STORY/GMing: Further thoughts on character death
(For Mongo)
I deleted the first part, because of space. However, I must say that it sounds
like a very well thought-out and developed character.
> I said to the other player, "Okay, it's Sunday morning," and Andrea's
> player interrupted me, saying, "Wait. I need to talk to you privately."
> We went into another room. The player said, "I sit down at the
> dining room table, take off my ring [Andrea's Key, the focus of her
> magic], and write a note which reads 'I couldn't live up to my mother's
> reputation.' Then I go out to the balcony and jump off it."
>
Considering the stuff that I deleted, it would be a possible choice that a real
person in that kind of situation might do. It follows the character well.
However, it would be a worthless suicide.
>
> I didn't know what to do. I had known that Andrea was frustrated,
> but I also knew that things would be coming clear very soon, Monday at
> the latest, and I didn't realize how serious things had gotten (of
> course, the player hadn't made it entirely clear, either). I kept
> thinking of the character-death thread that's been running here -- I
> usually go out of my way to keep characters alive, but it's also usually
> not hard to do so; and these particular players, far from objecting, are
> much happier with a game where they know their characters won't die
> (except possibly under really extraordinary circumstances). They're
> good enough roleplayers that they never give me the impression that the
> CHARACTERS know they won't die, and combat rarely happens at all anyway
> (part of what was depressing Andrea was that she'd been pretty much
> manipulated into killing someone, for the first time in her life, a few
> weeks earlier).
Sounds like some really tough problems. It would seem to me the character
(player) had thought this through and decided that there were no other
alternatives. A person who has not and doesn't want to kill being manipulated
into murdering someone else is a heavy weight to put on their shoulders. It
might just cause enough trama for this to happen.
> Anyway, thinking of the net discussion, I was willing to slightly
> fudge die rolls, but not to throw in a deus ex machina, which was what
> she really needed. The player didn't want the character to die any more
> than I did, but assured me that it was completely in character. I
> didn't want to spend the rest of the game rescuing Andrea from killing
> herself, but I also didn't want to end it there (especially because it
> was all so silly -- the whole problem was based on misunderstandings and
> bureaucratic screw-ups and bad timing and bad dice) (and I didn't want
> to have to roleplay an NPC telling the other character that Andrea had
> killed herself while he was out partying, either).
Your answer is right here. The player did not want the character to die, but
felt it was logically justified, and might have been right. However, since it
is obvious that the character doesn't want to die, some sort of saving grace
should happen.
> But I was worried that whatever I did would just make Andrea feel
> even worse about the whole deal; so I asked her player for suggestions.
> Eventually, it became clear that Andrea didn't desperately want to be
> *dead* as such; she was just frustrated and confused in the extreme. So
> her roommate (an NPC) came home while Andrea was standing on the
> balcony, lost to the world, figured out that a suicide attempt was in
> progress, and dragged her inside and (under the impression that Andrea
> was emotionally unstable because she was sick) to a hospital, where she
> was put under sedation. The appropriate powerful NPCs were contacted,
> and everything is well on the way to working out all right.
Having the character saved, and put into an institution for help was the best
idea. As long as the player is not mad at you for not killing her, then you
have done the right thing.
> But it was really scary for a while. And I had to decide: if a
> character, for reasons that make perfect sense for that character, does
> something leading to thon's own death, should the GM intervene?
It must be handled on a case by case basis.
> I think it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Gee, didn't I just say that? :=)
> This was a
> case of a run of bad luck and lack of information making things appear
> much worse than they really were. If things were really as bad as
> Andrea had thought they were, I'd have been even more hesitant to stop
> her suicide.
If things really were that bad, maybe you shouldn't.
> So what do you-all think? How would you GMs respond to a character
> committing suicide? How would you players feel about a character being
> stopped in such an attempt?
>
As a GM: I think for this case you handled it correctly. I have saved
characters from similar fates before. Ive had scenarios that went badly and one
character said "F*ck it. We're going to die anyway." Putting it shortly, he
lived.
I've also had players who wanted their characters to die, and did.
As a player: You did right. I can tell from the way this is written that the
character, and player, didn't want to die, didn't need to die, and shouldn't
have died.
You must take it case by case. I am not quite good enough a role player that
this would have happened to me. However, if it did, I wouldn't want the
character to die, because of the circumstances. However, there are times when
I've had characters that I wanted to die, and had the DM save them. But this
doesn't look like the case.
Anagram
Zorn of Zorna
Last night I was running what I expected to be the penultimate
session of the game I've been running since January. The characters
were finally going to find out a lot of what was going on, in one of
several possible ways.
The game is modern fantasy, with system stuff loosely derived from
_Fringeworthy_. There are currently only two characters.
One of the characters, Andrea, has been having a lot of problems
dealing with the whole situation. Her life used to be simple, and now
it's very complicated. Further, every time I (as GM) have tried to help
her out, give her hints, or make things easier on her, it's gone
completely awry and only made things worse.
Last night, the characters contacted a powerful (but retired) NPC who
could have given them most of the answers they needed. But both PCs
were tired, frustrated, and upset, and Andrea fixed on one phrase the
NPC used (something like, "In our line of work, you can never be sure
that someone is who he says he is") and decided that she couldn't trust
anyone any more. Her magic wasn't working (a long series of incredibly
bad dice rolls -- about ten percentile rolls over 95), and things were
generally frustrating. She ran away from the NPC and went home to her
apartment in New York. People had been telling her that she was
following in her mother's footsteps; but her parents died when she was a
teenager, and she no longer knew who to believe.
She tried calling one other powerful NPC, Nina, who she now was
half-convinced was trying to manipulate her; but got no answer on the
phone (there should've been an answering machine, but I wasn't
thinking). It was a Saturday, and she was sure there was no way she
could contact Nina 'til Monday. She tried using her magic for a couple
of hours, but it just wasn't working.
I said to the other player, "Okay, it's Sunday morning," and Andrea's
player interrupted me, saying, "Wait. I need to talk to you privately."
We went into another room. The player said, "I sit down at the
dining room table, take off my ring [Andrea's Key, the focus of her
magic], and write a note which reads 'I couldn't live up to my mother's
reputation.' Then I go out to the balcony and jump off it."
I didn't know what to do. I had known that Andrea was frustrated,
but I also knew that things would be coming clear very soon, Monday at
the latest, and I didn't realize how serious things had gotten (of
course, the player hadn't made it entirely clear, either). I kept
thinking of the character-death thread that's been running here -- I
usually go out of my way to keep characters alive, but it's also usually
not hard to do so; and these particular players, far from objecting, are
much happier with a game where they know their characters won't die
(except possibly under really extraordinary circumstances). They're
good enough roleplayers that they never give me the impression that the
CHARACTERS know they won't die, and combat rarely happens at all anyway
(part of what was depressing Andrea was that she'd been pretty much
manipulated into killing someone, for the first time in her life, a few
weeks earlier).
Anyway, thinking of the net discussion, I was willing to slightly
fudge die rolls, but not to throw in a deus ex machina, which was what
she really needed. The player didn't want the character to die any more
than I did, but assured me that it was completely in character. I
didn't want to spend the rest of the game rescuing Andrea from killing
herself, but I also didn't want to end it there (especially because it
was all so silly -- the whole problem was based on misunderstandings and
bureaucratic screw-ups and bad timing and bad dice) (and I didn't want
to have to roleplay an NPC telling the other character that Andrea had
killed herself while he was out partying, either).
But I was worried that whatever I did would just make Andrea feel
even worse about the whole deal; so I asked her player for suggestions.
Eventually, it became clear that Andrea didn't desperately want to be
*dead* as such; she was just frustrated and confused in the extreme. So
her roommate (an NPC) came home while Andrea was standing on the
balcony, lost to the world, figured out that a suicide attempt was in
progress, and dragged her inside and (under the impression that Andrea
was emotionally unstable because she was sick) to a hospital, where she
was put under sedation. The appropriate powerful NPCs were contacted,
and everything is well on the way to working out all right.
But it was really scary for a while. And I had to decide: if a
character, for reasons that make perfect sense for that character, does
something leading to thon's own death, should the GM intervene?
I think it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. This was a
case of a run of bad luck and lack of information making things appear
much worse than they really were. If things were really as bad as
Andrea had thought they were, I'd have been even more hesitant to stop
her suicide.
So what do you-all think? How would you GMs respond to a character
committing suicide? How would you players feel about a character being
stopped in such an attempt?
--jed, not expecting such serious overtones to crop up so unexpectedly
--
{hartman@{campus.swarthmore.edu, swarthmr.bitnet}, ...!bpa!swatsun!hartman}
"Wicked men! Cease your antics, or I may be forced to assault you with
the U. S. Postal System!" --The Tick
Jon Bonnell
Alot of copy follows but I think it was necessary to make my point. Apologies
in advance.
In article <FMP...@cs.swarthmore.edu> har...@cs.swarthmore.edu (Zorn of Zorna) writes:
> Last night I was running what I expected to be the penultimate
>session of the game I've been running since January. The characters
>were finally going to find out a lot of what was going on, in one of
>several possible ways.
>... Her magic wasn't working (a long series of incredibly
>bad dice rolls -- about ten percentile rolls over 95), and things were
>generally frustrating. She ran away from the NPC and went home to her
>apartment in New York. People had been telling her that she was
>following in her mother's footsteps; but her parents died when she was a
>teenager, and she no longer knew who to believe.
>...player interrupted me, saying, "Wait. I need to talk to you privately."
> We went into another room. The player said, "I sit down at the
>dining room table, take off my ring [Andrea's Key, the focus of her
>magic], and write a note which reads 'I couldn't live up to my mother's
>reputation.' Then I go out to the balcony and jump off it."
> I didn't know what to do. I had known that Andrea was frustrated,
>but I also knew that things would be coming clear very soon, Monday at
>the latest, and I didn't realize how serious things had gotten (of
>course, the player hadn't made it entirely clear, either). I kept
> So what do you-all think? How would you GMs respond to a character
>committing suicide? How would you players feel about a character being
>stopped in such an attempt?
>--jed, not expecting such serious overtones to crop up so unexpectedly
>--
>{hartman@{campus.swarthmore.edu, swarthmr.bitnet}, ...!bpa!swatsun!hartman}
What do I think (Sorry all for so much copy)? I think you and your players
as many players tend to do, are too wrapped up in your characters lives.
You refer to Andrea as a person many times and not a character. So much
in fact, that I had trouble distinguishing between the Players and the PCs.
Role Playing is great but players have to know when to give it a rest. I
had a player last year that became so 'at-one' with his character that I
had to get him out of the game and not let him play for a while. It is
not safe for players to become that involved. This is what the
religious leaders out there based their Satanism and AD&D, etc, talks on.
The game is fine, its the players that are to blame.
Sorry, this is not directed just to you, jed, and maybe should have been
a new topic. What do the rest of you think about players that become
too attached? And do you know how to spot it? Can you spot it?
"Beware the beast man, for he is the devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates,
he kills for sport...or lust...or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to
possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will
make a desert of his home...and yours. Shun him..for he is the harbringer
of death." --Beneath the Planet of the Apes (c)1970
--
Jon Bonnell
j...@mvaxcs1.nau.cse.edu
Disclaimer :NAU has no opinion and I have mine...
D Brad Shapcott
> But it was really scary for a while. And I had to decide: if a
>character, for reasons that make perfect sense for that character, does
>something leading to thon's own death, should the GM intervene?
> I think it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. This was a
>case of a run of bad luck and lack of information making things appear
>much worse than they really were. If things were really as bad as
>Andrea had thought they were, I'd have been even more hesitant to stop
>her suicide.
> So what do you-all think? How would you GMs respond to a character
>committing suicide? How would you players feel about a character being
>stopped in such an attempt?
>
>--jed
I'm going to attack this from two angles.
First:
From the perspective of GMing as an art, it seems you have been the victim of
letting the game exceed your control. You put *STORY* in the subject line,
but I don't know if you mean this to imply that you have a story-telling GM
style, but the body of your message seems to re-inforce the implication so
I'll make it. Part of the art of story GMing is keeping control of the game
while allowing characters to act under their own free will (which is whatever
the will of the controlling player is).
Returning to my own hierarchy of self-imposed GM axioms, I maintain:
[1] The illusion of reality.
[2] The campaign.
[3] The integrity of the rules.
[4] The results of the dice.
And they are maintained in that order. I find it important in consistency and
in making decisions like the one you have encountered to always refer back to
this hierarchy when I seem forced to choose between competing values in the
game. You aren't obligated to adopt this list, but I am going to apply it to
your sitaution. You may (in fact I suggest you do) adopt a hierarchy, and it
may be different from mine -- if it is different then I hope you can adapt what
I am about to say to your own system.
In maintaining the campaign (2) I pay special attention to what I term pivotal
elements, which may be events, people, encounters or whatever. I describe
these roughly as things/events whose existence/occurence is so critical to the
resolution of the campaign that if they were *not* to exist/occur, then an
almost exact duplicate of them would (which is often unrealistic, to replace
a pivotal person with a carbon copy, for example) *OR* the campaign would have
to be re-written or revised.
Indeed some PC's fall into the category of pivotal characters, and if their
lives end then the campaign either ends or takes a drastic turn in another
direction. While a GM should avoid making a pivotal character invulnerable,
he should not let him be killed casually. There is no reason to let a pivotal
character die just because a bad die roll or arcance rule says he must. These
things are lower in my hierarchy and will be sacrificed to maintaining the
campaign. While you might have saved this situation by fudging a die roll or
bending a rule earlier on, it seemed to advance way beyond that. Sometimes
things pile up insidiously and hindsight will not save the GM.
What we really have are a competing interest between the campaign world and
the 'free will' of the player to direct the character. The GM cannot easily
order the player to not commit suicide without breaking the illusion of
reality. Personally, I think the player over-played her character, as real
humans seem much more resilient and able to overcome extreme difficulty --
there was really no problem that begged suicide here. But the player has
inflicted a personality which seems too easily depressed and prone to suicide
on the character, and so the GM is stuck with that.
My first inclination would be to say to the player, "Sure, your character
has had a run of bad luck, but do you really think a person is so easily
inclined to suicide?". Most people would not be (as it usually takes a more
severe underlying problem to prompt suicide). But the player goes away from
this feeling that her interpretation of her character and her decisions are
subject to GM intervention, and that doesn't seem fair. This violates the
illusion of reality (1) which must be maintained for players as participants
and as audience.
I don't know how well received your intervention in play was, but I personally
wouldn't have made it. Even if that was a pivotal character in the campaign
she would have succeeded in suicide. I probably wouldn't have let play get to
that point, but it sounds like you didn't mean to either. The player action
took you by suprise. And that's what made you hesitate ("Oh no, I wasn't
expecting this,") and then balk ("Someone walks in to the room, saves
character."). You really have just 'bailed out' this character.
What I think one has to remember as a story-telling GM is that the story is
in the process of being written during the game, and while you may have a
good idea of the direction things are headed, you cannot lead the characters
around and you cannot protect the players from themselves. The players'
will is part of that illusion of reality which is tantamount to keeping a
story-telling campaign together -- if you lose it then all other threads you
weave will soon be ripped asunder.
I have one caveat to make about pivotal characters, and that is that there are
certain types of players who should not be given them. They will not resent
this if it is done correctly, and in fact will appreciate being given another
role in the campaign. Most of the games I have run allow players to be divided
into two groups (with some overlap): brainpower and firepower. Brainpower
characters are most often pivotal and are necessary to completing the story.
Firepower characters are there to provide the braun, and to complete the nitty-
gritty aspects of the adventure.
Most players who get 'firepower' characters enjoy playing them. They like the
larger campaign framework which moves around them, and are content to sit back
and watch things happen for a while (as the story progresses) and then step in
when real work (like combat) needs to be done. These type of players don't
like the pressure in playing pivotal characters, but like to feel they are
contributing. And often though these players love combat, they are not hack-
n-slash, because they can't tolerate the senselessness of slay n^n monsters.
Putting them in a story-type campaign and then letting them use their play
style to the fullest gives more meaning to their play style. It is infinitely
more exciting to succeed in combat when there was more on the line than XP and
basic survival, and these players will appreciate that.
Without getting verbose, the reverse works for 'brainpower' or pivotal
characters. One trick that must be often used (and this is a sort of kludge)
is to never allow the combat abilities of these players to excel or equal
that of the 'firepower' character, because then the firepower character
is controlled by a player who feels he isn't contributing much, or is just
redundant in the party.
Another thing that might be said (which relates to the above) is that the
characters don't have to be 100% active 100% of the time. If a player is
feeling a bit dragged then possibly the GM is pushing their play style to the
limit by expecting them to keep on going. Let the player/character ride out
events for a bit -- they don't have to be immediately responsive to all events.
There should be other players in the group who can carry the slack.
Anyways the gist of this is that possibly your player was placed in the wrong
situation[s] with the wrong type of character, and so responded inappropriate-
ly. You might have backed off sooner, but since you had pushed things this
far I felt an obligation to play out the natural consequences of all previous
events had been created.
You did save the character, but I am left wondering if when the accounts are
tallied you did not end up paying more for this than you gained.
Well, that's far enough in the first direction.
Second:
I read another post which seemed to think that this was a bit too heavy for
role-playing. I got this impression to after reading the post, and thought
that maybe the player was taking things to seriously. The unspoken rule that
I maybe should add to the above GM axioms is that 'gaming should be fun'.
If it isn't then what is the reason for doing it?
I use RPG's to relax, to socialize, and to expand my imagination. Other people
play cards, or join clubs, or whatever for the same reason. But just as play-
ing cards can become an obsession (when one starts losing their salary in
'friendly' games of poker, for instance), RPG's are open to abuse. I really
can't comment on your sessions, and may have gotten the wrong idea from your
post, but I think you might want to re-examine your game to see whether the
basic premise is to have fun still.
I've had players who wanted to do away with their characters before, but it
was basically a knee-jerk reaction to some small failure and was really a
half-hearted attempt to get a new character when the player was (usually
temporarily) disappointed with his current one. If a player started talking
about their character getting an urge to really do in themselves, I think
I would be stepping back from the game to see what was going on.
It could be your player had merely become so desperate and dispirited from
a run of bad luck that she was merely making a (strangely formed) request
for an even break from the GM.
As I've always maintained being a GM is a matter of style, and being a good
one merely means playing your own personal style well. So I hope this helps
but it will probably only do so if you agree with the premise it is built on.
dbshapcott
Deb Atwood
>What do I think (Sorry all for so much copy)? I think you and your players
>as many players tend to do, are too wrapped up in your characters lives.
>You refer to Andrea as a person many times and not a character. So much
>in fact, that I had trouble distinguishing between the Players and the PCs.
>
>Role Playing is great but players have to know when to give it a rest. I
>had a player last year that became so 'at-one' with his character that I
>had to get him out of the game and not let him play for a while. It is
>not safe for players to become that involved. This is what the
>religious leaders out there based their Satanism and AD&D, etc, talks on.
>The game is fine, its the players that are to blame.
>
>Sorry, this is not directed just to you, jed, and maybe should have been
>a new topic. What do the rest of you think about players that become
>too attached? And do you know how to spot it? Can you spot it?
>
Hm. I honestly wouldn't say, just from the description given, that
the player of Andrea and the GM were too wrapped up in the characters.
I often refer to my characters as if they were people (I do it about
the characters in my writing, too). When I'm in a good gaming session,
I refer to my character as "I", and I will talk about it afterwards
as if the character were there. This is because I have a good
imagination. However, I also know that I have two feet firmly
in this world, and am not about to slip over.
I'd say that if Andrea's *player* were getting so depressed as to
consider suicide, then oh yes it is a *big* problem. But it is
possible for a player that gets really into roleplaying to refer
to a character as if they were an entity, and still not be losing
their mind to that entity. It's possible to be very emotionally
effected (read: crying at an event or something similar) by something
that happens to a character and still have both feet firmly in the
real world.
As for looking for trouble signs in your players - if you have
a player that you think is getting to involved, talk to them
personally. You can usually get a feel (often through discussing
future plans for the character) whether the player means the character
when they say "I" or whether they have slipped into meaning themselves.
If they've started to slip, then by all means encourage a rest
from the game. But remember, if they player has lost his firm grasp
on reality, it wasn't the gaming that caused it. There is very
likely something else wrong, and if you have any leverage at
all with the player, encourage professionaly help. In cases
where gamers slide off into the fantasy world, gaming only happened
to be the outlet used to do it, not the cause.
Oh, for an interesting fictional treatmen - who out there has read
Mazes and Monsters. Definite bad press for gaming, but if I
remember, the author tries to imply that the man who came to
believe he was his character had problems before it started. A
slight help in a society that thinks that we all want to become
our characters.
D-Singer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gee, I wonder what incoherent thing I said this time so I can contradict
myself later...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deb Atwood 90_at...@union.bitnet (until 9/90)
atw...@turing.cs.rpi.edu 90_at...@gar.union.edu (until 9/90)
Maurice Schekkerman
[good story about a suicide attempt of a character deleted]
> But it was really scary for a while. And I had to decide: if a
>character, for reasons that make perfect sense for that character, does
>something leading to thon's own death, should the GM intervene?
> I think it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. This was a
>case of a run of bad luck and lack of information making things appear
>much worse than they really were. If things were really as bad as
>Andrea had thought they were, I'd have been even more hesitant to stop
>her suicide.
> So what do you-all think? How would you GMs respond to a character
>committing suicide? How would you players feel about a character being
>stopped in such an attempt?
I think you handled the situation real good. It is indeed best decided on a
case-by-case basis. You'll have to be really careful. Players don't easily
decide to let a character of them commit suicide. So if they do, you should
generally let them. Nothing is so frustrating as playing with a character you've
already said goodbye to. On the other hand, if the suicide finds its root in a
temporary depression of the character/player, intervention might be the right
thing to do. Knowing the suicide of your character was premature can also be
very frustrating.
Because you asked (just looking for an opportunity:-) I'll tell you of a suicide
which took place in our group:
My character was a priest/fighter of the god of war. So for him only one thing
counted: to win! Unfortunately, he went down in the first battle (although the
group did win). In the second battle we faced a mighty foe who broke his holy
symbol (a sword, of course). We managed to drive the enemy away, but could
prefend his escape. My character purchased a nice new black sword, which really
attracked him. We soon found out that is was a magic sword with one major
drawback, the sword could not stand to loose a fight (his former owner was
found with the sword in his back). A perfect sword for my character (no one
can accuse him of avoiding trouble), so he didn't hesitate to make it his
new hole symbol
Our adventures continued and finally we faced the source of a lot of evil
around here. A great battle arose in which, you can already guess, my character
broke his holy symbol for the second time. The others had more luck and won the
battle for us. My character just stared at the broken sword before him.
NPC's told later the sword could be repared by the dwarves in the mountains lying
weeks of travel from here.
My character decided not to wait. Having participated in three major battles
while by the group, and lost all of them (as far as hi own contributions are
considered), he deciced that he had failed his god. The next day, before the
other awoke, he wandered into the dessert. No one has ever seen him again.
I can tell you that I would be really pissed of if the GM had tried to stop me.
The character was dead for me. He had failed and lost all purpose. I was already
frustrated that he survived the last battle, hoping he would have died there.
Now he just walked away, a real beautiful end for him. I can tell you that I
still have fond memories of him. And that all because the GM let him commit his
suicide.--
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| | |
| Maurice Schekkerman | Veni |
| Centre for Software Technology (CST) | |
| Philips, Eindhoven | Vidi |
| the Netherlands | |
| e-mail: sche...@cst.prl.philips.nl | Foetsie! |
| | |
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--
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| | |
| Maurice Schekkerman | Veni |
| Centre for Software Technology (CST) | |
Steve Maurer
> [ story of frustrated PC deciding to commit suicide ]
>
> So what do you-all think? How would you GMs respond to a character
> committing suicide? How would you players feel about a character being
> stopped in such an attempt?
Attidute towards death is probably the most difficult for a
gamer to play correctly. After all, it's not HIS life that a
gamer risks, only a piece of paper. People seldom realize just
how powerful the life instinct is.
Taking any sort of risk involving your own life is extremely
unnerving. It becomes hard to breathe, hard to think, you get
tunnel vision, you want to cower. Often, fear clouds and prevents
even the most obvious actions. But few game systems have any
sort of mechanics to simulate this ( Friday Night Firefight out of
Cyberpunk is one of the very few ).
Committing suicide is exactly the same. If I were the GMing
that character, I'd probably play it out right onto the ledge,
where the character would cling desperately until someone came by.
Much like you handled it actually, except that the roommate
wouldn't have had to come in at the right moment - maybe after
a 1/2 hour or something.
Steve Maurer
st...@vicom.com
The Welsh Hobbit
>
>Alot of copy follows but I think it was necessary to make my point. Apologies
>in advance.
>
>In article <FMP...@cs.swarthmore.edu> har...@cs.swarthmore.edu (Zorn of Zorna) writes:
>
> attributed -- in fact I think not....deleted ]
>
>>--jed, not expecting such serious overtones to crop up so unexpectedly
>>--
>>{hartman@{campus.swarthmore.edu, swarthmr.bitnet}, ...!bpa!swatsun!hartman}
>
>a new topic. What do the rest of you think about players that become
>too attached? And do you know how to spot it? Can you spot it?
>
How do we define too attatched ???
I believe that players become too attatched to their characters
(and too involved in the milieu altogether) when it becomes
apparent that they can no longer distinguish reality from the
game, *NOT* when the game becomes real to them. Examples follow.
In a game I played about a year and a half ago, we were a motley
collection of seven characters flying out of Russia. Our 'plane
downed in a remote spot somewhere in the eastern bloc (can't
remember where, sorry) and we were involved in a very pecuilar
chain of events. My character was a retired army chaplain, a
six foot tall negro and a very christian man. He had been designed
by the GM and assigned to me by him. I wasn't very happy about
this, but I was determined to play the character to the best of
my ability. As the game progressed, I managed to get more and
more into character until I reached a point where I truly felt
that I had merged, and for a while there I *was* Dr. Elias.
It was an awesome experience, I am told it was quite scary for
the others watching me. I lived that man. I was reduced to
tears at one stage when God failed me when I called upon Him
in my hour of need. I developed a major sense of responsibility
for the rest of the party, and lost my cool (going into a kind
of half shock state) for about half an hour when two of my party
got killed. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my
life, exhilirating, emotional and terribly tiring. I got further
into that character than I have ever been in any game, and I
*loved* every minute of it. It was a glorious experience and I
wouldn't have missed it for the world. *HOWEVER*, at all times
I was aware that what I was doing was simply a piece of
incredibly intense acting. I was Dr. Elias because I *allowed*
myself to be. *I* was in control, and I could have (and did at
one stage -- to eat pizza) snapped out of him at any time. At
the close of the scenario, I was drained and happy. I knew when
things were over, took off my mask and went home.
A friend of mine, however, suffers from what I would call excessive
identification with characters. He becomes his characters during
gaming sessions and tends to identify very strongly with them
both during sessions and at other times. At one stage (we were
making an attempt on the world record for continuous roleplaying
at the time) he became so involved and identified so strongly
with the milieu that he had to be forcibly removed adn restrained
by other players until he calmed down and got his grip on
reality back. This person is, IMHO, dangerously identifying with
his characters. I find this disturbing. I would not, however,
blame this on anything but the man himself. His grip on reality
is weak at the best of times, and roleplaying has only served to
weaken it.
In conclusion, I do not believe that extreme or intense identification
with characters is necessarily dangerous, on the contrary it
can be a most fulfilling and exciting experience. It is my
contention that such behaviour becomes dangerous when is
is no longer controlled by the player.
>
>"Beware the beast man, for he is the devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates,
>he kills for sport...or lust...or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to
>possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will
>make a desert of his home...and yours. Shun him..for he is the harbringer
>of death." --Beneath the Planet of the Apes (c)1970
>
What is the significance of this ?????????????????
-Bryn.
'Life *is* pain Highness --
anyone who says differently is selling something.'
-The Princess Bride
Richard L. Butler
about an experience in which identification with his/her character was total,
but they never felt that they were out of control, and that they could stop
it at any time; included for contrast was a description of another player
who had to be taken aside and allowed time to chill out, once upon a time.
This article brought back to mind a discussion I saw earlier this week in this
group, in which someone said, in essence, "It seems to me that you identify
with your character(s) too strongly". I didn't followup when I saw it, but I
am reminded now, so...
Under what circumstances do you (that's the generic YOU, every or any -body)
decide that person X identifies too closely with their characters?
When posting or sending mail, it is much easier to type "*I* did this, and *I*
did that" than it is to type "*My character* did this, and *my character* did
that". The context of these statements (typed on the net) should be taken
into consideration. Recently, I stated that "I" had done various things,
meaning that "my character" had done those assorted things; I, of course,
have never had opportunity to execute a prisoner, nor any strong desire to have
such an opportunity.
Similarly, when speaking face to face with someone about the exploits of one
of my characters, I frequently say "I" when I should say "My character", again
because it is less cumbersome to do so. I also take pride in my characters'
assorted adventures and misadventures; the measure of my success as a player
might be said to be how "interesting" those "interesting times" actually were.
I try to make each character a distinct individual; I'm not a great voice
actor, nor do I believe that I emote particularly well, but I try to give each
character - uhhh, character.
I enjoy *playing* my characters (even when I'm hating life AS that character,
barring the infrequent occasions on which I think I'm getting jacked around),
and I do get vicarious pleasure from their triumphs. I admit to feeling
disappointed and even depressed when one of them gets killed or screwed badly.
In two extremely different moments of the same character's life, I (there's
that usage again...):
(a) freaked out when the cops tried to bust me (I wanted to bail out a friend
who had been involved in a brawl), decked two patrolmen and flattened the
desk sargeant, and then escaped into the night; imagine trying to explain
this to your superior officer...
"Where's Perez?"
"Uh, she's, um, she's in jail..."
"JAIL? Christ, what'd she do?"
"I'm not sure... I mean, I went down the street to another bar for
a little while, and when I got back there was this big mess, and the
manager said everyone had been thrown in jail for brawling."
"Well, let's go get her out -"
"Uh, I can't..."
".... what do you mean, `You CAN'T'?"
"...."
it gets rapidly worse for Harrington after that... :-)
and
(b) died of snake-bite; a fer-de-lance got me. Believe me, this was a great
bummer, as Harrington himself might say; he was a well-trained but otnay
ootay kind of guy. In fact, he was tremendous fun to play precisely
*because* he wasn't very smart, but could be expected to know all the
kinds of things that really matter, like which movie this (current
situation) is really like....
I was quite proud of (a); I kept my entire party vastly entertained during the
entirety of that misadventure. No one was bored, and only one person felt that
I was taking up too much time (this took almost an hour to play out). I was,
in turn, quite depressed by (b), because I had not yet fully developed the
disintegration of Harrington's sanity (he really was a well-trained soldier,
but what he really wanted was to stop being a soldier and for the world to go
back to being normal - which isn't in the game plan in Twilight:2000).
So who identifies too closely with their characters? How do you decide who
takes their gaming too seriously, and who just sounds like they enjoy
themselves a lot when playing?
Opinions, please?
rlb
"Vote for the Kennedy of your choice, but vote!"
Walter Milliken
>[long story about a character trying to suicide]
> But it was really scary for a while. And I had to decide: if a
>character, for reasons that make perfect sense for that character, does
>something leading to thon's own death, should the GM intervene?
> I think it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. This was a
>case of a run of bad luck and lack of information making things appear
>much worse than they really were. If things were really as bad as
>Andrea had thought they were, I'd have been even more hesitant to stop
>her suicide.
> So what do you-all think? How would you GMs respond to a character
>committing suicide? How would you players feel about a character being
>stopped in such an attempt?
As a GM, I'd say you did about the right thing -- the player was
frustrated by the game situation, but didn't really want to lose the
character. Having an NPC who would have arrived *sometime* arrive at
the *right* time is well within GM perogatives, in my opinion. This
was not a "bolt out of the blue" rescue -- it was just "lucky timing".
Also, you took a fairly minimal action in the game world that worked
reasonably to produce the effect you wanted.
Since I'm half in the "storytelling" camp, I'm willing to use
reasonable coincidences to further the game. I see nothing wrong with
that.
You had a hard decision, and I'm not sure how I'd have handled it,
though I would have wanted to stop the character suiciding after
talking the situation over with the player. You probably handled the
situation more cleverly that I would have.
Now, if the character was doing the "glorious death" bit, the "I'll
distract the dragon while you all escape" sort of thing, I'd be
willing to let the character die. So far, no volunteers for such
heroics, though....
As a player, my characters often do things I would rather they didn't
-- I look to the other PCs to provide a modicum of common sense when
my PCs start contemplating inadvisable actions. I try to make sure
that someone else in the PC group knows what my character is planning,
as one way of handling this problem. None of my characters is ever
likely to be actively suicidal (dumb ideas are something else,
though), so I probably would never have gotten them into the precise
situation you had to deal with.
---Walter
D Brad Shapcott
>Oh, for an interesting fictional treatmen - who out there has read
>Mazes and Monsters. Definite bad press for gaming, but if I
>remember, the author tries to imply that the man who came to
>believe he was his character had problems before it started. A
>slight help in a society that thinks that we all want to become
>our characters.
>
I read part of Mazes and Monsters and I thought the writing was flat, lifeless,
cliche and obviously done by someone who thought their opinion on role playing
represented what really goes on. It runs to the bizarre (although I have been
in chats on CompuServe where other gamers were discussing buying real swords)
and the way things were described in the book left me wanting. It was a bit
too pat, and a way too much of a set up. I would imagine the way in which
real people get hooked into games so seriously is much more complex, and
resembles an addiction to gambling.
I don't think everyone starts at with some other personal problem who comes
to be addicted to gaming. Just like alcohol or gambling (or whatever), the
addiction itself could be the real problem. I've seen a good list somewhere
(wish I had kept a copy or could remember where I'd seen it) that lists the
symptoms of an addiction. I've seen and heard about some of these symptoms
cropping up in role players.
To paraphrase from the list, these may be 'classic' symptoms:
Have you ever spent time that you know should be used for something else
role playing?
Does role playing take up a disproportionate amount of time in your life?
Have you ever neglected work/school in order to role play?
Have friends/relatives ever complained about your role playing, your attitude
towards it, the amount of time you spend on it or the amount of money you spend
on it?
Do you spend a large amount of money on role playing? More than you spend on
clothes in any one month?
Are all or almost all of your friends also role players? Do some of them
exhibit some of the symptoms above?
Do you have any other interest (not work/school) that occupies as much time
as role playing? Costs as much money?
Role playing for me is at best a social activity (an excuse to get together
with friends) and at worst a time waster. If you ask yourself the questions
above and don't like the honest answers (and be honest with yourself) then
maybe you should ask yourself "Is role playing *really* just a hobby?".
dbshapcott
Jon Bonnell
When I started this thread I mentioned that the post was not necesarily
directed towards the person I was replying to. The post did confuse
me entirely as to who the person was discussing as he flipped from
players to characters with no change in pronouns or subject. I was
lost and it triggered the thought process that started this thread.
How do I determine over identification? in my first post I refered to
a player that I had to remove from a game I was GMing because of over
identification. This was apparent because he became openly violent with
other players (both physcally and verbally) because of the happenings with
his character. His character had gotten trapped in a street fight and
caught up in the character he began swinging and swearing at other
players as his character went into action. This is too much. As much
as it is great role playing it is dangerous to the other players.
To cite another point, many people I have known have fought great
bouts of depression from the loss of characters. Characters die and
the player goes into a depression state over this. The state has lasted
anywhere from a day to a week or more. This is over identification.
Of course, these are the extremes, but this over identification does not
begin with these extremes, its begins subtly and how do you recognize it
early so that you can prevent it from happening? An once of prevention is
worth a pound of cure.
I will not say that I do not identify with my characters. I do and I encourage
it in my players as well. That is what role playing is all about. I enjoy
when I actually strike fear into my players, or cause them to get up and
pace the room searching for a solution. Unfortunately depression and
violence are not part of role playing. How can this be prevented?
--
Jon Bonnell
j...@mvaxcs1.cse.nau.edu
Eric Hunter
>bouts of depression from the loss of characters. Characters die and
>the player goes into a depression state over this. The state has lasted
>anywhere from a day to a week or more. This is over identification.
personality, and having a character die is, to that limited extent,
like a real death. A week does seem a little excessive, but if losing a
character doesn't bother a player, then I don't think the player has
identified with the character enough to role play well.
>Of course, these are the extremes, but this over identification does not
>begin with these extremes, its begins subtly and how do you recognize it
>early so that you can prevent it from happening? An once of prevention is
>worth a pound of cure.
The only way to prevent it is to not play rpg's.
>Jon Bonnell
>j...@mvaxcs1.cse.nau.edu
Eric.
********************************************************************
* Eric Hunter | The difference between emacs, and vi, *
* hun...@oswego.oswego.edu | is like the difference between making *
* | love, and masturbation. *
********************************************************************
Brian or James
Re: PC suicide:
I once had a character of mine effectively commit suicide. His
wife caught a very fast, fairly contageous disease, and he decided to
stay behind and help her torch the source of the problem [and
be killed by fire, disease or his own sword] rather than leave her behind to
do the job alone [and to avoid having to survive her]. It's still my
favorite character death [A hell of a lot more satisfying than the
time I got evaporated by enemy fire 'cause the guy who was *supposed*
to feeding anti-laser 'sand' to the turret went to put his damn vac-suit on :],
and it made sense, given the character. Sometimes it's the logical
resolution [for rpg characters, I mean. I don't want to read about
a wave of suicides amongst USENET readers].
JDN
/dev/tty000
[Not included for brevity.. re: players wrapped up in PC's]
This is a difficult topic, however. In my "face-to-face" games, I know the
players away from the game. In "online" games (I run a couple thru chat
systems), it's not quite so easy.
If the player is "wrapped up in the character" while playing the game, but
could care less away from the game, I find no problems. The games I run
(I redesiged AD&D a good bit) encourage players to "get wrapped up". I rather
like it when the player and the PC become "one", as long as it does not
extend beyond the game. I have several players who are equally wrapped up
in their characters, in several games.
I play in several, where I am "wrapped up in" the character. I find that it
makes the game much more enjoyable... it makes you think more along the lines
of "This is _MY_ character" as opposed to "This is a person who I control".
If I find that the PERSON is getting overly wrapped up, I will throw some
nice hardships at the PC.. if they get upset about it away from the game, I
will usually work in some way for the PC to be "removed" for some length of
time, w/o hope for returning. (this is very situation dependent, so I can't
give examples, w/o long storytelling). During that time, I'll usually try
to talk to the player, usually heavily including game mechanics (to make the
point that it IS a game), go out drinking, whatever...)
But to talk poorly about "geting wrapped up in a character" can be taken a
bit too broadly. The point is, the person SHOULD get wrapped up in it...
DURING THE GAME. During the game, the PC is the most important part..
(afterall, the PERSON isn't the one about to face the 5th behir in 2 days,
after losing over 80% of their posessions to the first one.... the PC is :)
--
Mike 'Sirius' Stilson Sirius Software
sir...@cup.portal.com
ro...@snurk.UUCP
Mary K. Kuhner
>To paraphrase from the list, these may be 'classic' symptoms:
[of addiction to FRP]
>Have you ever spent time that you know should be used for something else
>role playing?
>Does role playing take up a disproportionate amount of time in your life?
>Have you ever neglected work/school in order to role play?
>Have friends/relatives ever complained about your role playing, your attitude
>towards it, the amount of time or money you spend on it?
>Do you spend a large amount of money on role playing? More than you spend on
>clothes in any one month?
>Are all or almost all of your friends also role players? Do some of them
>exhibit some of the symptoms above?
>Do you have any other interest (not work/school) that occupies as much time
>as role playing? Costs as much money?
Chuckle. I think I'd better join "Roleplayers Anonymous." I've got five
or six hits on those seven questions, depending on what 'disproportionate'
means. (Gee whiz, though, one FRP module costs more than a whole bag
of socks!)
Seems a little judgemental. Do we really need to conform to society's
standards of how much involvement is "appropriate" for a hobby? I'd
suggest simpler, more personal criteria: Is FRP making me unhappy,
making the people I care about unhappy, or keeping me from doing what
I want to with my life? Do I play even when I don't enjoy it?
If these things aren't the case, I don't think one need worry, social
standards or no. I spend more time roleplaying than any other single,
non-work activity--so? I can't think of something else I'd rather be
doing at the moment.
Mary Kuhner
mkku...@enzyme.berkeley.edu
D Brad Shapcott
>Chuckle. I think I'd better join "Roleplayers Anonymous." I've got five
>or six hits on those seven questions, depending on what 'disproportionate'
>means. (Gee whiz, though, one FRP module costs more than a whole bag
>of socks!)
>
>Seems a little judgemental. Do we really need to conform to society's
>standards of how much involvement is "appropriate" for a hobby? I'd
>suggest simpler, more personal criteria: Is FRP making me unhappy,
>making the people I care about unhappy, or keeping me from doing what
>I want to with my life? Do I play even when I don't enjoy it?
>
>If these things aren't the case, I don't think one need worry, social
>standards or no. I spend more time roleplaying than any other single,
>non-work activity--so? I can't think of something else I'd rather be
>doing at the moment.
>
>Mary Kuhner
Well, it is a rather benevolant addiction. I've yet to hear of role players
stealing or embezzling to support their habit, beating their kids or wife when
lost in a role playing hallucinatory experience, forming gangs to beat up on
rival role playing groups, or hanging around seedy bars looking for an role
playing fix.
But everyone (no matter what their hobby) should look up from the object of
their obsession every so often. There is a real planet out there.
dbshapcott
Robert Plamondon
>a player that I had to remove from a game I was GMing because of over
>identification. This was apparent because he became openly violent with
>other players (both physcally and verbally) because of the happenings with
>his character. His character had gotten trapped in a street fight and
>caught up in the character he began swinging and swearing at other
>players as his character went into action. This is too much. As much
>as it is great role playing it is dangerous to the other players.
Is this (a) a person who over-identifies, (b) a person who thinks
converting the campaign to live-action is a Keen Idea, or (c) someone
with the social skills of rutabaga. For the person to act the way he
did, though, (c) MUST be true.
I've had players who can't seem to master amoeba-level rules of
behavior, such as "don't touch the players." The problem wasn't that
these people over-identified with their characters, but that they
were incapable of interacting with other people on an adult level.
Raised in a kennel, or something.
>Of course, these are the extremes, but this over identification does not
>begin with these extremes, its begins subtly and how do you recognize it
>early so that you can prevent it from happening?
The easiest way to prevent over-identification is to run a bland
campaign. The less interesting it is, the less chance that the
players will become deeply involved in it. I've heard people suggest
this.
I don't think this is a very good idea, though. That people become
deeply involved in a campaign or a character isn't ipso facto a bad
thing. The engrossing nature of role-playing games is what makes
them so attractive. While this raises the possibility that the loss
of a favorite character will fall like a hammer on the player, players
with a modicum of maturity will have no trouble getting over it.
Dealing with the immature, the emotionally unstable, and the
unhousebroken is a problem in any social setting. These problems are
often expressed as game problems -- just as having a raving lunatic
at a formal dinner is ofen expressed as a seating problem -- but they
aren't really.
-- Robert
--
Robert Plamondon
rob...@weitek.COM
Zorn of Zorna
I posted a message a while ago about a character in my game (named
Andrea) attempting suicide. I've had a lot of interesting responses, so
I thought I'd clarify a couple of points, especially in light of later
events in the game (which ended later last week). Sorry to have taken
so long -- our newsfeed's been down for quite a while.
Responses seem to have split into two distinct threads. Here I'm
going to talk about character death and this instance in particular
(which leaks over a little into GMing philosophy); in another posting
I'll discuss players who get too involved in their characters.
There's been a lot more discussion of all this than I'm responding to
here, but I think this posting covers most of what I have to say at the
moment. Beware -- this is REALLY long.
First, ana...@desire.wright.edu ((For Mongo)) wrote:
>I must say that it sounds
>like a very well thought-out and developed character.
True. The player who played her has been a Real Role-Player (TM) for
at least eight years. (That's not meant to be a TORG reference, but
rather a reference to the N Types of Gamers.)
I think that the main thing I didn't make clear in my original
posting was that I discussed the whole situation with the player, and in
fact it was the player who came up with the suggestion that Andrea's
roommate arrive in time to save her. I asked further questions about
what would be most likely to put Andrea back on a more-or-less-even
keel, and elaborated on those responses (which for once were pretty much
what I had in mind anyway) in the way that I eventually dealt with the
situation. The player did NOT want Andrea to die; Andrea was upset and
confused, but it wasn't important to the integrity of the character
conception that she die. If that had been the case, I wouldn't even
have attempted to save her.
At no time was there any question of the *player's* stability. My
gaming circles tend to talk about characters as though they were real
people, but they're real people who are *separate* from the players. As
far as I can tell, I don't know anyone who confuses thon's own
personality with that of thon's character.
Not only had Andrea (remember, that's the character, not the player)
been manipulated into killing someone (in another universe, less than
two weeks after she found out that there WERE other universes), but her
entire life was in turmoil. There was some question as to whether she
knew anyone who was NOT manipulating her. She'd never (according to the
character conception) been especially with-it or stable -- she went
through life treating it as a game, not taking much of anything
seriously (she was a modern dancer and, at a very limited level, a CIA
operative. The CIA part was just more of the game to her -- all she
ever did was talk with the occasional foreign diplomat and assume that
her superiors were doing the right thing). She'd already suffered one
minor nervous breakdown during the course of the game. And she'd never
really dealt with the death of her parents years before (she'd idolized
her father and never paid much attention to her mother), and was
suddenly forced (several times during a short period) to face the fact
that they were gone, by people who were pretty callous about it (and to
further complicate matters, nobody was able to tell her DEFINITELY that
they WERE dead, so she couldn't just let go of them, either).
In article <1990Aug9.0...@watdragon.waterloo.edu>,
dae...@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Owner of Many System Processes) wrote:
>I'm going to attack this from two angles.
>First:
>From the perspective of GMing as an art, it seems you have been the victim of
>letting the game exceed your control.
>You put *STORY* in the subject line,
>but I don't know if you mean this to imply that you have a story-telling GM
>style
It was meant to mean that what followed was partly a recounting of an
episode of a particular game. I should have made that clearer (and
given that the actual posting was more about the philosophy of GMing, I
probably should've left it out).
However, as you said:
>Part of the art of story GMing is keeping control of the game
>while allowing characters to act under their own free will
In that sense of the phrase, I'm definitely a story-oriented GM
(though I'm by no means an expert at it -- I'm still learning how to
allow enough free will).
>(which is whatever
>the will of the controlling player is).
(Here I'd quibble slightly with your phrasing -- the way you said
that, it sounds like the character IS the player, whereas I'd be more
inclined to say that the player PLAYS the character (which is to say
that yes, the player's will ultimately controls the character, but a
well-developed character will have motivations other than those of the
controlling player).)
You then go on to list
>my own hierarchy of self-imposed GM axioms[...]:
>[1] The illusion of reality.
(I took this to mean self-consistent-within-the-game reality -- most
RPGs obviously contain a lot of things that don't fit with what we know
as reality.)
>[2] The campaign.
>[3] The integrity of the rules.
>[4] The results of the dice.
I like the idea, but in practice I find that my hierarchy shifts from
situation to situation.
>Personally, I think the player over-played her character, as real
>humans seem much more resilient and able to overcome extreme difficulty --
>there was really no problem that begged suicide here. But the player has
>inflicted a personality which seems too easily depressed and prone to suicide
>on the character, and so the GM is stuck with that.
Yes, most people are much more resilient. But people do commit
suicide, sometimes over pretty trivial matters -- and even the character
here was not bent on killing herself.
It's certainly possible, as someone pointed out, that she wouldn't
have made it over the edge of the balcony. But by the time she got
there, she was so far removed from her reality that I don't think she
was even aware of stepping over being a life-ending action -- she hadn't
thought any further than getting out of a bad situation.
>I have one caveat to make about pivotal characters, and that is that there are
>certain types of players who should not be given them.
Perfectly true. But in my games thus far, a player character can
toggle between pivotal and non-pivotal; in the parts of the game which
aren't strongly-plotted, the characters determine pretty much all of
what happens, while in the parts that I do have plot setups for (I try
to avoid planning endings), usually none of the player characters are
truly pivotal (other characters would probably make the story come out
differently, but individual characters are rarely vital to the
background and setup). (I'm not entirely sure I understand your use of
the term "pivotal," though; apologies if I'm mis-using it.)
In a two-to-four-player game, most of the players want their
characters to be central to the plot. I do try to make all the
characters important, but it's rare that the brainpower/firepower
division that you discuss comes up.
>Anyways the gist of this is that possibly your player was placed in the wrong
>situation[s] with the wrong type of character, and so responded inappropriate-
>ly.
As is probably apparent from the above, I think this isn't true. I
think that the *character* was placed in the wrong situations, but it
wasn't because the player couldn't deal with playing that type of
character.
>Second:
>I read another post which seemed to think that this was a bit too heavy for
>role-playing. I got this impression to after reading the post, and thought
>that maybe the player was taking things to seriously. The unspoken rule that
>I maybe should add to the above GM axioms is that 'gaming should be fun'.
>If it isn't then what is the reason for doing it?
Mary Kuhner made some comments about that question recently in a
different thread. I agree that gaming can (and often should) be fun;
but as with reading fiction, I don't game solely to have fun. I think
that in a game as in any other kind of story there's plenty of room for
tragedy, for character development, for intricately-set-up epiphanies,
for exercise of the imagination. I don't see any point in gaming if the
players and GM aren't getting anything out of it -- if a player is
frustrated and bored, thon should probably either drop the game or try
and work out a solution with the GM. But I don't think there's anything
at all wrong with playing a *character* who's frustrated, bored, upset,
psychotic, or terrified.
>It could be your player had merely become so desperate and dispirited from
>a run of bad luck that she was merely making a (strangely formed) request
>for an even break from the GM.
Again, we spend a fair amount of time talking about our games from
outside them. If the *player* had wanted "an even break," I would have
been happy to oblige. This was more the character making a (very
strangely-formed) request for an even break from her universe.
In article <schekker.650190625@cst>, sche...@cst.philips.nl (Maurice
Schekkerman) wrote:
>Because you asked (just looking for an opportunity:-) I'll tell you of a suicide
>which took place in our group:
[story about a character's suicide deleted]
>No one has ever seen him again.
This made perfect sense to me, and in fact gave me an idea for
another game I'm involved with (thanks!).
In article <1990Aug9.1...@vicom.com>, st...@vicom.com (Steve
Maurer) wrote:
> Attidute towards death is probably the most difficult for a
>gamer to play correctly. After all, it's not HIS life that a
>gamer risks, only a piece of paper. People seldom realize just
>how powerful the life instinct is.
Hm. Good points, but in some cases they don't apply (just as in real
life some people really do succeed in taking their own lives). I will
bear you comments in mind, though, for future similar situations. One
possible mechanic is to use a stat we call "Psyche," which roughly
corresponds to will-power (mental constitution, maybe?), and roll
against that when necessary. Bob Alberti made some similar suggestions
(thanks!).
> If I were the GMing
>that character, I'd probably play it out right onto the ledge,
>where the character would cling desperately until someone came by.
> Much like you handled it actually, except that the roommate
>wouldn't have had to come in at the right moment - maybe after
>a 1/2 hour or something.
The timing wasn't critical here -- Andrea did stand out on the
balcony for an indeterminate amount of time.
Anyway, the game's over now. Andrea did survive, with a little help
from her friends, and is well on the way to becoming an agent of Light
as well as of the CIA. I think she's a lot more stable now. The end of
the game wasn't much of an ending, but there's always a chance that
we'll pick up the threads again some time, and both players are moving
away tomorrow so it sort of had to stop. So it goes.
Thanks again to all who've been discussing this. A lot of useful
suggestions and ideas have come out of it.
--jed
--
{hartman@{campus.swarthmore.edu, swarthmr.bitnet}, ...!bpa!swatsun!hartman}
"Excommunicate, v. Formerly, to exclude from the mass. Now, to exclude
from the mass media." --L. A. Rollins
Brian T. Schellenberger
Perhaps you could fudge these rolls.
Alternatively, since this is Champions (it was, wasn't it?), somebody could
save her even if she was "dead." In fact, it might not be bad to let all
think that she *is* dead for a bit . . . but there are lots of opportunities
to reserect.
--
-- Brian, the Man from Babble-on. b...@unx.sas.com
-- (Brian Schellenberger)
"And when the votes were cast, the winner was . . .
Mister James K. Polk, Napolean of the stump." -- THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS.
ISR group account
>But everyone (no matter what their hobby) should look up from the object of
>their obsession every so often. There is a real planet out there.
>dbshapcott
during gaming - for example, I've got some friends that the only time
I see is when we game on sundays - in the past it would be more often but
now that they've got kids (i still can't believe the 5 yr old is 5)
that pretty much takes up theire time, so when we game at their
house, it's sorta a combination gaming and social event. The other group I
game with, it doesn't matter that much if people are busy or outta town,
butif i missed marilyn's world for say 3 months (like i just did, due to
Dead shows, work deadlines, and rebuilding my dead car)(can you name my
other obsession) then i miss a lot, but it's because I haven't seen
marylin, jim, the jimlet, or the brat during that time.
--
Mike Schechter, Computer Engineer,Institute Sensory Research, Syracuse Univ.
InterNet: Mike_Sc...@isr.syr.edu i...@rodan.syr.edu Bitnet: SENSORY@SUNRISE
D Brad Shapcott
>But for some people, there is "Real Planet" contact being made
>during gaming - for example, I've got some friends that the only time
>I see is when we game on sundays - in the past it would be more often but
>now that they've got kids (i still can't believe the 5 yr old is 5)
>that pretty much takes up theire time, so when we game at their
>house, it's sorta a combination gaming and social event. The other group I
>game with, it doesn't matter that much if people are busy or outta town,
>butif i missed marilyn's world for say 3 months (like i just did, due to
>Dead shows, work deadlines, and rebuilding my dead car)(can you name my
>other obsession) then i miss a lot, but it's because I haven't seen
>marylin, jim, the jimlet, or the brat during that time.
>
>
>--
>Mike Schechter
So these people have too many real world things going on to ever be absorbed
in role playing games completely. Looks like the point wasn't meant for
people such as you to begin with, eh?
But you might have missed the point cuz you skipped over some previous
articles -- so the gist is it wasn't addressed to people like you. Don't
worry about catching up on the thread either, cuz you would just end up
realizing "Oh, he wasn't talking about people like me at all.' And I just
saved you the trouble.
dbshapcott
Eric Hunter
>>bouts of depression from the loss of characters. Characters die and
>>the player goes into a depression state over this. The state has lasted
>>anywhere from a day to a week or more. This is over identification.
>
>I don't think so, a character usually expresses an aspect of the player's
>personality, and having a character die is, to that limited extent,
>like a real death. A week does seem a little excessive, but if losing a
>character doesn't bother a player, then I don't think the player has
>identified with the character enough to role play well.
>>Of course, these are the extremes, but this over identification does not
>>begin with these extremes, its begins subtly and how do you recognize it
>>early so that you can prevent it from happening? An once of prevention is
>>worth a pound of cure.
>The only way to prevent it is to not play rpg's.
Or play in several, having four characters (in four campaigns) makes it very
hard to overidentify with one of them :-)
More serious, aren't we a little overreacting? I mean what is the problem?
There are people who can't make a proper distinction between fantasy and
reality. Those people propably need professional help. Just throwing them
out of campaigns won't be a solution. They can as easily escape reality
reading books or watching TV. But I think it will be clear that those people
have problems by watching them in real life (as you mostly play with friends,
this can't be too hard). In the mean time, don't start with looking at the way
everyone plays to determine whether they are too intense.
If I looked at the 7 questions someone else posted to determine whether you had
a problem and extended roleplaying to gaming in general, I scored on all 7!
Does this mean I have a problem? I don't think so. I just enjoy it thoroughly.
Other people like cars, I like roleplaying. And yes, I feel bad if something
happens to my character, but I have the same if I read a good book. Part of the
fun of roleplaying is to escape reality, allow people to do that. As long as
you are aware you're doing it, what is the harm? I can cope with reality, but
sometimes wants to step out for an evening.
I don't say you've to close your eyes for how people are playing. If someone
dislikes someone else, because their characters dislike each other, there is
something wrong (but in my experience it is always the other way around, the
characters hate each other, because the players couldn't get allong well). But
don't assume players have a problem until proven otherwise. If I look at the
posting which started this (a character commiting suicide), the first reaction
was that that player must have a problem. I think that reaction is too strong.
Allow people to play intensely and let their environment judge it. As you
normally play with several people, they will notice whether there is a problem,
don't talk them into having one.
Happy playing,
Robert Plamondon
>If I find that the PERSON is getting overly wrapped up, I will throw some
>nice hardships at the PC.. if they get upset about it away from the game, I
>will usually work in some way for the PC to be "removed" for some length of
>time, w/o hope for returning.
When I was involved in theatre, in high school, I always dreamed
about the play. Every night. This was true whether I was acting,
running the lights, or whatever.
As opening night approached, I would think and talk of little else.
I would also talk about the character I was playing in the first
person, and refer to other people by their characters' names, though
it's not as if I didn't know the difference.
At the time, all this was considered normal: the dreams, the
obsession, the random references to actors and their characters. It
was part of theatre.
I suppose if we talked about it on the net, though, people
would start to worry that we had been "too wrapped up," and that
something should have been done to "bring us back to reality."
Perhaps we should have been "removed" from the play "w/o hope for
returning."
Fortunately for us, they didn't, and we weren't denied the experience
of participating in high-intensity theatre.
The parallel to role-playing games is exact. Some role-playing
campaigns, like some theatre, is deeply involving, and is not the
sort of thing you can shrug off in an instant. Others are
beer-and-pretzel affairs that are good for a few thrills and a lot of
yucks. Members of each camp look at the others with disdain and
suspicion. No doubt people in the middle are confused.
But it's no kindness to take an actor/gamer who gets deeply involved
in a role aside and saying, "Hey, dude, it's only a game! Have some
more beer and pretzels!" You aren't dealing with a failure of the
actor/gamer's sanity; you're dealing with a difference in approach to
characterization.
D Brad Shapcott
>If I looked at the 7 questions someone else posted to determine whether you had
>a problem and extended roleplaying to gaming in general, I scored on all 7!
>Does this mean I have a problem? I don't think so. I just enjoy it thoroughly.
>Other people like cars, I like roleplaying. And yes, I feel bad if something
>happens to my character, but I have the same if I read a good book. Part of the
>fun of roleplaying is to escape reality, allow people to do that. As long as
>you are aware you're doing it, what is the harm? I can cope with reality, but
>sometimes wants to step out for an evening.
The first stage is always denial of the problem. Now repeat after me:
"My name is Maurice and I'm a role playoholic."
dbshapcott
[Go ahead, flame me. See how long it takes me to put a 500K byte smiley ]
[in your mailbox. It was a joke, already!! ]
Mary K. Kuhner;335 Mulford
>No one finds the actor sobbing in the wings because Hamlet died. It was
>predetermined (if the actors are faithful to Shakespeare). There is some
>element in role playing games (the smaller group, the lack of determinism)
>that ties people more closely to their characters -- but when the play is
>over the players shrug their roles. The players seen the game as well
>played, but finished. No one weeps for the characters.
I once acted in an amateur production of _Godspell_ in which we had one
actress who would almost inevitably cry during the cruxifiction scene.
She didn't want to, because it ruined her singing, but she couldn't
help it--the scene just hurt too much. Occasionally she made the rest
of us cry too--I have vivid memories of struggling to keep my voice from
quavering, knowing that *someone* had better carry the singing or we
were going to make fools of ourselves.
Easier for a woman to do this, in our society, than a man, but I think
many of the male actors felt much as I did--they were just better at
suppressing it.
It's one of the highest tributes I can pay to a novel if the events in it
move me to genuine tears; and I feel the same about a roleplaying game.
And I don't think it's realistic to just be able to shrug this off when
it's over. In Ashland this summer I saw a masterful and completely
wrenching peformance of _The House of Blue Leaves_, and I spent the
rest of the day in emotional turmoil; I'd have thought less of myself if
I could simply have walked out and cheerily gone about my business.
Some things just shouldn't be taken that lightly, even when they are only
represented in art and not happening in reality.
But, as my roleplaying friends are well aware, I'm an annoying player who
can *only* play seriously; terrible company for beer and pretzels.
I don't condemn the style, but I haven't got it in me.
Mary Kuhner
mkku...@enzyme.berkeley.edu
D Brad Shapcott
>The parallel to role-playing games is exact. Some role-playing
>campaigns, like some theatre, is deeply involving, and is not the
>sort of thing you can shrug off in an instant. Others are
>beer-and-pretzel affairs that are good for a few thrills and a lot of
>yucks. Members of each camp look at the others with disdain and
>suspicion. No doubt people in the middle are confused.
> Robert Plamondon
I've never heard of an actor who became depressed because the character he
played died in the course of the play. There is a difference between being
deeply involved in a play and empathetic with the characters and taking the
whole thing seriously. No one becomes depressed because Hamlet dies, least
of all the actor, despite the fact that the actor has played the part per-
fectly. When the play is over, the audience applauds, the actors take a bow
and everyone thinks it a thing well performed.
No one finds the actor sobbing in the wings because Hamlet died. It was
predetermined (if the actors are faithful to Shakespeare). There is some
element in role playing games (the smaller group, the lack of determinism)
that ties people more closely to their characters -- but when the play is
over the players shrug their roles. The players seen the game as well
played, but finished. No one weeps for the characters.
I don't think its so much an argument between beer+pretzels crowd v. angst
bunnies of the Sahara, as a very rare occurence that most have little
experience with. And there is a difference between the person who becomes
obsessed with the game itself and the person who becomes absorbed into the
imaginary world. The first is the more common (a person who spends his
grocery money on a module, skips school to draw fantasy maps, ignores her
family completely in favour of role playing).
It is neither to say that if you refer to your character in first person and
like talking about the character that you have a disease, no more than a
person who takes a few drinks is an alcoholic. What makes an alcoholic is
the *attitude* towards alcohol, not amount or frequency of consumption. What
makes the obsessed role player obsessed is his attitude towards the game --
not how often he plays it or how involved he is.
But just as alcohol is the external symptom of an alcoholic, the above
symptoms are the external manifestation of the game-oholic. Having them
doesn't lead to a definite diagnosis, no more than having a bottle of beer
in your hand means you should go join AA. But it could, in both cases.
dbshapcott
Gordon Mulcaster
>
> Msg-ID: <1990Aug17....@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
> Posted: 17 Aug 90 02:27:55 GMT
>
> Org. : University of Waterloo
> Person: D Brad Shapcott
>
> I've never heard of an actor who became depressed because the character he
> played died in the course of the play. There is a difference between being
> deeply involved in a play and empathetic with the characters and taking the
> whole thing seriously. No one becomes depressed because Hamlet dies, least
> of all the actor, despite the fact that the actor has played the part per-
> fectly. When the play is over, the audience applauds, the actors take a bow
> and everyone thinks it a thing well performed.
Check out the early career of David Bowie.
--
EMail to: | Al Bundy, Al Bundy,
a3...@mindlink.uupc | Brave, courageous, and bold.
| Long live his fame,
Flames to: | Long live his glory,
dev/nul | And long may his story be told.
Jean-Philippe Belanger
>
>I've never heard of an actor who became depressed because the character he
>played died in the course of the play.
No true. Marlon Brando all but retired after making "Last Tango in Paris".
He said the role was emotionally draining and that after making that
movie, he couldn't take another dramatic role.
In the end, it all depends on how the person identifies with his role. The
closer your character is to your own personality, the more chance you stand
of changing your actual mood depending on how your character is doing.
--
---------------------| But their wild exultation was suddenly checked
|j...@globule.cam.org | When the jailor informed them, with tears,
| | Such a sentence would have not the slightest effect,
|--------------------- As the pig had been dead for some years.
Loren J. Miller
> played died in the course of the play. There is a difference between being
> deeply involved in a play and empathetic with the characters and taking the
> whole thing seriously. No one becomes depressed because Hamlet dies, least
> of all the actor, despite the fact that the actor has played the part per-
> fectly. When the play is over, the audience applauds, the actors take a bow
> and everyone thinks it a thing well performed.
the difference is that actors in a play are aware before they started that
Hamlet is going to die. The Philosopher has been known to cry at times while
watching tear-jerker movies. Crying over the death of a favorite character,
whether in a movie or in a roleplaying game, is nothing to worry about or
to be ashamed of.
Robert Plamondon was right, roleplaying games are plays, and players
are actors. However, the difference is, even in storytelling games,
players do not know how it will all turn out at the end of the adventure,
while actors are well aware of how the play will turn out.
++ Loren
--
Skiddoo 32 ,`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',',`,',`,',`,',`,',
Loren Miller ,',`,',`,',`,', internet: Mil...@desci.wharton.upenn.edu
`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,',`,
"I've seen the Ocean break on the shore, comes together, no harm done"
D Brad Shapcott
>Robert Plamondon was right, roleplaying games are plays, and players
>are actors. However, the difference is, even in storytelling games,
>players do not know how it will all turn out at the end of the adventure,
>while actors are well aware of how the play will turn out.
>++ Loren
I wasn't implying that players invoke full zombie mode when playing, just that
the emotive reaction be kept in perspective. People who begin to withdraw from
the real world should not be encouraged, especially when it is due to fits of
depression induced by gaming events. This is not synonymous with discouraging
emotional reaction.
I don't think many people have had to play with someone who takes things far
too seriously, and it is hard on a group to be driven by another player's
obsession. Fine, get emotional. Fine, spend a lot of time. Fine, spend a
lot of money. But there is a line that should not be crossed.
I have had minor experience with this and heard of local members of the
community who are obsessed with fantasy role playing and have nothing else
significant in their lives. They do not work, or go to school, or socialize,
or communicate well, or basically lead much of an existence outside their
games. In general people dread them getting wind of an existing campaign and
begging their way in, and then ruining it by obsessive behaviour.
When people say "Look, actors are prone to the same thing" or "Other people
have hobbies that they take as seriously" I am less prone to label frp okay
than to suspect that obsessive behaviour crops up in other areas too.
I think people are equating "powerful emotional response" and "obsession"
too readily. Empathy with a character, or book, or play is one thing; sur-
render of all emotional faculties is something else.
It is not merely the death that motivates empathetic response as well, it
is also the emotional quality surrounding the death.
Plus I think 'all wrapped up' is too ambiguous a phrase in this context and
not a good way of saying obsessed. The obsessed people I know aren't here --
because they became so wrapped up in the game that they dropped out of high
school and never got jobs. Nobody like them is here. So maybe people could
stop being a little less defensive and a little more open to the fact that
some people have problems dealing with frp's in a healthy manner.
It's sort of like defending alcoholism merely because you like to drink
alcohol. You can still play frp's and concurrently recognize that some
people have a problem with them. You can even get emotional about it and
still recognize that other people have unhealthy emotional responses.
dbshapcott
Robert Plamondon
>A fall from a balcany, even at 100 stories, is not always fatal.
>Perhaps you could fudge these rolls.
Sure! How about...
"You land on a passing flat-bed truck piled high with mattresses. How
fortunate!"
"A passing blimp cushions your fall."
"Your high-tech sneakers save you from destruction."
"You crash to the sidewalk with terrific velocity, smashing the
concrete and breaking an underground water main. You climb out of
the crater and dust yourself off. One of your ankles is sprained."
The character is the one who's falling. The players will never fall
for something like this.