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[Poll #1263977]
I wonder if there’s a corrolation between different RPG play styles and verbal identification with one’s character in-game. The first person “I do this” is more of adopting the role, taking on the character, while the third person “my character does this” is more an element of the game, treating the character as game-piece or separate from one’s self. How do you play it and what, if anything, is the impact on how your game play feels?
I wonder if there’s a corrolation between different RPG play styles and verbal identification with one’s character in-game. The first person “I do this” is more of adopting the role, taking on the character, while the third person “my character does this” is more an element of the game, treating the character as game-piece or separate from one’s self. How do you play it and what, if anything, is the impact on how your game play feels?
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Date: 2008-09-21 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-21 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-21 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-21 02:18 pm (UTC)For the first twenty or so years of playing RPG, I and my friends generally prepended "I say" before anything our characters said (as in "I say, 'drop your weapon, you shiftless cur!'". Not, "I say old boy. Please hand that sabre to my associate."), except when in the middle of a protracted dialogue.
Within the last several years, I have encountered extremes on either side. Those who never say "I say" before making a statement are often people from theater or who LARP, and they get grumpy with a lot of out of character chit chat. I can't say as much about the background of the one guy who would say "I say" before every sentence, even in the most extended and immersive of scenarios, because I don't know it. I do know it felt really awkward to hear, but I suspect he felt a bit of awkwardness about the notion of being "too in-character."
I think (probably because I used to feel this way myself) there's a degree to which some tabletop gamers feel like getting too into character (like dressing up and/or LARPing) goes beyond a threshold of dorkiness or something that they do not wish to cross. I wonder if this also informs the first/third person narration you describe.
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Date: 2008-09-21 04:21 pm (UTC)A different distinction might be relevant. There's a famous story about a method actor going to incredible pains to get into the mindset of the character he was playing, and his co-star telling him, "Try acting, dear boy." I don't identify with the character I'm playing, in the method acting style; I view them as a role I'm playing, and I try to come up with good dialogue and suitable actions and to get camera time and applause, in something more like a classical acting approach. If identification with my character comes about, that's a pleasant bonus, but it's not the precondition of my playing or the essence of it. But the role is defined by the character's personality, motives, goals, and abilities, not just by game mechanics.
Bill Stoddard
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Date: 2008-09-21 04:58 pm (UTC)