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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 8199457" data-attributes="member: 6787503">I’m not sure what you mean by this. The way I see it, characterization/portrayal is the outward manifestation of decisions made in the mind of the player. We at the table find out who the character is based on what s/he does. And, sure, consistency is important, and there’s some feedback as far as imagining yourself as the established character when making your character’s decisions, but I don’t understand how a player’s decisions can be said to have their origin in the characterization of the character. It just seems opposite to the actual causal process of how characterization comes about. It also doesn’t sound very immersive to me. I’d much rather find out who my character is by the decisions s/he makes than decide who s/he is beforehand and try to come up with decisions that fit.I think the primary strength of RPGs as an activity is the latitude the players have not just over the characterization of their characters but over their actions/decisions as well, and I prefer an approach that embraces the player’s ability to directly author those actions in play. Placing the character’s ability scores/character sheet in an intermediary position between the player and the decisions of their character, I feel, lessens the direct experience of being one’s character. In my experience, it isn’t so much a matter of overcoming the restraints of script and blocking but of learning and internalizing them so well that they all but disappear from the actor’s consciousness, so they can fully inhabit their part without those distractions. Roleplaying in an RPG, to me, is quite different because I write what my character says and does. That's the focus.But isn't the means by which you entertain the group authoring something entertaining for your character to do/say?Of course by the actions my character takes I mean the actions I declare for it, and those actions are, also of course, subject to the game's processes of resolution. I don't, however, see self or group censorship of my roleplaying based on the numbers on my character sheet as one of those processes.</blockquote>

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