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Thinking About the Purpose of Mechanics from a Neo-Trad Perspective
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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 8995660" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>I've had a thought about the primacy of "character" in this context that I think merits some exploration. I don't want to say this is a strictly modern storytelling tradition, but you see this a lot in fan-fiction communities, where characters have a certain intrinsic value, derived from properties that are relatively unchanging. The easiest example is probably just shipping culture, which is very focused on "I want to see Character X and Character Y in this specific, other situation."</p><p></p><p>This style has a certain essentialist view of what a character is that can drive conflict with other agendas. A character is a discrete, specific entity with (some, but not all) traits that do not change. These traits might be portrayed as the results of events in the past, and be altered slightly by ongoing story events in future, but they are essential. Traits that can/will change are usually flagged, and are planned as significant drivers of the plot. There is a fundamental divide between characters and plots: characters experience plots, they can be put into situations and react to them, but they are never defined by them. You can remove the character from the story, and bring them over to another one, you could portray the same character twice, in two different campaigns and point to them at the end of both and say "this is the same person."</p><p></p><p>This view of a character as dominant over situation is, I think, the fundamental point of differentiation that makes it clear this is a unique style from both Trad and Story Now agendas. A Trad character (in so much as "character" conceptually is important to a Trad player) really only exists in reference to the plot, and is expected to be an amalgamation of the events they experienced, even if they had personality elements they brought to those interactions, while a Story Now character is expected to struggle against their environment and learn/grow continuously in reaction to events. The former exists only in retrospect and is never complete and the latter is constantly in a state of reaction/discovery as things happen that force growth/change on them. A Neo-Trad character is intrinsically complete from conception, including opportunities to grow/learn that are already templated/scripted in from the outset.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 8995660, member: 6690965"] I've had a thought about the primacy of "character" in this context that I think merits some exploration. I don't want to say this is a strictly modern storytelling tradition, but you see this a lot in fan-fiction communities, where characters have a certain intrinsic value, derived from properties that are relatively unchanging. The easiest example is probably just shipping culture, which is very focused on "I want to see Character X and Character Y in this specific, other situation." This style has a certain essentialist view of what a character is that can drive conflict with other agendas. A character is a discrete, specific entity with (some, but not all) traits that do not change. These traits might be portrayed as the results of events in the past, and be altered slightly by ongoing story events in future, but they are essential. Traits that can/will change are usually flagged, and are planned as significant drivers of the plot. There is a fundamental divide between characters and plots: characters experience plots, they can be put into situations and react to them, but they are never defined by them. You can remove the character from the story, and bring them over to another one, you could portray the same character twice, in two different campaigns and point to them at the end of both and say "this is the same person." This view of a character as dominant over situation is, I think, the fundamental point of differentiation that makes it clear this is a unique style from both Trad and Story Now agendas. A Trad character (in so much as "character" conceptually is important to a Trad player) really only exists in reference to the plot, and is expected to be an amalgamation of the events they experienced, even if they had personality elements they brought to those interactions, while a Story Now character is expected to struggle against their environment and learn/grow continuously in reaction to events. The former exists only in retrospect and is never complete and the latter is constantly in a state of reaction/discovery as things happen that force growth/change on them. A Neo-Trad character is intrinsically complete from conception, including opportunities to grow/learn that are already templated/scripted in from the outset. [/QUOTE]
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