people. I am a firm proponent of the concept that D&D isn't realistic and that this is a Good Thing. But when I want realism, I wouldn't want D&D.

Estimating mental stats is complex, wildly inaccurate (generally speaking, IQ doesn't map to INT in most systems), and, very easily, insulting.

Estimating physical stats is, IMO, a clownish exercise; it'd be much better to pick a system where STR only has five possible values so that I can just say a number and everyone will probably agree.

 

[Roman]

Interesting opinions already and good identification of problems. Yes, sensitive people could be insulted by 'modelling' them with certain low stats or attributes in a D&D game. I guess we will have to assume for the purpose of this thread that they have thick enough skin to accept it...

 

[DragonLancer]

I've not done so with D&D, but with Hunter the Reckoning when it came out. I ran a story where a friend of ours had a hit and run, and accidently killed a young woman. He came to the guys for help because she had come back to get revenge.
A simple and cliched story to be true, but it was fun, and the players did a great job of playing themselves.

 

[Allanon]

I did this once with a d20 Modern Dark*Matter one-shot game. I created they're characters together with them based on what felt right. Granted D20 modern is much more suited for this kind of thing then D&D due to the way classes work together with talents and feats and as an added bonus the skills are easier to apply.

The most important part though isn't the stats as much as it's the character and personality of the characters, and there reactions to stuff. In my game this worked out great as everyone really tried to react like they would in real life. In D&D this would result in lots of silly questions, frantic running for lives and lots of SAN loss (whoops wrong game).

One thing to watch out for is that playing yourself is harder than playing someone else, especially if you're gaming with (best) friends who know you through and through. People often don't like having a mirror held to their face and that's what playing yourself often results in, especially if those friends try to 'correct' your representation of yourself.

 

[Leopold]

My players PC's always refelct upon the person playing, hence the PC is usually the player in one form or another. Rarely do I get the PC that is not anything like the player. I've done it, it's hard, I usually slip back into rules lawyering or acting smarter than my 8 INT for my Half-Dragon Barbarian Centaur allows me to!

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Playing yourself

I've played me twice... first was WOD Vampire (pre-reboot). It worked alright there because there's no real change in the world (except of course Vampires do exist), the system is easier to go with (you have a 1 or 2 in most things unless you can convince the GM otherwise), and some post-embrace decisions changed me enough (through Humanity loss) that I didn't have to worry about role-playing myself as accurately. Plus WOD is less system-focussed so there are less problems with this sort of game.

2nd was RIFTS - we got sucked into a rift and then the DM split us up and gave each of us a year in which we did things, then put us back together, so we had all become something quite different, so there was less of an issue - I'd spent a year paying off the cost of becoming a full-conversion borg after I got splatted in the first encounter after we went through the rift (my choice for story), so was fully combat trained... very different but an option if you want to suck people into FR then make them first level characters through some down time. However not as much fun.

D&D would be a real pain to do this in, but I'd say let them assign their own stats with a point buy system, and give them 2 levels in commoner or expert and let them create themselves... or maybe 2 levels in human paragon class. Then have a look at what you get, see if you think it's a fair representation and go from there.

On the stats limit the points to the standard system, and a max of 15, but to avoid ego clashes the DM alone gets to review and approve them. If you get a group doing that review there will be the standard "no way he's more intelligent/stronger/whatever than me".

Advice - emphasise that thie is going to more of a fun and very low power game where you initially expect them to be running screaming from every goblin, and particularly any undead. Maybe force them into fighting a few weedy things (kobold commers?) to ge them going. After a couple of games of that they'll probably want to start the power-ups, so let them each choose a class and go from there.

And on a story front assuming they survive these guys are going to become news.... they don't speak the language, they dress and behave very oddly, if they can make themselves understood then they will have very odd ideas. THe first option is they are considered lunatics, but then where did they get those strange breeches they're wearing? Eventually have them come to the attention of some thoughtful/progressive noble who will want to learn about them... suddenly they have protection and opportunities for training.

Hope you have fun if you decide to go with it. I'll agree that D&D is not well suited to this task but I think you'll enjoy what you get out of it.

 

[Darklone]

I read some novels with a similar theme once... and tried it myself. It's a little bit difficult in high magic systems like D&D

 

[Squire James]

I once ran a game where everyone voted for each player's stats (the players only got the results), then I gave everyone 5 minutes real time to grab something around the house and declare what it is (ie: a garbage can lid could be declared to be a shield, etc.). The players, previous to this day, had no idea I was going to do this, so I expected the run for the silverware daggers and the wooden swords. I did NOT expect someone to come up with a chain shirt made of beer tabs!

I ran the first session with no combat and no other stats besides the ability scores. D&D characters act rather interesting when they have no idea of what their own level is, or how many HP they might have. They are led into the fantasy realm by MY double, who had disappeared a couple months ago and has had time to train in a class. "I" had prepared for the arrival of the others by interpreting a "save the world" prophecy in order to ensure that "I" and my friends were treated well. The problem, of course, is when other stuff in the prophecy starts coming true, and "my" fakery turned out to be a lot more true than "I" had thought! Let's just say my friends' characters were not too happy with my character when all was said and done...

After the first session, I let each player pick a class and take it as their first level (we were still teens them). Since this was back in 1e days, this was more or less all we needed to start the game.

In 3e, we'd have skills and feats to decide on. It's not too much of a reach to assume that the feats are open slots until that "training session" unless something obvious asserts itself. Class levels and skills are a different matter. I'd allow each player to allocate 6 skill ranks to represent their "real-world" skills, and let the "fantasy world" skills be determined by class levels.

The campaign stalled at about level 5 due to life events that prevented us from meeting often (ie: I went to college).