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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8667600" data-attributes="member: 42582">People's preferences are what they are.Given that I've cried tears in playing a character, I've probably emoted as much as many ENworlders.But the script had to come from somewhere. I didn't cry tears because someone or something actually reduced me to tears. I made a decision about what my character would feel, and then used memories (of experiences in my own life, and also of the person I knew who had had an experience most like that my character was undergoing) to generate that feeling in myself, which thus led me to cry.In the bullying case, you as a player might inhabit the state of mind of someone who is being bullied. But I doubt that many people advocate that the bully should inhabit that state of mind, and imagine taking pleasure in reducing others to tears! Rather, we rely on the player of the bully to convey the idea that their character is a bully, and then except the other players to somehow internalise that in their response. They're not actually being bullied.Or think of a romance case. The world is full of passes and pick-up lines that fail, one night stands who won't go away, broken hearts, etc. Is anyone saying that we should have those things among the friends at a RPG table? In real life there are many social situations that simply don't resolve, people who never speak again, etc. Unless one character is permanently out of the game, how is that going to work at the RPG table?The script has to come from somewhere. And the creation of the script is logically independent of the emoting or inhabiting of the character.I've cried watching Maggie Cheung in Ashes of Time. It was a lot more real than any RPGing I've ever seen or participated in. But she was following a script.The notion that scripting and emotional power are at odds isn't one I can agree with.</blockquote>

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