Are you a sheet or a man?
[ roleplaying games | video games ][ characters | game design | game mechanics | gameplay | legends | storytelling ]
[ April 17th, 2010 ]
[ by: Spikey ]
Oh boy, here I am again shooting far and wide for the sake of perhaps hitting something unexpected out there.
Once again, in an episode of particularly excellent tabletop roleplaying session, I was reminded of two things.
First, characters. Don’t ever resort to mundane characters, be they NPC’s or primary ones. Always incorporate stuff made for legends told later. Always aim for potential towards legends.
Second, as much as you want to design excellent gameplay, don’t let the gameplay break the game flow. Don’t force players to play the game mechanics when there’s a gameplay moment to remember either about to occur, or has already began rolling forward. It’s stretching the concept, but imagine gamemaster snagging character sheets (or availability of inventory menus etc) away from players when something sudden occurs. Things should flow from reflexes at such point. Drop everything and go into instinctive mode.
Sudden occurrence is a funny beast, as it makes us forget stuff we haven’t got programmed down into our spine and forces us to react with what we have at hand, with whatever we can come up with in a few seconds timeframe. If you go “Err……” and bell goes bong, your character very clearly froze because he doesn’t know his strengths yet and is about to get a deserved kicking before he is able to join in the fun accordingly. It’s also a light slap on players cheek – or dare I say learning experience? In situations calling for experience and mastery of character skills, that’s where you measure your character. That’s obvious, and has always been. I’m just advocating it should not happen solely in some damn sheet or a menu we stop to oggle at RIGHT WHEN SHIT SHOULD BE FLYING. Excuse my french. Just take the player further into the game, away from reading numbers and ponderous thoughts when he should be in a hurry and playing by feel. Yes, yes, game mechanics everywhere incorporate initiatives and such derived from your character stats, but what did I just say? What?
No, if you don’t remember a particular trait of your character that would be handy in situation, then your character just isn’t kickass enough to react with it. If your character knows that going for a nightly jog in those black woods full of bloodshot eyes is a good reason to keep a gun in hand, then all the better. He at least has the gun when suddenness jumps up and grabs his face when his player doesn’t expect it. Of course, if he is new to such circumstances, chances are he’ll pull the trigger and shoot in completely wrong direction. End result might as well be a companion character in same party who now carries a character trait called limp, because of a certain instance of a epileptic squirrel accidentally falling on some new guys face. It’s something to laugh about afterwards.
During the time spent with a character, you start remembering stuff he or she is made of. That’s obvious. When the player knows his characters individual traits, weapons, magical items and whatever by second nature, is it wrong if I claim that’s when – and only when – you could call your character experienced. Why not extend that backwards into game mechanics? Measure experience through survived moments of legend. WW2 fighter pilots marked their experience on their planes, didn’t they? They damn well remembered every moment behind each kill mark. Turn your character sheet from an excel sheet into a character memoir worthy of saving. You’re playing story, so you’re part of it and with every influence you force upon game world, you’re also writing it.
When the experience begins to grow measurable, it’s also when you connect with your character and it becomes dear and memorable to you, having gone through quite a bit of legends through mishaps, mistakes, victories and awesome saving throws. Like feminists in sixties called for women to burn their bras, gamers should burn their inventory and action menus or character sheets when they become just a part of game mechanic instead of game itself. Obviously, all this is as much wrong as it is true, as different people enjoy different games. I firmly believe the wanted mood and atmosphere might have their say on game mechanics as well. If I, lone shepherd helping a stray puppy in woods come across a pack of undead Spetsnatz in the woods, first thing you would see me doing has damn well nothing to do with dices or inventories. I would very much prefer to incorporate such raw instances of reaction in games, seeing what happens after the initial smoke settles and brain is back in gear, even if it results in registering shit in pants and a dead puppy in hand for being handled as a club against improbable enemy.
In the game we played, characters left legends behind and game mechanics never rose to break the flow, even though they carefully churned their cogs and wheels underneath.
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Tags: characters, game design, game mechanics, gameplay, legends, storytelling
July 7th, 2010 at 17:03
I love to read your entries, and I can relate to this completely.
It breaks the immersing progress when players are “connecting the dots and calculating” all the time. Also, vice versa, when you become your character you can see the world (whatever world your in at the moment) in different eyes completely – just as intended.
And also, making legends (good or bad) is what the game is about. It’s like you have a completely different set of memories to look back on with your adventuring friends. Something you can go “Oh, you should have been there…” to the poor people who have sadly missed your epicness (and epic fails).
July 10th, 2010 at 10:48
Regarding the character sheet part, I kind of disagree, actually. Ideally, yes. I’m speaking here as a GM.
But there are so many kinds of players out there, and players with different degrees of experience, and parties with different social mechanics… This only really works with more or less equally standing players, on a personal level. And some people just like to think it over, and I don’t want to take that away from them.
The rules (and by extension, character sheets) are there not just to resolve conflicts, but also to promote fairness. I want it to be okay for an introvert player to try on a very extrovert role. But that’s going to mean that she will need to resort to the character sheet from time to time, just because her real-life social skills just aren’t quite up there with her character. That’s going to mean some out of character description of how she handles a sticky social situation. And, yes, perhaps rolling a few dice.
Ideally I see roleplaying as something that can help a player explore areas of life she’s not comfortable with in real life, and perhaps ultimately gain some real insight from those immaterial experiences. And that’s where rules can actually help you, carry you over stuff you can’t handle (violence, intimacy, way with words, mechanical stuff, planning stuff…), work as a crutch between stuff you want to explore in-character (interpersonal or immersive stuff).
Ultimately, I like rolling dice.
Regarding the stuff of legends part, completely agreed. Why would make a nobody if you can be someone worth remembering? Take it over the top, always. I always wondered about fantasy roleplaying’s dogged insistence on starting out as nobodies.