Ponderings of the Day
Tired. Brain's fuzzy. Wanna go back to sleep. Mmmf. It may be a smart thing to try to get to bed earlier on day-shift weeks. Feh.
I've had a few thoughts rattling around in my head. Mostly, I blame recent reading. I'm not sure they're fully developed, though...
Character Mistakes
Characters in The Broken Eye make a lot of mistakes in the area of social interactions and conversations. Maybe they can't speak freely because of an invisible assassin the other person doesn't know about, or maybe they're just too uncertain or embarrassed. Most of the time, however, it seems it either doesn't occur to them to say something or they don't fully trust the other person with the information. That might be the biggest hindrance among the "good guys" of the story - they don't always trust one another to share. On the other hand, given the various allegiances revealed over the books so far, maybe they're right in some cases.
But it got me thinking about stories and roleplaying, and the mistakes characters make.
Dresden makes the same mistake over and over to the point of it being a character trait. I go back and forth on whether that's acceptably defining for the series or frustratingly annoying because the character doesn't learn and grow, specifically in that one way.
In roleplaying... things strike me as different.
Without the certainty of an author's plot control, most players seem to fall back on "putting themselves in the shoes of the characters." That's certainly one way to do it, but we usually have more insight into interactions than our characters would. Often the only "mistakes" I see character make are due to either a failed die roll or misunderstanding on the player's part. Players allowing their characters to screw up an interaction (at least one they care about) is pretty rare. Not completely unheard of, but rare.
For my part, I remember a time when my characters might plow along a path to my own dismay - but other players seemed too personally invested to handle the fallout. So I backed off. I lost the... "edge," I suppose, that allowed me to do that easily. Now having a character of mine lie to another, whether deliberately or through misunderstanding, takes a frustratingly deliberate effort on my part. And I feel my characters and my roleplaying are limited by that in a way I don't really like.
Maybe that's part of what made Jezra more interesting to play early on. She was confused about her attraction to Orion and his relationship with Tash. She understood a lot of it on several levels, but still managed to foul things up a few different times. It felt believably awkward. Now that the three have reached a sort of equilibrium in their relationship, I have to confess it is less interesting to play her. It might have been upsetting or disturbing in some ways, but those little conflicts of not-completely-smooth relationships were interesting. Conflict, even internal conflict, is more entertaining than everything being static and peaceful.
Does that mean I should have characters screw up in these social interactions more? It still seems like a touchy subject in some areas, so I don't know. Not that I really have that many "active" characters to do so with anyway.
On Passion and Desire
Someone I'd played with online before ("friend" might be overstating it a bit) once approached me on the MUCK and explained his role in the whole Nimby plot. His character was positioning himself as the "God of Desire" and creating a race of desert feline worshippers. I don't recall now if he asked for help or I offered - probably some degree of both over the course of the conversation. So I sat down and pondered how such a philosophy would work. I mean, desire (coveting, greed, etc.) is more frequently a sin in real world religions. Turning that around was interesting.
What I came up with was a belief system that respected excellence over conformity. He might have initially viewed it more in a sexual light, but I took desire to mean more seeing what you want and striving to attain it. There could still be social borders that prevent outright mugging someone on the street to take their stuff, but rather encourage more refined means of attainment. The ka're were born. He was happy.
It's a little weird to think it might have been that experience which opened my eyes to the good aspects of having real drive. All those big business names, whether you're talking Jobs and Gates or Carnegie and Morgan, may well have been assholes in some respects, but their passion drove them to some great things. Without that, you get mediocrity and, in time, stagnation.
I've noticed that in my own life. I don't really have any clear goals to grasp and go after. There may be some contentment to be found there, but it means I'll never really achieve anything greater than where I am. I think being aware of that digs into the contentment somewhat...
I've also seen it in some of my roleplaying (which is slightly less depressing to observe and analyze, at least). Without any real feeling of passion and drive, it's just going through the motions of typing responses back and forth. It doesn't really hold my attention when that happens. If anything, I'm sort of amazed when I'm not accused of "phoning it in." Do I hide disinterest so well? I don't think so. Or is it just mutual?
But what do you do about that sort of thing? That's about where my insights end, unfortunately...
I've had a few thoughts rattling around in my head. Mostly, I blame recent reading. I'm not sure they're fully developed, though...
Character Mistakes
Characters in The Broken Eye make a lot of mistakes in the area of social interactions and conversations. Maybe they can't speak freely because of an invisible assassin the other person doesn't know about, or maybe they're just too uncertain or embarrassed. Most of the time, however, it seems it either doesn't occur to them to say something or they don't fully trust the other person with the information. That might be the biggest hindrance among the "good guys" of the story - they don't always trust one another to share. On the other hand, given the various allegiances revealed over the books so far, maybe they're right in some cases.
But it got me thinking about stories and roleplaying, and the mistakes characters make.
Dresden makes the same mistake over and over to the point of it being a character trait. I go back and forth on whether that's acceptably defining for the series or frustratingly annoying because the character doesn't learn and grow, specifically in that one way.
In roleplaying... things strike me as different.
Without the certainty of an author's plot control, most players seem to fall back on "putting themselves in the shoes of the characters." That's certainly one way to do it, but we usually have more insight into interactions than our characters would. Often the only "mistakes" I see character make are due to either a failed die roll or misunderstanding on the player's part. Players allowing their characters to screw up an interaction (at least one they care about) is pretty rare. Not completely unheard of, but rare.
For my part, I remember a time when my characters might plow along a path to my own dismay - but other players seemed too personally invested to handle the fallout. So I backed off. I lost the... "edge," I suppose, that allowed me to do that easily. Now having a character of mine lie to another, whether deliberately or through misunderstanding, takes a frustratingly deliberate effort on my part. And I feel my characters and my roleplaying are limited by that in a way I don't really like.
Maybe that's part of what made Jezra more interesting to play early on. She was confused about her attraction to Orion and his relationship with Tash. She understood a lot of it on several levels, but still managed to foul things up a few different times. It felt believably awkward. Now that the three have reached a sort of equilibrium in their relationship, I have to confess it is less interesting to play her. It might have been upsetting or disturbing in some ways, but those little conflicts of not-completely-smooth relationships were interesting. Conflict, even internal conflict, is more entertaining than everything being static and peaceful.
Does that mean I should have characters screw up in these social interactions more? It still seems like a touchy subject in some areas, so I don't know. Not that I really have that many "active" characters to do so with anyway.
On Passion and Desire
Someone I'd played with online before ("friend" might be overstating it a bit) once approached me on the MUCK and explained his role in the whole Nimby plot. His character was positioning himself as the "God of Desire" and creating a race of desert feline worshippers. I don't recall now if he asked for help or I offered - probably some degree of both over the course of the conversation. So I sat down and pondered how such a philosophy would work. I mean, desire (coveting, greed, etc.) is more frequently a sin in real world religions. Turning that around was interesting.
What I came up with was a belief system that respected excellence over conformity. He might have initially viewed it more in a sexual light, but I took desire to mean more seeing what you want and striving to attain it. There could still be social borders that prevent outright mugging someone on the street to take their stuff, but rather encourage more refined means of attainment. The ka're were born. He was happy.
It's a little weird to think it might have been that experience which opened my eyes to the good aspects of having real drive. All those big business names, whether you're talking Jobs and Gates or Carnegie and Morgan, may well have been assholes in some respects, but their passion drove them to some great things. Without that, you get mediocrity and, in time, stagnation.
I've noticed that in my own life. I don't really have any clear goals to grasp and go after. There may be some contentment to be found there, but it means I'll never really achieve anything greater than where I am. I think being aware of that digs into the contentment somewhat...
I've also seen it in some of my roleplaying (which is slightly less depressing to observe and analyze, at least). Without any real feeling of passion and drive, it's just going through the motions of typing responses back and forth. It doesn't really hold my attention when that happens. If anything, I'm sort of amazed when I'm not accused of "phoning it in." Do I hide disinterest so well? I don't think so. Or is it just mutual?
But what do you do about that sort of thing? That's about where my insights end, unfortunately...
You are sensitive to hurting player feelings and so you don't hurt character feelings. The two, unfortunately are not always mutually exclusive and far, far too often in your past a player was upset by the actions of characters. It's made you gunshy of performing something your character would do because you're concerned about the player beyond. While some may commend the empathy, I apologize for my part of having ground down your edge into the mediocrity of conformity. There shoulda been less "No, please don't do that" and more "Well, okay you do that, so here's the consequences" by people who could separate character feelings from player feelings.
ReplyDeleteIs it ironic to say that I want to be able to put aside some of that empathy while roleplaying in the interest of "realism" and yet I very much wish people in the real world beyond roleplaying would be more empathic? I suppose that comes down to my view on conflict: good for story, not so good for real life (corollary: sometimes necessary, but still not so good).
ReplyDeleteI found it funny that my younger brother decided to go the opposite route - he wanted a character who came from a society where desire (greed) was unacceptable, and the community worked together to fulfill each other's needs. 'Want' was considered temporary. I was kind of curious to watch and see how the two cultures might rub shoulders.
ReplyDeleteWas that in Nimby? Never quite got active enough in it to notice. That seems, to me, a more understandable ideal. Lutrai were fashioned after real world tribal societies that had little concept of personal ownership, and rather focus on family/community.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it was in Nimby. The culture was shamanistic, and could actually see the spirits associated with various things and with various concepts. Because of this, there was a fundamental understanding of some of the more negative emotions and concepts, and since these were undesirable, exorcisms were used to banish them, and the culture shifted away from things that attracted them. Kyldeer, apparently, didn't take that too well, considering he was the god of merchants.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the nail on the head, but there's a bit more refinement to the idea. "Do the established rules forbid this?" is the pertinent question for me - and that requires me looking at the rules and the setting critically. I have to decide that it makes sense before I'll clear it. For example, my friend Fox wanted to make a Terrestrial Exalted that was actually exalted by Gaia. Now, if you look at Exalted, that doesn't happen. That being said, it is possible, all that's needed is a shard of Exaltation. The PCs in my campaign had found some - blank shards - and were trying to figure out who to give them to. So I ruled that Gaia was given a bunch, and continued on, allowing his character to be exalted by Gaia. This is one where the setting provided the allowance (the blank shards are mentioned in the Sidereal book), but there's no mechanics to cover what would happen.
ReplyDelete