Your Real Self? Or Not?

[Jack7]

"...In being myself I become what never was,
And yet in what never was have found myself
Without compass, guide, or chart
Lost upon a trackless sea,
An expanse before, a ruin left behind
Among a course navigated
By some hidden, inner instinct,
That both propels me forwards like
The furious, beating, endless gale
And anchors me firm on windless depths
That will not rise to fill my sail..."

After reading a posting by someone else in another thread of mine the other day, a question occurred to me.

In Role Play Games do you play a character who is truly like yourself, or very different in nature from the way you are in real life?

This question seems extremely interesting to me especially given the very nature of what a role play game is, and what it implies.

The answer the other person gave was apparently in regards to their professional life.

This means that I definitevely do not want to play tech types in RPGs.

But how about other aspects of your life? I'm not putting up a poll because the question I'm asking is very general and could be interpreted in any number of ways. For instance it could mean do you role play characters who are similar to you in behavior, in beliefs, professional capabilities and training, spiritually, psychologically, physically, mentally, in appearance, nationality, culturally, and so forth and so on? Do you play yourself in sci-fi games and someone different in fantasy games? Does genre influence what you choose to be and how you play? How much of your character is you, and how much not you, or how much what you wish you were, are trying to be, or would never want to be in real life?


So, do you play yourself in another guise, or someone completely different?

Then how, in what exact way(s), and why?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Someone completely different

I simply play the character as a different character. The PC can be completely different from me in every way, be it gender, sex, religion/spirituality, career, views on the world, etc. It is just like how a author makes up characters who are completely different from himself to feel a role. Same goes here, I make up characters I find interesting and what I find interesting can change from month to month, day by day.

 

[Jack7]

Same goes here, I make up characters I find interesting and what I find interesting can change from month to month, day by day.

That's an interesting observation.
I wonder if I shouldn't have included a few questions about personality types as related to character choice types.

But I'll let that develop as it develops.

So, speaking of that, do most of you play the same characters consistently and long term, or a different characcter type and nature on a regular basis?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

*Shrugs shoulders* Depends. If the campaign lasts a while I'll be playing that character for a while.

But I will be making up new characters anyways for fun. Same goes with campaign settings I may be running one campaign for a while but have been making like 5 other ones for fun.

 

[Jack7]

By the way, to clarify, I know the question(s) sound like Either/Or in some respects.

But what I'm actually saying is, in what ways are your characters like your real self, and in what ways are they not?

 

[pawsplay]

I used to find it distasteful to play characters I considered ignorant or evil, but now it doesn't bother me. I really will play just about anything. I can pinpoint the day... I was joining an existing Hero group, and I thought it woudl be a stretch to play an armored vigilante who was ex-military, divorced, depressed, conservative, and slightly alcoholic. I enjoyed it probably more than anything I had done before, even though I never really attached to the character and the game dried up pretty fast.

I went on to play a delusional wizard, a murderous cutthroat/juggler in a Fantasy Hero campaign, a mentally retarded frost giant Headhunter in a Rifts game, a misanthropic half-elf wizard, and others. Although they are very different from me, I would have to say that I play them by seeing a little of myself in them.

The upshot is that when I do go back to playing Batman ripoffs, elven archers, and police detectives, I come at it with a refreshed perspective.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

The upshot is that when I do go back to playing Batman ripoffs, elven archers, and police detectives, I come at it with a refreshed perspective.

I have to quote this last part since it is very true. I will say one norm of mine that arises commonly in D&D characters for me are Tiefling characters whose class is one of the sneakier ones, be it Rogue, Beguiler, Scout, etc.

But by playing a variety of different characters/simply brainstorming different characters. I can bring fresher ideas and different ways of making a character when going back to a old favourite.

 

[Jack7]

The upshot is that when I do go back to playing Batman ripoffs, elven archers, and police detectives, I come at it with a refreshed perspective.

That brings up another interesting question PP, psychologically speaking, about how role playing is useful for discovering things about your real self. And maybe something about others.

 

[Rechan]

Not to make this a big tale of one's life and psychology, but I play characters different than me, because I'm not all too happy with me. I'd like to escape me for a little while.

The biggest attraction I have are to very sneaky, social, or cunning/crafty types. The last two 3e games I played, I was a Changeling, either a Beguiler or Rogue (both times, posing as someone else for the better part of the first adventure).

Another type are simply inhuman, alien types. Either physiologically, psychologically, or both. This is in part due to my dislike of demi-humans, but I just like being something totally unnormal. Something that routinely makes those at the table go, "Wait, what?"

(I say this even though I rarely get the opportunity to play as opposed to DM, and rarer still are the opportunity to play a Striker/rogue type, or the alien-thing, since most DMs I've been under are more vanilla.)

 

[Shroomy]

My current character is a lot like me in some ways, but some of my personality traits, both positive and negative, have been magnified; the rest is just made up. Luckily, I've never abused my newly granted legal authority by ordering my drunken, n'er do well brother arrested just to get out of having to pay his 1500gp tab at the local brothel (I really screwed up my DMs plotline with that shenanigan).