It is an interesting tale that we weave when we play a character, a tale of our own life. Ask a man to draw his fingers, and in the errors we add in the drawing, we reflect our own exaggerations of how we see our self -- a tall thin person will draw long, spindly fingers. The person who sees themself as fat will often draw fatter, shorter fingers. But characters do not shine our flaws this way. Look into the characters, and what we see are deeper reflections.
Beginner players always start out the same. They pick a character they already love and they try to copy them into the game. For years I played in games with other characters named Ryu because of this. Batman has popped up again and again in different forms. And don't forget the always popular drow elf with two swords and a panther companion. Their characters are always misplaced in the world, loners, unconnected, wronged, and for some reason, without parents.
At some point players, if they experience enough, move beyond this. They grow characters to reflect themselves as they want to be. Every little child wants to be Harry Potter or Hermione Granger or Elminster or Merlin. Some part of that little child wants to be that powerful one. They become martial arts experts, sorcerers, wielders of large axes and magic wands. Eventually that theme runs out though. And when that happens, something magical occurs. The player becomes a true role player.
You see, once you have exhausted playing other people's characters and playing yourself in a better life, you can finally settle down to explore some real characters. People in these positions become to understand the fundamental meaning of heroes in this game -- real heroes are defined by their weaknesses. Instead of min-maxing characters, these roleplayers will try balancing players, and in fact, even max-mining the characters i.e. giving them purposeful flaws to overcome. They give them quirks and even start to build psychological profiles of the characters. Needless to say, psychologists and actors both are drawn to this level of play. Suddenly the character becomes a puzzle to challenge them, a puzzle to figure out.
I never really appreciated this transition until a couple of years ago when I received a game called Kagematsu . In Kagematsu, it is played with usually all men and one woman. The woman plays the samurai named Kagematsu, and the men play the woman of the village who are trying to convince the samurai to defend the village, perhaps even using their feminine charms. The gameplay isn't particularly complex, but the impact that the game has on the players can be amazing. It is role reversal at its finest. Once experiencing this thought process for a game, I knew I never wanted to go back to flat character gaming again.
In the time as of late, this chapter of my gaming life, if you will, I have only gotten to play 3 characters. In Pathfinder, I explored Crayla a rogue-ish ranger with issues, and a magus Ranier who attempted to hide his powers and be a ranger. In Shadowrun, I played Vlad, an in-your-face faceman who surprised way to many people with his antics. In all three cases, the characters had depth. That isn't to say I didn't balance my stats to keep the game competitive, but I really felt my way through each of them to find their place. Through them I explored each as a new character that I wasn't really comfortable with in the beginning.
Unfortunately, now, as a GM, I only get to play NPCs, and I find NPCs almost too fleeting to try to roleplay to that level anymore. I find it is better to make an impression with an NPC that to try to roleplay some level of subtlety. After all, it is hard enough to get players to remember important plot points in the game, let alone something subtle. Everyone can remember the crotchety old man farmer or the loud dwarf, but no one remembers the subtle magistrate or the iconic quirky bard. Still, I hope my players can find their way into the depths, and maybe someday soon I'll get there again myself.
Beginner players always start out the same. They pick a character they already love and they try to copy them into the game. For years I played in games with other characters named Ryu because of this. Batman has popped up again and again in different forms. And don't forget the always popular drow elf with two swords and a panther companion. Their characters are always misplaced in the world, loners, unconnected, wronged, and for some reason, without parents.
At some point players, if they experience enough, move beyond this. They grow characters to reflect themselves as they want to be. Every little child wants to be Harry Potter or Hermione Granger or Elminster or Merlin. Some part of that little child wants to be that powerful one. They become martial arts experts, sorcerers, wielders of large axes and magic wands. Eventually that theme runs out though. And when that happens, something magical occurs. The player becomes a true role player.
You see, once you have exhausted playing other people's characters and playing yourself in a better life, you can finally settle down to explore some real characters. People in these positions become to understand the fundamental meaning of heroes in this game -- real heroes are defined by their weaknesses. Instead of min-maxing characters, these roleplayers will try balancing players, and in fact, even max-mining the characters i.e. giving them purposeful flaws to overcome. They give them quirks and even start to build psychological profiles of the characters. Needless to say, psychologists and actors both are drawn to this level of play. Suddenly the character becomes a puzzle to challenge them, a puzzle to figure out.
I never really appreciated this transition until a couple of years ago when I received a game called Kagematsu . In Kagematsu, it is played with usually all men and one woman. The woman plays the samurai named Kagematsu, and the men play the woman of the village who are trying to convince the samurai to defend the village, perhaps even using their feminine charms. The gameplay isn't particularly complex, but the impact that the game has on the players can be amazing. It is role reversal at its finest. Once experiencing this thought process for a game, I knew I never wanted to go back to flat character gaming again.
In the time as of late, this chapter of my gaming life, if you will, I have only gotten to play 3 characters. In Pathfinder, I explored Crayla a rogue-ish ranger with issues, and a magus Ranier who attempted to hide his powers and be a ranger. In Shadowrun, I played Vlad, an in-your-face faceman who surprised way to many people with his antics. In all three cases, the characters had depth. That isn't to say I didn't balance my stats to keep the game competitive, but I really felt my way through each of them to find their place. Through them I explored each as a new character that I wasn't really comfortable with in the beginning.
Unfortunately, now, as a GM, I only get to play NPCs, and I find NPCs almost too fleeting to try to roleplay to that level anymore. I find it is better to make an impression with an NPC that to try to roleplay some level of subtlety. After all, it is hard enough to get players to remember important plot points in the game, let alone something subtle. Everyone can remember the crotchety old man farmer or the loud dwarf, but no one remembers the subtle magistrate or the iconic quirky bard. Still, I hope my players can find their way into the depths, and maybe someday soon I'll get there again myself.
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