What does it take / how long does it take to "get into" a character?

[innerdude]

What you're calling "neo-trad" here I'd call "high-quality traditional play" giving the player space to develop the character. Some of us were doing that back in the early eighties.

I think there may be some overlap, but neotrad is precisely different because traditional play always has the assumption in the background that the GM's prerogatives supersede the players'.

When push comes to shove, the GM's ideas for the game world / continuity will take precedence, period.

Neotrad would reject that premise outright. The PCs interests are at least equal, if not superior to anything the GM envisions, and a neotrad player would feel it a violation of the spirit of the game more keenly than a trad player.

The trad player may not like it, but the unspoken social contract of trad play generally assumes it's the player's duty to accede to the GM's needs.

In play the two might play out similarly in many respects, but the underlying relationship between players/characters and the GM is different.


One other thought --- does anyone find it easier to get into character when another character in the party is highly developed / realized / fleshed out?

For me I've found that to be the case. When I have a strong presence to play off of, my own characters become better realized as a result.

 

[hawkeyefan]

One other thought --- does anyone find it easier to get into character when another character in the party is highly developed / realized / fleshed out?

For me I've found that to be the case. When I have a strong presence to play off of, my own characters become better realized as a result.

Absolutely. When one player brings a lot to their character, it means there’s more for me to work with. More ways for us to interact.

Often the strongest element of a character is how they deal with others, I think. So having other fully drawn characters offers more opportunities for me.

 

[dragoner]

I think there is a balance, one can always walk away, I mean if there are trust issues. Personally I don't like playing like that.

 

[innerdude]

Absolutely. When one player brings a lot to their character, it means there’s more for me to work with. More ways for us to interact.

Often the strongest element of a character is how they deal with others, I think. So having other fully drawn characters offers more opportunities for me.

This plays into a key point for me. At surface glance, having another character to play off of is helpful because it helps me take my character out of a vacuum and into the actual "space within the fiction."

Character development can only go so far within a vacuum. All of us recognize that the "self" we perceive when we're alone versus the "self" we perceive in a work context, versus the "self" we perceive in a social context are different. Perhaps not fundamentally different in most areas, but different.

There's sooooo much nuance to taking a character's starting persona / basic beliefs and motivations, and then projecting them into how that individual actually acts toward other people and situations.

Barring any form of psychosis (alcohol, drug-induced, implicit, or otherwise), in real life we are far more self-aware, calculating, discerning, and measured in our approaches to other people than what I see from most RPG characterizations.

 

[pemerton]

Barring any form of psychosis (alcohol, drug-induced, implicit, or otherwise), in real life we are far more self-aware, calculating, discerning, and measured in our approaches to other people than what I see from most RPG characterizations.

Absolutely this.

 

[Blue]

This brings up a very interesting point --- how open is the "average" player to modifying an internalized view of their character based on something like a failed action declaration?

My character isn't as "hard" as he thinks he is could be (and very well might have been) an interesting turning point for how you played that character.

Do we allow externalities of play affect the way we see our character --- because people within the fiction view our character differently based on certain action declaration successes/failures?

Absolutely. The characters don't develop in a vacuum, whom they are around and how they are treated/perceived by them will definitely affect who they are. It's one of the reasons that I never repeat a character in an unrelated campaign - what they did and who they interacted with is a big part of character growth.

And even the results of checks and stuff can be informative. I have a halfling bard, and halflings have their Brave feature. Well, even though he hadd the least HP and worst AC in the party he would do things like step in front of the barbarian to protect him (the Barbarian was a King) and such. Time after time with getting away with it (read: not dying, sometimes by the skin of his teeth) made him completely fearless. He's not reckless - his grandmother whom he speaks of often told him that there are times to back offf, but just so you can approach a problem from another side. But he's fearless and will put his (frail) body between any of his comrades and danger without a thought.