Character and Our Weird Gamer Friends

[Wormwood]

Vincent,

Unless someone else wants it, I'm willing to take the job. Assuming of course you don't want the shrink and the magician to be two different people.

  -Mendel S.

[Gordon C. Landis]

What Ron Said, but being me, let me try and develop that a bit further (and yes, this is the ammo I have ready for the RP-is-magic folks, but it's intended to allow me to assimilate rather than anihilate them).

As best as I can tell, the truth of the matter is that our characters are just a way for us to talk to ourselves (and share that with others who are doing the same, which creates a feedback loop - and which, lest this all seem too high-falutin', need serve no other purpose than "fun").  Given just how complicated that process of talking to ourselves is, the chaplain, the shrink and the magician can all find interesting ways to provide focus, insight and coordination to the conversation.  I'll happily try out what seems to me an unrealistic, "magic" process to tap into my character's desires (ha!), because it may open up a new channel in that me-talking-to-me process that the psychologist, for e.g., could/did not.  

As long as I'm allowed the meta-thought that what's "really" happening is me-talking-to-me, I'm cool.  The question of whether to approach a character as shrink, priest, or magician (or anything else) then becomes entirely a matter of taste and practical usefulness.

Gordon

[lumpley]

Mm, Ron, no.  Or sort of.  

My insights into what goes on in my mind might just be superstition.  It seems to me that roleplaying can be more than fun, can be actually important - but maybe I'm as wrong as the supernatural origin folks.  (The supernatural origin folks and I agree about roleplaying's potential to be important, at least - although we disagree why and wherefore.)

That's the connection I was trying to make: introspection isn't a reliable way to tell truth from fancy.  I doubt my own opinions.

But check it out: I started this thread because I find it curious that, for a position that no one has yet taken, the supernatural origins position has SUCH gravity in the discussion.  Lots of people arranging themselves relative to it, all spontaneously.  What's up with that?

In this thread, I can see the same thing, only here it's lots of people (me too, in this very post) preemptively disavowing "wacky psychology."  Has anybody accused us of wacky psychology?  Why are we preparing our defenses against it?

Roleplaying is important to us, but God forbid we look like weirdos.

-Vincent

[Ben Lehman]

Feel a strange compulsion to reply.

First of all --  Yes, this thread has a lot to do with 'Sorcerer Gedankensetting'  And I think that what side you take in this discussion probably also predicts what feelings you will have about Demons in Sorcerer, in particular whether they are Self or Other.

 Now, actual reply.

A lot of people say that all creative work is by nature completely internal, and is thus a reflection of parts of the creator's psyche, and nothing else.  This may be true (in fact, for single creator forms, it is necessarily true) however, there are a lot more things going on there, and it does not mean that all characters in any creative work are, in fact, their authors working through some sort of psychological issue.  Because there are a lot more things in our head than just us.

I know this because, by and large, my characters are not avatars of myself.  They are avatars of people I know -- amalgams of friends, acquaintances, characters from other media, and enemies.  I play these characters because I want to see what life might look like on "the other side."  Of course this is entirely generated by my own brain -- however, it is an image of someone else within my own brain, that is distinctly Not Me.

Is this useful for dealing with my own issues?  Of course -- all art is.  Is it directly applicable (ex:  Ben's character is a zealot, so he has issues with believing too much in things)?  Not neccessarily.  It may very well be me trying to figure out someone else's deeply hidden thoughts and motivations that I have picked up on subconsciously.  It may be any number of other things!

Some people play RPGs in a direct avatar-experimental way.  This is lovely for them.  I rarely do so.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  As far as any mystical business goes, I will go as far to say that it is scientifically likely that all of our RPG characters, and many variants thereon, exist in this universe, somewhere.  Yes, even the ones with magic.  This is actually a nearly meaningless statement, but it's fun to thing about.

[pete_darby]

Well, when you look back at it, theatre has it's origins in religion, many psychological schools happily steal, sorry, reference theatrical and religious language and techniques, many of which feed into rpg's as well.

Fundamentally, drama, religion, rpg's and psychology use similar techniques to do similar things, though for ostensibly widely different reasons. It's no wonder there's commonalities, fundamental shared ground, which I think most people posting in these threads grasp intuitively (hence the defences against charges never expllicitly stated).

I forced to express it (and my dears, you are forcing me), I'd say it was exploration of the relationship between the self and the other, and the testing of the boundary. It's how I create an rpg character. It's how an actor prepares. It's how babies develop personalities. It's how Descartes "proved" the existence of God from first principles.

So while the exploration of the subject is fascinating, the fact that some people seem to find it surprising is, well, surprising to me.


PS

And Ben, I'd say that this holds true for single creator forms also, as the expression of creation must engage with another (the reader) through a common medium (language), both external to the creator of the work. And unless the work is entirely solipsistic, the creator must create "surrogate others," the characters of a story, the imagined incidents, the environment surrounding them, the creation of which, I'd claim, is not entirely under the creators control, due to external influences on the creative mind.

EDIT

I'd just like to say, none of this is meant as reductionist. exclusionist, or dismissive of either religions, psychology, drama or RPG's. Except maybe the crack about psychology stealing stuff. I'm talking about techniques, not truths revealed by them.

And a final thought tripping through my sleep deprived brain: this is another reason why I love Glorantha, and it's expression in HQ in particular. It's main theme, if it has one, is the creation, exploration, exploitation of and submission to myth, both by societies and heroic individuals. With talking ducks.

[M. J. Young]

Therefore, your character is, well, you. The image I always use to describe it is that your character is a grotesque - an overblown facet of yourself. You would not necessarily do the actions you direct that character to do, but you'd think about them.

In "And now, Plato," Ron says:

Susan plays Amoraliana, Elf-Princess and so forth. During play, Amoraliana slays her own newborn infant with the Dark Vampire Sword, amidst much turmoil and grief. (Let's say there's all manner of dramatic context.)

Does this mean Susan would kill her own child in real life? Horse-puckey.

Does this mean Susan secretly wants to kill her own child in real life? Double horse-puckey.

Does this mean Susan has some feelings about motherhood that she feels are socially unacceptable, or that are even unacceptable for her to admit to herself? I'm going with "yes" on that question.

This is good stuff, Clinton; but I'm going to object because I think it's a bit further removed than that.

Let's say that Susan finds within herself a facet which if pushed could turn her into the kind of person who might kill her own child.

We've all heard the "there but for the grace of God go I" line, but I do think that every one of us has the potential to become terrible, cruel, hateful people, if we allow ourselves to do so. Role playing may give us the opportunity to see the danger within ourselves. Just as we can use it to discover that to which we aspire, we can also find that which we dread. We can understand what it is that drives people to become all those things we think are so terrible because there are fragments of that within us which if nurtured and encouraged could grow to something much the same.

Now, that's not quite the same thing as saying that because I can find within myself aspects which could form the foundation of racism or sexism or hatred or violence that I really have a problem with any of those things; it only means that we are all fundamentally the same at some basic level, and through our circumstances and our choices any of us can become the terrors we fear.

I truly enjoyed the Michael Douglas movie Falling Down because I could identify with the character. It really was about how negative circumstances and a few bad choices turned a relatively ordinary guy with a few problems into a killer. That negative stuff is in us all; but the specifics aren't as accurate as you suggest.

I'm a ?knowledge is an end in and of itself? kind of guy, so my point of view is what we get out the discussion is understanding.

I'm very much on board with that. The last time we had this discussion (about whether characters are real) Kester pointed me to the very real and sensible distinction between personality and characterization, and I agreed that it was the latter, not the former, that was controling my in-character choices. This time, something got me reconsidering that such that I noticed that the fictional character and the real person are, within my mind, not much different--the only difference between "that's what my character would do" and "that's what my wife would do" is that there's the possibility of an objective confirmation of rebuttal in the latter case and not in the former. That pretty much says that from the perspective of what's happening in my mind, there's not much difference between real people and fictional characters. I think I learned something this time; I learned something last time, too. I like learning things.

On the implied or inferred supernatural aspect, I'm probably an odd duck. I really do believe in a supernatural reality that impacts our natural world in unexpected ways; but I also think that more than ninety-nine percent of what people think is that is something else. I'm obviously one of those who thinks characters are more real than Ralph makes them out to be, but I don't think they have existence beyond my own mind or expressions of them. Lauren Hastings lives in a series of books, in various states of completion, and in my mind, and in the minds of my readers. Anyone who has met her in those places knows that she seems real, as real as anyone else of whom you've read in a book, whether General Grant or Sean Connery or Peter Pan. The problem may not be whether characters are or are not "real", but what we mean by "real" in this context.

--M. J. Young

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Does this mean Susan has some feelings about motherhood that she feels are socially unacceptable, or that are even unacceptable for her to admit to herself? I'm going with "yes" on that question.

I think this needs to be qualified a bit. I would say there is *something* going on here with susan. Exactly what I would hestiate to even hypothesis with a real person, so I won't even touch a hypethetical. Well, I'll lay down some hypetheticals.

[*] Maybe she has unresolved issues with her mother, so her character she is playing is her mother or like her mother
[*] Maybe she had an abortion back in high school and she still isn't over it
[*] Maybe just the concept of mother and child is something that tugs her heart strings, and she "decided" (note the quotes) to strum them hard by having her character kill her child
[*] Maybe just the concept of children being harmed brings about an emotional reaction, like the last one above. The child merely happens to be the character's out of convenience
[*] Possibly all of the above
[*] Possibly none of the above
[*] Possibly some combination
[/list:u]

My point is yes, does Susan's actions in play mean this or that? Yes, bullpuckie. Does it mean nothing? Also, bullpuckie. Everything happens for a reason, or possibly many small reasons.

Problem is what happens with the lovely little reviews of stuff like this? Same thing that happens most of the time for most people. It gets ignored. "Hey Susan, in the game last night, I dunno. It made me think about what you said happened to you in high school." "You may be right, Bill." *changes the subject*

I'm not too worried about that. You hit your thumb with a hammer, you say ouch. Saying out doesn't really correct the problem with your thumb. It still smarts. But saying ouch is how you express the pain. Expressing oneself is important even if nothing gets fixed.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I happen to notice that Ben said a similar thing that I did. Basically we're saying phooey to the theraputic nature of the character. That is, it could be, but not necessarily. Humans are complicated animal, as Clinton had said. They do stuff for all kinds of reasons.