Character creation concept

[joepub]

Quote from: Ron Edwards on July 07, 2006, 10:43:20 AM
And bisexual is not problematic at all - just switch to non-bisexual of whatever sort.


I'm confused now. Wouldn't that cause you to describe the same sort of person you would have a crush on anyhow?

Well, that's probably splitting hairs anyhow.

Speaking personally...
Bisexual, for me, doesn't mean "of two orientations"
It is not gay + straight, but its own orientation - one undefined by gender, and one dictated by a largely different criteria than gay or straight ones.

As such, I can personally easily answer the question "reverse your orientation".
the reverse of my orientation:
-is attracted to the archetypal man or woman
-none of this "each person is sexy in their own way" crap, anymore
-is highly fixated on gender and the elements of gender

Furthermore, I was struck by how solid or certain others' responses were, in my first conversations. That's often a sign that something interesting is afoot.

Ron - I am going to venture out on a limb, and make some assumptions:
*you are comfortable discussing relationships, sexuality, and attraction with people
*people you tested this with are accepting, thoughtful, and comfortable with these topics
*those people all know others (or are) of the queer community (whether GBLQTT or whatever)

but mainly to some kind of kneejerk "guh! gay not me!" thing.

To be fair, you are asking a LOT out of people here, Ron.

Not only are you asking them to imagine themselves gay (or whatever the case may be) (which can be a frightening proposition to some). But you are asking them to figure out who they'd be attracted to.

That's a lot.
That's a much bigger task than any other chargen, for many people (note "many people", not all).
Why?
Because you aren't just asking them to roleplay a character...
You're asking them to roleplay THEMSELVES.
And you are asking them to roleplay themselves in a context they wouldn't.
And you are asking them, at the same time, to confront a huge amount of cultural bullshit surrounding orientation, as well as potentially trying to sort out their own moral compass on the issue.

Not saying its a bad idea... on the contrary I love it and am curious to see how the hell it could be implemented.
I'm just saying - realize that you are asking people to do a lot more than just "roleplay" when you ask this.

[timfire]

Very interesting, Ron.

The whole sexual orientation things isn't the point at all, correct? You're not asking us neccessarily to make the person/character gay (or straight, if that be the case), correct?

Really, you're asking us to find someone we admire (maybe that's not the best word to use), and try and role-play the idea of that person. Is that right?

The whole reverse sexual orientation is a way to get us out of our normal pattern of thinking, enough to make us think about the idea of the person, rather than think about our strict experience of a teenager.

At least, that's how I interpret the excercise.

[Iggy]

[Speaking personally...
Bisexual, for me, doesn't mean "of two orientations"
It is not gay + straight, but its own orientation - one undefined by gender, and one dictated by a largely different criteria than gay or straight ones.

As such, I can personally easily answer the question "reverse your orientation".
the reverse of my orientation:
-is attracted to the archetypal man or woman
-none of this "each person is sexy in their own way" crap, anymore
-is highly fixated on gender and the elements of gender

Ahh! Thank you, that makes sense. And for the record, I wasnt trying to trivialize bisexuality, just had a hard time figuring how the exercize would result in a different sort of crush.

Now, for me, here's the crux of the thing:  Does Step 2 actually change that reality in any significant way?  From a purely personal experience, I feel my answer is No, not really.  Which might be interesting in and of itself, or it might not. 

I sort of agree here. When I do the exercise I just end up having the crush on whoever was my best friend at the time. I personally think the line between platonic friendship and sexuality is very thin, even if culturally we identify ourselves as straight or gay. I am attracted to people that I think are dynamic, engaging, reflect something about me that I enjoy, and whom I enjoy spending time with. The only thing different for those whom I crush on are degrees of those qualities and in my case, gender.

And let's face it, the Deep Ones want humans to breed with, not to have man-manthing love with, so you know none of Cthulu's cultists would be gay men. Shit, gay men save the world from unnatural and indescribable horrors -- gay men being the only ones who CAN save the world from unnatural horrors. That's mind-blowing enough in terms of twisting stereotypes and rhetoric into bizzare and revealing shapes that I love it.

I would think that the Deep Ones could impregnate a dude if they chose too!

-Ian

[Bankuei]

Guys!

Has anyone actually tried this?  You do realize it doesn't actually require you "roleplaying yourself" anymore than simply asking, "What if?" which ought not to be a difficult question given our hobby!

The exercise is simple- it causes you to step out of "your head" for a bit, while at the same time identifying things that are important to you without getting over mental about it.

That's it.

The hemming and hawing and all the rest is BS.  If you can imagine what it's like to be a cat-person, or a space ninja, or a master of magic, you can imagine what it would be like to be attracted to someone different.  Because trust me- people of a different sexual orientation are a lot more like you and me than a frickin' space ninja.

And then, you're not even expected to play that- you're just using it as a "targeting device" to pick someone else to be fictionalized.

Chris

[greyorm]

At least, that's how I interpret the excercise.

Ahh, but I can play "If I were a color, what color would I be?" on my own without needing to do so on a gaming site, to open up my horizons or think outside the box or whatever as the purpose of doing so.

I'm here to make and learn to play games, not engage in touchy-feely "what if I were gay/homeless/a hippo?" exercises. If it isn't moving us towards play of something, if it isn't oriented towards some kind of gaming, then what the hell are we doing it for?

As such, I find it interesting that thus far on this thread I'm the only one who has done the exercise AND at least taken a brief shot at putting that concept into play to make a game around it.

Otherwise we're seeing confusions over what to do, weird public justifications as to why a person can't do it, justifications of those justifications, and discusions about what constitutes bisexuality.

Here's what I would do at this point: flat-out deny posters the ability to express themselves however they want. I would say, "From this point on, this thread is only to contain responses consisting of 'my gay self' and 'how I would make a game out of this'." That way, everyone could quit talking around the subject without actually confronting it like they are now.

But of course, this is up to Ron.

[joshua neff]

Okay, so soon after Ron first posted this, I tried it with my wife, Julie.

Josh: "Remember yourself when you were fifteen. Picture going to school, the people you hung out with, the teachers, and the various rituals of getting home from school."

Julie: (beat) "Okay."

Josh: "Revise your memory of your fifteen-year-old self by reversing his or her sexual orientation. Full about-face."

Julie: (beat) "Okay."

Josh: "Now identify the individual whom that fictional version of yourself would have had the most intense, heartbreaking, impossible crush on."

Julie: (beat) (beat) (beat) "Okay."

Josh: "OK, take that person and fictionalize him or her, adding ten or twenty years. Say what they're doing and what it's like. That's your character."

Julie: (beat) (beat) (beat) "Okay."

Josh: "So, who's your character? What does she do?"

Julie: "Well, she took an early retirement from being in a successful Goth band."

Josh: "Cool. I think you just came up with an awesome character for Vampire: The Requiem."

Julie: "Yeah, you're right."

Seriously, it took no more than 5 minutes. So, then I tried it myself.

Remember yourself when you were fifteen. Picture going to school, the people you hung out with, the teachers, and the various rituals of getting home from school.

Horribly easy.

Revise your memory of your fifteen-year-old self by reversing his or her sexual orientation. Full about-face.

As much as I dig women--and always have--this is also really easy.

Now identify the individual whom that fictional version of yourself would have had the most intense, heartbreaking, impossible crush on.

No question. My best friend, Jason Stein. He was smart, creative, athletic, funny, and good-looking. Every girl I had a crush on in middle school had a crush on Jason. And what made it even worse was that he was incredibly humble. I would've hated him if he hadn't been so damn nice and such a good friend.

OK, take that person and fictionalize him or her, adding ten or twenty years. Say what they're doing and what it's like. That's your character.

Okay. Jason was really smart, especially with math, but he was a total slacker. So, let's make him one of those eccentric but goodhearted lazy geniuses who gets recruited by some super-secret intelligence agency-within-an-intelligence agency.

Next spy game I'm in, I've got my character.

Now, is anyone seriously going to tell me that it's hard to pick out the kid from your youth that you would've had a heartbreaking crush on if you'd preferred that gender? I mean, this is a pursuit in which people make characters who are 300-year-old Elf archers and talking ducks and shit. This is the hobby in which people brag about how imaginative you have to be to do it. And people are saying they can't imagine who they would've had a crush on if they'd been gay? Jeezum Crow...

[Callan S.]

I will. Cause yeah, I thought of my best friend and then I thought "Wow, that's so utterly dull though. Were's the difference that causes the spark? The difference like in 'Viva la difference?'"

I mean sure, I could imagine a comfortable relationship. But is that really a relationship, or something you'd do because your too scared to really find someone who rocks your world? My friends were like a foundation, not shakers of foundation. And were talking heartbreaking crush here, not someone to just warm the bed during a cold winter. My high school - no, no one.

For the compromise I said before, I chose someone outside my social set, but not by far. Funny and energetic, but from my older perspective, I can see kind of empty. Someone you can read your ideals into and they don't contradict mostly because nothing is there. Gay version can make him into a heartbreaking crush. I do find the idea of this guy being the only chance to stop Cthulu coming to earth, a really interesting concept. Exactly what is betwen cthulhu and the earth? Is it already too late?

[Ben Lehman]

My problem is that I'm still in semi-regular contact with my two major boy-crushes of high school, and it's really hard to imagine them as anything but themselves.

It's a really fascinating exercise, though.  I guess in 10 years it'll be easier for me, if I lose touch.

yrs--
--Ben

[matthijs]

The guy I'd have fallen in love with would probably be the guy I secretly wanted to be like. Now, when I try to let him age, rationally I'm pretty sure he'd end up a fairly wrecked junkie-type with a personality/attention disorder. However, when I see a picture of him in my head, he's this colorful, creative, artistic, loony charming guy.

So yeah, I think it's something like what Timfire said. An ideal version of someone you admire, or admired. For me, it's the guy I wanted to be, just all grown up.

[Call Me Curly]

I dig Ron's character creation concept a lot. It's much like Vincent Baker's monster creation process for Afraid: http://www.lumpley.com/afraid-monsters.html

But I did stumble, when I actually tried it out.  Ron's questions were not quite straightforward-enough to yield snap answers.
Instead, I lingered on "Waitaminute. What does that mean, exactly?"

My suggestion would be to drop the sexuality-change at the start.  Just pick someone you DID have an impossible crush on-- someone who you don't know what became of 'em.

Then add 20 years, etc.   Leaving them the sex/orientation they are, until the end.

THEN switch their gender and orientation to match yours... unless it already matches yours.  Then switch the other way.


And by the way Ron-- or anyone who thinks there's something wrong (like homophobia or reading comprehension) with we who had a hard time with the exercise-- wake up!

Why bother to float an idea if you're just going to blame the players if it doesn't work well?
If you're sure the idea is not faulty, then don't pretend to test it.

If the purpose of this mechanic is to detect players who are uncomfortable with speculative sexuality-talk: it doesn't work.
It yields false positives.
If the purpose of this mechanic is to weed-out players who lack creative-nimbleness to keep up: it works great. I'm out.
If the purpose is to generate great characters with ease, it needs a little work.  But the concept is right-on.

Apologies if this sounds like a flame.  Please try to see the good faith contribution.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Heh. I went to an all-boys' high school with pretensions towards being a British 'public school', so doomed boy-crushes would be right in-genre. My only stumble was not being able to think of a classmate cool enough for my alternative self to crush on... but then I remembered the tall, red-haired drama guy two years ahead of me with the amazing scarf. I believe he actually is an up-and-coming theater producer in New York now.

[quick googling]

Yes, I think that's him. I don't think the stubble really is his best look, though.

Thank you, Ron. Besides giving me a lovely little character concept, you've made me think about someone for only the second or third time in ... hell, ten years, I think.

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

Call Me Curley, too.
I'll go by lying-ass dog, too. A funny oxymoron: I have never known a dog to prevaricate, even with behavior: they are usually guilty-looking-ass dogs, in my experience. And their asses NEVER lie, to be sure--perhaps whisper, but never lie and never pull punches.
Or did you mean lying, as in "on the ground," like a lazy person? I might be lazy, yeah.
Uncreative, too, sure! After all, if I can't imagine myself as a 15 year old gay boy with a crush on a peer, then surely I can't imagine myself out of a wet paper bag. (I should play a wet bag, next game!) Gee, but if I could just imagine the possibilities! (Maybe I'd understand how Manga got so popular?)

So I have learned much hard truth about myself from this exercise. I am, in a nutshell--(He said "nut!")--an uncreative liar who surely must be hung up on gender issues, because I can't imagine having a gay crush on someone at 15. Can I PLEASE regain a shred of self-respect by imagining myself at 10 or 11?

I would have had a gay crush on Mr. Spock, at 10 or 11.

LOL at the whole premise, now, in light of how it has been "supported" by the OP;
David

[ChrisJaxn]

Is the change in orientation part of the exercise there to ensure that you have a concept for a character of your own gender? Or does it have some deeper association with the sort of mind-bending you want to go into this process?

Or, maybe given the relative trouble people seem to be having imagining their past selves as gay, it could be changed so that you remember your past self, potentially tweak some other aspect of your life, and then come up with someone you would have admired but not actually been friends with. (Or, potentially, you could replace "admired" with other adjectives in the process. "Despised" could go well with some sorts of games). Then, taking that person forward into the present and using that as your character concept.

And one last question, because I'm curious about what you think of this. Could you do the same thing, more or less, but in the present, and extrapolating the character concept into the future for a futuristic game? I'm not sure this would work out as well, but it could get rid of any trouble people are having with remembering when they were 15, or remembering who they knew when they were that age.

[stefoid]

My "Pornstar name" is either

King Gunn

or

John Wackett

by either of the two most common methods of deriving Pornstar names.

no lie!

[Ron Edwards]

That's my answer ...

Stefoid, that was a singularly stupid post, and worth closing the thread for.

Apparently all manner of private messages and hair-tearing are going on due to my notion, or to odd readings of it, anyway. I'll leave you guys to it. Thanks to all who posted with content, including the dissenting ones. The thread's closed, no more posting to it.

Best, Ron