Playing a fantasy character true to their nature is a difficult undertaking. Living in modern times gives us a background that isn't well suited to playing an elf ranger or a dwarf miner or a great paladin. We would be much better to suited to play some hero from our own type of world.
Still we can rise to the occasion if we take just a few simple things into consideration.
A character has limited experiences. In our modern world of technology people are exposed through print, broadcast, and other types of media so we can have a general idea of life throughout the world. We can define normal by the media, and a large number of people can have very similar ideas.
In the fantasy worlds we play in, media is limited, and in some places, nonexistent. The definition of normal is limited to what our characters know -- perhaps locally, perhaps only in their own household. The only religion they may know and understand is that of the local temple. Anything outside of this norm may be completely foreign to our characters, especially is they come from a small village or a remote area. Animals of another climate region may be as foreign to our characters as aliens would be to us.
A character frames the world based on their own experiences. To try to understand new things, a person frames new things in terms of their own experiences. Things different than what is expected may be considered at best, strange, and in extreme, abnormal or wrong. For this reason, as we play our characters, especially when examining other PCs or NPCs in the game, we need to reflect their own expectations into their interpretation of the world. This colouring of the interpretation is very fundamental to interaction. Though as children we all dream of finding another person exactly like us to view the world with, as we mature we realize that ultimately relationships are not based on our similarities but rather based on our understanding and patience with the differences we all have when looking at the world. We look at the world through experience-colored glass and role playing should include that.
A character has needs and motivations that span a wide spectrum. Flat characters are driven by a single motivation. We've all run into the NPC driven solely by greed, vengeance, or even just pure evil. Real people aren't like that. A real person, and similarly a well-played character, is driven by a spectrum of desires spanning lots of things. Gaining social status and acceptance, overcoming loneliness, trying to find security, trying to make up for past sins -- all of these things may play a role in motivating a single character. It is the interaction of these multiple goals that can really make a character jump off the character sheet.
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Lets take a single character as an example. I am currently playing Crayla, a female half-elf ranger , on my Saturday night game. Crayla grew up without her mother and with father gone most of the time. She had 10 brothers who treated her badly. She failed her druid training and fled using her ranger skills when she was old enough. She fled to a large city where her caustic nature left her with no friends and more trouble than she could handle. Eventually she joined up with a hidden organization dedicated to preserving the planes of existence.
Crayla has two sets of very different experiences. In growing up, she lived in a remote area with only a druid grove nearby. She had no model for observing the interaction of men and women (for example, between her mother and father). She had no model for family beyond the conglomeration of brothers she had. She had no model for caring relationships. Her interaction with the druids seemed pointless since it required patience she could not attain and ultimately resulted in disappointment. The interaction with her brothers was primarily a "take what you can get" kind of scenario. She has no basis to understand altruism. Her father was probably a breath of fresh air to her with stories from his journeys. Though he probably exaggerated the good and dismissed the bad, the stories he told to Crayla filled her mind with a picture of life beyond, perfect and pulled out of reality. It is not surprising that she chased those dreams.
In the city, Crayla found a harsher reality in the people. Not only were they not watching out for her as back home, they were now actively hostile towards her caustic nature and trying to exploit her for their own gains. Her lack of experience provided her with no basis for talking to another person and making any connection. Though in the city she could see this happening all around her, she was an outsider and unable to participate in social interaction without disaster. Fighting evolved from a useful skill back home to a primary method of social interaction in the city.
The decision for Crayla to join an organization was a lengthy one. She had trusted no one, and had no reason to. Ultimately the choice to trust the new group was only out of necessity due to other consequences closing in on her.
Because Crayla doesn't trust anyone, theft came easy to her. She didn't connect with people, so taking something from them didn't bother her conscience.
So that's all the background, but what does this mean to Crayla now?
Still we can rise to the occasion if we take just a few simple things into consideration.
A character has limited experiences. In our modern world of technology people are exposed through print, broadcast, and other types of media so we can have a general idea of life throughout the world. We can define normal by the media, and a large number of people can have very similar ideas.
In the fantasy worlds we play in, media is limited, and in some places, nonexistent. The definition of normal is limited to what our characters know -- perhaps locally, perhaps only in their own household. The only religion they may know and understand is that of the local temple. Anything outside of this norm may be completely foreign to our characters, especially is they come from a small village or a remote area. Animals of another climate region may be as foreign to our characters as aliens would be to us.
A character frames the world based on their own experiences. To try to understand new things, a person frames new things in terms of their own experiences. Things different than what is expected may be considered at best, strange, and in extreme, abnormal or wrong. For this reason, as we play our characters, especially when examining other PCs or NPCs in the game, we need to reflect their own expectations into their interpretation of the world. This colouring of the interpretation is very fundamental to interaction. Though as children we all dream of finding another person exactly like us to view the world with, as we mature we realize that ultimately relationships are not based on our similarities but rather based on our understanding and patience with the differences we all have when looking at the world. We look at the world through experience-colored glass and role playing should include that.
A character has needs and motivations that span a wide spectrum. Flat characters are driven by a single motivation. We've all run into the NPC driven solely by greed, vengeance, or even just pure evil. Real people aren't like that. A real person, and similarly a well-played character, is driven by a spectrum of desires spanning lots of things. Gaining social status and acceptance, overcoming loneliness, trying to find security, trying to make up for past sins -- all of these things may play a role in motivating a single character. It is the interaction of these multiple goals that can really make a character jump off the character sheet.
---
Lets take a single character as an example. I am currently playing Crayla, a female half-elf ranger , on my Saturday night game. Crayla grew up without her mother and with father gone most of the time. She had 10 brothers who treated her badly. She failed her druid training and fled using her ranger skills when she was old enough. She fled to a large city where her caustic nature left her with no friends and more trouble than she could handle. Eventually she joined up with a hidden organization dedicated to preserving the planes of existence.
Crayla has two sets of very different experiences. In growing up, she lived in a remote area with only a druid grove nearby. She had no model for observing the interaction of men and women (for example, between her mother and father). She had no model for family beyond the conglomeration of brothers she had. She had no model for caring relationships. Her interaction with the druids seemed pointless since it required patience she could not attain and ultimately resulted in disappointment. The interaction with her brothers was primarily a "take what you can get" kind of scenario. She has no basis to understand altruism. Her father was probably a breath of fresh air to her with stories from his journeys. Though he probably exaggerated the good and dismissed the bad, the stories he told to Crayla filled her mind with a picture of life beyond, perfect and pulled out of reality. It is not surprising that she chased those dreams.
In the city, Crayla found a harsher reality in the people. Not only were they not watching out for her as back home, they were now actively hostile towards her caustic nature and trying to exploit her for their own gains. Her lack of experience provided her with no basis for talking to another person and making any connection. Though in the city she could see this happening all around her, she was an outsider and unable to participate in social interaction without disaster. Fighting evolved from a useful skill back home to a primary method of social interaction in the city.
The decision for Crayla to join an organization was a lengthy one. She had trusted no one, and had no reason to. Ultimately the choice to trust the new group was only out of necessity due to other consequences closing in on her.
Because Crayla doesn't trust anyone, theft came easy to her. She didn't connect with people, so taking something from them didn't bother her conscience.
So that's all the background, but what does this mean to Crayla now?
- Crayla will reflect all of the aspects of her brothers in people in her life. She will expect them to be mean, selfish, cruel, greedy.
- She will not do something for nothing and may become hostile towards those that expect it.
- She will not trust easily or at all.
- She will be awkward when trying to connect honestly with people.
- She will be in a constant state of lying and bluffing and be good at it. She will know how to avoid conflict in order to take advantage of others.
- She will not relate to other people's pain or loss.
- She will value people around based on how much they make her life easier.
- Being away from a crowded household with her brothers and away from the city will increase her anxiety from simple loneliness. She won't understand this, but will seek out people and crowds to alleviate this.
- She will distrust authority and generally associate magic with this, because of her experience with the druids. She probably won't trust magic and see magic users as haughty and arrogant.
- She will prey on weakness in everyone around here, attempting to always get an upper hand.
But most importantly, Crayla will have new experiences, and those should change her, for better or worse.
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