Creating the Other

[M. J. Young]

Over on the thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7927">Characters as Therapy (Split) I was pretty satisfied with the consensus, until Joachim recalled something

Here's another way of looking at it: I cannot create anything that is not mine. If I create it, it is naturally influenced by my own psychology, biology, personal preferences, and whatnot.

Suddenly I'm struck by the idea of creating the other.

I'm very much on board with what Clinton says, in the main. Twenty-some years ago I wrote in a journal that all my literary characters were in some sense autobiographical (and this was before I'd heard of role playing games), reflections of aspects of myself. Yet I think in the ages since I've been playing I have at times created something other, a character or creature that reflected something antithetical to what I am, how I think, what I would do.

I don't think this is quite as impossible to accomplish. After all, how do authors create characters? We observe people, and watch how they act; then we combine those actions in combinations that seem realistic within the frameworks of our stories. I don't have to be at all like you to create a character like you.

It is said of the Smothers Brothers that the secret of their comic success is that one was always serious and worried about everything and the other rather loose and easy-going--and when they got on stage, they played each other, each trying to parody what he saw the other as like. Method actors make a big deal of trying to find the character within themselves; but traditional actors attempt to portray the character by putting on the different, projecting an external appearance of someone different from themselves.

So to what degree are we able to portray the other, that which is not like ourselves?

I'm inclined to think that with observation and practice, this is something that we can do, and that some of us do quite naturally (just because some people are highly observant and so do parodies and impersonations and similar stolen characterizations easily). Yet this seems opposed to the consensus on the other thread that one cannot create something that is not ultimately an expression of what is within one's self. So, which way is it?

--M. J. Young

[Jason Lee]

I read your post, then I scratched my shaggy head and said "Uhhh...hard". I then proceeded to the couch, where I slouched in a state of confusion - sloping brow all crinkled up.  Until I loudly proclaim, "Woman!  Forge hard! Go read thread! Make answer go!"

She, surprisingly, obliged.   Upon returning she said, "Oh, that's easy.  It's both ways.  When impersonating someone you're portraying your perception of them.  Some people are better at understanding people than others, hence the man who knows nothing about 14 year old girls very poorly plays a 14 year old girl character.  He has to fill in all the blanks with his own judgments.  You can have a character completely unlike you, but it'll be colored by your own perceptions.  You see, both."

A blank stare from me.  A minute passes, "Ohhhh...it like interpretation thing I say in other thread."

"Umm...sure.  Whatever."

I then proceed to jump up and down in a circle, arms flailing, chanting, "Woman right!  Woman right!"  Pause, grunt, blank face, "I make words go on Forge now!"

"OK babe.  You do that."

So, I lumbered off to the computer room to present her point.

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[jdagna]

MJ, your question reminds me of someting I've heard in relation to both actors and writers.  In essence it says that by age 15, almost all people have had all the experiences they need in order to understand (and therefore write about or act out) any other person.  Perhaps your mother hasn't died, but you can remember the grief you felt at losing your aunt and imagine what that person is feeling.  Maybe you've never had cancer, but you've at least had the flu.  You may not have been married, but you've had close relationships that you can use to imagine marriage.  It defies the myth that you can only write (or act) what you know.

In essence, what this perspective says is that we're really not all that different to begin with.  People are people.  You can't be playing the "the other" because another person isn't really "other" to begin with.  Clinton's perspective and yours essentially merge together at this point - you can play someone totally different while still relying on your own personal psychology.

I don't want to derail the topic, but one of the reasons I greatly prefer random character generation is that the result is always feels more "other" than if I have total control over the character's creation.  I always feel like a random character is more of a separate person and less like a clone or tool.

[Bill Cook]

I'm inclined to think that with observation and practice, this is something that we can do, and that some of us do quite naturally . . .  Yet this seems opposed to the consensus on the other thread that one cannot create something that is not ultimately an expression of what is within one's self. So, which way is it?

As we live, we create an amalgam of experience.  As children become young adults, they sometimes say things beyond their experience.  Sometimes those things even make sense, though in truth, surely, the significance is lost to them.

I wrote a handful of songs about things I (at the time) had never experienced.  Some even had no relation to anything anyone I knew had experienced.  Yet when people heard them, they immediately identified the expression: "Oh, that kind of situation/feeling."  In that case, the source was probably top 40 radio.

Maybe by some legistic of consciousness, we may only imitate within the limits of self, but of source, we are other.

I suppose the only useful distinction is between imitations of what has and has not been internalized.

[Mike Holmes]

I play myself in real life.

I feel no need to play me in RPGs. I don't believe that I've, even once (I've never even actually been a player in an "I" game), played anyone who was myself, or even a reflection of some inner issue. RPGs to me have always been about fantasy, about getting outside of my own skin, and so I just don't see the point in playing myself. If they are therapy, its via escapism.

Now, am I playing myself or my issues subconsciously, and just sublimating? Hard to tell. I played one character not too long ago, who, I felt at the time, I'd put in a situation that had some bearing on my own life. But I think it was accidental. It wasn't until after I came up with him that it occured to me. If I was doing this regularly, wouldn't I have noticed it at other times?

So, I think I'm just making up characters. Like others have said, as composites of my perception of others, from wherever creativity comes from (in some games it's just impulsive choices from the Chineese Menue that are the seed from which the character grows). Particularly characters from fiction. From my real life, I've often used people who I encountered in school, business, or my military experiences (the last are often the most colorful, actually).

And sometimes it's via analytical processes. For example, I like to make characters who are exceptions to rules. I make merchant characters in fantasy games all the time, so I can challenge the idea that they have to be about combat. Creativity can come from the oddest places.

In some ways, I feel at times that I'm sorta a blank slate. That I've been playing RPGs for so long (age 9), that there's less of me than there is of the characters that I've created. That's obviously not true, but it's an interesting feeling. I find myself (when feeling confident) able to blend in with any crowd. People have called me a social chameleon. I can't estimate how much of that is due to playing RPGs.

Anyhow, if I were to make a character that was myself, I'm not sure what he'd be like precisely. Would he be Sergeant Holmes, or Daddy, or Geeky Mike? I dunno. And like I said, not interested. I get to do that in all the hours that I'm awake between playing RPGs. :-)

Mike

[Jason Lee]

Mike,

That's why you won't see me playing (or at least enjoying) a samurai, ninja, shoalin monk, or something similar.  I'm really very into the martial arts (eastern varieties) in real life, which makes me oddly uninterested in it in gaming.  Though I don't know the guy, I'm going to go out on a limb and say Jake Norwood doesn't feel the same way.  

*****

Not exactly Mike,

I'm not sure (MJ correct me if I'm wrong) but I think the "I" game type of play is asking, "What would I do in this situation?  What could become of me?".

Which is different that the player who asks, "Who do I wish I was?  How would I be better?".

Which is different than the player who asks, "What would it be like to be in this person's shoes?  How do they feel?".

Then there's the personal issues thing; which I haven't quite figured out yet, so I can't put it in the Jeopardy format.  The more I think about it the more relationships I see.

The third question I think is the other.

*****

Barely Mike at all,

The little woman talked about accuracy of perception effecting your ability to imitate correctly.  To add to that I think there is also skill in the implementation that simply cannot be ignored.  I bet everyone can picture a fresh peach in their head, but who can draw it correctly?  To draw the peach you've got to draw more than the peach - the lighting, the shadows.  You've got to draw less than the peach - know when not to draw a line even though it seems like you'd be leaving something off.  You've got to understand perspective - how will the observer see it, how will the eye be fooled.

I suppose I could have just said imitation is part art and part ability to manipulate the audience, but that wouldn't have involved fruit.  Mmmm...fruit.

[Mike Holmes]

Actually, I would like to try an I game, for exactly the reasons you list. I've just never had the chance. It's "sorta like me" characters that I don't get. I mean, if we're going to say it's me, I want an accurate representation to make it a real experiment.

On the topic of "accuracy" I'm sure I suck, and that most characters are more like me than they ought to be due to me filling in the blanks with myself. But I'm fine with that. It's the attempt that counts.

Mike