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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 8193425" data-attributes="member: 6778044">Just to be clear, I'm not telling you what role you choose to play, nor that there is a single way to roleplay, nor which style of roleplay you (or anyone else) should play.Since there are so many ways to roleplay, when discussing how we roleplay, it's important to be on the same page about what type of roleplaying we're discussing. I thought the context clear, due to the OP, but I'll clarify.In my case it is total immersion, and roleplaying a specific character - not just their class (which is non-specific), or race (which is also non-specific), or special abilities, or anything else that is mechanically defined in the game, but the character in totality, race, class, background, experiences, personality, everything that makes them as unique an individual as we are in our world. That is, as if they are a real person in a real world, entirely separate and independent from our world.I will also reiterate that this is different than acting. You don't have to speak in character, have an accent, or dress the part. You can certainly do that if you want. I suck at it. After 40+ years of trying to improve my acting abilities, it's just not something in my skill set. In particular I am very bad at coming up with dialog on the fly. I've had a few memorable moments over the years, but for the most part it's just not something I can do. Anyway, in my examples, I am talking about roleplaying the character completely. Not just that my role is "fighter so I hit things," nor the game-focused mechanical roles that were formalized in 4e like striker, tank, healer, etc., for me It's about who the character is, not what.--I also view it from the perspective that a really well defined character can "take on a life of their own." That's the sort of immersion I'm looking for, and it's something that writers and actors also talk about. It's also something noticeable. For example, a new TV show has characters, and they are relatively well defined. But the first season they are often still finding their feet. The writers are often still clarifying and understanding the characters, and the actors are learning to inhabit them better. In later seasons the difference is often noticeable, not just that the character is more fleshed out, but that the character is better defined and that you see the character more than the actor.As an example of character as I see it, consider the first fight between Will Turner and Jack Sparrow. You can say they are both human, and both fighters, or maybe one a fighter, one a rogue. The class isn't important, my focus here is that they are both good sword fighters, and both confident in their ability to win this fight.Sure, at the table you can just make decisions as a fighter, and the scene will unfold in a particular way, and probably much like any other D&D fight. But when you layer on the character aspects, that Jack just wants to leave, for example, then decisions made within the fight change. Add in that Jack is somewhat of a pacifist and doesn't want to hurt Will in the process further alters the decisions he makes. His confidence in his ability to control the situation without violence leads him to casually turn his back on his armed opponent to simply walk out after moving Will opposite the door. It's not Jack's or Will's human-ness, nor fighting ability that defines the scene. It's all about their character, and in the process it also further defines their characters for the audience.With that immersion of character, of who each character is, then the scene unfolds very differently than a standard D&D fight. And it does so specifically because of the characters themselves.--Another thing that fans pick up on when a character acts "out of character." Where the writers/actors have lost the essence of the character. Something doesn't fit or feel right, even under the circumstances. This is more about consistency in service to the character as they are defined. So yes, you can make decisions based on different parts of the character, their elven nature, their being a fighter, etc. But people don't make decisions based on those things in a vacuum. An elven fighter is also still a person that has years of experiences that helps define who they are as an elven fighter. Which also helps explain why, even though you may have 100 elven fighters, each one will make their own specific choices and do things their way. It's just the way my brain works, those things can't really be separated when talking about a character, because to me what makes a character a person is the decisions they make and actions they take, and why they do.This feeling is also possible in RPGs, when the goal is to inhabit the characters in the same way. To let the characters take the lead, and the story to "write itself." As a DM, my goal is to set up the game to allow this to happen. To get myself and the rules out of the way, so the players can have a place where they too can get out of the way and experience the "total immersion that can be obtained by reading a good book or viewing a good film." The main difference is that the players are participants and audience.--So that's the context for my statement. If you are inhabiting a character in the game with immersion as the goal, then making a decision for that character based on what is going on outside of that world (such as doing something different specifically to make it "cool" for a new player), then you are no longer inhabiting that character at that point in time. You have stepped out of character momentarily.It doesn't mean that if you aren't doing this you're doing it wrong. Nor that it's the only way (or goal) in playing an RPG.No judgement, just an observation within the context of the type of roleplaying (or goal of roleplaying) as defined in the OP. If you don't share the same goals, YMMV.--An interesting side note. I know Pieter Roos. Not through RPGs, he was more involved in wargames than RPGs and only had the original D&D set and played for a short while. I saw him the other day and mentioned the quote. He didn't actually remember writing it, but did write for the Wild Hunt in that period and said it certainly sounded like him. He was 19 when he wrote that quote. But it's also a good example of what I'm talking about with character. Even though he didn't remember writing it, he could recognize the character in the writing, that is, the young Pieter Roos.</blockquote>

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