Hmmm, alright, well, I kind of lost track of this for a while; wasn't paying attention. My sincere apologies to the just under one person who reads this. Back to business -- more for you on creating a character for a roleplay game.
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Step 3: Leave room for development.
Another way of putting this would be, "Don't make your character perfect." This cannot be stressed enough -- there is no possible way that I can hammer it hard enough into your heads. PERFECTION IS A BAD IDEA.
There is a type of character in the fanfiction world referred to as a "Mary Sue" or "Gary Stu." These are the characters which everyone who reads bad fanfic has run across at least once. They're always obscenely good-looking, perfect at everything they do, related to at least five canon characters and capturing the eyes, hearts, and libidos of twelve more. It is easy to construct a similar person in a roleplay setting, where one has complete and very distinct control of their characteristics, skills, and background -- and that simplicity is the reason for this type of character popping up far more than is healthy.
So how do you avoid this? Look for ways you can make your character weaker. My process for constructing Jenna, my main character on Star Trek: Andromeda, began with her characteristics: a cheerful pilot, unflappable, nonchalant, energetic. These are all good characteristics, but on their own they leave nowhere to go; the character is perfect in the sense that she has nowhere that she needs to improve. She could go on being happy and sardonic and energetic for the rest of her life without a problem, which means no conflict which means no worthwhile story.
Therefore, more elements of her background began to pop up. The way I chose to develop Jenna was that she maintained all these characteristics as a defense; she has extremely unhappy memories in her past which at the time nearly destroyed her sanity, and she is attempting to avoid returning to those darker emotions at all. In this way, I turned her strengths into weaknesses; she is still a good, intelligent, likeable character who is a lot of fun to play, but those character traits now have a deeper meaning. They have become something that she needs to change as well as a stagnant descriptor, and that makes them much more useful for storytelling.
****************
That's all for today -- I don't have time for a longer post at the moment. As always, feel free to leave a comment if there's something you want to suggest for discussion, or if you just want to let me know that you're reading this. I enjoy feedback.
-- Roz
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Roleplay Schizophrenia
The first thing to understand when you enter the world of character-based roleplay is that you're going to go mildly insane. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don't, you're doing it wrong.
Before all of you run screaming for the hills, allow me to clarify. I don't mean "insane" in the sense that you will lose control of yourself. I am instead referring to a condition which I and my friends call "roleplay schizophrenia," or RPS -- not a mental illness, not a bad thing in any regard, but certainly a change in one's outlook and approach to the game. Indeed, among roleplayers it is something to be valued. Someone with RPS has created a character so unique, detailed, and well-developed that the player can interpret and portray their logical reactions to a situation with an ease that can make it appear, even to the player themselves, that the character is doing it on their own. Technically, the condition I'm referring to should not really be called "schizophrenia," but "roleplay disassociative identity disorder" just doesn't have the same ring to it, and also takes way too long to type in AIM discussions.
There is a point in the development of any character where you recognize the onset of RPS. Generally it occurs during a sim or thread; a situation will present itself and the character will surprise you. Maybe they react differently than you would, or differently than you expected based on their background. Or maybe you try to get them to do something and feel a tension develop mentally as you try to type, and the realization occurs: She doesn't want to kiss him. He doesn't want to get into a fight. She wants to disobey orders. He thinks he's better than she is.
The early stages of RPS can be difficult with a given character, because often that realization conflicts with something you'd hoped to achieve with the char. At that point, you have two options:
1. Continue with your plans and resign yourself to a simulated lifetime of fighting to make him/her do what you want.
2. Learn from your gut feelings. Listen to the little voice inside your head that represents the character, and see where it leads you.
More often than not, the results will surprise you. Though it can be disappointing to realize that some plan you had is not going to work out, the second option is almost always the better one. It makes for more enjoyable roleplaying -- you feel more consistent, more at ease with the person you are playing. Roleplay is choices, just as acting is, and if you make choices that are inconsistent with what the character is trying to do, both you and your audience will come away feeling unsatisfied.
As I say, RPS can sometimes be slightly disappointing from time to time. My friend and I recently killed a relationship between our chars because both of them were telling us that their personalities were no longer compatible as a result of hardships they had undergone individually -- I didn't want to end it because it was nice having my char in a stable romance, but I knew that forcing the two of them together would end up being unpleasant for all concerned, drivers and chars alike. In fact, forcing a romance is as bad an idea in-sim as it is in real life -- it will turn sour quicker than you can turn your head.
So, occasionally you will have to make decisions that will conflict with established plans for the good of the character. However, a good group of RPers will understand why you have to, and will be willing to adjust their plans to compensate. This is more important in PBP, where planning is an important element of character development, but chat-based sims also occasionally require a short apology and the explanation, "Sorry, man...she just doesn't want to."
Bottom line -- join a roleplay, and your characters will talk to you. This is the ONLY situation that I can think of where numerous voices in your head can be construed as healthy and something to be encouraged. I wish you characters with strong voices, for they are the ones who will make you the player you (I hope) want to be.
Before all of you run screaming for the hills, allow me to clarify. I don't mean "insane" in the sense that you will lose control of yourself. I am instead referring to a condition which I and my friends call "roleplay schizophrenia," or RPS -- not a mental illness, not a bad thing in any regard, but certainly a change in one's outlook and approach to the game. Indeed, among roleplayers it is something to be valued. Someone with RPS has created a character so unique, detailed, and well-developed that the player can interpret and portray their logical reactions to a situation with an ease that can make it appear, even to the player themselves, that the character is doing it on their own. Technically, the condition I'm referring to should not really be called "schizophrenia," but "roleplay disassociative identity disorder" just doesn't have the same ring to it, and also takes way too long to type in AIM discussions.
There is a point in the development of any character where you recognize the onset of RPS. Generally it occurs during a sim or thread; a situation will present itself and the character will surprise you. Maybe they react differently than you would, or differently than you expected based on their background. Or maybe you try to get them to do something and feel a tension develop mentally as you try to type, and the realization occurs: She doesn't want to kiss him. He doesn't want to get into a fight. She wants to disobey orders. He thinks he's better than she is.
The early stages of RPS can be difficult with a given character, because often that realization conflicts with something you'd hoped to achieve with the char. At that point, you have two options:
1. Continue with your plans and resign yourself to a simulated lifetime of fighting to make him/her do what you want.
2. Learn from your gut feelings. Listen to the little voice inside your head that represents the character, and see where it leads you.
More often than not, the results will surprise you. Though it can be disappointing to realize that some plan you had is not going to work out, the second option is almost always the better one. It makes for more enjoyable roleplaying -- you feel more consistent, more at ease with the person you are playing. Roleplay is choices, just as acting is, and if you make choices that are inconsistent with what the character is trying to do, both you and your audience will come away feeling unsatisfied.
As I say, RPS can sometimes be slightly disappointing from time to time. My friend and I recently killed a relationship between our chars because both of them were telling us that their personalities were no longer compatible as a result of hardships they had undergone individually -- I didn't want to end it because it was nice having my char in a stable romance, but I knew that forcing the two of them together would end up being unpleasant for all concerned, drivers and chars alike. In fact, forcing a romance is as bad an idea in-sim as it is in real life -- it will turn sour quicker than you can turn your head.
So, occasionally you will have to make decisions that will conflict with established plans for the good of the character. However, a good group of RPers will understand why you have to, and will be willing to adjust their plans to compensate. This is more important in PBP, where planning is an important element of character development, but chat-based sims also occasionally require a short apology and the explanation, "Sorry, man...she just doesn't want to."
Bottom line -- join a roleplay, and your characters will talk to you. This is the ONLY situation that I can think of where numerous voices in your head can be construed as healthy and something to be encouraged. I wish you characters with strong voices, for they are the ones who will make you the player you (I hope) want to be.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Creating a Character I
I'm probably going to do several of these posts -- not all in order but broken up along with other subjects, so stay tuned, and if this one doesn't answer all of the questions you have on this topic, please leave a comment and suggest more things I can talk about.
One of the biggest problems with roleplay is that an inexperienced player entering a game for the first time is struck right out of the gate with probably the most challenging aspect of the entire undertaking: creating a character. The character creation period is vital to a good roleplaying experience, and yet many players skimp on it, either from laziness or just not knowing where to begin. The end result is a bio that has not been thought through, and therefore one that leaves you nothing to draw on when the playing begins.
If you're lucky, you'll have a set of admins who encourage you to add detail -- most won't reject you outright for a lack of it, but good GMs want people who will add something to their game and will ask for it. However, in case they don't in your case, I'm here to do it for them.
**************
STEP 1: Consider your setting.
If you're playing a game set in a real-life situation such as a high school, this step is easy. You probably have a vague idea of the situation your character is in and deciding what influence it might have on your character will come more naturally. However, generally, RPGs take place in more fantastical settings -- for most people, in fact, that's the whole point. Starships, wizarding schools, magical forests, medieval castles.
This is a major consideration when creating a character because it can give you a basis for an entire personality. Say for example that you are entering a magic-based RPG with several different races in a caste system -- not an unreasonable premise. Admittedly there's nothing about this preexisting situation that will make any decisions for you, but it can give you a suggestion of where to go. This premise, in fact, could suggest an entire range of political, cultural, physical, and environmental conditions which provide numerous options for a starting point.
In this hypothetical situation, one might begin constructing a character by selecting a race caste and moving from there -- a member of the dominant caste, for example, might be stuck-up and arrogant, cold and harsh towards his inferiors. Alternatively, they might be closet supporters of the subservient races, with a good heart despite the advantages of their position. Clearly this decision will not be made for you because of your knowledge of setting, but the setting does provide you with the choices in the first place. More importantly, creating the character BEFORE understanding where they will fit in the setting is a very poor choice and will make life difficult for you later in the creation process.
STEP 2: Make use of family.
This is something that I have done on every character I have created and I still think it's one of the best strategies I have ever used. Most bios I read tend to skip past the family as unimportant, giving the names of parents and siblings but no details on their personality or background (or, more often than not, orphaning them, something which in most cases is a cop-out way to create angst -- excuse me, "depth").
I consider this a huge mistake and for a very simple reason -- families are important to a child's development. By this I don't mean that they have to be beneficial to that development; God knows, it's the job of the driver to destroy the char's mental health half the time anyway, and one of the best characters I ever created was Pietro, a boy whose family life was so screwed up he didn't know right from left.
But Pietro did have a family, screwed up as it was, and a very detailed one at that. His father and mother were both assholes, but in different ways, and each had a defined method of psychologically torturing him, along with his brother who was stupid but inflicted pain like a blunt object. Each of them had a very specific effect on his development and created the person that he was, a cold, angry young man with a fuse shorter than Danny DeVito.
Now, I could have created that cold, angry young man as an orphan, giving other reasons or simply claiming that he was born that way, but I don't feel it would have had nearly the depth and interest, and -- in some ways more importantly -- it was easier. A few sentences on his father, a few sentences on his mother, and an entire section of his personality fell into place that would have taken hours to flesh out on its own, so if you have some moral objective to discussing a character's family, at least consider it on the grounds of laziness.
************
That's all for right now. I'll be posting more steps on character development every couple of days along with other discussions, so if you have an suggestions on things to include, please let me know in a comment.
One of the biggest problems with roleplay is that an inexperienced player entering a game for the first time is struck right out of the gate with probably the most challenging aspect of the entire undertaking: creating a character. The character creation period is vital to a good roleplaying experience, and yet many players skimp on it, either from laziness or just not knowing where to begin. The end result is a bio that has not been thought through, and therefore one that leaves you nothing to draw on when the playing begins.
If you're lucky, you'll have a set of admins who encourage you to add detail -- most won't reject you outright for a lack of it, but good GMs want people who will add something to their game and will ask for it. However, in case they don't in your case, I'm here to do it for them.
**************
STEP 1: Consider your setting.
If you're playing a game set in a real-life situation such as a high school, this step is easy. You probably have a vague idea of the situation your character is in and deciding what influence it might have on your character will come more naturally. However, generally, RPGs take place in more fantastical settings -- for most people, in fact, that's the whole point. Starships, wizarding schools, magical forests, medieval castles.
This is a major consideration when creating a character because it can give you a basis for an entire personality. Say for example that you are entering a magic-based RPG with several different races in a caste system -- not an unreasonable premise. Admittedly there's nothing about this preexisting situation that will make any decisions for you, but it can give you a suggestion of where to go. This premise, in fact, could suggest an entire range of political, cultural, physical, and environmental conditions which provide numerous options for a starting point.
In this hypothetical situation, one might begin constructing a character by selecting a race caste and moving from there -- a member of the dominant caste, for example, might be stuck-up and arrogant, cold and harsh towards his inferiors. Alternatively, they might be closet supporters of the subservient races, with a good heart despite the advantages of their position. Clearly this decision will not be made for you because of your knowledge of setting, but the setting does provide you with the choices in the first place. More importantly, creating the character BEFORE understanding where they will fit in the setting is a very poor choice and will make life difficult for you later in the creation process.
STEP 2: Make use of family.
This is something that I have done on every character I have created and I still think it's one of the best strategies I have ever used. Most bios I read tend to skip past the family as unimportant, giving the names of parents and siblings but no details on their personality or background (or, more often than not, orphaning them, something which in most cases is a cop-out way to create angst -- excuse me, "depth").
I consider this a huge mistake and for a very simple reason -- families are important to a child's development. By this I don't mean that they have to be beneficial to that development; God knows, it's the job of the driver to destroy the char's mental health half the time anyway, and one of the best characters I ever created was Pietro, a boy whose family life was so screwed up he didn't know right from left.
But Pietro did have a family, screwed up as it was, and a very detailed one at that. His father and mother were both assholes, but in different ways, and each had a defined method of psychologically torturing him, along with his brother who was stupid but inflicted pain like a blunt object. Each of them had a very specific effect on his development and created the person that he was, a cold, angry young man with a fuse shorter than Danny DeVito.
Now, I could have created that cold, angry young man as an orphan, giving other reasons or simply claiming that he was born that way, but I don't feel it would have had nearly the depth and interest, and -- in some ways more importantly -- it was easier. A few sentences on his father, a few sentences on his mother, and an entire section of his personality fell into place that would have taken hours to flesh out on its own, so if you have some moral objective to discussing a character's family, at least consider it on the grounds of laziness.
************
That's all for right now. I'll be posting more steps on character development every couple of days along with other discussions, so if you have an suggestions on things to include, please let me know in a comment.
On Character Integrity
Yesterday was Tuesday, which means that I spent approximately an hour and a half pretending to be the second-in-command of an advanced starship. This can include any number of interactions; this week's was mostly a battle, which meant that my main job was to deal with reports from various crew members and ferry those on to the captain which deserved his attention.
Battle sequences in simming are a section of the genre which are more exercises in quick-thinking and strategy than they are in development and my mind was completely on the action that was occurring; a little bit tense with the drama, very engaged and enjoying myself, the usual. All of a sudden, about two minutes from the end, however, I suddenly felt my mood lighten dramatically and I felt extremely cheerful. Nothing about the tone of the situation had changed -- we were still heavily damaged and in potentially hostile territory -- but I, as a driver, suddenly felt much more lighthearted.
Afterwards, I went back and looked at the log, trying to decide what had caused my sudden mood swing. The end of the sim featured a fairly simple situation: we had won our battle, assisted by the ships of a race we didn't know; when informed of who we were, the aliens seemed to recognize us and claimed to already know another of our officers, Admiral Harper. At that point, the following exchange took place between the captain, myself, and our ensign counselor.
‹Captain Andrews› I hope Harper didn't...well...
‹Ensign Lucindak› Didn't what, sir?
‹Commander Wolfe› ::cocks an eyebrow:: Go in guns blazing? So do I...
‹Captain Andrews› As Ms. Wolfe Put it...
‹Ensign Lucindak› Ahh, indeed.
‹Commander Wolfe› ::dryly:: On the other hand, for better or worse, we can be sure we have a reputation.
Once I had located these lines, the reason for my mood change became perfectly clear -- after an hour and a half of spouting orders and analyzing situations, we had reached a point where personality was able to speak up again. That last line is pure Jenna; sardonic, amused, completely aware of the seriousness of the situation but ignoring it because there is nothing she can do about it. None of that personality had had the option of coming through during the battle, but in the aftermath it shone out loud and clear, bouncing off of Andrews's quiet commentary and Lucindak's youthful inexperience. I, as the driver, had subconsciously felt the tension of playing a character without personality, and the lightheartedness I felt upon uttering those lines was, plain and simple, relief.
I would guess that it is hard to find a skilled roleplayer who has not felt that tension. One at times feels a little inner voice gibbering unhappily, telling you that what you're doing is wrong. "This isn't right; she's too depressed," is what I usually get, playing Jenna. "She's never depressed, why are you doing this? Every character needs depth but she wouldn't act this way right now."
Generally, by the time the voice really starts gibbering, you're into a sim and kind of have to roll with it and find an explanation for why the char is acting the way they are. Sometimes the character figures it out for themselves; Jenna's bouts of depression, I came to realize, were the result of bad memories and people around her who brought them up, which I hadn't originally planned into her biography. One of her friends asked her if she'd lost someone she loved, and rather than doing what I expected and denying it on the grounds that she wasn't interested in romance, she simply responded, "Hasn't everyone?" and I was left staring at the screen and trying to figure out what the hell that meant.
Clearly, in the future, one of these posts is going to have to be about roleplay schizophrenia, lest I frighten away my readers with stories like that one.
At any rate, there was a point that I started out trying to make somewhere up above and which I'm going to try to return to now. For a good roleplayer, character integrity and consistency ends up really being key to their play; when one is forced to abandon that integrity for situational reasons (as in a battle) or simply because they slipped and wrote something illogical in a line or two, it can be actively unpleasant to play.
I find this a fascinating element of my roleplaying experience -- the characters come to life to such an extent, and I become so involved with their development, that doing it wrong really does feel like a crime. I challenge you to name another recreational situation where making a mistake not only makes you lose, but makes you feel like you're ignoring and abandoning every win you ever achieved. A character's consistency is vital; the satisfaction of roleplaying comes from the fact that not only is your character what they are NOW, but that they have followed a clear and obviously related progression from what they were THEN, and have a path that they will follow to what they will be TOMORROW. Damage that integrity, that consistency, and you undermine the entire purpose of roleplay -- to give birth to a character and make them grow.
Battle sequences in simming are a section of the genre which are more exercises in quick-thinking and strategy than they are in development and my mind was completely on the action that was occurring; a little bit tense with the drama, very engaged and enjoying myself, the usual. All of a sudden, about two minutes from the end, however, I suddenly felt my mood lighten dramatically and I felt extremely cheerful. Nothing about the tone of the situation had changed -- we were still heavily damaged and in potentially hostile territory -- but I, as a driver, suddenly felt much more lighthearted.
Afterwards, I went back and looked at the log, trying to decide what had caused my sudden mood swing. The end of the sim featured a fairly simple situation: we had won our battle, assisted by the ships of a race we didn't know; when informed of who we were, the aliens seemed to recognize us and claimed to already know another of our officers, Admiral Harper. At that point, the following exchange took place between the captain, myself, and our ensign counselor.
‹Captain Andrews› I hope Harper didn't...well...
‹Ensign Lucindak› Didn't what, sir?
‹Commander Wolfe› ::cocks an eyebrow:: Go in guns blazing? So do I...
‹Captain Andrews› As Ms. Wolfe Put it...
‹Ensign Lucindak› Ahh, indeed.
‹Commander Wolfe› ::dryly:: On the other hand, for better or worse, we can be sure we have a reputation.
Once I had located these lines, the reason for my mood change became perfectly clear -- after an hour and a half of spouting orders and analyzing situations, we had reached a point where personality was able to speak up again. That last line is pure Jenna; sardonic, amused, completely aware of the seriousness of the situation but ignoring it because there is nothing she can do about it. None of that personality had had the option of coming through during the battle, but in the aftermath it shone out loud and clear, bouncing off of Andrews's quiet commentary and Lucindak's youthful inexperience. I, as the driver, had subconsciously felt the tension of playing a character without personality, and the lightheartedness I felt upon uttering those lines was, plain and simple, relief.
I would guess that it is hard to find a skilled roleplayer who has not felt that tension. One at times feels a little inner voice gibbering unhappily, telling you that what you're doing is wrong. "This isn't right; she's too depressed," is what I usually get, playing Jenna. "She's never depressed, why are you doing this? Every character needs depth but she wouldn't act this way right now."
Generally, by the time the voice really starts gibbering, you're into a sim and kind of have to roll with it and find an explanation for why the char is acting the way they are. Sometimes the character figures it out for themselves; Jenna's bouts of depression, I came to realize, were the result of bad memories and people around her who brought them up, which I hadn't originally planned into her biography. One of her friends asked her if she'd lost someone she loved, and rather than doing what I expected and denying it on the grounds that she wasn't interested in romance, she simply responded, "Hasn't everyone?" and I was left staring at the screen and trying to figure out what the hell that meant.
Clearly, in the future, one of these posts is going to have to be about roleplay schizophrenia, lest I frighten away my readers with stories like that one.
At any rate, there was a point that I started out trying to make somewhere up above and which I'm going to try to return to now. For a good roleplayer, character integrity and consistency ends up really being key to their play; when one is forced to abandon that integrity for situational reasons (as in a battle) or simply because they slipped and wrote something illogical in a line or two, it can be actively unpleasant to play.
I find this a fascinating element of my roleplaying experience -- the characters come to life to such an extent, and I become so involved with their development, that doing it wrong really does feel like a crime. I challenge you to name another recreational situation where making a mistake not only makes you lose, but makes you feel like you're ignoring and abandoning every win you ever achieved. A character's consistency is vital; the satisfaction of roleplaying comes from the fact that not only is your character what they are NOW, but that they have followed a clear and obviously related progression from what they were THEN, and have a path that they will follow to what they will be TOMORROW. Damage that integrity, that consistency, and you undermine the entire purpose of roleplay -- to give birth to a character and make them grow.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Why Roleplay?
The life of the geek is a lonely one.
This is mostly because one has a life the size of a chickpea, but it also has to do with the fact that most activities one engages in tend to be of a complex and rather impenetrable nature which causes the unenlightened masses to go, "Huh?" Ignorant, inarticulate heathens...
At any rate, RPGs are, in general, rather high up on the "Huh?" scale when presented to the human population at large and I would like to take a few moments here to do what I probably should have done for my first post and talk about some of the benefits of roleplay as a genre. By this I am including pen-and-paper games, simming, PBP -- anything that involves creating a character and developing it through interaction. I am not, for the record, including FPSRPGs and MMORPGs where the sole development process occurs through statbuilding. I have the highest respect for Runescape as a method of wasting a few hours having fun with a graphics interface and chatting with horny stupid people who have even less of a life than I do, but it really has nothing to do with this particular discussion.
I've actually never really understood the labeling of games like Runescape, Bridge Commander, or (Christ on a cracker) BioShock as "roleplaying games," because they're really not. They're billed as such because they involve taking a character from a level of dismal incompetence to the point where they can skewer a hill giant or Cardassian Galor or "Big Daddy" without breaking a sweat. And that's fine -- I spend hours on Runescape, I've enjoyed walkthroughs of BioShock even though I could never hope to beat it myself, and I still consider Bridge Commander one of the best computer games I've ever played. But my point is: IT'S NOT ROLEPLAY. It's clicking buttons. Roleplay, to count as roleplay with me, needs to involve some element of thought and development. It should, in short, involve playing a role -- all elements of it, not just the empty shell of a small man in blue armor whose life would somehow be complete if only some mysterious force from above would take him to a secluded area and make him chop down trees until his arms fall off.
I'm sidetracking here, of course. I was going to talk about why people should do REAL roleplaying games such as I myself participate in. So with your permission, I shall begin to do so:
-- Roleplaying is writing practice.
This is the excuse that most RPG fans like to give for their habit and it's still my favorite one to offer when my mother asks me why I probably spend more time on the computer than I do actually speaking to real human beings. And I say that like it's something I made up to fool her, which is not the case; I honestly do believe that roleplay is beneficial to anyone interested in writing as a career, hobby, or whatever.
The connection is obvious when referring to PBPRPGs where your level of respect in your community increases based on how many times you've been so invigorated by your character that you've written thousand-word posts based on their response to a single sentence by their rival in love. (::raises hand sheepishly:: Hi, I'm Roz and I have done this more times than I can count...) But I honestly think that it's a legitimate reason to approve of any character-development game because that's what it is -- development. Any game that allows you practice in smoothly developing a character, theme, and plot arc cannot help but be useful to your writing skill.
-- Roleplay provides critical thinking practice.
I was originally going to put down "Roleplay is acting," for this next bullet, but then I realized that only really applies as a benefit to the small subsection of my audience who, like myself, intend to live in a box and wait tables for a living. So I tried to determine why roleplay's similarity to acting might possibly benefit anyone else and this is what I came up with -- "critical thinking," a very academic-syllabus phrase, but accurate nevertheless.
It takes a certain amount of mental exertion to look at a character's background and personality and extrapolate their reaction to a specific person or situation. That is the basic challenge of roleplay: stepping outside your own situation and reacting as someone completely different. One of my characters on Andromeda (the Star Trek sim I help run) will, according to the plot plan, possibly be forced to decide the fate of another character played by one of my best friends, and it will be a severe challenge to address that situation as she would, and not as myself. I, quite obviously, have no interest in killing off my friend's character and forcing him to write a new one even if this was his idea in the first place (which it was), but the question is whether Jenna would be willing to allow Andrews to die, and the mental gymnastics which will be required to see this from her point of view are not inconsiderable. This is what I mean by the "critical thinking" element -- mental exercise provided by being required to look at a situation in depth and determine a response based on a predetermined set of characteristics unrelated to your own.
-- Roleplay provides interpersonal skills.
If you are a member of The Great Unwashed, the uninitiated masses who I mentioned earlier, now would be about the time to look at me with an expression that says "You're kidding, right?" and perhaps laugh in my face. "Roleplay is for people who sit on the computer twenty-four hours a day." A common argument, but one which, of course, fails to take into account the fact that during those twenty-four hours, I will be talking to an average of five or six people at any given time who are certainly more interesting than you.
Seriously, all gentle ribbing aside, online roleplay really does provide an opportunity to meet people, a more extensive opportunity than any other activity I've ever been involved in. I have friends that I've met through RPGs that I know better than people I know in real life. The reason for this, I think, is that the online RPG world is a world of SUBCULTURE, a world of tight-knit people with similar interests who have decided to band together against the roving barbarian hordes of normal-ness. And anyone who says that AIM is not a legitimate way to talk to people is, frankly, an idiot -- having met people in real life after talking to them for months on AIM I can tell you that the differences are startlingly minimal. I find that internet RPGs provide a way of expanding one's friend base, not hiding from it, and any accusation to the contrary is misinformed at best.
-- Roleplaying is FUN.
An often overlooked element in a world where sometimes it seems like every activity has to have a "point." Roleplaying is damn good fun when it's done right with people who are willing to take it seriously -- and I know that sounds like an oxymoron. RPGs are no fun if they are not taken seriously to a certain extent, because of that element of concentration and understanding that I mentioned before. That being said, when done correctly, it can be enormously entertaining. You have inside jokes, you have planning sessions that last all night, you have character developments that surprise you while you're writing them, you have entire sims where you do nothing but exchange witty dialogue. The capacity for variety is enormous, the opportunities for boredom few with good GMs and smart players, and there is no reason why an intelligent person such as yourself (and I'm giving you a lot of credit for an internet reader) cannot have the time of your life by joining a character-development roleplay and giving it a small dose of your time and energy.
I did, and I've never regretted it. Although, as earlier noted, I have a life the size of a chickpea, so if you are put off by that sort of thing, maybe you'd be better off woodcutting. The woods outside of Draynor Village are good, especially if you're interested in selling willow logs later on. They fetch a good price in Varrock. :-D
Monday, June 9, 2008
Platform Comparisons
OK -- the place I want to kick this off is in a question which I have discussed with fellow roleplayers before and one on which there is something of a diversity of opinion, that question being the relative merits of play-by-post and real-time chat RPGs.
First a bit of term definition:
Play-by-post, also called PBP or forum-based roleplaying, takes place on a message board. Characters are created and interact with each other through threads on the forum, each of which encompasses a conversation or otherwise specifically-defined scene. Posts are generally at least several paragraphs in length and the pacing of character development and interaction is slow -- a single conversation can take somewhere in the vicinity of a month.
Play-by-post is heavily writing-based. It takes planning. Almost everything that happens is worked out beforehand, except in the case of two characters meeting for the first time. And, perhaps most importantly, it is ALL character development. PBP threads are long and slow; with good characters they are interesting, fun slices of a character's existence that have time to develop themselves very clearly. Ex post facto editing is not only allowed but encouraged, as are extended-length posts, sometimes of a thousand words or more.
Real-time, also called play-by-chat or simulation (simming) roleplay, takes place in a chat program of some sort, be it IRC, AIM, a browser-based program, etc. Simming is fast-paced and plot-driven, usually run by a GM or two who determine the events which the characters are reacting to. Generally in-between sims, drivers use a forum or other site to do further writing on their characters and continue expanding them, but the main action takes place in defined periods in the chat room.
Chat-based can be most closely likened to improvisatory acting. Character development is still paramount, but it is placed into a different framework. Whereas PBP creates that development by having the chars react to each other, much of chat-based roleplay revolves around developing characters by their experiences and how they react to the plot being created by the GMs. Simming requires attention; there is often no time to plan, and both the driver and the char must think on their feet.
Basically, PBP and simming play to different strengths -- one is for writers, the other for actors. One is slow, the other quick. One relies much less on plot than the other, and each takes a different element of gameplay as its major source for char development.
The most important difference in my opinion, however, and the one which has solidified simming as my favorite of the two methods, is the element of surprise. PBP has exactly zero surprise -- most interactions are planned, plot developments discussed heavily in advance. Simming, on the other hand, moves so fast that there is no time for planning and you are forced to run entirely based on what you know of the characters and how they would react to situations -- and this can sometimes surprise even you. I have started conversations that ended up destroying the relationship between characters when I only anticipated a friendly argument; the fun of roleplay to me begins when the chars take on a life of their own, and simming makes that much more easy by forcing you to live their lives as they happen, rather than planning it out in advance.
This is not to say that forum-based is not a legitimate or enjoyable method of roleplay; I spent two years in Harry Potter PBPs and created some really interesting characters and plots there. However, in general, my answer to this question is that simming is superior -- it offers more challenge and provides more of a mental workout.
Discuss. :)
First a bit of term definition:
Play-by-post, also called PBP or forum-based roleplaying, takes place on a message board. Characters are created and interact with each other through threads on the forum, each of which encompasses a conversation or otherwise specifically-defined scene. Posts are generally at least several paragraphs in length and the pacing of character development and interaction is slow -- a single conversation can take somewhere in the vicinity of a month.
Play-by-post is heavily writing-based. It takes planning. Almost everything that happens is worked out beforehand, except in the case of two characters meeting for the first time. And, perhaps most importantly, it is ALL character development. PBP threads are long and slow; with good characters they are interesting, fun slices of a character's existence that have time to develop themselves very clearly. Ex post facto editing is not only allowed but encouraged, as are extended-length posts, sometimes of a thousand words or more.
Real-time, also called play-by-chat or simulation (simming) roleplay, takes place in a chat program of some sort, be it IRC, AIM, a browser-based program, etc. Simming is fast-paced and plot-driven, usually run by a GM or two who determine the events which the characters are reacting to. Generally in-between sims, drivers use a forum or other site to do further writing on their characters and continue expanding them, but the main action takes place in defined periods in the chat room.
Chat-based can be most closely likened to improvisatory acting. Character development is still paramount, but it is placed into a different framework. Whereas PBP creates that development by having the chars react to each other, much of chat-based roleplay revolves around developing characters by their experiences and how they react to the plot being created by the GMs. Simming requires attention; there is often no time to plan, and both the driver and the char must think on their feet.
Basically, PBP and simming play to different strengths -- one is for writers, the other for actors. One is slow, the other quick. One relies much less on plot than the other, and each takes a different element of gameplay as its major source for char development.
The most important difference in my opinion, however, and the one which has solidified simming as my favorite of the two methods, is the element of surprise. PBP has exactly zero surprise -- most interactions are planned, plot developments discussed heavily in advance. Simming, on the other hand, moves so fast that there is no time for planning and you are forced to run entirely based on what you know of the characters and how they would react to situations -- and this can sometimes surprise even you. I have started conversations that ended up destroying the relationship between characters when I only anticipated a friendly argument; the fun of roleplay to me begins when the chars take on a life of their own, and simming makes that much more easy by forcing you to live their lives as they happen, rather than planning it out in advance.
This is not to say that forum-based is not a legitimate or enjoyable method of roleplay; I spent two years in Harry Potter PBPs and created some really interesting characters and plots there. However, in general, my answer to this question is that simming is superior -- it offers more challenge and provides more of a mental workout.
Discuss. :)
Welcome!
Welcome to "Confessions of a Roleplay Addict," my corner of cyberspace where I intend to hold forth on some of my experiences in the world of online text-based roleplay, particularly play-by-post and real-time play-by-chat. I will do my best to offer as many helpful tips as I can for people looking to get started in the RPG world, and hopefully give a little insight on the subculture for those who have been in it for a while.
Topic suggestions are always appreciated. Feel free to contact me via comment, e-mail, or AIM if you have things you think I should discuss or just want to chat about roleplay.
Topic suggestions are always appreciated. Feel free to contact me via comment, e-mail, or AIM if you have things you think I should discuss or just want to chat about roleplay.
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