Be careful who your roleplay
May. 20th, 2005 09:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueAs I may have mentioned before I'm of the opinion that we go through life roleplaying. I don't know about you, but in the office, I'm the 'techie professional' but in the pub, i'm the slightly manic beer fiend.
Roleplay games, are just an extension of this. The only difference being, that in an RPG _you_ choose the character you play, rather than trying to guess based on everyone elses preconceptions.
In a roleplay game, as a rule, a character either turns into a pallid stereotype, and quickly becomes boring. Or it becomes a solid entity, that you can understand, perceive motivations and 'get into' as a character. There's some character archetypes that I just can't play. I think this is because I don't have sufficient 'empathy' for a trait, to develop it into anything more than the piece of paper and stats block.
Which leads me to an interesting thought. I've caught myself on a few occasions thinking like a different character. I'm sure most of the established roleplayers out there do this. Would it seem reasonable that the 'believable' characters, are ones formed from the stuff of your own psyche? When playing a priest character, you take some of they mysticism within yourself, and 'direct' it.
There's one simple difference between the pallid stereotype, and the 'real' characters. The latter will grow of their own accord. I've find myself thinking of things, and doing things, that I understand as perfectly logical, but I wouldn't do normally. And then, gradually, this characterisation feeds back a little. As though, by focussing on an aspect of my psyche, I'm allowing that aspect to evolve. Perhaps grow, perhaps diminish, or perhaps just change course.
My previous character at Maelstrom was something like this. Started off ok, but turned into something I didn't want to play. My current character, I'm enjoying immensely, as if something has 'meshed'. I can understand this character.
On one hand it's disturbing - the thought that if you RP a sadist, a bully or a thug, then you're extending somewhat that part of you, giving it light and life, rather than suppressing it. But on the other hand, it's a fascinating voyage of discovery. In much the same way as you explore the land near where you live in order to avoid getting lost, roleplay makes a wonderful tool for exploring the parts of you that you may have never been entirely sure were there.
As Sun Tzu put it, before facing your enemy, you must first know yourself. I rather enjoy getting to know myself.
Roleplay games, are just an extension of this. The only difference being, that in an RPG _you_ choose the character you play, rather than trying to guess based on everyone elses preconceptions.
In a roleplay game, as a rule, a character either turns into a pallid stereotype, and quickly becomes boring. Or it becomes a solid entity, that you can understand, perceive motivations and 'get into' as a character. There's some character archetypes that I just can't play. I think this is because I don't have sufficient 'empathy' for a trait, to develop it into anything more than the piece of paper and stats block.
Which leads me to an interesting thought. I've caught myself on a few occasions thinking like a different character. I'm sure most of the established roleplayers out there do this. Would it seem reasonable that the 'believable' characters, are ones formed from the stuff of your own psyche? When playing a priest character, you take some of they mysticism within yourself, and 'direct' it.
There's one simple difference between the pallid stereotype, and the 'real' characters. The latter will grow of their own accord. I've find myself thinking of things, and doing things, that I understand as perfectly logical, but I wouldn't do normally. And then, gradually, this characterisation feeds back a little. As though, by focussing on an aspect of my psyche, I'm allowing that aspect to evolve. Perhaps grow, perhaps diminish, or perhaps just change course.
My previous character at Maelstrom was something like this. Started off ok, but turned into something I didn't want to play. My current character, I'm enjoying immensely, as if something has 'meshed'. I can understand this character.
On one hand it's disturbing - the thought that if you RP a sadist, a bully or a thug, then you're extending somewhat that part of you, giving it light and life, rather than suppressing it. But on the other hand, it's a fascinating voyage of discovery. In much the same way as you explore the land near where you live in order to avoid getting lost, roleplay makes a wonderful tool for exploring the parts of you that you may have never been entirely sure were there.
As Sun Tzu put it, before facing your enemy, you must first know yourself. I rather enjoy getting to know myself.
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Well I'm hardly an established roleplayer, but.....
Date: 2005-05-20 12:39 pm (UTC)Of course!!!! Nell Reynaud is the sensible, grown-up part of me, Cleopatra is my flirty nature (and a few other things that I won't mention in polite - and Sinergy-player infested - company!. My chaotic neutral elven bard and my devout, spiritual and generous-hearted dwarven paladin from tabletop are facets of my character, as is my LoD character, Raina the cowardly Fey Tracker. I even believe that my new tabletop character, a particularly anti-social and evil Spiker Fighter comes from the part of me that I have to work very hard to suppress. I assumed that everyone felt this way?
I have always thought that roleplay must be akin to 'method acting'....I don't IGNORE the mathematics of the calls required to play any given role-play game, but I DO make my decisions character-driven rather than 'roll'-driven, even if it means shooting myself in the foot or endangering others. My elf once let a thoroughly evil mage escape because she had given a promise he would not be harmed - and even healed said mage when another member of the party broke his promise and kicked the crap out of him. The mage returned the favour on numerous subsequent occasions by trying to kill my elf and the rest of the party!