D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Aldarc]

*There's some evidence that, in the long term, method acting causes psychological damage to the actor. By repeatedly reliving their own traumas to act, they do not resolve those traumas, and instead deepen their psychological wounds. The practice isn't very common any more, for that reason.

It can also cause them to be massive "wang rods" (to borrow Colville's term) to other actors or production crew, which isn't necessarily psychologically healthy either.

 

[Bill Zebub]

And Roleplaying is: "the act of making decisions about what a character would do when that character would do something different than what you would do." I know what you would do, but what would your character do?

The problem with this definition, based on discussions I've seen on this and other forums, is that some people have a funny notion of what "would" means.

For one thing, I just don't believe it's psychologically possible to leave yourself behind and make decisions without your own subconscious intruding. It's just not how our brains work. There are mountains of research that show we don't make decisions for the reasons we think we do. Even that act of trying to avoid doing what you would do is, in a roundabout way, making a decision based on what you would do.

For example, imagine that I think, "Well, I happen to know there's a trap there, but avoiding that trap would be 'metagaming' and I don't want to do that, so I'll step on the trap because I think that's what my character would do." I'm really making the decision as the opposite of what I would do, and then slapping a "what my character would do" label on it.

Here's where I see the problem:
1. It's a totally valid form of roleplaying to try (however quixotically) to make decisions as your character, not you.
2. However, that seems sometimes/often to get interpreted to mean that your character would definitely not do what you would do, especially if you happen to have knowledge that would help your character make good decisions.
3. And then from there, people seem to want to project these self-imposed rules on other players. To wit: "You are only making that decision because you have player knowledge. Your character would not do that." As if "what your character would do" is somehow deterministic. People make unpredictable decisions based on complex inputs, and there is no one answer. And god save me from a game where everybody is just supposed to do the most likely thing.

The other problem I have with this form of roleplaying is that, at least in my experience (YMMV) if I try to too hard to separate myself from my character, I no longer experience the game as if I am the character. That is, if I'm focused on keeping myself out of the picture, and just portraying my character, then when the sidekick NPC who has been following me around for six levels dies, I'm pretending to be sad but I myself am not genuinely sad. Because, well, my character isn't me. I've been engaging in an outward-facing, performative sort of roleplaying, and I myself am not really in the game.

For all those reasons, my approach to the roleplaying side of D&D (and other games) is:

1. Keep myself in the character so that I experience the game emotionally
2. Pick and choose my moments to outwardly portray the character to greatest effect.

On this second point, I like to make an analogy to writing dialog: if you are portraying a character with an accent, writing ALL that character's dialog with funny spelling and contractions can be exhausting to read. All it takes is a few judicious misspellings to get the point across, and readers will then "hear" the accent in everything that character says. So it is with roleplaying (in my experience): if you occasionally do something really colorfully in character, then other players will tend to perceive your character in their imaginations as that character for the mundane things, too, even if you're not consciously trying to be in-character. (And, as a bonus, you I lessen the risk of other players getting sick of your my amateurish acting.)

 

[Umbran]

For one thing, anybody who thinks that can totally inhabit their character and make decisions based on that character without their own self intruding is simply deluding themselves. It's just not possible.

You know what else isn't possible? Keeping a discussion on the internet civil when you assert that other people who you have never even met are deluded. You are basically opening your piece with an insult - that's not going to get people to read you thoroughly. That will engage their ire, instead of their rational minds.

Which you should know, given your allusion to how people made decisions. If you actually applied that understanding to the post, maybe you'd write it differently. You might want to try that.

 

[Bill Zebub]

You know what else isn't possible? Keeping a discussion on the internet civil when you assert that other people who you have never even met are deluded. You are basically opening your piece with an insult - that's not going to get people to read you thoroughly. That will engage their ire, instead of their rational minds.

Which you should know, given your allusion to how people made decisions. If you actually applied that understanding to the post, maybe you'd write it differently. You might want to try that.

Yes, that's fair. I stand by the claim...I think it's just psychological reality...but my wording was injudicious. I will go edit. (Done. Apologies to all.)

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Really interesting video and post @overgeeked

I think one of the unique joys of RPGs is that you could have a group of players in the same campaign who not only cover all three types discussed here, but each player can sort of shift between the types unexpectedly. Obviously most people will have sort of a default mode, but maybe depending on the tone of the game or some plot point or even just the length of time played those modes can change.

But another interesting element here is thinking about how some games lean into a given type of player, and how systems might reinforce those modes, or sometimes try to and fail. Is a GURPS or Shadowrun character with a long list of disadvantages really more complex and three-dimensional-leaning than a PbtA character with just a couple of traits? Not necessarily. But I also wonder whether something like B/X is actively deflecting three-dimensional players, just as PbtA is inherently telling zero-dimensional players to take a hike. Or maybe I'm wrong and people have seen players enjoy all types of games equally, even when they don't match their default style.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

The problem with this definition, based on discussions I've seen on this and other forums, is that some people have a funny notion of what "would" means.

For one thing, I just don't believe it's psychologically possible to leave yourself behind and make decisions without your own subconscious intruding. It's just not how our brains work. There are mountains of research that show we don't make decisions for the reasons we think we do. Even that act of trying to avoid doing what you would do is, in a roundabout way, making a decision based on what you would do.

For example, imagine that I think, "Well, I happen to know there's a trap there, but avoiding that trap would be 'metagaming' and I don't want to do that, so I'll step on the trap because I think that's what my character would do." I'm really making the decision as the opposite of what I would do, and then slapping a "what my character would do" label on it.

Here's where I see the problem:
1. It's a totally valid form of roleplaying to try (however quixotically) to make decisions as your character, not you.
2. However, that seems too sometimes/often get interpreted to mean that your character would definitely not do what you would do, especially if you happen to have knowledge that would help your character make good decisions.
3. And then from there, people seem to want to project these self-imposed rules on other players. To wit: "You are only making that decision because you have player knowledge. Your character would not do that." As if "what your character would do" is somehow deterministic. People make unpredictable decisions based on complex inputs, and there is no one answer. And god save me from a game where everybody is just supposed to do the most likely thing.

The other problem I have with this form of roleplaying is that, at least in my experience (YMMV) if I try to too hard to separate myself from my character, I no longer experience the game as if I am the character. That is, if I'm focused on keeping myself out of the picture, and just portraying my character, then when the sidekick NPC who has been following me around for six levels dies, I'm pretending to be sad but I myself am not genuinely sad. Because, well, my character isn't me. I've been engaging in an outward-facing, performative sort of roleplaying, and I myself am not really in the game.

Like with acting, part of the magic of gaming is that alchemy of combining the player with the character--no two players would play the same character the same way, so it's always going to be a synthesis. So I agree that you can't really separate yourself from the character, but when and where it might seem cool or interesting or, if you're feeling pretentious, appropriate, you can definitely try.

And that line between what a character and player would do is one of my favorite things about gaming. As a GM I constantly wind up pushing players--with narrative stuff, not direct needling--to see where that line is. And some of the most memorable moments I've had are when someone crosses the line in unexpected-but-not-random ways, or pulls back from something because they realize maybe they can't stomach having their character be that much of a jerk.

But this is all tricky, weird stuff, and the whole "but this is what my character would do" issue is also why I stopped running Vampire after years obsessing over it. That game really incentivizes acting like a monster, and I guess it should, since a vampire who isn't a monster is just a superpowered goth. I just wasn't interested in being part of that kind of a story, where players really should do almost nothing but awful, selfish, essentially villainous things, all under the cover of, "Welp, it's a game about inhuman predators!" So I'm not saying there's a right mix or approach, just that playing with how far to inhabit or not inhabit a character is, to me, part of the appeal of gaming, and something you don't get with any other pastime (except maybe improv?)

 

[Bill Zebub]

Maybe it's worth distinguishing between the What, the How, and the Why.

That is, I just argued why "what would your character do" is, I believe, an unanswerable question. Or, rather, there are so many possible (and good!) answers that it's not a meaningful question.

But how do they do it? That's interesting to me. And why do they do it? I think it's ok to compose those things retroactively, after you've decided on the what. Or they may inform the decision: the opportunity to do something in a really spectacularly in-character way might cause me to choose that course of action, without worrying about if that particular action is really what the character "would" do.

 

[Blue]

Some of my best moments of RPGs have come from classic moments - such as huge set-piece fights against long-time foes whom we as players are invested in taking down. These work with roleplay or Roleplay as defined by the article.

More of my best moments have occurred when there are no dice, no mechanical interactions, but kick-ass RP. Often intra-party. These really only come up with Roleplay as it seems he is defining it.

So, for my personal enjoyment, I have a preferred style for the group I am playing with.

 

[Blue]

For one thing, I just don't believe it's psychologically possible to leave yourself behind and make decisions without your own subconscious intruding. It's just not how our brains work. There are mountains of research that show we don't make decisions for the reasons we think we do. Even that act of trying to avoid doing what you would do is, in a roundabout way, making a decision based on what you would do.

A staggeringly huge number of playwrights, novelists, screen-writers, and so forth have shown us that it is very possible to write characters who seem different from both each other and from the choices you personally would make. Stop trying to gatekeep that Roleplaying (as defined in the video) doesn't exist.

 

[Bill Zebub]

A staggeringly huge number of playwrights, novelists, screen-writers, and so forth have shown us that it is very possible to write characters who seem different from both each other and from the choices you personally would make. Stop trying to gatekeep that Roleplaying (as defined in the video) doesn't exist.

Interesting use of “gatekeep”.

In any event, I don’t think we are disagreeing. To me, the key word in what you wrote is “seem”. If what we are talking about is a character that seems outwardly interesting and coherent and driven by it’s own motivations, then I think we are successful.

But, in my opinion, what the actual motivations are, inside the players head, is entirely separate.

Pick a favorite character from a movie or book. Would it lessen your enjoyment to know that essential parts of that character were really the writer expressing their own self? And without knowing a lot about that person, how could you even tell?