jgbrowning
Hero
jdavis said:
OUCH! I am skewered on your logic lance! OUCH! OUCH!
joe b.
Who "Owns" Old PC's?
- Thread starter Oaken25
- Start date
OUCH! I am skewered on your logic lance! OUCH! OUCH!
joe b.
jdavis
First Post
Oaken25 said:
Aye, as I tried to explain up above in my many posts on this page. No I don't play PC's that have turned into NPC's in way that the player didn't expect. Most of the time when my games draw to a close or fall apart due to Real Life getting in the way, the PC's have places that they have either built or become part of. Since I have DM'd in the Realms for over 10 years now, many cities, temples, etc have been built by old PC's. These PC's now run those places and at times they make cameo appearances in my games for a reason. I don't pull them out willy nilly to mess with current PCs. If I use old PC's that are now NPC's there is a very good reason why I used them for that purpose.
If that makes sense? It's really late here and I really should get some sleep but this thread has been a very intesting discussion. And I feel like I keep repeating myself here.
Yea I get the impression that you are not trying to turn this into a one man power show, just add flavor. I have played with some real bad DM's (years ago), as many people have, and that sometimes taints people's views on this subject.
This place is way too addicting for it's own good.
jdavis
First Post
jgbrowning said:
Actually, im a sensitive guy.
I do however, defend what i do say.
I honestly think the guy has problems. That's just my opinion and its worth only that: my opinion. I think anyone who gets emotionally attached to ideas of any sort to such an extent that if someone says, effectively, "your wrong" that that person get emotionally upset, has problems. Ideas are ideas, pretend is pretend, and the self is the self. People really need to get that idea.
joe b.
Yes sometimes things get taken way too seriously and views get pushed to the extremes for dramatic purposes, but without all the drama where is the fun.
jgbrowning
Hero
jdavis said:
Actually my wife and are are almost in tears because of your "I thought you were pretending to be Hong?" post.
Dude, that is classic. hehehe classic... especially considering it came right after that particular post... heheh
heh
hehheheh
joe b.
jdavis
First Post
jgbrowning said:
Actually my wife and are are almost in tears because of your "I thought you were pretending to be Hong?" post.
Dude, that is classic. hehehe classic... especially considering it came right after that particular post... heheh
heh
hehheheh
joe b.
Sometimes it gets a little deep around here. I've already been told I'm being ignored once around here (different thread). No reason to take things so personal all the time. I didn't really think you thought the guy was bound for the straight jacket, but you get more attention if you go for the extremes. Funny thing was I was basing my whole arguement on misreading the very first post.....oops.
I keep forgetting to put the little smily faces at the ends of my post, that way nobody thinks I'm a ass, that's how it works doesn't it?
Wolv0rine
First Post
Wolv0rine So said:
Alright, the part about laughing behind his back was read into this I suppose, by the tone and level of confrontationalism above. As far as the other things I'd said about it; betraying the faith in you to keep your word as you gave it to him and then (at least giving the impression in your second encounter in the scenareo) take pleasure in having gone back on that word, and having obviously had that intention when you falsly said you would not. I'm only addressing this scenareo that you provided, not neccesarilly you yourself or anything.
Under normal circumstances I'd take this as a hell of a nice thing to have said about me.
No, your request -- or stated opinion -- or blatant insistence -- that he seek some form of emotional help because you cannot understand why he has some form of attachment that you do not share (his character).
Your use of the word "pretend" over and over seemed like an obvious attack upon this poor theoretical shlub who you seem to feel is beneath you for some reason.
[/b]
Again, it just seems like your attempting to be childish over an issue that this theoretical player has stated bothers him, and in which you have no attachment one way or the other. You have made it plain that you consider forming an attachment to a character on any level to be a sign of emotional issues in need of therapy, so you obviously don't care one way or the other about the character. The player states he does care. That means his feeling are vulnerable and yours are not, and you put forth that you would chose to purposefully hurt his feelings when you clearly didn't need to. At least that is how it read (and still reads) to me, and I think that's wrong.
Well I hope for the sake of good-will and all that you're right, but I quoted quite carefully, and I still don't see where I misunderstood.
[/b]
Um... I guess your just role-playing again. I don't seem to recall the OP saying he was planning to make fun of the guy when he played the old PC.
but, for future reference, i won't pretend to be you, if you stop pretending to be me. because you're really doing a poor job of it.
How am I role-playing here? I defined how I view a character, and I think that backed up that statement fairly well. If my character is, in essence, me while I was roleplaying it, then anyone trying to roleplay a character that is supposed to be that same character is just trying to do an imitation of me. And they usually do a bad one (of me, or most people). I dislike people doing bad impersonations of me, even if it's Me-as-someone-else-I-made-up, because it colors the opinions of strangers in regard to me.
I'll even give an example. The Game: Champions, When: About 12 years ago. The guy who's GMing GMs a campaign world he used to play in years before, in another state. I meet sh'loads of ex-PCs now NPCs. From the way he plays them, their old players must have been monty-haul thoughtless apes who just enjoyed wrecking the previous GMs world and taking over. Fast Forward a few years, and I actually meet one or two of those old players, on of whom turns out to be a great role-player, not at all monty-haul, and the best GM I've ever gamed with. The first guy completely gave a bad impression of this guy just by role-playing his old PC badly.
jgbrowning
Hero
Wolv0rine said:
Yes, and i thank you for addressing the scenario and not me. I was going to fire off a sarcastic quick post, but instead i'll really say what i think because you might be interested in it as opposed to just being interested in saying what you think. This is just my little philosophy and everyone has their own.....
Actually what i was trying to say, and i apparantly didn't say it well enough is something like this.
Why does the guy's emotional state depend on what i do? Ie. he was fine all the time that i was playing his PC and he didn't know it, but once he finds out he's somehow distressed. that seems just a wee bit silly to me. You may find me harsh on this, but i don't get it when peoples emotional states are dependant upon things that they have no way of knowing are "real" or not. I was trying to show how that the guy, instead of "being hurt" actually "hurt himself" because he was not hurt until he decided to be hurt.
And the real kicker to me is that he's hurt over something thats "not-real". If he'd found out i was sleeping with his wife, that would be a completely different thing. But even then what pain he choses to accept or reject is ultimately his choice, even if he does not have the capablity of rejecting something because he hasn't trained himself enough to be able to do so. (ie. i could never set my-self on fire in protest, but i don't think the fact that i can't do that is not my fault. It is my fault as i chose what to accept and what not to accept)
There's a separation here that needs to be made. If the guys upset because i lied to him, i can understand that. Honesty is one of the few things that holds humanity together, and is something that's very important in understanding self. But, if the guy is upset because i used his character's name in my D&D game, that's far and away a different thing.
My use of the word pretend here was to highlight the fact that this is just a game. Its not real. The guy's character, no matter how much he may feel like it is is not part of the guys self, unless he makes it that way.
And, IMHO, if a guy makes his character part of his sense of self then the guy does have problems that should be addressed. Its the same thing as when a guy makes a football team part of his sense of self. Why one earth would a rational, well-balanced human being have an emotional response that is equivilent to that which occurs when the self is attacked when "his team" loses a football game? The only reason this occurs is because he has put part of his self into something that is most definitly not, his self.
It the whole idea of attempting to experience a bigger reality by associating onself with a larger group. "My team lost today!" or "My team won today!" are blatantly false statements in the fact that the guy doesn't own the team. He has no real attachments to the team except for the attachments he has made in his head because he likes the feeling of belonging to a bigger group because, IMHO, it is representational of belonging to god.
Its like the people that feel bad (ie have attached a sense of self to an outside object, so that when the object is attacked they foolishly believe the self has been attacked) when you say (to use a less offensive holy figure to our generally christian mindset), "The Dali Lama is a big piece of Poo Poo!" Why on earth should the opinion of another about a subject that is not the self trigger the same response as when the self it attacked?
The self, if placed anywhere but the self, is not actually the self although it may feel like the self.
No, forming an attachment to something (although i agree here with budha that in the long run is self-defeating) is not always a sign of needing therapy.
What im stating, is that the player has chosen and he can un-chose at any minute, to feel "pain" at my actions. The only reason the player feels hurt is not because of my actions, but because of IMHO, a silly level of attachment to a particular non-self entity. If this guy was talking about a bit of belly button lint, i don't think you'd be debating with me.
Honestly you're not the first person to misunderstand me. It not your fault, its mine. The burdon of communication lies with me. I tend to not explain myself enough and i tend to assume that my respondent has a somewhat similiar backgroud. This assumption is of course, stupid.
To me you were role-playing because you were missing my point and saying i said things i didn't say. Its just a difference of opinion.
I think its of ultimate importance to remember that you, and in fact any part of you, is not the character. You are what's inside your flesh, not what a fictional character does in a fictional environment. It is the separation of, i hate to use these terms but they're pretty appropriate, the art and the artist. the art is not the artist, the artist is not the art. Sure they influence each other both ways, but they are separate, and each is equally valid from a multiple of viewpoints.
Sorry you had a bad experience. We've all had them, but the nice thing about bad experiences is that the teach us what not to do.
joe b.
edit: actually this post is pretty much summed up in my sig line "you can want anything you are." As opposed to the traditional "you can be anything you want." Im saying you canwant what you already are and have the same sense of fulfilment and joy people tend to associate with "being better" through fiscally/physically/emotionally measurable methods. In fact when you succed in wanting what you are you avoid many of the classic traps of success... constant search for the emotional high that you get when you're "at the top of your form" or the confidence you gain through the successful completion of an action. Basically, im saying there is nothing outside of you that is giving you these posistive emotions. All of these feelings are in fact, independant, of everything outside of you. They solely come from within.
conversly, all the bad emotions you have come from within. Even if a guy comes up and punches your face, if you get angry, the guy didn't "make you angry" YOU made you angry.
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jdavis
First Post
Those are two of the longest post I have ever seen. I liked my "stop driving my car and stealing my character sheet" arguement better. oh wait
that's better, needed the little face.
You know maybe a guy just doesn't care to have his character used after he has left, maybe he isn't that emotional about it but he just likes things the way they were, or maybe he just decided to say no off the top of his head, or maybe he is a psychopath who will hunt you down and kill you if he finds out his character did something in a game without him being there. Gee all the arguements fall apart when you think he might kill you. Who want's to risk that. Maybe his character was a Chaotic Evil baby eater (can I copyright that as a prestige class?) and he's scared that the DM won't let the character eat enough babies as a NPC. Maybe he wrote the character in his own blood and feels that it is actually a extension of himself. or maybe the guy just wanted to let the character retire into obscurity for no reason better than he had some fond memories. First of all the situation was totally different so now we are talking about a theoretical person with a theoretical background and a theoretical personality. So in theory it's just to hard to say what's going on in his theoretical head. We cannot say that all people who don't want their characters used as NPC's are nuts, many probably are but not all of them. That's why it's best just to work around this and not make it into a big fight over who owns the character, theoretically of course.
that's better, needed the little face.You know maybe a guy just doesn't care to have his character used after he has left, maybe he isn't that emotional about it but he just likes things the way they were, or maybe he just decided to say no off the top of his head, or maybe he is a psychopath who will hunt you down and kill you if he finds out his character did something in a game without him being there. Gee all the arguements fall apart when you think he might kill you. Who want's to risk that. Maybe his character was a Chaotic Evil baby eater (can I copyright that as a prestige class?) and he's scared that the DM won't let the character eat enough babies as a NPC. Maybe he wrote the character in his own blood and feels that it is actually a extension of himself. or maybe the guy just wanted to let the character retire into obscurity for no reason better than he had some fond memories. First of all the situation was totally different so now we are talking about a theoretical person with a theoretical background and a theoretical personality. So in theory it's just to hard to say what's going on in his theoretical head. We cannot say that all people who don't want their characters used as NPC's are nuts, many probably are but not all of them. That's why it's best just to work around this and not make it into a big fight over who owns the character, theoretically of course.
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Wolv0rine
First Post
RE: jgbrowning
(Because our sub-conversation has become just too darned unwieldly and long to keep quoting unless specifically needed)
Okay, I think I see the line of seperation here between our two standpoints now. (Disclaimer: The following is not meant maliciously) You're holding some kind of unusual "You are you and all that is not the physical/mental/spiritual you-being only exists to the extent you take it within" or some-such. I ego-centric point of view, to some degree, I think. Along the philosophical lines (I term it philosophical because the level of control over one's metabolism required is uncommon in the extreme, but the realization it is considerably less so) that all pain, mental, emotional, and physical, you only experience if on some level you accept it's existance (or don't deny it). Like those who can 'turn off' the pain receptors of their body at will through great force of concentration, et al.
And, while I find it (not your thing specifically, because I don't really have knowledge of it) all very interesting and fascinating, this is not a philospohy/POV shared by many people, nor is it an active ability of many who do embrace the concept. I point this out as relevant because without that philosophy, and/or the ability to actively put it into action (as in your example of setting yourself on fire), it becomes effectively moot in the case of the person lacking it. To try to put it more coherently; You sleep with my wife, and I find out. Sure, it is within the power of the mind that I do not experience great anquish and pain over this, but it is outside of my personal ability to do so. So, because it's outside of my ability to do so (as opposed to my, and everyone's potential to do so), it's just not a factor that can be applied to me. It's out of my reach to conform to those standards.
As far as being hurt over something you did not know about goes, I can try to cover that as well, because it does indeed have a link to honesty, I think. Now keep in mind, I'm sort of over-thinking this to try to put it into words. Let's go back to the "slept with your wife" thing, because it's more easilly understood by both of us. Now, because she is my wife, there's a sort of implied promise that other men are not going to sleep with her that most people understand on some sort of over-cultural knowledge. Insofar as that is the case, I have invested my trust in: my wife to not have sex with other men, most other men not to have sex with my wife, and everyone involved (the spouses, and all outsiders) to honor the promise made to the people involved to not attempt to breach their contract of marriage (a 'promise' of sorts by the knowledge and agreement of most people asto what marriage is/means). When this trust is broken, there are multiple levels of dishonesty and deciet and betrayal that I suddenly have to face, because it exists in the form of this action. Before I knew, I didn't see it, so was not hurt, but this does not mean that these things didn't exist, because the event happened.
Okay, this is getting just too deep, I'll stop now and hope I got where I meant to be going. I guess, aside from the attempt to illustrate a point or more, it comes down to "I agree that it's good that you can apply this philosophy to your life, but more people don't share it, and investing a portion of your emotional self in others and things is entirely commonplace enough that it should not be written off as meaningless. Just as hurt is entirely made real by those who experience it, value is also made real by those who experience it. And my opinion is this should be respected if it causes no hurt to you.
(It's always so much fun when an arguement can pass beyond the nasty stage to the interesting discussions lying behind it, don't you agree?)
(Because our sub-conversation has become just too darned unwieldly and long to keep quoting unless specifically needed)
Okay, I think I see the line of seperation here between our two standpoints now. (Disclaimer: The following is not meant maliciously) You're holding some kind of unusual "You are you and all that is not the physical/mental/spiritual you-being only exists to the extent you take it within" or some-such. I ego-centric point of view, to some degree, I think. Along the philosophical lines (I term it philosophical because the level of control over one's metabolism required is uncommon in the extreme, but the realization it is considerably less so) that all pain, mental, emotional, and physical, you only experience if on some level you accept it's existance (or don't deny it). Like those who can 'turn off' the pain receptors of their body at will through great force of concentration, et al.
And, while I find it (not your thing specifically, because I don't really have knowledge of it) all very interesting and fascinating, this is not a philospohy/POV shared by many people, nor is it an active ability of many who do embrace the concept. I point this out as relevant because without that philosophy, and/or the ability to actively put it into action (as in your example of setting yourself on fire), it becomes effectively moot in the case of the person lacking it. To try to put it more coherently; You sleep with my wife, and I find out. Sure, it is within the power of the mind that I do not experience great anquish and pain over this, but it is outside of my personal ability to do so. So, because it's outside of my ability to do so (as opposed to my, and everyone's potential to do so), it's just not a factor that can be applied to me. It's out of my reach to conform to those standards.
As far as being hurt over something you did not know about goes, I can try to cover that as well, because it does indeed have a link to honesty, I think. Now keep in mind, I'm sort of over-thinking this to try to put it into words.
Let's go back to the "slept with your wife" thing, because it's more easilly understood by both of us. Now, because she is my wife, there's a sort of implied promise that other men are not going to sleep with her that most people understand on some sort of over-cultural knowledge. Insofar as that is the case, I have invested my trust in: my wife to not have sex with other men, most other men not to have sex with my wife, and everyone involved (the spouses, and all outsiders) to honor the promise made to the people involved to not attempt to breach their contract of marriage (a 'promise' of sorts by the knowledge and agreement of most people asto what marriage is/means). When this trust is broken, there are multiple levels of dishonesty and deciet and betrayal that I suddenly have to face, because it exists in the form of this action. Before I knew, I didn't see it, so was not hurt, but this does not mean that these things didn't exist, because the event happened. Okay, this is getting just too deep, I'll stop now and hope I got where I meant to be going. I guess, aside from the attempt to illustrate a point or more, it comes down to "I agree that it's good that you can apply this philosophy to your life, but more people don't share it, and investing a portion of your emotional self in others and things is entirely commonplace enough that it should not be written off as meaningless. Just as hurt is entirely made real by those who experience it, value is also made real by those who experience it. And my opinion is this should be respected if it causes no hurt to you.
(It's always so much fun when an arguement can pass beyond the nasty stage to the interesting discussions lying behind it, don't you agree?)
