Player/Character Relationship query

[Tristana]

Hello!  I have been playing for about five years, as a player and Gm.  Though new to the Forge, I have used many of your articles in research on role-playing in my life as an academic.  Currently I'm working on my Thesis discussing how role-playing, and character, creates an alternative literacy of identity that is highly worthy of study in a postmodern culture.  I have been attempting to find out where to ask this question on the forge, wading through as many threads as I can, and seeking any other thread relating to this question.  Finally I decided to post here.  My questions:

What have you observed (about yourself and other players) about the player/character relationship? 
In what ways does player/character relationship vary? 
How does this relationship affect game play and motivation within a game? 
How does player/character relationship effect immersion?

What I mean by character and player relationship is the ways that a player uses a character, how that character represents or affects a players real world, or how a player literally becomes emotionally attached to a character and why.

Obviously this is a hugely complex question (possibly many threads) which is why I am bringing it forward in group discussion.  If we look at the concept of multiple frames of reality (Fine, Lancastor) we can see how role-players are continuously moving between multiple realities.  The character seems to be the common link: the character is dwelling within the player as they move in and out of the fantasy reality, creating a link.  The character is ultimately born in the "real world," a product of the player's interpretation of their own culture, the players understanding of role-playing culture, and the players understanding of the fantasy world (both external knowledge of Genre and specific systems).  The character is important, and it seems that the internal relationship to character would dictate how they enter into the immersion of the fantasy reality, and what the player stands to gain from gaming.  Is the player consciously using character as a way to play out personality traits?  How would this effect game play?  Is the player subconsciously playing out patterns from their own life?  How do we deal with this when these patterns are disruptive to a larger narrative?

What is the player/character relationship, and how does it affect game play?  There is a multiplicity of answers.  I have my own observations and personal experiences, but that is a small slice of the pie.  What do you all think?

Also, if you know of any articles, websites, or threads that address this question, feel free to point me there.  Sorry if this is a terribly silly question in the utterly wrong space... 

Thanks, Tristana

[Alan]

What I mean by character and player relationship is the ways that a player uses a character, how that character represents or affects a players real world, or how a player literally becomes emotionally attached to a character and why.
...
the character is dwelling within the player as they move in and out of the fantasy reality, creating a link.  The character is ultimately born in the "real world," a product of the player's interpretation of their own culture, the players understanding of role-playing culture, and the players understanding of the fantasy world (both external knowledge of Genre and specific systems).

Hi Tristina,

How a player uses a character depends on both their own psyche, but also no the game rules.  Different games will give players different powers over the fate of their character and will also reward them differently, depending on the objectives of the game design.  So in one game one might be able to use a character for kind of gratification, another game system will not support that and reward another kind of expression.

For example, there are constant issues of empowerment that affect the play of many popular games.  A player may desire to behave, say, in a swashbuckling manner, supporting that by swinging from chandeliers, etc.  Some game systems will restrict this realization of fantasy, making them roll skills that make the action risky.  If, at the same time, the rewards of play are gained, say, by defeating enemies, adding risk the one's activities is not productive.  The player learns not to do it. 

Have you consider the issue of separating the effect of specific System and Reward from the player's desires?  How will you know which one is being expressed?

[Tristana]

Excellent point Allen, thank you!  Risk and reward, coupled with systems would of course affect the player/character relationship.  How could we go about separating them out though?  I see how a system, and the fantasy challenges it provides, would certainly alter a player's character motivations.  As far as risk goes, is a player going to alter their character relationship based on system risk, or will they be supporting the same character relationship regardless of the risk?  Are they more rewarded, ultimately, by the risk of certain system based limitations, in that the character is at more risk?  Risk=thrill?  But (if I am reading you right) how would we be able to differentiate between the limits of system and reward and the fantasy role-players character relationship: how much of their relationship is based on success in the game in the real world, and how much of it is based on the internal world of player/character.  Certainly complicates the issue... more.  Thank you!

[Alan]

Hi Tristana,

Just to clarify: my example was talking about the risk of losing the ability to influence the Shared Imagined Space.  If one wants a heroic character, but the actions one declares lead to a 50% chance that character will end up in a humilating position, or ,worse, unconscious while the player is forbidden to make contributions, that is an event of conditioning.  The player soon adjusts to work within the rules, often stiffling preferences for the sake of participating in the game.  (I'm not saying all RPGs do this; this is just an example of the power of rules.)

I wonder if "player to character relationships in roleplaying games" is just too restricted an instrument to yield much insight about the players.  A character in a roleplaying game is an expression of rules that allow the player to add to the Shared Imagined Space.  By definition, the player, using a character, has a relationship with the whole game system and all the other players.  It might be more useful to ask what kind of focus a player prefers (eg whether he or she has Creative Agenda, technique, or even ephemera preferences) and what kind of elements the player likes to put into play (eg the role of outsider, scenarios of betrayal, martyrdom, savior, all sort of fun archetypes, etc.).

I realize you're working on an academic paper and I suspect I may be challenging some of the assumptions you started with.  If this isn't useful, feel free to tell me and I'll bow out.

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

Currently I'm working on my Thesis discussing how role-playing, and character, creates an alternative literacy of identity that is highly worthy of study in a postmodern culture.

Hello, Tristana.

It would be of big help in answering your question if you'de explain a bit more about what you are planning to research. For example, will you be limiting your thesis to player/character relationships tabletop rpg, or are you also going to extend it to larps and/or digital role-playing? Because that will enormously affect the list of suggestions and views you're going to get.

One resource worth looking at, as an example: http://www.ropecon.fi/brap/

-Jiituomas

[Tristana]

Jiitoumas- Here is a brief outline of my thesis: I am looking specifically at table top role-playing (I think that it is certainly a large enough topic) but I am drawing on Sherri Turkle's work in Life on the Screen.  In her text Turkle discusses how identity has shifted from being a core concept, to being something fractured in the postmodern world.  Turkle offers that the use of online characters (and to come extend she also looks at LARPs) is a way to reclaim fractured identity and transform it to a multiplicity of self.  In this way the creation of other selves is a purposeful action of identity construction, and thus making yourself into lots of people is less crazy : )  So my first chapter is mostly examining theory and defining RPGs for my audience.  My second chapter is looking at the relationship between a system and character creation.  In this chapter I go through character creation (simplifying it into concept based creation and rule based creation) and discuss the way that character sheets provide a specific discourse around identity.  If you look at the D&D character sheet, for example, you can see how dominant physical description is within the system.  The sheet puts value on certain aspects of identity over others, which play into both the history of D&D and the rule system.  However, it also is forming the ways that people participating in that system (to a certain extent) are able to conceptualize a second self.  I also discuss how the character sheet displays larger cultural structures and fears (like Race), despite being an alternative reality.  I compare it to a Mage sheet... I love Mage. 

So, after looking at the character sheet and character creation, I now want to look more into the player/character relationship as it relates to identity.  If we are making other selves as an attempt to understand a cultural fracturing, then it is important to look at how players use their characters: for escape, to try out different personality traits, to give avatar to problems and fears, to examine tendencies about themselves...

Alan- First off it is totally healthy to question my assumptions that I am entering my research with.  No worries.  It's true that the system is certainly a framework that the players are in, but so to is the real world, and the fantasy world.  I suppose that I do enter into this topic with the concept that a character is in a person's head: it has to operate with in a system, but it is ultimately in your head.  I believe that at a certain point in a person's RPing they stop worrying so much about the rule out come and just think in terms of character motivation: is my character thinking that they would die if they do this?  Do they care?  I will admit that I come from a school of role-playing that is very much character emphasized, highly valuing character over system rules.  So, looking at the player motivation within the game, if it is towards character or continued play, is key.  I think that I am also asking what does a character reveal and give back in a real world sense.  For example, upon examination I find that I have character tendencies that appear to indicate larger identity traits (when in a stressful situation everyone of my characters will become quiet and withdrawn) and examining those traits allows me to actively play with my own identity through role-playing (can I play a character that instead deals with stress by screaming, or will it go so against my own context that I wont feel it realistic?).  All of the aspects of role-playing are in constant interaction (real world, rule system, fantasy world), but it seems that character is such a huge motivator for being a role-player: being able to play someone else with friends, with risk but not too much, and give that character a vast and heroic story in which to develop the character... 

That's where I'm coming from...

[timfire]

Tristana, are you familiar with Stance theory at the Forge? It doesn't totally answert your question but it might, but it might shed some light on the interaction between character and player.

Stance

The cognitive position of a person to a fictional character. Differences among Stances should not be confused with IC vs. OOC narration. Originally coined in the RFGA on-line discussions; see John Kim's website for archives. Current usage modified in GNS and other matters of role-playing theory. See Author, Actor, and Director Stance.

Actor Stance

The person playing a character determines the character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have. This stance does not necessarily include identifying with the character and feeling what he or she "feels," nor does it require in-character dialogue. See Stance.

Author Stance

The person playing a character determines the character's decisions and actions based on the person's priorities, independently of the character's knowledge and perceptions. Author Stance may or may not include a retroactive "motivation" of the character to perform the actions. When it lacks this feature, it is called Pawn Stance.

Pawn Stance

A subset of Author Stance which lacks the retroactive "motivation" of the character to perform the actions. Often but wrongly identified with Gamist play. See Stance.

Director Stance

The person playing a character determines aspects of the environment relative to the character in some fashion, entirely separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence events. Therefore the player has not only determined the character's actions, but the context, timing, and spatial circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world separate from the characters. Director Stance is often confused with narration of an in-game event, but the two concepts are not necessarily related.

[Alan]

Hi Tristana,

Timothy has pointed it out.  Your questions seem to assume that all roleplaying is done in Actor stance.  But not every player thinks about their character motivations or gets deeply into the mind of their character before proposing an addition to the SIS.  In some cases, the player will make a decision about what situation they'd like to see appear in play, propose it, then come up with character motivations after the fact. 

Choice of stance, itself, is also channelled by game rules.  While some systems might encourage lots of Actor stance decisions, other systems will reward Author and Director stance decisions--and so these will appear more often.  Hence, again, how a player uses a character is strongly influenced by the particular system in play.  (I've been using "rules" and "system" interchangeably, but I'm actually referring to what we call The Lumpley Principle: system is all the rules used to negotiate additions to the shared imagined space, whether they're in rule book or not.)

[beingfrank]

I would suggest that the relationship between player and character can vary along a number of dimensions.  One, as described above, is stance, and that captures quite a bit of the sort of differences I've observed.

Another is the relationship between player success and character success.  A player can define their success as directly or inversely proportional to their character's success.  Or there can be no relationship between success for the player and success for the character.  That's another key aspect of the relationship between player and character that you may wish to consider.

Another factor is probably the degree to which the character is the player's main tool to influence the SIS.

I'm sure there are others, but I'll start with those.  I'm not addressing the issues of how these might influence motivation within a game, because I'm not sure what you mean by that.  But if you can clarify that, I'm sure it's possible to work through that as well.

How does stance influence game play?  In lots of ways.  There's lots of other threads on this to have a look through.

How does the link (or lack of) between player and character success influence game play?  When player success is only defined in terms of character success, character failure, which is likely in many systems, becomes player failure.  And people become motivated to avoid it, thus shaping play.  If player success is not linked to character success, then I've observed that players are more likely to embrace unpleasant things happening to their characters, and that in turn shapes play.

How does the degree to which the character is the player's main SIS-influencing tool influence play?  Again, this varying level of risk to one's ability to influence the SIS can alter the way players act, and thus shape game play.

That's a quick run through one of your questions.  As I said, I'm not sure I know what you mean by the question about influencing motivation in the game, so I've skipped that one.  I'm also going to wimp out on the immersion one.

In your broader thesis, you probably need to discuss different motivations for roleplaying, particularly in relation to your section on the reasons for creating a character, because not all people are going to be doing so as an exploration of identity (even subconsciously).  There's a number of theories you could look at here, the Big Model is just the local one.

Additionally, when you're looking at character sheets and the emphasis different systems put on different aspects of identity, I'd recommend you consider not just what's on the sheet and the system as written, but what gets used and the system in play.  Lumpley Principle and all that, as mentioned by others.  For example and specific to your proposed character sheet analysis, I play in an Amber Diceless game that plays fortnightly.  In theory I have a character sheet, but I probably haven't referred to it in over 10 months.  I don't even think I know where it is, since I've moved house since I last saw it.  The system as written is pretty loose, but the system as we play it is even looser.  Contrast that with the D&D 3.5 game I also play in, where I have my character sheet completed filled in, I know exactly where it is (sitting on my coffee table ready to be grabbed as soon as I get home, because I'm playing that game this evening), and I use it multiple times a session.  It's also covered with post-it notes of other details about my character in regular use that don't fit on the character sheet.  So even there, in a game with little drift, the blank character sheet is not a complete representation of what comprises identity in the game.

This assumes that your examing the game as played in your analysis, rather than analysing the game as written.  If the latter, just ignore this last bit, but I think you'd be missing out on examining something really cool if you were only looking at the game as a written text.

Anyway, I've rambled enough.  I hoped I've provoked useful thoughts for your thesis.